Inglês

In the excerpt of the fourth paragraph – where it might be too dangerous to speak into a radio transmitter. – the word might conveys an idea of

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How computers will soon get under our skin

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
12 August 2011

It may soon be possible to wear your computer or mobile phone under your sleeve, with the invention of an ultra-thin and flexible electronic circuit that can be stuck to the skin like a temporary tattoo. The device, which is almost invisible, can perform just as well as more conventional electronic machines but without the need for wires or bulky power supplies, scientists said. The development could mark a new era in consumer electronics. The technology could be used for applications ranging from medical diagnosis to covert military operations.
The “epidermal electronic system” relies on a highly flexible electrical circuit composed of snake-like conducting channels that can bend and stretch without affecting performance. The circuit is about the size of a postage stamp, is thinner than a human hair and sticks to the skin by natural electrostatic forces rather than glue. “We think this could be an important conceptual advance in wearable electronics, to achieve something that is almost unnoticeable to the wearer. The technology can connect you to the physical world and the cyberworld in a very natural way that feels comfortable,” said Professor Todd Coleman of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research team.
A simple stick-on circuit can monitor a person’s heart rate and muscle movements as well as conventional medical monitors, but with the benefit of being weightless and almost completely undetectable. Scientists said it may also be possible to build a circuit for detecting throat movements around the larynx in order to transmit the information wirelessly as a way of recording a person’s speech, even if they are not making any discernible sounds.
Tests have already shown that such a system can be used to control a voice-activated computer game, and one suggestion is that a stick-on voicebox circuit could be used in covert police operations where it might be too dangerous to speak into a radio transmitter. “The blurring of electronics and biology is really the key point here,” said Yonggang Huang, professor of engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. “All established forms of electronics are hard, rigid. Biology is soft, elastic. It’s two different worlds. This is a way to truly integrate them.”
Engineers have built test circuits mounted on a thin, rubbery substrate that adheres to the skin. The circuits have included sensors, light-emitting diodes, transistors, radio frequency capacitors, wireless antennas, conductive coils and solar cells. “We threw everything in our bag of tricks on to that platform, and then added a few other new ideas on top of those, to show that we could make it work,” said John Rogers, professor of engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a lead author of the study, published in the journal Science.

(www.independent.co.uk. Adaptado.)

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How computers will soon get under our skin

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
12 August 2011

It may soon be possible to wear your computer or mobile phone under your sleeve, with the invention of an ultra-thin and flexible electronic circuit that can be stuck to the skin like a temporary tattoo. The device, which is almost invisible, can perform just as well as more conventional electronic machines but without the need for wires or bulky power supplies, scientists said. The development could mark a new era in consumer electronics. The technology could be used for applications ranging from medical diagnosis to covert military operations.
The “epidermal electronic system” relies on a highly flexible electrical circuit composed of snake-like conducting channels that can bend and stretch without affecting performance. The circuit is about the size of a postage stamp, is thinner than a human hair and sticks to the skin by natural electrostatic forces rather than glue. “We think this could be an important conceptual advance in wearable electronics, to achieve something that is almost unnoticeable to the wearer. The technology can connect you to the physical world and the cyberworld in a very natural way that feels comfortable,” said Professor Todd Coleman of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research team.
A simple stick-on circuit can monitor a person’s heart rate and muscle movements as well as conventional medical monitors, but with the benefit of being weightless and almost completely undetectable. Scientists said it may also be possible to build a circuit for detecting throat movements around the larynx in order to transmit the information wirelessly as a way of recording a person’s speech, even if they are not making any discernible sounds.
Tests have already shown that such a system can be used to control a voice-activated computer game, and one suggestion is that a stick-on voicebox circuit could be used in covert police operations where it might be too dangerous to speak into a radio transmitter. “The blurring of electronics and biology is really the key point here,” said Yonggang Huang, professor of engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. “All established forms of electronics are hard, rigid. Biology is soft, elastic. It’s two different worlds. This is a way to truly integrate them.”
Engineers have built test circuits mounted on a thin, rubbery substrate that adheres to the skin. The circuits have included sensors, light-emitting diodes, transistors, radio frequency capacitors, wireless antennas, conductive coils and solar cells. “We threw everything in our bag of tricks on to that platform, and then added a few other new ideas on top of those, to show that we could make it work,” said John Rogers, professor of engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a lead author of the study, published in the journal Science.

