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One of the most interesting features of Google’s new social media service, Google+, is Google+ Hangout On Air. A group of people get onto G+ all at once, fire up their computers’ cameras, and have a conversation. Google puts whoever is speaking at the moment on the main screen. You can join a hangout if it’s public or if you have an invitation, and–coolest of all–it automatically records the conversation and throws it onto Youtube.

Right now only a few people have access to this service. I jealously watched fellow Discover blogger Phil Plait talk about exoplanets last month. (You can too.) And then I got invited to join the folks at the Singularity Hub for a hangout, too. It’s up on Youtube, and you can also see it embedded here below. We talked about all sorts of things–from mind-controlling parasites to bird flu to using viruses to cure antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the future of ebooks and much more.

I deeply crave this technology. I used to participate in a primitive forerunner of this, known as Bloggingheads. I bowed out due to editorial differences, but I still think the basic system is an exciting medium. I hope Google opens up their Hangout On Air service to more people, because it could be a whole lot of fun.

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Parasite mind-control, ebooks, and killer flu: My first Google+ Hangout video | The Loom

Newt Gingrich was wrong when he accused the “elite media” of failing to ask Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign about his votes “in favor of infanticide.” In fact, there were reams of mainstream media reports about Obama’s votes as an Illinois state senator on the “born alive” legislation to which Gingrich refers.

Gingrich made his accusation during the Feb. 22 Arizona debate, trying to turn the tables on debate moderator John King’s question about the birth-control issue.

Gingrich: But I just want to point out, you did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody in the elite media ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide.

Gingrich’s claim about “legalizing infanticide” goes back to 2004, when Obama’s Republican opponent for the U.S. Senate, Alan Keyes, claimed Obama’s votes amounted to infanticide, and hence, “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama.” And some of Obama’s critics raised the issue again in his 2008 presidential run, as was well publicized.

We’ll offer our own article on the subject as Exhibit A. We noted that the issue centered on Obama’s opposition to Illinois legislation in 2001, 2002 and 2003 that would have defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a “born alive infant” entitled to legal protection, even if doctors believed it could not survive.

Obama said he opposed the 2001 and 2002 “born alive” bills as backdoor attacks on a woman’s legal right to abortion. Obama also noted that Illinois law already required physicians to protect the life of a fetus when there is “a reasonable likelihood of sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb, with or without artificial support.”

He accused his critics of “lying” about his position, and said he would have been “fully in support” of a similar federal bill that President Bush had signed in 2002, because it contained protections for Roe v. Wade. But we found reason to question that. Our story noted that Obama had actually voted in committee against a 2003 state bill that was nearly identical to the federal act he says he would have supported. Both contained identical clauses saying that nothing in the bills could be construed to affect legal rights of an unborn fetus, according to an undisputed summary written immediately after the committee’s 2003 mark-up session.

Whether the votes amounted to “infanticide” is a matter of interpretation. But we note that the sponsor of the “born alive” bill, former Illinois state Sen. Rick Winkel, wrote in a Chicago Tribune letter to the editor on Sept. 5, 2008, “None of those who voted against SB-1082 favored infanticide. Rather their zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive.”

Obama was confronted on the issue by the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody. His response — “people are lying” — was reported and discussed in a number of newspapers including the Washington Post and the Oregonian. And the issue of Obama’s votes was explored in detail in such newspapers as the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times.

The issue also came up during one of the 2008 presidential debates, when Sen. John McCain raised it, and CBS’ Bob Schieffer, the debate moderator, asked Obama to respond. Obama said, in part, “If it sounds incredible that I would vote to withhold lifesaving treatment from an infant, that’s because it’s not true.”

The Obama campaign even addressed the issue in a campaign ad in 2008, in which the narrator says Obama’s opponents took votes out of context to accuse Obama of “letting infants die,” an accusation the narrator calls “a despicable lie.”

We take no position on whether Obama’s explanation — that his votes were based on a desire to preserve abortion rights — passes muster. But contrary to Gingrich’s blustery outburst, the issue was hardly ignored by the mainstream media.

– Robert Farley

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Did ‘Elite Media’ Ignore ‘Infanticide’?

22-02-2012 11:51 The Everyone Gives campaign allows you to rally support for your favorite causes, while encouraging your friends to do the same.

