RoguePundit

Random Nature #237

More Control Through Meters:  Smart meters can be designed to do all sorts of things.  For instance, here's what over 27 million Enel customers already have in Italy...

These meters are fully electronic and smart, with integrated bi-directional communications, advanced power measurement and management capabilities, an integrated, software-controllable disconnect switch, and an all solid-state design. They communicate over low voltage power line using standards-based power line technology from Echelon Corporation to Echelon data concentrators at which point they communicate via IP to Enel's enterprise servers.

The system provides a wide range of advanced features, including the ability to remotely turn power on or off to a customer, read usage information from a meter, detect a service outage, detect the unauthorized use of electricity, change the maximum amount of electricity that a customer can demand at any time; and remotely change the meter's billing plan from credit to prepay as well as from flat-rate to multi-tariff.

That sure makes shutting off power for lack of payment more efficient. 

The average person doesn't mind helping other power customers who are genuinely in need.  The same isn't necessarily true for those who try to take advantage of such generosity to live beyond their means.  The prepaying option--if executed well--can motivate some of those folks to manage their money better.  Or maybe for instance the kids will suffer for the sins of their parent(s)/guardian.  

Notice the reference to multi-tariff.  One of the most touted features of smart meters here in the U.S. is dynamic pricing.

Flattening Peaks:  One of the key things power companies want to motivate via price is a reduction in demand during peak periods. That brings up the concept of the "elasticity of substitution." 

...the percentage change in daily peak electricity usage (relative to off-peak usage) in response to a one percent change in relative peak prices.

It's easier to understand that definition via example.  The Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NPMC) in upstate New York has had dynamic pricing for non-residential customers since 1998.  In the following, that pricing is referred to as the SC-3A rate class.  Bear in mind that these non-residential customers had other rate choices--like traditional flat pricing. 

NMPC’s is the first and longest-running default-service [real-time price] tariff implemented in the context of retail competition. The mix of NMPC’s large customers exposed to day-ahead hourly prices is roughly 30% industrial, 25% commercial and 45% institutional. They have faced periods of high prices during the study period (2000-2004), thereby providing an opportunity to assess their response to volatile hourly prices.

...

As a group, SC-3A customers' price response is modest -– the load-weighted average substitution elasticity of 119 customers included in the model is 0.11, which means that their combined ratio of peak to off-peak electricity usage declines by 11% in response to a doubling of peak prices (relative to off-peak prices). This result is consistent with other studies of large customers facing similar pricing circumstances.

Business Category             Number       Average substitution elasticity

Government/education         34                              0.10
Public Works                        17                              0.02
Commercial/retail                16                              0.06
Healthcare                             8                              0.04
Manufacturing                      44                              0.16

Total                                  119                              0.11

Doubling the price only drove an 11 percent reduction in demand?  Of course, when a utility is facing a peak load that could cause brown outs and/or the purchase of high-priced power on the open market, an 11 percent reduction in demand would be quite valuable.  It would also likely reduce the use of fossil fuels and push back the need for additional generating capacity.  And don't forget that we expect utilities to satisfy peak demand 24/7, which wind and solar can't guarantee.

Changing Bills:  When one digs into the above results, it turns out that the savings were even lumpier than they first appear.  Just 18 percent of the customers produced 75-80 percent of the reduction in demand.  Meanwhile, 35 percent of the customers showed no reductions.  It's not like sewage slows down, hospitals have control over when people need emergency treatment, or successful retailers can provide uncomfortable conditions for shoppers.  In other words, the results would seem to indicate that targeting the dynamic pricing rather than inflicting it upon everyone would produce most of the desired reduction in energy demand.

Most utilities that provide retail service have a natural monopoly.  Thus over the long run, they're essentially guaranteed enough income to cover their expenses--including the cost of smart meters.  Customers who save money by helping the utility save money is a good thing...unless maybe that includes the utility mining and selling the data it gains from its customers' smart meters.  However, dynamic pricing brings into play customers saving money at the expense of others.  Who loses?  Well, just about everyone who can't or won't do much to reduce their energy utilization during peak pricing.  It's the "can't" part that can be problematic.

A Foreign Example:  Energy Australia, the state-run utility in New South Wales, Australia (home to Sydney), is already rolling out smart meters.  At this point, the new meters are just going into new homes and replacing broken meters; however, the government is considering accelerating the process.  In the following, I've converted the currency to U.S. dollars.

A study by the St Vincent De Paul Society ... found that low-income earners could pay as much as 40 per cent of their fortnightly income on electricity.

The report says smart meters will increase the average domestic electricity bill by an average of $74 a year by changing billing from a flat rate to one based on the time of use, if the NSW Government makes their installation mandatory.

It says the biggest impact will be on low-income households including pensioners, young families, people with disabilities and the unemployed because they are at home during energy-use peak periods.

...

"It is reasonable to suggest that if the Government decides to roll out smart meters in NSW, annual electricity bills for households may rise in the order of $296 per annum,'' the report says.

...

A spokesman for Energy Australia disputed claims that time-of-use tariffs would force up costs. He said 74 per cent of the 180,000 NSW customers on time-of-use tariffs were paying less than what they paid when they were on the fixed rate. Of the rest, 60 per cent were paying $19 a year more.

The Vincentian report may exaggerate, but the Energy Australia data is clearly skewed away from low income earners...those folks generally aren't buying or renting new homes.  At $296 per year, that extra $25 a month isn't huge...unless you don't have it.

Closer to Home:  In October of last year, Pennsylvania enacted a law which drives reductions in energy consumption and directed utilities to develop plans (by April 2011) for making smart meters with real-time pricing available to customers upon their request.  Allegheny Power, which serves about 700,000 customers in the western part of the state, has pursued this aggressively.  From late last month...

Allegheny Power Co.'s plan to begin charging customers $5.86 a month in February to pay for sophisticated electric meter technology has been nixed by the state.

...

According to the company, all customers beginning in February would pay a monthly surcharge of $5.86, which would increase to $14.34 a month by June 2011, $15.57 a month by June 2012 and $15.77 each month by June 2013.

"At $15 a month — that's a massive rate increase for consumers," Popowsky said.

Allegheny Power spokesman Doug Colafella referred to the company's PUC filing, which said surcharge changes will be based on forecasted revenue requirements for the next 12 months. He said the total cost to Allegheny Power for its smart meter plan will be $620.4 million, with more than $40 million of the total cost not charged to the utility's in-state customers.

The smart meters--which will include wireless communications--are a few hundred dollars, and there's the cost of installation for both the meters and the supporting infrastructure.  While the article says the plan was nixed, it may have only been delayed for more thorough consideration.  Meanwhile, maybe Allegheny Power will--like some other utilities already have (example here)--get some stimulus money to subsidize the cost of converting to smart meters.

Wonder if the company is overestimating how much demand reduction the smart meters will drive.  What percentage of a drop in peak load will merely be shifted to cheaper hours? 

Night and Day:  One other thought...if a factory converts to night-shift operations to save on its electrical bills, the workers can end up paying more for their own electricity to sleep comfortably during the day.  Hope they get paid more for making that sacrifice.

Random Nature #236

Reducing Worries:  People with less stress can usually sleep better.  So, who tends to sleep better, workers or retirees?  That depends upon the job, the financial situation upon retirement, one's health, on and on.

The study involved employees from the French national gas and electricity company, Electricité de France-Gaz de France, who retired between 1990 and 2006 at a mean age of 55 years. The study includes data from 11,581 male and 3,133 female workers who reported sleep disturbances at least once before and once after the year of retirement. Thirty-five percent of participants had worked night shifts, and 17 percent reported having depression.

Let's see...the workers there have socialized medicine, strong job security, and a generous pension (80 percent of salary) upon retirement that begins between ages 55 and 60.  The average retiree must sleep better.

