Latest news with #UniversityOfMichigan
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Why Americans who live near coastlines and lakefronts may face heightened ALS risk
If you live near bodies of water frequently impacted by harmful algal blooms, you may be at an increased risk of dying from ALS, new research reveals. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the debilitating neurodegenerative disease commonly known as 'Lou Gehrig's Disease,' is influenced by genetics and environmental factors. It dramatically slashes the patient's life expectancy, with people typically passing away within two to five years of diagnosis. Some 5,000 are diagnosed with ALS each year in the U.S., and there are approximately 15 new cases each day. Recently, Grey's Anatomy star Eric Dane announced he was battling the disease and told Good Morning America that his body's right side had 'completely stopped working.' Now, researchers at the University of Michigan Medicine say toxins produced by algal blooms in lakes and along American coasts could influence disease progression. 'While there is still limited research into the mechanism by which cyanobacteria toxins affect neurodegenerative diseases, our findings suggest that living near or participating in activities in these water bodies may influence the progression of ALS,' Dr. Stephen Goutman, the school's Harriet Hiller research professor, director of the Pranger ALS Clinic, and associate director of the ALS Center of Excellence, said in a statement. Goutman is the senior author of the study which was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Specifically, the researchers have found a toxin produced by the bloom cyanobacteria in brain and spinal fluid cerebral spinal fluid samples of people with ALS. It's known as ß-methylamino-L-alanine. Increasingly driven by human-caused climate change and nutrient pollution, the blooms are caused when cyanobacteria grows dense and out of control. Cyanobacteria produce several toxic agents that are linked neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. They surveyed participants who were seen at the University of Michigan Pranger ALS Clinic, many of whom lived within three miles of a harmful algal bloom. They measured the duration and extent of their exposure using satellite data from the Cyanobacteria Assessment Network and their residential and health histories. Ultimately, they found that living near blooms -- especially if swimming or boating -- was associated with dying of ALS nearly one year sooner. The people with the most significant exposures both lived near harmful blooms and used a private well as their water source. People in the Midwest may be particularly threatened partially due to pervasive industrial and agricultural productions in the region. Michigan's Lake Erie is frequently impacted by these blooms. 'If exposure to cyanobacteria toxins is a meaningful risk factor for ALS, the large number of inland lakes from to such bacteria in the Midwest may partly explain why the disease incidence is much higher than other parts of the country,' Dr. Stuart Batterman, first author and professor of environmental health sciences at the university's School of Public Health, said.
BBC News
a day ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Ojabo 'ready' for crunch NFL season with Baltimore
"Man, it is everything." Nigerian/Scottish linebacker David Ojabo is well aware of the importance of the forthcoming National Football League season as he enters the final year of his contract with Baltimore 25-year-old, who was born in Port Harcourt but grew up in Aberdeenshire, was selected by Ravens in the second round of the 2022 NFL Ojabo has been left playing catch-up after "devastating injuries" - to his Achilles then his knee - restricted him to just five appearances in his first two 6ft 5in powerhouse featured in 13 games last term and is under no illusions about how big a year this is as he looks to really make his mark at the M&T Bank Stadium. "First two years were definitely not what I expected or wanted, or anybody wanted," Ojabo told BBC Scotland. "But I had a full season last year and I'm very grateful, my first off-season healthy, ready to put that in the past and keep pushing forward."It all stems from the work I have put in, all the adversity I have been through, all leading up to right now, looking forward and I just got to go and put it out there."I got some devastating injuries, I had my first full off season healthy, took advantage of it, now I am ready to go and try to win it all. That is the goal for the team."Ojabo only took up American Football eight years were very much investing in his huge potential when they recruited him from the University of Michigan, where he had starred for their Wolverines he is hoping to shine within a squad bristling with quality and produce a much anticipated breakout season."Don't worry about me, man, I will go out there and put my best foot forward and see what happens," he said."Anybody that comes to the NFL, you should feel blessed. The percentages say that you are not going to make it in, so if you are in, whether drafted or undrafted, it is a blessing, so that is how I feel - just blessed to be here."At the end of the day, if you look back as a child, the goal is to go professional. I am a professional, so don't lose sight of the dream. I am living my dream right now."It is perhaps unsurprising there has been plenty of discussion among fans and observers about Ojabo's long-term future."I am not on the media like that, so they don't decide what happens in the building - the people upstairs do," he added. "I don't pay much attention to that - I just listen to the coaches."