(www.independent.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

How computers will soon get under our skin

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
12 August 2011

It may soon be possible to wear your computer or mobile phone under your sleeve, with the invention of an ultra-thin and flexible electronic circuit that can be stuck to the skin like a temporary tattoo. The device, which is almost invisible, can perform just as well as more conventional electronic machines but without the need for wires or bulky power supplies, scientists said. The development could mark a new era in consumer electronics. The technology could be used for applications ranging from medical diagnosis to covert military operations.
The “epidermal electronic system” relies on a highly flexible electrical circuit composed of snake-like conducting channels that can bend and stretch without affecting performance. The circuit is about the size of a postage stamp, is thinner than a human hair and sticks to the skin by natural electrostatic forces rather than glue. “We think this could be an important conceptual advance in wearable electronics, to achieve something that is almost unnoticeable to the wearer. The technology can connect you to the physical world and the cyberworld in a very natural way that feels comfortable,” said Professor Todd Coleman of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research team.
A simple stick-on circuit can monitor a person’s heart rate and muscle movements as well as conventional medical monitors, but with the benefit of being weightless and almost completely undetectable. Scientists said it may also be possible to build a circuit for detecting throat movements around the larynx in order to transmit the information wirelessly as a way of recording a person’s speech, even if they are not making any discernible sounds.
Tests have already shown that such a system can be used to control a voice-activated computer game, and one suggestion is that a stick-on voicebox circuit could be used in covert police operations where it might be too dangerous to speak into a radio transmitter. “The blurring of electronics and biology is really the key point here,” said Yonggang Huang, professor of engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. “All established forms of electronics are hard, rigid. Biology is soft, elastic. It’s two different worlds. This is a way to truly integrate them.”
Engineers have built test circuits mounted on a thin, rubbery substrate that adheres to the skin. The circuits have included sensors, light-emitting diodes, transistors, radio frequency capacitors, wireless antennas, conductive coils and solar cells. “We threw everything in our bag of tricks on to that platform, and then added a few other new ideas on top of those, to show that we could make it work,” said John Rogers, professor of engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a lead author of the study, published in the journal Science.

(www.independent.co.uk. Adaptado.)

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Longevity: Habits May Extend Life Only So Much

By Nicholas Bakalar
August 8, 2011

The eating, drinking and exercise habits of extremely old but healthy people differ little from those of the rest of us, a new study has found. Gerontologists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recruited 477 Ashkenazi Jews ages 95 to 112 who were living independently. The researchers took blood samples, did physical examinations and obtained detailed personal and medical histories from each participant. Then they compared them with 1,374 non-Hispanic white adults, ages 65 to 74, from the general population. For both men and women, consumption of alcohol, amount of physical activity and the percentage of people on low-calorie or low-salt diets were almost identical in the two groups.
Long-lived men were less likely to be obese than their younger counterparts, although no less likely to be overweight. The oldest women were more likely to be overweight and less likely to be obese. More men among the oldest were nonsmokers, but smoking habits were not significantly different among the women.
43 that it all depends on genes, and we might as well eat, drink and be merry? No, according to the senior author, Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “For most of us who 44 genes for longevity,” he said, “if you follow the healthy lifestyle the medical community has put forth, you are 45 to live past 80.”
The study was published online last week in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

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Longevity: Habits May Extend Life Only So Much

By Nicholas Bakalar
August 8, 2011

The eating, drinking and exercise habits of extremely old but healthy people differ little from those of the rest of us, a new study has found. Gerontologists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recruited 477 Ashkenazi Jews ages 95 to 112 who were living independently. The researchers took blood samples, did physical examinations and obtained detailed personal and medical histories from each participant. Then they compared them with 1,374 non-Hispanic white adults, ages 65 to 74, from the general population. For both men and women, consumption of alcohol, amount of physical activity and the percentage of people on low-calorie or low-salt diets were almost identical in the two groups.
Long-lived men were less likely to be obese than their younger counterparts, although no less likely to be overweight. The oldest women were more likely to be overweight and less likely to be obese. More men among the oldest were nonsmokers, but smoking habits were not significantly different among the women.
43 that it all depends on genes, and we might as well eat, drink and be merry? No, according to the senior author, Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “For most of us who 44 genes for longevity,” he said, “if you follow the healthy lifestyle the medical community has put forth, you are 45 to live past 80.”
The study was published online last week in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

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Longevity: Habits May Extend Life Only So Much

By Nicholas Bakalar
August 8, 2011

The eating, drinking and exercise habits of extremely old but healthy people differ little from those of the rest of us, a new study has found. Gerontologists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recruited 477 Ashkenazi Jews ages 95 to 112 who were living independently. The researchers took blood samples, did physical examinations and obtained detailed personal and medical histories from each participant. Then they compared them with 1,374 non-Hispanic white adults, ages 65 to 74, from the general population. For both men and women, consumption of alcohol, amount of physical activity and the percentage of people on low-calorie or low-salt diets were almost identical in the two groups.
Long-lived men were less likely to be obese than their younger counterparts, although no less likely to be overweight. The oldest women were more likely to be overweight and less likely to be obese. More men among the oldest were nonsmokers, but smoking habits were not significantly different among the women.
43 that it all depends on genes, and we might as well eat, drink and be merry? No, according to the senior author, Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “For most of us who 44 genes for longevity,” he said, “if you follow the healthy lifestyle the medical community has put forth, you are 45 to live past 80.”
The study was published online last week in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