Results show that the odds of having disturbed sleep in the seven years after retirement were 26 percent lower than in the seven years before retiring. Sleep disturbance prevalence rates among 14,714 participants fell from 24.2 percent in the last year before retirement to 17.8 percent in the first year after retiring. The greatest reduction in sleep disturbances was reported by participants with depression or mental fatigue prior to retirement. The postretirement improvement in sleep also was more pronounced in men, management-level workers, employees who reported high psychological job demands, and people who occasionally or consistently worked night shifts.

The only exception was for folks who retired for health reasons--illness and disability.  Their odds for sleep disturbances increased 46 percent after retirement.

"We believe these findings are largely applicable in situations where financial incentives not to retire are relatively weak," said Vahtera. "In countries and positions where there is no proper pension level to guarantee financial security beyond working age, however, retirement may be followed by severe stress disturbing sleep even more than before retirement."

That seems rather obvious.  The researchers did note that after retirement, the tendency towards sleep disturbances slowly trended upward, though it remained below the rate before retirement. 

Promoting Tai Chi:  If Tai Chi didn't provide physical benefits, there wouldn't be so many people doing it.  Here's a study regarding its impacts on knee osteoarthritis (OA), a condition which is common amongst senior citizens. 

For this study, Chenchen Wang, M.D., M.Sc., and colleagues recruited 40 patients from the greater Boston area with confirmed knee OA who were in otherwise good health. The mean age of participants was 65 years...  Patients were randomly selected and 20 were asked to participate in 60-minute Yang style Tai Chi sessions twice weekly for 12 weeks. Each session included: a 10-minute self-massage and a review of Tai Chi principles; 30 minutes of Tai Chi movement; 10 minutes of breathing technique; and 10 minutes of relaxation.

...

The remaining 20 participants assigned to the control group attended two 60-minute class sessions per week for 12 weeks. Each control session included 40 minutes of instruction covering OA as a disease, diet and nutrition, therapies to treat OA, or physical and mental health education. The final 20 minutes consisted of stretching exercises involving the upper body, trunk, and lower body, with each stretch being held for 10-15 seconds.

At the end of the 12-week period, patients practicing Tai Chi exhibited a significant decrease in knee pain compared with those in the control group. ... Researchers also observed improved physical function, self-efficacy, depression, and health status for knee OA in subjects in the Tai Chi group.

That's good to know.  However, it's too bad the researchers didn't compare Tai Chi with other forms of exercise that improve fitness.  Despite the seemingly rather placid movements, Tai Chi clearly involves physical exertion.  The average stretching exercise is mostly about stretching.  Compounding this issue is the fact that the stretching group spent less time exercising than the Tai Chi group.

"Our observations emphasize a need to further evaluate the biologic mechanisms and approaches of Tai Chi to extend its benefits to a broader population," concluded Dr. Wang.

That's definitely not an unbiased researcher.

Image and Activity:  Teen girls have sex for a number of reasons.  Self-image can definitely impact the riskiness of such behavior.

Of the nearly 7,200 high school girls asked about their sexual activity and risky sexual behavior as part of the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance survey, half reported ever having sex. Those girls who were both sexually active and overweight, or who thought they were overweight, were less likely to use condoms than normal-weight sexually active girls. Underweight girls also were less likely to use condoms.

Ethnicity also plays a role.

- Caucasian girls who believed that they were underweight, whether accurate or not, were more likely to have had sex and to have had four or more sexual partners. Overweight Caucasian girls were less likely to use condoms.

- Underweight African-American girls also were less likely to use condoms while overweight African-American girls reported four or more sexual partners.

- Latina girls of all weights were more likely to engage in a wide variety of sexual risk behaviors -- lack of condom or oral contraception use, sex before age 13, greater than four sexual partners and use of alcohol.

The referenced CDC survey didn't delve into why the kids engaged in risky behaviors.

Random Nature #235

Needle Stewardship:  Del Norte County (that last "e" is silent) is in the rural northwestern corner of California.  From this link...

It's hardly the kind of place where you would expect a conservative local government to adopt what may be the most progressive solid waste management policy in the United States. But in February 2000, Del Norte did just that by passing the nation's first comprehensive zero waste plan.

That paragraph is just as pretentious as the concept of zero waste.  The soggy coastal county was facing the closure of its only landfill, and options like a waste-to-energy incinerator weren't panning out.  So, Del Norte County understandably pursued "discard management" strategies, knowing that it would soon cost a lot more to dispose of its garbage...in Oregon.  Neighboring Humboldt County sends most of its garbage to the same place--the Dry Creek Regional Landfill in Eagle Point, near Medford.

Here's an example of how Del Norte County reduced the amount of waste it produced.  

In the early 1990s, about 50 percent of the material going to the county landfill was fish waste, he says. The county couldn't continue to provide that level of disposal capacity to the fisheries, but eliminating that disposal option would have meant shutting down the fishing industry, a potentially lethal blow to the local economy.

Instead, the county worked cooperatively with fish processors and local manufacturer Hambro Forest Products, Crescent City, Calif., to form a new company Eco-Nutrients Inc. Eco-Nutrients uses fish carcasses and crab and shrimp shells to make a slurry for organic agriculture and animal feed.

It sure makes a lot more sense to find companies which make organic fertilizers from fish byproducts near the coast than someplace like Bakersfield (previous blog here).

Here's another way that Del Norte County is now pushing to reduce--or at least redirect--its waste stream.

The Del Norte Solid Waste Authority is taking it one step at a time in embracing product stewardship — the concept that sellers of certain merchandise should be responsible for their disposal.

First it was batteries, and now the authority is taking aim at hypodermic needles, which were banned from normal disposal methods in 2008.

"Needles are really the scariest product we know of," said authority director Kevin Hendrick. "If not handled correctly they end up in the garbage, and sometimes in garbage collectors. There’s nothing more scary than getting poked by a used needle."

No doubt some folks don't know (or maybe care) that medical wastes require special disposal.  No doubt the cost of such disposal deters some folks from doing so properly.  Since it's pretty easy to get away with dumping "residential sharps" in the garbage (and elsewhere), the county needs to ensure that needle stewardship is easy for the customers. 

Del Norte County is currently in the outreach phase.

"We are going to be calling and even visiting businesses in person," Hendrick said. "If necessary we do have the ability to come up with an ordinance that forces businesses to comply, but we would prefer it to be entirely voluntary."

So, will the businesses, health clinics, vets, etc. pass along the costs to all their customers or just the ones who use the service?  And are folks there ever going to worry about the greenhouse gas emissions involved in trucking garbage 100 miles?

Downwind of Berkeley:  Alameda County, California is home to famous cities like Oakland and Berkeley. This urban East Bay county also stretches across the Altamont Hills to the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley (map here). 

 

In the rural northeastern corner of Alameda county is the town of Mountain House.  The prevailing winds blow east, taking most of the pollution--but not the property taxes--into San Joaquin County. 

Cheap land and proximity to major electrical substations, gas lines and water sources have attracted Calpine Corp., Florida Power & Light and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to the swath of land west of Mountain House on the far eastern edge of Alameda County.

...

The Mariposa Energy Project, Tesla Power Plant and East Altamont Energy Center range in size from 200 to more than 1,100 megawatts. A megawatt powers roughly 750 to 1,000 homes, according to the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state electrical grid.

Add to those the fourth full-fledged power plant slated for the area, the GWF Tracy Combined Cycle Power Plant.

GWF Energy LLC — corporate owner of the 7-year-old Tracy Peaker Plant — is poised to begin construction in 2012 to expand from a 169-megawatt station to one with a second turbine that could feed 314 megawatts into the grid.