Reuters
2 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Conservative group sues Michigan Law Review, claiming racial discrimination
June 18 (Reuters) - A conservative legal group sued the University of Michigan's flagship law journal on Wednesday, claiming its process for selecting student editors and scholarly articles illegally discriminates against heterosexual white men by giving preference to women, minority, gay and transgender applicants. In a lawsuit filed in a Michigan federal court, the group called Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preference said it represents three unnamed tenured or tenure-track white male heterosexual law professors whose submitted articles were rejected by the Michigan Law Review. The group is also representing an anonymous white male incoming second-year Michigan law student who has applied to be a member of the law review—a competitive position that helps bolster law student resumes. FASORP has unsuccessfully sued two other top law reviews in recent years. A third case is pending. The group is represented by prominent conservative Jonathan Mitchell and lawyers from America First Legal—a group headed by Stephen Miller, President Trump's deputy chief of staff. The Michigan Law Review 'has implemented a corrupt and illegal scheme of race and sex preferences to select its student members,' according to FASORP's complaint. The law school did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit Wednesday, nor did the Michigan Law Review Association, which is the student-run non-profit that runs the law review. The suit was not unexpected. FASORP emailed Michigan law students in March, threatening to sue if the law review did not end preferences in member and article selection and saying it would subpoena the personal statements of law review applicants. Interim Michigan Law Dean Kyle Logue called FASORP's email 'threatening, harassing, and inappropriate' in a subsequent message to students and said the law review is legally permitted to consider applicants' personal statements. FASORP's complaint alleges the law review uses students' personal statements to award positions to women, minorities, gay and transgender applicants over more qualified heterosexual white male students. And the law review is 'intentionally discriminating in favor of inferior manuscripts submitted by women, racial minorities, and homosexual or transgender authors, while rejecting better manuscripts submitted by heterosexual and non-transgender white men,' according to the complaint. FASORP made similar arguments when it sued New York University's top law journal in 2023 on behalf of a white male law student. That case was dismissed the following year. FASORP also unsuccessfully sued the Harvard Law Review in 2018 and has a pending lawsuit against the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, claiming it discriminates against white men in faculty hiring and on its top law journal. Read more: NYU law school dodges white man's lawsuit claiming law review discrimination Northwestern law school sued for discrimination against white men in faculty hiring
Zawya
2 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
Officials head into Fed meeting with uncertain long-term inflation outlook
Among the uncertainties facing Federal Reserve officials as they debate the proper setting of monetary policy, one of the trickiest has been divining where inflation is going, especially over the longer run. Fed officials hold that expectations about where prices are heading exert a strong pull on current levels of inflation. More importantly, stable long-term expectations grant officials confidence that whatever challenges the economy faces, the public has faith inflation will be steady eventually. The last few months have been tricky in that regard, notably in surveys of households. President Donald Trump's global trade war is widely expected to push up inflation via surging import taxes. It's unclear whether that will be a one-time hit or something longer lasting. If it's the former, some Fed officials have signaled they could look through it, but the latter could call for interest rate policy to remain on the tighter side. The Fed is expected to hold rates steady on Wednesday, but it is less clear after that just when the central bank might cut rates, as it penciled in last March. When it comes to survey-based measures of the price-pressure outlook, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the University of Michigan questionnaires are the most closely watched. Both have shown shifts in near-term expectations, but for some time their longer-run readings have diverged. Market-based readings, meanwhile, have generally been more stable. Collectively it's led policymakers to question what's really going on. 'DRAMATIC INCREASES' Fed Governor Christopher Waller said this month 'we are seeing a dramatic disparity' in the inflation expectations data, including that of professional forecasters. Waller, citing the Michigan data, dismissed it. He noted that if households were truly expecting high inflation in the longer-run future they'd be pressing for much higher wages to compensate, and they aren't. He also said there'd also likely be a persistent surge in consumer spending to get ahead of higher prices, and while that appeared to have occurred briefly for some big-ticket purchases like automobiles earlier this spring, it has not been sustained. 'I prefer to look at market-based measures of inflation compensation and professional forecasters' expectations because they have money on the line,' Waller said, and noted as a result, 'my assumption (is) that longer-term inflation expectations remain anchored.' Governor Adriana Kugler also said the Michigan data caught her attention, noting it showed 'the most dramatic increases' but also flagging methodology changes that have caused some to question its findings. 'While I take seriously the concern that recent methodological changes in the survey may have made this measure less reliable, this survey is a longstanding and important barometer of consumer sentiment, and I still monitor the signals it is giving us closely.' NEW WAYS, SIMILAR ANSWERS The University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers have been asking households to estimate what inflation would be since the late 1970s. When its 5-year inflation estimate surged in early June 2022, it helped nudge the Fed toward an outsized 75-basis-point rate hike over the more modest action markets had been expecting. Last year, the survey transitioned from phone-based interviews to web-based interviews. Many economists have wondered if that has affected its findings, especially since Michigan data on longer-term expectations has been notably higher than New York Fed data pointing to a steadier outlook. Joanne Hsu, who directs the University of Michigan survey, dismissed the methodology shift as a non-issue. The organization ran parallel surveys — both phone and web — for seven years before formally changing and from this experience, she said, 'we know very well how inflation expectations operate via web interviewing versus phone interviewing, and they basically move in parallel.' Hsu noted another key difference is the New York Fed uses panels of respondents who are involved for a year while her organization rotates participants. Hsu said engaging respondents repeatedly causes them to pay more attention to what they're being asked about, and in being better informed they're less likely to send a reliable signal about how the broader public views price pressures. Hsu said better survey outcomes come from a mix of 'informed people, uninformed people, high-income people, low-income people, you know, people across the spectrum. And so that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to get all of those different types of people into our data' because that's the truest expression of expected inflation. Hsu cautioned survey watchers from fixing on specific numbers and said, 'the trend is much, much more important than the level.' 'People are very worried about the inflation outlook right now,' she said, although those fears have abated somewhat amid Trump's retreat for now from some of the stiffest tariffs he had proposed earlier in the year. (Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
CBS News
3 days ago
- CBS News
Plea deal discussed for Chinese national accused of smuggling pathogens in U.S.
Attorneys for one of the Chinese nationals accused of smuggling a "potential agroterrorism weapon" into the U.S. say they are working on a plea deal. Originally set to meet on Tuesday afternoon, Yunqing Jian's attorneys asked the court to move her preliminary hearing to early August. In the joint filing, prosecutors and Jian's defense team said, "The parties are currently engaged in plea negotiations and request this additional time so that they can continue." The 33-year-old postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan and her boyfriend, 34-year-old Zunyong Liu, face charges of conspiracy, smuggling goods into the United States, false statements, and visa fraud. The pathogen at the center of the case, Fusarium graminearum, is a noxious fungus known to cause "head blight," a disease that affects barley, rice, wheat and maize, and causes economic losses worth billions of dollars each year. The court approved the motion, moving Jian's next hearing to Aug. 18. Jian remains in custody without bond until then.