Longevity: Habits May Extend Life Only So Much

By Nicholas Bakalar
August 8, 2011

The eating, drinking and exercise habits of extremely old but healthy people differ little from those of the rest of us, a new study has found. Gerontologists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recruited 477 Ashkenazi Jews ages 95 to 112 who were living independently. The researchers took blood samples, did physical examinations and obtained detailed personal and medical histories from each participant. Then they compared them with 1,374 non-Hispanic white adults, ages 65 to 74, from the general population. For both men and women, consumption of alcohol, amount of physical activity and the percentage of people on low-calorie or low-salt diets were almost identical in the two groups.
Long-lived men were less likely to be obese than their younger counterparts, although no less likely to be overweight. The oldest women were more likely to be overweight and less likely to be obese. More men among the oldest were nonsmokers, but smoking habits were not significantly different among the women.
43 that it all depends on genes, and we might as well eat, drink and be merry? No, according to the senior author, Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “For most of us who 44 genes for longevity,” he said, “if you follow the healthy lifestyle the medical community has put forth, you are 45 to live past 80.”
The study was published online last week in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

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Longevity: Habits May Extend Life Only So Much

By Nicholas Bakalar
August 8, 2011

The eating, drinking and exercise habits of extremely old but healthy people differ little from those of the rest of us, a new study has found. Gerontologists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recruited 477 Ashkenazi Jews ages 95 to 112 who were living independently. The researchers took blood samples, did physical examinations and obtained detailed personal and medical histories from each participant. Then they compared them with 1,374 non-Hispanic white adults, ages 65 to 74, from the general population. For both men and women, consumption of alcohol, amount of physical activity and the percentage of people on low-calorie or low-salt diets were almost identical in the two groups.
Long-lived men were less likely to be obese than their younger counterparts, although no less likely to be overweight. The oldest women were more likely to be overweight and less likely to be obese. More men among the oldest were nonsmokers, but smoking habits were not significantly different among the women.
43 that it all depends on genes, and we might as well eat, drink and be merry? No, according to the senior author, Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “For most of us who 44 genes for longevity,” he said, “if you follow the healthy lifestyle the medical community has put forth, you are 45 to live past 80.”
The study was published online last week in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

Longevity: Habits May Extend Life Only So Much

By Nicholas Bakalar
August 8, 2011

The eating, drinking and exercise habits of extremely old but healthy people differ little from those of the rest of us, a new study has found. Gerontologists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recruited 477 Ashkenazi Jews ages 95 to 112 who were living independently. The researchers took blood samples, did physical examinations and obtained detailed personal and medical histories from each participant. Then they compared them with 1,374 non-Hispanic white adults, ages 65 to 74, from the general population. For both men and women, consumption of alcohol, amount of physical activity and the percentage of people on low-calorie or low-salt diets were almost identical in the two groups.
Long-lived men were less likely to be obese than their younger counterparts, although no less likely to be overweight. The oldest women were more likely to be overweight and less likely to be obese. More men among the oldest were nonsmokers, but smoking habits were not significantly different among the women.
43 that it all depends on genes, and we might as well eat, drink and be merry? No, according to the senior author, Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “For most of us who 44 genes for longevity,” he said, “if you follow the healthy lifestyle the medical community has put forth, you are 45 to live past 80.”
The study was published online last week in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

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Crescia naturalmente
Fazendo estripulia,
Malino e muito arguto,
Gostava de zombaria.
A cabeça duma escrava
Quase arrebentei um dia.

E tudo isso porque
Um doce me havia negado,
De cinza no tacho cheio
Inda joguei um punhado,
Daí porque a alcunha
De “Menino Endiabrado”.

Prudêncio era um menino
Da casa, que agora falo.
Botava suas mãos no chão
Pra poder depois montá-lo:
Com um chicote na mão
Fazia dele um cavalo.

(Varneci Nascimento.
Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas em cordel.)

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Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

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Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

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Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

Instrução: Leia o texto para responder a questão.