The plants in question would all burn natural gas...wind and solar don't produce 24/7.  Note though that the Tesla project is nearly dead, and the Tracy plant shows that San Joaquin County is willing to accept the air pollution if it receives the property taxes.  Tracy's irrigation district might also make some money selling (cooling) water to the plants.  But still, how can places like Berkeley pretend to be green or ethical when they're a party to something like this?  And one more thought...

Anderson cited a study, done in July by the University of California, Berkeley that analyzed the effects of all power plant openings nationwide since 1993. The study said that said a large power plant (380 megawatts or more) could decrease local property values by 9.3 percent.

NIMBYism is motivated by selfishness. 

No New Lines Needed:  Fort Irwin is in the remote desert area between Barstow and Death Valley.  That and the presence of nearby transmission lines sure reduces the NIMBY issues.  About two weeks ago...

The US Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement with Irwin Energy Security Partners to build a $2 billion, 500-megawatt (MW) solar energy complex at Fort Irwin located in the Mojave Desert, California.

Through an enhanced use lease (EUL) agreement, the Army will lease about 14,000 acres at Fort Irwin to Irwin Energy Security Parnters, a joint venture of ACCIONA Solar Power in Henderson, NV and the Clark Energy Group in Bethesda, MD. The project will be financed and developed by the joint venture partners who will deliver services in kind (e.g., operation and maintenance) to the Army in exchange for the lease of military landholdings. The venture will be able to sell electricity not used by Fort Irwin on the commercial grid via two high-power transmission lines in the vicinity of the base.

The 500 MW project will be the largest DoD solar power project, dwarfing the 14 MW solar farm at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and the 2 MW installation at Fort Carson in Colorado.

The project will include both photovoltaic and concentrated solar thermal (previous blog here) and could eventually expand to 1,000 MW.  The initial phase should be up and running in 2014. 

By the by, ACCIONA Solar Power is owned by the venerable Spanish infrastructure conglomerate ACCIONA SA.

Random Nature #234

Pet Informants:  "Animal Cops: Houston" is a show which follows the actions of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (HSPCA), which is privately funded.  Meanwhile, Houston also has the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC), the city's underfunded and poorly-managed animal shelter.  It's a matter of priorities...the city pays for BARC through its general fund.  Meanwhile, Houston does a lousy job of collecting money from its residents who own pets. 

It's estimated that only four percent of the city's cats and dogs are properly licensed.  The lax enforcement could be costing the city $1 million a year.     

Licensing Fees	First Year		Renewal
Unaltered Pet	$50.00		$50.00
Altered Pet (Spayed/Neutered)	$10.00		$10.00
Senior Citizen (Age 60+ with altered pet - proof of age required)	$5.00		$2.00
Certified Assistance (Seeing/Hearing Altered Pet License)	no fee		$2.00
A $10 late fee is due if submitted 30 days or more after vaccination date or anniversary of vaccination date.

 

The vaccination in question is rabies.  Vets are supposed to send a listing of vaccinated pets and their owners to the city so that it can check if the pets have been properly licensed.  That's been the law since 1985; vet compliance is about 20 percent.  That's obviously low, but it's still way higher than the percentage of registered pets.  Anyway...

Alfred Moran, director of the city's regulatory affairs, has sent a letter to all veterinarians with warnings in boldfaced type that they may be fined up to $500 for each day they violate the city's ordinance.

"We've given them a grace period so that they can decide how they want to comply. Either mail, e-mail or fax copies of the data to the city. Or they could become deputized to collect the license fees themselves, but I've not heard of any wanting to do that," said Elena Marks, director of health and environmental policy for the mayor's office. "We don't want to become vet police, but if we don't see any movement, we will use our authority."

Most vets don't want to be tax collectors, and they're concerned that the money won't go to BARC.  The city claims the fees will go towards facility improvements that BARC definitely needs.  However, that money isn't fenced...it simply goes into the general fund.  Plus...

[Jeff Chalkley, president-elect of the Harris County Veterinary Medical Association] fears once customers learn that their names are being turned over to the city--forcing them to license their pets or face citations--it could discourage some from getting rabies shots.

Another option would be for pet owners to switch to clinics outside the city limits such as Bellaire, the Memorial villages, Katy or Sugar Land to avoid being reported.

BARC is only a priority as long as it's in the headlines.

Expanding Sales Taxes:  Late last year when California was wrestling with how to balance its budget, one of the proposals was to institute a 9 percent veterinary service tax.  It wasn't a novel idea...Hawaii, New Mexico, and South Dakota have such taxes, and Michigan had defeated one the year before.  But understandably, there was considerable concern that by making such services more expensive, some people would have to cut back on care for pets.  That's not good for the animals, and scrimping for instance on rabies shots can also adversely impact human health.

It wasn't too long until that tax was off the table. 

"The opposition of veterinarians, pet owners and concerned citizens was so intense, a special extension was added to the governor's budget voicemail line to handle the opposition to the tax on pets," Grant says, adding thousands of calls and letters flooded the governor's office. "We believe the overwhelming number of calls delivered an emphatic message to the governor that taxing pet owners would be hugely unpopular and inequitable."

However, most states are still having financial problems.  Thus for instance...

A proposal is in the works by the Arkansas finance department to make retail sales of items at a veterinary clinic taxable. Veterinary services and boarding as part of medical treatment are currently tax-exempt, so are medications prescribed by the veterinarian. The state promises to make the final rules available to veterinarians through the Arkansas VMA.

No doubt that some customers will react by making such purchases on-line, thus avoiding the sales tax. 

Not Single Payer:  North American Pet Health Insurance Association (NAPHIA), which was only founded two years ago, is concerned that cats receive about half as much health care as dogs.

There are more than 82 million pet cats and over 72 million pet dogs in the United States and Canada. Pet owners in households with at least one dog and one cat were more attached to their dogs than their cats by a 3-to-1 margin (57 percent to 19 percent, respectively), according to a special report by the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA). This could account for the statistic included in the JAVMA report that 33 percent of these pet owners believe it's more important to take a dog versus a cat to the doctor for a wellness exam.

That's a wee ominous, as cats are better at hiding the fact that they are sick or in pain.  NAPHIA is pushing for pet owners to take more care of their animals, in part because it could drive increased sales of health insurance...which have been growing nicely despite the recession.

While NAPHIA is reporting robust double digit growth in pet health insurance sector, the association is alarmed that cats represent only 10% of the insured pets in North America.

...

About 60% of U.S. households have at least one dog, cat, bird, or other companion animal. Many have more than one. There are more than 82 million pet cats and over 72 million pet dogs in the U.S. Projected 2009 pet expenditures for North America are over $45 billion, of which $25 billion will be spent on veterinary related care.

I'm sure that NAPHIA would like it if people could write-off the cost of their pet health insurance.

Spending on Pets and Vets:  Our senators and representatives introduce huge numbers of bills which go nowhere.  The point of many of them is simply to wave the flag in exchange for political brownie points.  HR 3501 probably falls into that category.   

Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan has thrown pet owners a bone by sponsoring a bill that would allow them to deduct animal care expenses from their taxes.

The bill, Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years, or "HAPPY Act," would allow taxpayers to deduct up to $3,500 a year.

...

"Well, we've had reports of people having to turn in pets because of the economic recession," he said. "And when you think about the relationship between people and pets and the humane way that it helps people think, it seemed to me to be a good idea, and we dropped it in" to the congressional hopper.

Talk about forcing an acronym...  The bill was forwarded to the House Committee on Ways and Means on July 31.  On the same day, the Veterinarian Services Investment Act was also dropped into the hopper.

HR 3519 would establish a new grant program under the jurisdiction of the USDA to assist states in addressing their own unique veterinary workforce needs. After all, what is needed in one state may differ greatly from what is most needed in another. Awards under the new grant program may be used to support a wide array of activities including to recruit and retain practicing veterinarians and veterinary technicians to work in underserved areas, to bolster knowledge in food safety/protection and food animal medicine all along the veterinary continuum from students to veterinarians in practice, to establish mobile and portable veterinary clinics, to conduct the assessments that will be needed to designate veterinary shortage situations, for surveillance of food animal disease; to establish or expand veterinary residency, internship and externship programs, and to provide continuation to veterinarians.

This bill was sponsored by Congressmen Leonard Boswell (D-IA) and Adrian Smith (R-NE).  It was referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.  A companion bill (S 1709), sponsored by Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and John Thune (R-SD), was introduced last month.  It was referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. 

From the most recent link...

According to a recent American Veterinary Medical Association, the demand for food supply veterinarians will increase by 12 to 16 percent over next seven years, but the rate of veterinarian school graduates is projected to decrease by four to five percent annually over the same period.

Gee, food producers like China are driving the need for more vets here in the states.

None of these bills have gone anywhere thus far.

Random Nature #233

Oversensitive: The following sure seems like an example of discovering the obvious.

For the study, a total of 133 American college students were randomly assigned to write an essay about either a negative or positive comment about their appearance that they had received in the past. Compared to participants with lower appearance-based rejection sensitivity, those with higher sensitivity felt more rejected and expressed greater interest in getting cosmetic surgery after recalling a negative versus positive appearance comment.

...

Peers/friends/romantic partners were the most frequently cited source of both positive and negative appearance comments.

Building on that, if a woman has breast cancer and a mastectomy offers her the greatest chance of a successful outcome...

Researchers found that patient attitudes about surgery, as well as the opinion of family and friends, contribute to the surgical choices made by women with breast cancer. Greater patient involvement in decision making was associated with greater receipt of mastectomy in all racial and ethnics groups.

Also, women who considered the chance of recurrence or radiation side effects very important were more likely to receive mastectomy initially than those who were less concerned. Those who reported that concern about body image and their spouse's opinion were very important factors in their surgery decision were less likely to receive mastectomy initially than those who were less concerned.

Maybe some of them don't know that the divorce rate is 8% lower for breast cancer survivors (previous blog here). Of course, if a husband is more concerned about his wife having two breasts than improving her chance of survival...

Making an Effort:  This next piece is a study of studies--conclusions drawn from analyzing 57 earlier studies on the relationship between exercise and body image.

"Body dissatisfaction is a huge problem in our society and is related to all sorts of negative behavior including yo-yo dieting, smoking, taking steroids and undergoing cosmetic surgery," she said. "It affects men and women and all ages, starting with kids who are as young as five years old saying they don't like how their bodies look."

The psychological advantages of exercise have been less explored, including the reduction of depression or confidence in body image, compared with the well-researched and understood physical benefits, she said.

The study found no difference in body image improvement between people who met the American College of Sports Medicine guidelines by exercising at least 30 minutes a day five days a week and those who did not, Hausenblas said. The guidelines are considered the minimum amount of exercise needed to receive the health related benefits of physical activity, she said.

...

While the frequency of exercise mattered for boosting body perceptions, there were no differences for the duration, intensity, length or type of exercise, the study found

The people who exercised least were the ones who said they were the most dissatisfied with their body image.  Meanwhile in a newer study not included in the above...

Napolitano and a team of researchers looked at the smoking habits and weight gain of women aged 18-24. The first phase collected data from focus groups who stated that stress, peer pressure and weight management were the main reasons why they smoked. Participants also felt that group-based programs that provide ongoing social support would be instrumental in helping them quit.

Those results laid the groundwork for the project's next phase, dubbed Fit to Quit, a small pilot study of 24 women who were randomly assigned to either a supervised group exercise program or body image group counseling sessions. All women were provided with a nicotine patch as well.

After eight weeks, the body image counseling group showed a rate of smoking cessation that was more than double that of the exercise group (18 percent vs. 8 percent). In addition, the body image group lost more than three times the weight of their exercise counterparts (3.3 pounds vs. less than a pound). These findings were presented this week at the Society for Behavioral Medicine's annual meeting.

Two problems with the weight loss reference...the women in the study weren't necessarily overweight, and exercise can add healthy weight in the form of muscle.  

There are a number of studies which show that in the short term, one doesn't need to exercise hard, if at all, to improve one's body image.  However, it's likely that poor fitness will eventually take its toll on one's body image--and health. 

Healthy Habits and Perceptions:  Edward Abramson, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at CSU-Chico, is one of the go-to guys for the media when it comes to discussing weight and eating problems. The following is related to a presentation he did on how to help prevent obesity. 

Bad eating habits can start with "emotional eating," or eating when one is not hungry, or from following a strict diet, Abramson said. "This can lead to a weight problem or an eating disorder," he added. "Parents' attitudes and behaviors also have an influence on children's eating, and mothers more than fathers affect children's eating habits and body image."

After noting some useful information regarding the establishing of eating habits, the summary switched to exercise.

Physical activity can also help prevent obesity even when there is a tendency to gain weight due to genetics, Abramson said. Research has shown that 4- to 7-year-old children of active parents were six times as likely to be active. Exercise in school lowers the risk for obesity, whereas time spent watching TV or on the computer playing video games increases the risk.

Research has shown that most babies and toddlers start out liking their bodies, said Abramson. But this doesn't last for girls. By the time girls reach pre-adolescence, many start to suffer from warped body images. "Thirty percent of 9-year-old, 55 percent of 10-year-old and 65 percent of 11-year-old girls think they're fat," he said. "Entering puberty isn't as bad for boys. They're more satisfied with their bodies than before they entered puberty."

He offered a number of recommendations, though a couple of them seemed rather dubious.  Surely Abramson must know that parents need to set some boundaries when it comes to allowing children to select the clothing they want to wear.  And, how practical is the advice that parents "should encourage their children to have friendships with other children who are less concerned with appearance?" Well, he does have two grown children, and he's had to work through his own weight issues.  People major in psychology to figure themselves out.

Undersensitive?  Some people who are overweight seem oblivious to their extra girth.  Maybe they are.

Temple researchers studied the body image perceptions of 81 underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese women in the North Philadelphia area and found that as their body mass index (BMI) increased, two-thirds of the women still felt they were at an ideal body size.

...

All participants were measured for height and weight and completed an anonymous survey to determine their self-perceived, current and ideal body sizes. Each woman was then shown an illustration of different-sized women that correlated with increasing BMIs, and were asked which size they felt they were at currently, and what their ideal would be.

While most of the participants selected illustrations of women in the normal to overweight range, about 20 percent of the obese women selected an overweight or obese silhouette as their ideal body shape. Further, 68 percent (15 out 22) of overweight participants and 84 percent (26 of 31) of obese women underestimated their current BMI. African-American and Hispanic women had significantly underestimated their current body size, while the white women overestimated.

That brings up a number of questions that the researchers would like to pursue. And of course it's entirely possible that the BMI--like our glamour imagery--is biased towards being unhealthily thin.  But, that's a subject for another day.

Random Nature #232

Popeye's Steroid:  The United States is second in the world in spinach production, growing a measly 3 percent of the world's crop.  China produces 85 percent, including some of the best.  For instance, the pretentiously-named Woodstock Farms Organic Cut Spinach earned a "Hall of Fame" rating from five food experts in a blind taste test conducted by the San Francisco Chronicle last year...the spinach was produced in China. The Trader Joe's Organic Spinach which came in second was also produced in China.

Spinach contains a goodly number of vitamins and minerals.  However, cooking destroys some of the vitamins, and our bodies simply aren't capable of absorbing all of the high mineral content.  And speaking of that, when it comes to building strong muscles...