Brazil: the natural knowledge economy

Kirsten Bound – THE ATLAS OF IDEAS

If you grew up in Europe or North America you will no doubt have been taught in school that the Wright Brothers from Ohio invented and flew the first aeroplane – the Kitty Hawk – in 1903. But if you grew up in Brazil you will have been taught that the real inventor was in fact a Brazilian from Minas Gerais called Alberto Santos Dumont, whose 14-bis aeroplane took to the skies in 1906. This fierce historical debate, which turns on definitions of ‘practical airplanes’, the ability to launch unaided, length of time spent in the air and the credibility of witnesses, will not be resolved here. Yet it is a striking example of the lack of global recognition for Brazil’s achievements in innovation.
Almost a century later, in 2005, Santos Dumont’s intellectual heirs, the company Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (EMBRAER), made aviation history of a different kind when they unveiled the Ipanema, the world’s first commercially produced aircraft to run solely on biofuels. This time, the world was watching. Scientific American credited it as one of the most important inventions of the year. The attention paid to the Ipanema reflects the growing interest in biofuels as a potential solution to climate change and rising energy demand. To their advocates, biofuels – most commonly bioethanol or biodiesel – offer a more secure, sustainable energy supply that can reduce carbon emissions by 50–60 per cent compared to fossil fuels.
From learning to fly to learning to cope with the environmental costs of flight, biofuel innovations like the Ipanema reflect some of the tensions of modern science, in which expanding the frontiers of human ingenuity goes hand in hand with managing the consequences. The recent backlash against biofuels, which has seen them blamed for global food shortages as land is reportedly diverted from food crops, points to a growing interdependence between the science and innovation systems of different countries, and between innovation, economics and environmental sustainability.
The debates now raging over biofuels reflect some of the wider dynamics in Brazil’s innovation system. They remind us that Brazil’s current strengths and achievements have deeper historical roots than is sometimes imagined. They reflect the fact that Brazil’s natural resources and assets are a key area of opportunity for science and innovation – a focus that leads us to characterise Brazil as a ‘natural knowledge economy’. Most importantly, they highlight the propitious timing of Brazil’s growing strength in these areas at a time when climate change, the environment, food scarcity and rising worldwide energy demand are at the forefront of global consciousness. What changed between the maiden flight of the 14-bis and the maiden flight of the Ipanema is not just Brazil’s capacity for technological and scientific innovation, but the rest of the world’s appreciation of the potential of that innovation to address some of the pressing challenges that confront us all.

(www.demos.co.uk. Adaptado.)

To Scientists, Laughter Is No Joke - It’s Serious

March 31, 2010. So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’
Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’
“It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

To Scientists, Laughter Is No Joke - It’s Serious

March 31, 2010. So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’
Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’
“It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

To Scientists, Laughter Is No Joke - It’s Serious

March 31, 2010. So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’
Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’
“It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

To Scientists, Laughter Is No Joke - It’s Serious

March 31, 2010. So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’
Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’
“It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

To Scientists, Laughter Is No Joke - It’s Serious

March 31, 2010. So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’
Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’
“It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

To Scientists, Laughter Is No Joke - It’s Serious

March 31, 2010. So a scientist walks into a shopping mall to watch people laugh. There’s no punchline. Laughter is a serious scientific subject, one that researchers are still trying to figure out. Laughing is primal, our first way of communicating. Apes laugh. So do dogs and rats. Babies laugh long before they speak. No one teaches you how to laugh. You just do. And often you laugh involuntarily, in a specific rhythm and in certain spots in conversation.
You may laugh at a prank on April Fools’ Day. But surprisingly, only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke, said Baltimore neuroscientist Robert Provine, who has studied laughter for decades. Laughter is mostly about social responses rather than reaction to a joke. “Laughter above all else is a social thing,’’ Provine said. “The requirement for laughter is another person.’’
Over the years, Provine, a professor with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has boiled laughter down to its basics. “All language groups laugh ‘ha-ha-ha’ basically the same way,’’ he said. “Whether you speak Mandarin, French or English, everyone will understand laughter. ... There’s a pattern generator in our brain that produces this sound.’’
Each “ha’’ is about one-15th of a second, repeated every fifth of a second, he said. Laugh faster or slower than that and it sounds more like panting or something else. Deaf people laugh without hearing, and people on cell phones laugh without seeing, illustrating that laughter isn’t dependent on a single sense but on social interactions, said Provine, author of the book “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.’’
“It’s joy, it’s positive engagement with life,’’ said Jaak Panksepp, a Bowling Green University psychology professor. “It’s deeply social.’’ And it’s not just a people thing either. Chimps tickle each other and even laugh when another chimp pretends to tickle them. By studying rats, Panksepp and other scientists can figure out what’s going on in the brain during laughter. And it holds promise for human ills.
Northwestern biomedical engineering professor Jeffrey Burgdorf has found that laughter in rats produces an insulin-like growth factor chemical that acts as an antidepressant and anxietyreducer. He thinks the same thing probably happens in humans, too. This would give doctors a new chemical target in the brain in their effort to develop drugs that fight depression and anxiety in people. Even so, laughter itself hasn’t been proven to be the best medicine, experts said.