During the 1930s Popeye, probably the world's most famous consumer of spinach, was indeed credited with a 33% increase in the consumption of spinach in the USA. These days the Popeye brand of spinach is one of the market leaders.

The mythical strength-giving properties of spinach are, however, mostly credited to a simple mistake concerning the iron content of the vegetable. In 1870, Dr E von Wolf published figures which were accepted until the 1930s, when they were rechecked. This revealed that a decimal point had been placed wrongly and that the real figure was only one tenth of Dr von Wolf's claim.

Nonetheless, it's still a good food for those of us who are iron anemic.

Lush Leaves:  Spinach is the lone member of genus Spinacia, part of the goosefoot family...which in some classifications has been added to the amaranth family.  In either instance, that means it's related to beets, swiss chard, the fourwing saltbush native to our desert Southwest, and the tumbleweed, which isn't native to our desert Southwest.  As I've noted before, Prussian Mennonites accidentally brought the tumbleweed in flax seed.  Despite what movies show, the invasive species didn't make it to Arizona until the 1890s...the gunfight at the OK Corral was in 1881.

Wild forms of spinach are found in Nepal, which is probably where it was domesticated in ancient times.  There, spinach is a tender perennial.  It didn't spread beyond the Indian subcontinent until early Muslim traders visited the region.

Nowadays, we know of spinach as a fast-growing annual that does best in cooler temperatures (40°- 75° F) and can survive hard frosts.  Thus, it's usually planted as a cool-season crop.  In the U.S., nearly three-quarters of our spinach is grown in California--year-round in coastal areas and during the winter in deserts.  Spinach is typically harvested just before setting buds...reproduction saps most of the energy from leaf production.

Accidental Content:  Spinach is a thirsty crop with a shallow root system.  This helps make it vulnerable to absorbing pesticides, herbicides, and fecal contaminants.  When it comes to pesticide residues in produce, spinach is usually near the top of the list (example here)--not a good thing. And this isn't just a domestic issue.

For instance, Chinese spinach was recalled in Japan in 2002 after finding unacceptable levels of chlorpyrifos contamination and some fenvalerate contamination.  Chlorpyrifos, also known as dursban, is yet another pesticide that essentially acts as a nerve agent.  In people, it's a suspected endocrine disrupter that has been linked to asthma.  Fenvalerate is a naturally-occurring pyrethroid that attacks the nervous system of various insects and is moderately toxic to mammals.  From this link...

Citing excessive chlorpyrifos in frozen spinach, Japan issued a regulation in May 2003, which stipulated that its importers would be responsible for any problematic frozen spinach from China. The regulation led to a de facto suspension of frozen spinach import from China.

AQSIQ stepped up supervision of frozen spinach preparation, and China consulted with the Japanese ministry. Japanese experts also visited the companies. Following those steps, Japan in June 2004 dropped the accountability regulation on Japanese importers of frozen spinach from 45 Chinese companies and imposed compulsory inspections. Every container had 16 samples sent for inspection, and the inspection fee reached 800,000 yen ($7,080).

Finally, after those inspections had found no chlorpyrifos contamination for 3.5 years, Japan dropped the requirement.  Unfortunately, the USDA is far more trusting.

Slowly But Slowly:  Back in 2006, Dole baby spinach grown in California sickened more than 200 people because of E. coli contamination (previous blogs here and here).  From this link...

A massive product recall, accompanied by a Food and Drug Administration warning against eating the leafy vegetable, was estimated to have cost the spinach industry $100 million.

A bad situation was made worse by the lack of standardized tracking between growers, shippers, wholesalers, retailers and food service distributors, which wasted precious time trying to pinpoint and isolate the source of the tainted produce.

"That was a tremendous wake-up call," said Julia Stewart, public relations director for the Produce Marketing Association, a Delaware-based trade association representing almost 3,000 produce and flower supply companies.

She says a uniform, industrywide, electronic tracking system was being considered before 2006, but this food safety alert provided the impetus to "move more quickly."

More quickly...proponents hope to have the system up and running by 2012.  I'm sure a number of growers are a wee bit nervous about that.  From consumer research done on the spinach recall...

• Nearly nine out of 10 consumers said they had heard about the recall, and the majority cut spinach out of their diet in response to the government’s warning.

• Far more people heard the warning not to eat spinach than the subsequent message that the vegetable was safe to eat again. Nearly one in three said they did not realize the recall was over when interviewed by Rutgers' researchers in November,­ more than six weeks after the government gave the all-clear to spinach grown outside the implicated counties in California.

• The outbreak caused consumers to be leery of other fresh produce. About one in five respondents who had heard of the recall stopped eating other bagged produce.

• More than 40% of respondents said they thought washing contaminated produce makes it safe to eat. That's contrary to what the top food safety officer at the Food and Drug Administration publicly stated — that no amount of washing will remove certain kinds of bacteria on produce.

The issue here was that E. coli was in the produce.

Random Nature #231

Thirstier Trees:  It's a bad sign when a researcher begins with a false premise--or two--when highlighting what's supposedly been discovered.  This press release was entitled "Exotic timber plantations found to use more than twice the water of native forests."

"Scientists used to think that forests in same environments use water in the same way," says Lawren Sack of The University of California at Los Angeles, who coauthored the study with graduate student Aurora Kagawa in the September issue of the ESA journal Ecological Applications. "Our work shows that this is not the case. We need to know the water budget of our landscape, from gardens to forests to parks, because water is expensive."

Where did Sack--who's got a PhD from Cambridge--find even one scientist who believes "that forests in the same environments use water in the same way?"  Heck, there are numerous examples going back thousands of years where man has planted thirsty trees to help dry out soggy land.  As we know here in the West, forests with fewer, larger trees are often healthier and less fire-prone than those with numerous smaller trees that are slowly competing each other to death.  Et cetera.

And how could any scientist in California pretend that water is expensive?  Key to California becoming an economic powerhouse was making inexpensive water readily available.  Few Californians truly take water conservation seriously because their water is so cheap.  Yeesh.  Back to the politicized science...

Kagawa, Sack and their colleagues compared the water use of trees in native forests, composed mostly of native ohia trees, with water use in timber plantations containing exotic eucalyptus and tropical ash.

...

The researchers found that individual eucalyptus and tropical ash used three and nine times more water, respectively, than individual ohia trees. Since each of these forests is dominated by these three species, the team was able to scale up their results to predict how much water a whole section of forest uses. Even when including other native plants that use water quickly, such as tree ferns, the tropical ash forests still used water at a rate of 1,800 kilograms of water per square meter per day, more than 2.5 times that of the other forests.

One of the key reasons that trees in plantations often use more water is that frequently the trees were chosen--often specially bred--to grow quickly.  These fast-growing trees also tend to absorb carbon more quickly.  But like so much research we're seeing nowadays, this study was designed at least in part to undermine efforts to address climate change through means other than conservation.

"When making decisions to restore a native forest or preserve or establish a plantation, we need to do a more detailed valuation that includes the cost of water they're using," he says. "There are a lot of reforestation projects underway to take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where people are prioritizing fast-growing trees. But we shouldn't let alien plants sweep over native forests. Our findings make a clear case that we need to know how much water landscapes are using and conserving."

This study was simply an excuse to state that opinion.

Learning While Vegetating:  People in a persistent vegetative state are unresponsive, yet seemingly partially awake.  But as the following shows, some of them can learn to respond a bit.

Scientists have found that some individuals in the vegetative and minimally conscious states, despite lacking the means of reporting awareness themselves, can learn and thereby demonstrate at least a partial consciousness.

...

By using classical Pavlovian conditioning, the researchers played a tone immediately prior to blowing air into a patient's eye. After some time training, the patients would start to blink when the tone played but before the air puff to the eye.