(www.nytimes.com. Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

A world of Methuselahs

June 25th 2009
Angus Maddison, an economic historian, has estimated that life expectancy during the first millennium AD averaged about 25 years (which in practice meant that lots of children died very young and many of the rest survived to middle age). The big turnaround came with the industrial revolution, mainly because many more children survived into adulthood, thanks to better sanitation, more control over epidemics, improved nutrition and higher living standards.
By the beginning of the 20th century average life expectancy in America and the better-off parts of Europe was close to 50, and kept on rising. By mid-century the gains from lower child mortality had mainly run their course. The extra years were coming from higher survival rates among older people. The UN thinks that life expectancy at birth worldwide will go up from 68 years at present to 76 by 2050 and in rich countries from 77 to 83. (These are averages for both sexes; women generally live five or six years longer than men, for reasons yet to be fathomed). Most experts now agree that there will be further rises, but disagree about their extent.
Some of them argue that the human lifespan is finite because bodies, in effect, wear out; that most of the easy gains have been made; and that the rate of increase is bound to slow down because people now die mostly of chronic diseases – cancer, heart problems, diabetes – which are harder to fix. They also point to newer health threats, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, as well as rising obesity in rich countries – to say nothing of the possibility of fresh pandemics, social and political unrest and natural disasters.
Nearly 30 years ago James Fries at Stanford University School of Medicine put a ceiling of 85 years on the average potential human life span. More recently a team led by Jay Olshansky at the University of Illinois at Chicago said it would remain stuck there unless the ageing process itself can be brought under control. Because infant mortality in rich countries is already low, they argued, further increases in overall life expectancy will require much larger reductions in mortality at older ages. In Mr. Olshansky’s view, none of the life-prolonging techniques available today – be they lifestyle changes, medication, surgery or genetic engineering – will cut older people’s mortality by enough to replicate the gains in life expectancy achieved in the 20th century.
That may sound reasonable, but the evidence points the other way. Jim Oeppen at Cambridge University and James Vaupel at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock have charted life expectancy since 1840, joining up the figures for whatever country was holding the longevity record at the time, and found that the resulting trend line has been moving relentlessly upward by about three months a year. They think that by 2050 average life expectancy in the bestperforming country could easily reach the mid-90s.

(www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id= 13888102 Adaptado.)

Finding a New Boom Amid the Bust

Jun. 02, 2009

By Dan Kadlec
When it comes to what makes us happy at work, jobsatisfaction surveys have been showing for years that the size of our paycheck is losing ground to intangibles like autonomy, mobility, low stress, flexible hours, job security, health coverage, paid time off and other benefits. Does pay matter? Of course it does. But as China and other emerging markets have gained ground on the U.S. economically, American workers have begun to come to grips with what that means: in many cases, finding a standard of living that is slipping relative to other nations, and saying zai jian (bye-bye, for those not yet into basic Mandarin) to generous and automatic pay raises across industries. The recession has only deepened this trend.
Workers who are elated to simply have a job aren’t squawking about money, and according to a Randstad survey, they now name job security and benefits among the top factors in their happiness. Competitive pay is moving down the scale. Another expediter is demographics. The massive boomer generation is entering its retirement years undersaved and in need of continued employment. Yet boomers are determined to scale back hours and stress, and some at least are happy to trade a big salary for work with meaning and which allows for a better work/life balance, so long as the bills still get paid.
America remains a land of opportunity and will continue to reward go-getters chasing dreams of wealth. But increasingly, our job market will also reward those who place a higher value on intangibles, and it will do so without relegating those people to a life of need. Certainly, jobs are scarce. Our economy has been shedding more than half a million positions a month. Yet even now there are pockets of employment, both for new grads and midlifers reinventing themselves, that offer decent pay with great benefits and security.
Where are these jobs? Think green technologies, which may be at the root of the next economic boom. Think government, which under President Obama is getting bigger. Think education, which is in more demand than ever thanks to the arrival of boomer grandchildren and millions of workers in need of retraining. Think infrastructure, where much of the President’s nearly $800 billion stimulus effort will be focused. Think about risk assessment and controls in a chastened financial system. Think health care, which is booming as boomers grow fitfully into old age. Many such fields present opportunity now, and because they pay well above the median annual U.S. salary of $32,390, they are good to be a part of, even in a recovery.

(www.time.com Adaptado.)

Finding a New Boom Amid the Bust

Jun. 02, 2009

By Dan Kadlec
When it comes to what makes us happy at work, jobsatisfaction surveys have been showing for years that the size of our paycheck is losing ground to intangibles like autonomy, mobility, low stress, flexible hours, job security, health coverage, paid time off and other benefits. Does pay matter? Of course it does. But as China and other emerging markets have gained ground on the U.S. economically, American workers have begun to come to grips with what that means: in many cases, finding a standard of living that is slipping relative to other nations, and saying zai jian (bye-bye, for those not yet into basic Mandarin) to generous and automatic pay raises across industries. The recession has only deepened this trend.
Workers who are elated to simply have a job aren’t squawking about money, and according to a Randstad survey, they now name job security and benefits among the top factors in their happiness. Competitive pay is moving down the scale. Another expediter is demographics. The massive boomer generation is entering its retirement years undersaved and in need of continued employment. Yet boomers are determined to scale back hours and stress, and some at least are happy to trade a big salary for work with meaning and which allows for a better work/life balance, so long as the bills still get paid.
America remains a land of opportunity and will continue to reward go-getters chasing dreams of wealth. But increasingly, our job market will also reward those who place a higher value on intangibles, and it will do so without relegating those people to a life of need. Certainly, jobs are scarce. Our economy has been shedding more than half a million positions a month. Yet even now there are pockets of employment, both for new grads and midlifers reinventing themselves, that offer decent pay with great benefits and security.
Where are these jobs? Think green technologies, which may be at the root of the next economic boom. Think government, which under President Obama is getting bigger. Think education, which is in more demand than ever thanks to the arrival of boomer grandchildren and millions of workers in need of retraining. Think infrastructure, where much of the President’s nearly $800 billion stimulus effort will be focused. Think about risk assessment and controls in a chastened financial system. Think health care, which is booming as boomers grow fitfully into old age. Many such fields present opportunity now, and because they pay well above the median annual U.S. salary of $32,390, they are good to be a part of, even in a recovery.

(www.time.com Adaptado.)

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Gene banks and blanket consent e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Ethics Watch

Gene banks and blanket consent

Academic and industry researchers are understandably excited about the scientific and therapeutic potential presented by gene banks. Emerging areas of research, such as pharmacogenetics, require access to large pools of genetic data, which are of greatest scientific value when linked to identifiable personal information. For example, links between genetic information and health data are required to study gene-environment interactions effectively.
The ethical challenges that are associated with gene banks have attracted much attention from both academics and policy makers, as highlighted by the UK Human Genetics Commission’s (1999) report. However, the issue of consent is particularly problematic for researchers. A strict application of many countries’ consent laws requires researchers to obtain informed consent for the use of all identifiable genetic information and a fresh consent for new research projects, and to allow participants to withdraw their sample at anytime. Following these legal requirements is tremendously difficult for research involving large gene banks.
This dilemma has been dealt with through the increasing use of “blanket consent”. Although onetime consents simplify the research process, the legal challenges associated with them have been underplayed. Because blanket consents are necessarily vague, they are too general to have much legal weight. Moreover, they do not allow patients to act meaningfully on their continuing right to control their health information. As such, most types of blanket consent fall “far short of true informed consent” (Greely 1999).
Given this legal uncertainty, adopting comprehensive blanket consent policies will require many countries to change their existing consent laws, requiring statutory amendments or legislation. However, creating new consent policy poses several significant challenges. First, there is some evidence that the public would not feel comfortable with a lowering of the legal standard to facilitate research. Indeed, a survey in 2001 of Canadians found that 90% strongly agree (61%) or agree (29%) that genetic information is different and that rules governing access to it should be stricter (Report for the BADMCC 2001).
Second, jurisdictional variation in how this consent issue is addressed could add to the challenge of organizing large, multi-site research initiatives. In Canada,for example, the handling of health information is a provincial matter. As such each of the ten provinces will need to craft legislation to address
this topic.
Finally, governments need to consider carefully the broader social impact of changing consent law. Is it really time to jettison the well-established autonomydriven view of consent? What additional safeguards will be needed to make such a change ethically sound?

(Timothy Caulfield, Extraído de Nature Reviews/Genetics)

Vocabulário para a questão.

• gene banks = bancos de genes
• blanket consent = consentimento sem restrições
• understandably = compreensivelmente
• to require = exigir
• value = valor
• links = elos, ligações
• health data = dados de saúde
• gene-environment interactions = interações genético-ambientais
• challenges = desafios
• highlighted = enfatizados
• report = relatório
• however = entretanto
• issue = questão
• laws = leis
• to allow = permitir
• to withdraw = retirar
• sample = amostra
• anytime = a qualquer hora
• to be dealt with = ser tratado
• one-time consents = novos consentimentos
• to be underplayed = ser diminuído (em importância)
• weight = peso
• moreover = além do mais
• meaningfully = significativamente, expressivamente
• right = direito
• as such = como tal
• to fall far short = ficar muito aquém
• comprehensive = amplo
• policies = políticas
• statutory = regulamentadas, legais
• amendments = emendas
• to pose = representar
• lowering = diminuição
• indeed = na verdade
• survey = levantamento, pesquisa
• to strongly agree = concordar plenamente
• rules = regras
• stricter = mais rígido
• to be addressed = ser dirigido, tratado
• to add = adicionar, somar
• handling = manejo, manipulação
• matter = questão, assunto
• to craft = elaborar
• carefully = cuidadosamente, com atenção
• broader = mais amplo
• to jettison = livrar-se de
• safeguards = garantias
• sound = perfeito

Leia o texto Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health

By Eric Nagourney
Want a snapshot of your health? Try looking across the breakfast table. A new study finds a strong association between the health of husbands and wives.
The study, in the October issue of Social Science & Medicine, said a man in his early 50’s in excellent health had about a 5 percent chance of being married to someone whose health was only fair. He has a 2 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health. But a man in poor health, the researchers found, has a 24 percent chance of being married to a woman in fair health and a 13 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health.
The author of the study, Dr. Sven E. Wilson, an economist at Brigham Young University, said there were many possible reasons for the findings, one as simple as human nature. “We don’t marry random people,” Dr. Wilson said. “We marry kind of like us.”
But many other factors may also play a role. Some are economic: poor and less educated people tend to be in worse health. Married people are also more likely to follow the same kinds of diets, for better or for worse, or to smoke if their spouse does. And if one spouse is ill, the stress this creates may affect the health of the other. Couples also share environmental risks, Dr. Wilson said, breathing the same air and being exposed to the same germs.
The study was based on data collected from more than 4,700 couples in their 50’s who took part in a 1992 nationwide survey. Dr. Wilson said its findings suggest that medical providers treating ill patients should broaden their gaze. “We treat illness and disease as something that happens to individuals,” he said. “ It doesn’t. It happens to families.”