The study noted that people under anesthesia don't learn to blink. 

This learning in response to conditioning is an interesting discovery, but what does it matter?

By establishing that they can [learn], it is believed that this simple test will enable practitioners to assess the patient's consciousness without the need of imaging.

And, maybe--hopefully--this could form the basis for some sort of rehabilitation.

Benefits of Working Hard:  Does anyone believe that once women pass menopause, exercise wouldn't provide them much benefit?  Actually, the researchers were documenting how much benefit.

"There have been very few studies looking at postmenopausal women, who are different because of decreased estrogen, decreased lean body mass and decreased aerobic capacity," said Zinta Zarins, a newly minted UC Berkeley Ph.D. who conducted the experiments and is now a post-doctoral fellow at UC San Francisco. "Yet, despite changes in hormones and changes in body composition, postmenopausal women can make significant changes in their cardiovascular fitness without going on extreme diets."

The researchers made ten women in their 50s work, riding exercise bikes an hour a day--at 65 percent of max lung capacity--five days a week for twelve weeks. 

In a paper appearing in the September issue of the journal Metabolism - Clinical and Experimental, Brooks and Zarins report that participants increased their body's capacity to consume and use oxygen - their VO2 max - by an average of 16 percent and dropped their resting heart rates by an average of 4 beats per minute. Brooks said that after the age of 30, people lose the capacity to consume and use oxygen at about 1 percent per year.

"So, in effect, the women in our study had the cardiovascular and metabolic capabilities of women 16 years younger," he said.

This was about getting in shape, not weight loss.  However, losing fat and gaining muscle allowed some of the women to reduce dress sizes.  The researchers figure that folks should get similar results from jogging on a treadmill or swimming.

Note that women derive some different benefits from exercise than men.

"While men tend to burn carbohydrates first during exercise, women are better fat burners, and in our study, the women improved fat burning and decreased their reliance on carbohydrate after training," Brooks said. Because they burn fat more than carbohydrates during exercise, women, in general, are better than men at maintaining stable blood glucose levels - the glucose comes from stored carbohydrates - and maintaining their weight, even while undergoing vigorous training, he said. In fact, men continue to burn carbohydrates for several hours after exercise, while women's metabolism immediately returns to normal.

A second paper, published in the July issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, showed that the women's use of blood glucose and their insulin levels during exercise showed similarities to those of younger women.

Unfortunately though, most people are too lazy to start, much less stick to such a strenuous program.  In fact, most of the women in the study no longer train as vigorously, or in some cases at all.  But at least they know what they can again be capable of.

Random Nature #230

Unwanted Souvenirs:  We usually think of superbugs as bacteria that have developed new and undesirable talents.  But swapping capabilities? 

The enzyme, called New Delhi Metallo-1, has so far been found attached to bacteria that has caused urinary tract infections and respiratory infections.

It is of particular concern because it can jump from one strain of bacteria to another meaning it could attach itself to more dangerous infections that can cause severe illnesses and blood poisoning making them almost impossible to treat.

The NDM-1 enzyme destroys a group of antibiotics called carbapenems which are mainly used in Britain for severe infections and are tightly controlled because they are one of the few groups of antibiotics that remain useful against bacteria that have already developed resistance to the commonly used drugs.

As of the end of June, 19 people in the UK had been found to be infected with one or more bacteria containing the NDM-1 enzyme.  Most involved a common type of pneumonia.  The other bacteria in question tend to cause urinary and/or digestive tract issues.

Metallo is a comic book supervillain, but why the reference to the capital of India?  Switching links...

Critically, at least 9/19 affected patients have had recent hospitalisation in India or Pakistan. Similarly, the patient from whom the first NDM-1 enzyme producer was described--in Sweden in 2008–-had prior medical contact in India. One UK patient, who developed a bloodstream infection with an E. coli that produced NDM-1 enzyme had received treatment for a haematological malignancy in both India and the UK; two others had undergone cosmetic surgery in India and one of these presented to a UK hospital with a wound infection that grew a mixed microbial flora including K. pneumoniae with NDM-1 enzyme; others had received renal or liver transplantation in Pakistan.

Epidemiological data for NDM-1 enzyme within India are limited and anecdotal, but ARMRL has reports of the enzyme from isolates from multiple cities, with a sharp rise in carbapenem resistance in Delhi since 2006 (whether due to NDM enzyme or not). E. coli with NDM-1 enzyme have also been also found by a collaborator in Karachi, Pakistan. Carbapenems are widely available in the Indian subcontinent, are widely used owing to prevalent cephalosporin resistance, and have doubtless exerted selection pressure.

Some try to protect antibiotics from overuse which can allow diseases to gain resistance; others don't.  That thought applies to the treatment of both people and livestock.

Bargain Care:  The rich can obviously afford better health care than the poor...though that doesn't always guarantee better outcomes. Yet, providing more equal access to health care is no panacea either.  For instance in the UK...

The team analysed data on 44,902 patients, with an average age of 65, who had heart surgery between 1997 and 2007 at five hospitals in Birmingham and north-west England. They based their assessment of each patient's social deprivation on their postcode in the 2001 census.

They found that 1,461 patients (3.25%) died in hospital after surgery, and 5,563 more (12.4%) died within five years. The chances of dying were closely linked to the patient's level of social deprivation.

Smoking, obesity and diabetes were all higher in socially-deprived areas, and increased a patient's chances of dying after heart surgery. Diabetes increased the risk by 31% and smoking by 29%.

However, when the researchers made allowance for these three complicating factors, they still found that people from deprived areas were more likely to die.

They refer to deprived areas; we refer to poverty.  There are obviously multiple reasons for the disparity in outcomes.  Here's one way that the UK has been trying to improve the situation.

Pay for performance incentive schemes were introduced by the National Health Service in the UK in April 2004, to improve the quality of healthcare for all patients. The new family practitioner contract stated that 25 percent of a doctor's income would depend on performance against targets.

It is well documented that there are marked differences in cardiovascular disease prevalence and subsequent health outcomes between ethnic groups, as well as potential unequal access to high-quality care. The authors looked at whether financial incentives for doctors would address these differences in management of coronary heart disease (CHD) across ethnic groups.

Millett and his team looked at electronic records from 32 family practices in inner city London, before and after the introduction of the new contract in 2004. They identified 2,891 people with CHD in 2003 and 3,101 in 2005 and examined 10 quality indicators for CHD management. There were incentives for recording smoking status, measuring cholesterol and blood pressure, prescribing aspirin, beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors, as well as for controlling cholesterol and blood pressure. There were no incentives for either BMI measurement or prescription of statins.

Millett and his team found that more patients were reaching national treatment targets for both blood pressure and total cholesterol since the implementation of the pay for performance initiative in April 2004. The scheme improved CHD management across both incentivized and non-incentivized indicators. There were also fewer differences in prescribing and clinical outcomes between ethnic groups in 2005 than in 2003.

That's one way of making greed a good thing.

Taking Advantage of Desperation:  When facing surgery, many folks prefer that their doctor have at least a fair amount of experience performing that the type of surgery.  However in some instances, folks are willing to compromise if it means their surgery can be done sooner. The following study was done in Oxford UK.

Three-quarters of [urological] surgical patients would consider allowing a competent unsupervised trainee junior doctor perform their entire operation if it meant they could have it done more quickly, according to a survey published in the September issue of BJUI.

The responses were high regardless of how complex the surgery was, with 80 per cent of those facing minor surgery and 68 per cent of those facing major surgery saying they would consider the suggestion.

The survey was a questionnaire provided to patients who had just undergone urological surgery.  No word on how their surgical outcomes may have impacted their opinions or how long they waited for their surgeries.  Maybe the type of surgery also matters.