(Extraído de http:// www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/health/10PATT.html)

Vocabulário para a questão

• patterns = padrões
• spouses = cônjuges
• to share = compartilhar
• health = saúde
• snapshot = instantâneo
• issue = edição
• in his early 50’s = de 50 e poucos anos
• fair = satisfatória
• poor health = saúde precária
• findings = achados, descobertas
• random = ao acaso, aleatoriamente
• kind of like us = do tipo da gente
• to play a role = desempenhar um papel (uma função)
• worse = pior
• more likely to = mais propensos a
• ill = doente
• environmental risks = riscos ambientais
• to breathe = respirar
• to be exposed to = estar exposto a
• data = dados
• couples = casais
• to take part in = participar de
• nationwide survey = pesquisa nacional
• to broaden = ampliar
• gaze = maneira de ver
• illness / disease = doença

Leia o texto Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health

By Eric Nagourney
Want a snapshot of your health? Try looking across the breakfast table. A new study finds a strong association between the health of husbands and wives.
The study, in the October issue of Social Science & Medicine, said a man in his early 50’s in excellent health had about a 5 percent chance of being married to someone whose health was only fair. He has a 2 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health. But a man in poor health, the researchers found, has a 24 percent chance of being married to a woman in fair health and a 13 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health.
The author of the study, Dr. Sven E. Wilson, an economist at Brigham Young University, said there were many possible reasons for the findings, one as simple as human nature. “We don’t marry random people,” Dr. Wilson said. “We marry kind of like us.”
But many other factors may also play a role. Some are economic: poor and less educated people tend to be in worse health. Married people are also more likely to follow the same kinds of diets, for better or for worse, or to smoke if their spouse does. And if one spouse is ill, the stress this creates may affect the health of the other. Couples also share environmental risks, Dr. Wilson said, breathing the same air and being exposed to the same germs.
The study was based on data collected from more than 4,700 couples in their 50’s who took part in a 1992 nationwide survey. Dr. Wilson said its findings suggest that medical providers treating ill patients should broaden their gaze. “We treat illness and disease as something that happens to individuals,” he said. “ It doesn’t. It happens to families.”

(Extraído de http:// www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/health/10PATT.html)

Vocabulário para a questão

• patterns = padrões
• spouses = cônjuges
• to share = compartilhar
• health = saúde
• snapshot = instantâneo
• issue = edição
• in his early 50’s = de 50 e poucos anos
• fair = satisfatória
• poor health = saúde precária
• findings = achados, descobertas
• random = ao acaso, aleatoriamente
• kind of like us = do tipo da gente
• to play a role = desempenhar um papel (uma função)
• worse = pior
• more likely to = mais propensos a
• ill = doente
• environmental risks = riscos ambientais
• to breathe = respirar
• to be exposed to = estar exposto a
• data = dados
• couples = casais
• to take part in = participar de
• nationwide survey = pesquisa nacional
• to broaden = ampliar
• gaze = maneira de ver
• illness / disease = doença

Leia o texto Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health

By Eric Nagourney
Want a snapshot of your health? Try looking across the breakfast table. A new study finds a strong association between the health of husbands and wives.
The study, in the October issue of Social Science & Medicine, said a man in his early 50’s in excellent health had about a 5 percent chance of being married to someone whose health was only fair. He has a 2 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health. But a man in poor health, the researchers found, has a 24 percent chance of being married to a woman in fair health and a 13 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health.
The author of the study, Dr. Sven E. Wilson, an economist at Brigham Young University, said there were many possible reasons for the findings, one as simple as human nature. “We don’t marry random people,” Dr. Wilson said. “We marry kind of like us.”
But many other factors may also play a role. Some are economic: poor and less educated people tend to be in worse health. Married people are also more likely to follow the same kinds of diets, for better or for worse, or to smoke if their spouse does. And if one spouse is ill, the stress this creates may affect the health of the other. Couples also share environmental risks, Dr. Wilson said, breathing the same air and being exposed to the same germs.
The study was based on data collected from more than 4,700 couples in their 50’s who took part in a 1992 nationwide survey. Dr. Wilson said its findings suggest that medical providers treating ill patients should broaden their gaze. “We treat illness and disease as something that happens to individuals,” he said. “ It doesn’t. It happens to families.”