"A study of orthopaedic patients published in 2004 showed that 74 per cent were happy for a trainee to perform all or part of their procedure, but a 2005 study of cataract patients showed that only 16 per cent agreed to go ahead if a supervised trainee was directly involved."

The focus of this study was on how to help beginning doctors gain surgical experience.  Medical guidelines in the UK mandate that doctors inform their patients who will be providing their care.  That's not always done.  This drew the following comment from one of the researchers.

"Whether informing patients that trainees will be involved in their operation will lead to a reduction in training opportunities is unclear" says Mr Reynard. 

Please.  Meanwhile, there was no mention of how getting more doctors surgical training could help reduce the lengthy waiting lists for many surgeries.  Guess that would make lousy headlines...the only way to improve unacceptably long waits for surgeries is to use trainees.  Worse still...the only reason that waiting lists for surgeries aren't longer is that hospitals use trainees on unsuspecting patients.

Random Nature #229

Fogging Fruit Flies:  Close to thirty years ago now,  a medfly infestation in California was national news.

California’s medfly morass began on June 5th, 1980 when two medflies were found in a trap in San Jose.  Medflies (not native to the U.S.) are among the peskiest of all Earth’s bugs.  By laying their eggs under the skin of a wide variety of popular fruits, medfly larvae are born inside the fruit, become maggots and destroy it.  Agriculturalists were quick to point out that a medfly outbreak was capable of completely ravaging the state’s 14 billion dollar agricultural industry and the California economy as a whole.  As the medfly began to be found in increasingly wide circles, California decided to wage war on the intruding insect.

They began with the implementation of the so-called “Sterile Insect Technique.”  Since female medflies only mate once, local governments flooded the Bay Area with some 1.3 billion sterile males.  2,000 workers also went door-to-door stripping trees of fruit and 62,000 backyards were sprayed an average of 6 times each.  It even became a crime not to strip your fruit trees, punishable by a $500 fine and up to 6 months in jail.  Even the National Guard was called in to help oversee the process. By June 1981, it seemed that the medfly battle had been won.

But no...they were soon found in Palo Alto.  Japan and a few U.S. states put moratoriums on the import of produce from California.  Folks in other parts of California were fearing that the medfly was soon headed their direction.  Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown was resisting what some experts thought offered the best chance of success, the aerial spraying of malathion.  When the USDA threatened to quarantine all agricultural products from California, the governor finally relented.

The media and public outcry was deafening.  For several days, nearly the entire front section of the San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle was devoted to stories about the aerial spraying.  The Red Cross set up shelters for residents who wished to escape the line of fire, some doctors came out and said the elderly and pregnant women were in danger, and Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Sunnyvale sought a restraining order on the spraying.  Some environmentalists even promised to shoot down the helicopters if they tried to unleash Malathion on local homes.

Like a number of pesticides, malathion is essentially a type of nerve agent.  Research on whether it's a carcinogen has long been inconclusive.  In an attempt to alleviate people's fears during the infestation, the director of the California Conservation Corps drank some (diluted) malathion to show it was safe.  A few years later, officials stood under a spraying helicopter to show that it was safe. 

Earlier this year, California Attorney General Jerry Brown listed "25 Random Things About Me" on his Facebook page.  Number 7:

I am not fond of Mediterranean fruit flies, or of Malathion. Both are bad.

His reaction to the infestation likely helped cost him a senate seat in '82.  Such a position could have helped his presidential ambitions.

Another Type of Immigrant:  The Mediterranean fruit fly has spread far from its origins, often hitching a ride on produce.

The Medfly originated in Africa. It has since spread throughout the Mediterranean region, southern Europe, the Middle East, Western Australia, South and Central America, and Hawaii. In general, it is found in most tropical and subtropical areas of the world.

The Medfly became established in Hawaii in 1910.  Hawaii remains infested with this pest, and no eradication program is currently under way. The first of numerous U.S. mainland infestations occurred in Florida in 1929.

One of the frustrations with the medfly is that its sweet tooth isn't specific just one or two species.  It will infest over 400 plants, the majority of them being fruits and vegetables.  Females typically lay about 300 eggs, depositing 1-10 per cavity.  The resulting maggots feed upon fruits, flowers, etc. until mature, then drop to the ground, burrow into the soil, and pupate.  In a few days, adults emerge from the soil, reproduce, and die.  In favorable conditions, the life cycle can be as fast as 21-30 days.  Cooler conditions, plentiful food, etc. can extend the life cycle to months.   

In the United States, the Medfly could attack peaches, pears, plums, apples, apricots, avocados, citrus, cherries, figs, grapes, guavas, kumquats, loquats, nectarines, peppers, persimmons, tomatoes, and several nuts.

...

APHIS estimated the U.S. market value of the commodities that could host exotic fruit flies at about $7.2 billion in 2002. That dollar figure is the sum of damage to the economy from export sanctions, lost markets, treatment costs, reduced crop yields, deformities, and premature fruit drop.

Notice how the value of the commodities the medflies could infest has dropped, even before considering inflation. 

Under Siege:  Medflies periodically attempt to make their way north from Guatemala into Mexico.  However, eradication programs there have successfully kept all but the southern-most province of Chiapas free of medflies.  The following in the fall of 2004 was an anomaly.

A well-established Mediterranean fruit fly infestation in Tijuana, Mexico,‎ just 6.5 miles south of the City of San Diego,‎ continues to worry farmers who grow crops near the international border. U.S. officials say they have the full cooperation of the Mexican government and sufficient resources to protect the state's $28 billion worth of agricultural products while the pest is being eradicated.

San Diego County farmers, however, remain leery. They're still reeling from damages suffered in the Mexican fruit fly quarantines in Fallbrook and Valley Center in recent years...

The quarantine ended in August of 2005.

Note that Mexican fruit flies are a different pest.  They like citrus, avocados, guavas, mangoes, and tomatoes.  By the by, Fallbrook CA is the "Avocado Capital of the World," and Valley Center--home to a couple of Indian Casinos--is slowly losing its citrus fields to housing.  Both are fairly close to Orange County, between San Diego and LA.

Skipping forward to August of last year...

State and federal officials Thursday jointly announced that they have eradicated Mediterranean fruit fly infestations in three California counties: Santa Clara, Solano and Los Angeles. They know of no other Medfly infestations in the state.

...

A permanent infestation would result in estimated annual losses of $1.3 billion to $1.8 billion, state officials said.

Those quarantines had been put in place in 2007.  Then in November, just east of San Diego...

The California Department of Food and Agriculture has established a 107 square-mile quarantine zone in the El Cajon area of San Diego County, following the detection of a Mediterranean fruit fly infestation.

...

An eradication program for the Medfly is already underway, consisting of releases of sterile male flies in the area, fruit stripping within a 100-meter radius around sites where larvae are detected, and ground treatments using the organic-approved product Naturalyte (active ingredient: spinosad) within a 200-meter radius of sites where the flies have been trapped.

CDFA has succeeded in eradicating every Medfly infestation in California since the department began such efforts in 1975, and has relied on sterile Medfly releases almost exclusively since 1996.

Spinosad, which is produced by a soil bacterium, excites the nervous system of some types of insects, causing them to die of exhaustion.  This nerve agent kills mostly via ingestion rather than contact.

Occasionally, sterile male medflies are found far from where they've been released...that's not a problem.  It's the fertile ones--especially mated females--that are cause for alarm.  This year, fertile medflies have been found outside of the Spring Valley (El Cajon) quarantine area in both  Mira Mesa and Imperial Beach.  A couple of weeks ago...

The California Department of Food and Agriculture announced yesterday that a Mediterranean fruit fly infestation in the Spring Valley area has been eradicated, ending a quarantine that began in late 2008.

...