(Extraído de http:// www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/health/10PATT.html)

Vocabulário para a questão

• patterns = padrões
• spouses = cônjuges
• to share = compartilhar
• health = saúde
• snapshot = instantâneo
• issue = edição
• in his early 50’s = de 50 e poucos anos
• fair = satisfatória
• poor health = saúde precária
• findings = achados, descobertas
• random = ao acaso, aleatoriamente
• kind of like us = do tipo da gente
• to play a role = desempenhar um papel (uma função)
• worse = pior
• more likely to = mais propensos a
• ill = doente
• environmental risks = riscos ambientais
• to breathe = respirar
• to be exposed to = estar exposto a
• data = dados
• couples = casais
• to take part in = participar de
• nationwide survey = pesquisa nacional
• to broaden = ampliar
• gaze = maneira de ver
• illness / disease = doença

Leia o texto Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health

By Eric Nagourney
Want a snapshot of your health? Try looking across the breakfast table. A new study finds a strong association between the health of husbands and wives.
The study, in the October issue of Social Science & Medicine, said a man in his early 50’s in excellent health had about a 5 percent chance of being married to someone whose health was only fair. He has a 2 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health. But a man in poor health, the researchers found, has a 24 percent chance of being married to a woman in fair health and a 13 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health.
The author of the study, Dr. Sven E. Wilson, an economist at Brigham Young University, said there were many possible reasons for the findings, one as simple as human nature. “We don’t marry random people,” Dr. Wilson said. “We marry kind of like us.”
But many other factors may also play a role. Some are economic: poor and less educated people tend to be in worse health. Married people are also more likely to follow the same kinds of diets, for better or for worse, or to smoke if their spouse does. And if one spouse is ill, the stress this creates may affect the health of the other. Couples also share environmental risks, Dr. Wilson said, breathing the same air and being exposed to the same germs.
The study was based on data collected from more than 4,700 couples in their 50’s who took part in a 1992 nationwide survey. Dr. Wilson said its findings suggest that medical providers treating ill patients should broaden their gaze. “We treat illness and disease as something that happens to individuals,” he said. “ It doesn’t. It happens to families.”

(Extraído de http:// www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/health/10PATT.html)

Vocabulário para a questão

• patterns = padrões
• spouses = cônjuges
• to share = compartilhar
• health = saúde
• snapshot = instantâneo
• issue = edição
• in his early 50’s = de 50 e poucos anos
• fair = satisfatória
• poor health = saúde precária
• findings = achados, descobertas
• random = ao acaso, aleatoriamente
• kind of like us = do tipo da gente
• to play a role = desempenhar um papel (uma função)
• worse = pior
• more likely to = mais propensos a
• ill = doente
• environmental risks = riscos ambientais
• to breathe = respirar
• to be exposed to = estar exposto a
• data = dados
• couples = casais
• to take part in = participar de
• nationwide survey = pesquisa nacional
• to broaden = ampliar
• gaze = maneira de ver
• illness / disease = doença

Leia o texto Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health e responda a questão, identificando a alternativa correta, com base nas informações fornecidas.

Patterns: Spouses Also Share State of Health

By Eric Nagourney
Want a snapshot of your health? Try looking across the breakfast table. A new study finds a strong association between the health of husbands and wives.
The study, in the October issue of Social Science & Medicine, said a man in his early 50’s in excellent health had about a 5 percent chance of being married to someone whose health was only fair. He has a 2 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health. But a man in poor health, the researchers found, has a 24 percent chance of being married to a woman in fair health and a 13 percent chance of being married to a woman in poor health.
The author of the study, Dr. Sven E. Wilson, an economist at Brigham Young University, said there were many possible reasons for the findings, one as simple as human nature. “We don’t marry random people,” Dr. Wilson said. “We marry kind of like us.”
But many other factors may also play a role. Some are economic: poor and less educated people tend to be in worse health. Married people are also more likely to follow the same kinds of diets, for better or for worse, or to smoke if their spouse does. And if one spouse is ill, the stress this creates may affect the health of the other. Couples also share environmental risks, Dr. Wilson said, breathing the same air and being exposed to the same germs.
The study was based on data collected from more than 4,700 couples in their 50’s who took part in a 1992 nationwide survey. Dr. Wilson said its findings suggest that medical providers treating ill patients should broaden their gaze. “We treat illness and disease as something that happens to individuals,” he said. “ It doesn’t. It happens to families.”

(Extraído de http:// www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/health/10PATT.html)

Vocabulário para a questão

• patterns = padrões
• spouses = cônjuges
• to share = compartilhar
• health = saúde
• snapshot = instantâneo
• issue = edição
• in his early 50’s = de 50 e poucos anos
• fair = satisfatória
• poor health = saúde precária
• findings = achados, descobertas
• random = ao acaso, aleatoriamente
• kind of like us = do tipo da gente
• to play a role = desempenhar um papel (uma função)
• worse = pior
• more likely to = mais propensos a
• ill = doente
• environmental risks = riscos ambientais
• to breathe = respirar
• to be exposed to = estar exposto a
• data = dados
• couples = casais
• to take part in = participar de
• nationwide survey = pesquisa nacional
• to broaden = ampliar
• gaze = maneira de ver
• illness / disease = doença