Meanwhile, the Asian citrus psyllid has been discovered in Orange County, with five of the pests discovered in traps in Santa Ana. Two species of the insect can can carry a disease known as huanglongbing, or HLB, that renders citrus crops inedible. This is the first time the psyllid has been trapped north of San Diego and Imperial counties, according to the agriculture department; a diseased psyllid was recently discovered in luggage shipped from India to Fresno.

The discovery of the insect in San Diego County late last summer, two months after it was detected in Tijuana, triggered a quarantine south of state Route 78 that remains in effect, with the movement of fruit and potential host plants restricted.

State agriculture officials have declared a new quarantine within five miles of the Orange County discovery site.

Psyllids are also known as jumping plant lice...they're related to aphids, scales, and white flies.  Fortunately, most psyllids only prey upon one or a few related plant species.  Huanglongbing is caused by an Old World bacterium...the pathogen is also getting established in Florida and Texas.

At least San Diego County doesn't have the light brown apple moth...so far.  With residents in other parts of the state already wanting to give up the fight, it may not be long. 

Randon Nature #228

Not Noticing:  It's easy to understand why people with visible skin conditions can struggle with how others react to their appearance.

Psoriasis has long been known to cause considerable emotional stress for patients, including a lack of self-esteem and an increased incidence of mood disorders, such as depression. One study estimates that approximately one-fourth (24 percent) of psoriasis patients suffer from depression.

"Depression in patients with psoriasis is a serious concern that should be addressed, as it may significantly impact a patient's overall emotional and physical well being," said Dr. Kimball. "Another concern is that depression may be a contributing factor to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, which as we know is already an increased risk in psoriasis patients."

So, why do some people with stigmatizing conditions cope better than others. 

"Psoriasis has a significant negative impact on the physical and psychological well-being of those affected but little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms of how patients cope with the adverse social stigma associated with visible skin lesions," said Dr Elise Kleyn, the dermatologist who carried out the research.

"We had previously shown that psoriasis patients commonly believe that they will be evaluated solely on the basis of their skin and so often avoid social situations they think will be stressful or humiliating as a coping mechanism.

"For this study we wanted to investigate whether the social impact of psoriasis is associated with altered cognitive processing in response to facial expressions of disgust by measuring brain activity in the insular cortex.

"We found a significantly reduced response in the insular cortex in the patients compared with the control volunteers when observing disgusted faces, but also that patients were half as likely to recognise that a face was expressing disgust. This was not the case for other facial expressions, such as fear."

In this case, being oblivious to feedback seems like a rather handy defense mechanism.

Depressed Teetotalers:  Drinking to excess can cause a number of problems, both physical and mental.  Yet, abstaining from alcohol is associated with a greater risk of depression.  Why?  It helps to understand what's actually being measured.

The study utilised data from the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT Study) based in Norway. This provided information on the drinking habits and mental health of over 38,000 individuals. Using this data the authors were able to show that those individuals who reported drinking no alcohol over a two week period were more likely than moderate drinkers to report symptoms of depression. Those individuals who additionally labelled themselves as “abstainers” were at the highest risk of depression. Other factors, such as age, physical health problems and number of close friends could explain some, but not all of this increased risk. The authors also had access to reported levels of alcohol consumption 11 years prior to the main survey. This showed that fourteen percent of current abstainers had previously been heavy drinkers, but this did not explain all of the increased risk of depression amongst abstainers.

The authors conclude that in societies where some use of alcohol is the norm, abstinence may be associated with being socially marginalised or particular personality traits that may also be associated with mental illness.

Some people are forced to abstain.  Lonely social drinkers would like an occasion to drink.  Et cetera.  The reason(s) people aren't drinking can make a huge difference.

By the way, per capita alcohol consumption in Norway is amongst the lowest in Europe and is only about two-thirds that of the U.S.

Uncertainty:  There are all sorts of job-related stresses. Sometimes adding to them is a fear of losing one's job. That can be particularly unhealthy.

"It may seem surprising that chronically high job-insecurity is more strongly linked with health declines than actual job loss or unemployment," said Burgard, who is also affiliated with [University of Michigan's] Department of Sociology and School of Public Health. "But there are a number of reasons why this is the case. Ongoing ambiguity about the future, inability to take action unless the feared event actually happens, and the lack of institutionalized supports associated with perceived insecurity are among them."

...

"This study provides the strongest evidence to date that persistent job insecurity has a negative impact on worker health. In fact, chronic job insecurity was a stronger predictor of poor health than either smoking or hypertension in one of the groups we studied."

...

"When you consider that not only income but so many of the important benefits that give Americans some piece of mind—including health insurance and retirement benefits—are tied to employment for most people, it's understandable that persistent job insecurity is so stressful.

One of the allures of many government jobs is their stability, which often increases with years of service rather than improved job performance.

Reacting Poorly to a Crisis:  The depth of of our ongoing recession has some economists looking back and studying why the Great Crash was followed by such a severe depression.  From an article that summarizes the study at this link...

[Hoover] was afraid the stock market collapse of October 1929 would result in a recession with deflation, leading to dramatic wage cuts, as a period of deflation had done just a decade earlier. And because of a series of recent legislative and court decisions that had expanded the power of organized labor, he also worried about the possibility of crippling strikes if such wage cuts were to come to pass.

"Hoover had the idea that if wages were kept high for workers and they shared jobs instead of being laid off, they would be able to buy more goods and services, which would help the economy improve," Ohanian said.

After the crash, Hoover met with major leaders of industry and cut a deal with them to either maintain or raise wages and institute job-sharing to keep workers employed, at least to some degree, Ohanian found. In response, General Motors, Ford, U.S. Steel, Dupont, International Harvester and many other large firms fell in line, even publicly underscoring their compliance with Hoover's program.

Designed to placate labor and safeguard workers' buying power, the step had an unintended effect: As deflation eventually did set in, the inflation-adjusted value of these wages rose over time, effectively giving workers a raise precisely at the time when companies were least in a position to afford such increases and precisely when productivity was beginning to fall.

That drove prices up when many consumers were already feeling pinched. Something had to give.

Reluctant to lower wages due to Hoover's entreaties, employers in the manufacturing sector responded by reducing the work week and laying off workers. By September 1931, the manufacturing sector was already hurting: Hours clocked by workers had fallen by 20 percent and employment by 35 percent.

Overall, the economy suffered, with the GDP falling by 27 percent. In a situation in which wages would have been expected to fall, they remained at about 92 percent of what they had been two years earlier. When adjusted for deflation, they had actually climbed by 10 percent, Ohanian found. 

"The Depression was the first time in the history of the U.S. that wages did not fall during a period of significant deflation," Ohanian said.

Deflation is rough enough; deflation without corresponding wage decreases is even more destructive. 

By Ohanian's calculation, Hoover's policies accounted for 18 percent of the 27 percent decline in the nation's GDP by the fourth quarter of 1931.

Often-cited causes of the Depression include banking failures and large contractions of the money supply. The problem is, Ohanian says, neither of these events occurred significantly until mid-1931 — nearly two years after Hoover's fateful wage policies.

Moreover, unemployment did not plague the part of the labor force that was exempt from Hoover's 1929 wage policy. While farm employment would be reduced by Dust Bowl climatic conditions in 1935, at the outset of the Depression it remained surprisingly strong, Ohanian found. In fact, hours clocked in the agricultural sector, which comprised about 30 percent of the workforce at the time, were roughly unchanged through 1931. And unlike in the manufacturing sector, agricultural wages fell dramatically, by 30 percent.

The Dow hit its low for the 20th Century on July 8, 1932.  There was no panicky drop that day, just more resignation.  The Dow didn't recover to its pre-Crash 1929 high until late 1954.

It's best to avoid bubbles.