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'Everyone Gives' Uses Social Networking To Help Charities - Video

Our peers could best be described as the cyber generation. Year after year, we delve further into the Internet. Be it for academic purposes or a simple hello, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are a dominant force in shaping our activities.

Yet our generation is also criticized for succumbing to that very influence. Common criticisms include that we are too obsessed with social networking, we avoid social interaction and compensate by social networking, and we waste precious time on the web instead of being productive. Though I understand these are legitimate concerns, there are some substantial benefits of Facebook and Twitter, especially for college students, that many critics ignore.

At the University, social networking is playing a greater role in public communications. For example, the University’s College of Arts and Sciences has a Facebook page where the College administration posts new, upcoming class, research and internship opportunities which are available. Facebook has become a great mechanism to inform students and keep them up-to-date on College happenings.

The University’s use of social media has further legitimized such websites as an authentic source of communicating information at the University. Granted, at first when I found out that the University was on Facebook, I felt this would only increase our interaction with social networking and further glue students to the Internet. But since we are always on Facebook as is, why shouldn’t the University utilize the medium to inform students of things which could benefit them? Furthermore, the page really does supplement other communication mechanisms such as University-wide emails.

Furthermore, my professors are on Twitter. I am enrolled in PLAP 3700: Racial Politics, with Prof. Lynn Sanders, who uses Twitter to convey to us topics and articles relevant to our area of study. “I started using Twitter because I read an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education that said professors should try it,” Sanders said in an email. “Also, lately I’ve been thinking, I better start making an effort to get more modern in my media habits. And, I’d found myself deluging and annoying students with not-all-business emails, like stuff I think is funny … So I started tweeting to replace email, and now, I find twitter is a great way to capture all the scatter, both serious and lighter, that I think connects to Racial Politics.”

In such circumstances, social networking can be used in an interesting manner to further our understanding of the subject matter. While social networking sites do not allow for thorough teaching, short, direct messages do attract a student’s attention and are easy to remember.

On a larger scale, social networking played a significant role during the Arab Spring by spreading the message of revolution and rebellion to the public. Of course, the Arab Spring is only one example of social media making a large impact.

We can also see its importance in the United States. How Republican primary candidates are campaigning on Twitter truly shows its impact in our society. A January 28 New York Times article discussed how Newt Gingrich has been online in hopes of communicating to the public, while Mitt Romney’s team takes to Twitter to better shape perception of the candidate. Twitter, and social networking in general, has undoubtably changed the political playing field and added another dimension in appealing to the electorate.

Yes, I agree we could probably communicate less on Facebook and more in-person. This is especially true if the people with whom we are communicating live within traveling distance. As college students, social interaction is part of this experience. But as our technology becomes more advanced, we will invest more in technology. While social networking sites are important in the life of a student, this does not necessarily mean that we have completely dedicated our lives to social networking.

Critics of social networking have valid arguments. Nevertheless, social networking will remain, whether we like it or not. As a result, it is better to take advantage of it and the efficiencies it provides. I, too, first thought we were too invested in social networking, but that was when I failed to recognize how large an impact social networking could have.

Fariha Kabir’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at f.kabir@cavalierdaily.com.

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Critics of social networking ignore the benefits and political potential such technologies enable

By Jeffrey Norris on February 23, 2012

Alex Monto, MD

Hepatitis C virus — not AIDS-causing HIV — is the leading chronic virus infection leading to death in the United States, and its victims most often are baby boomers. More than half who are infected do not know it.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found in a study published in the February 21 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine that hepatitis C had overtaken HIV as a cause of death in the United States by 2007.

Deaths in the United States due to HIV infection have been steadily decreasing, and  dropped below 13,000 in 2007, while deaths from hepatitis C infection have been steadily increasing, first surpassing 15,000 per year in 2007.

The good news, according to UCSF liver specialist Alex Monto, MD, is that there has been progress in fighting both diseases, and the kinds of drug combination strategies that have done so much to transform HIV infection from a death sentence to a manageable disease are poised to further boost cure rates for those infected with hepatitis C.

“We know that not enough people with risk factors get tested,” Monto says. “There are a lot of people walking around with hepatitis C who don’t know it.”

Monto directs the liver clinic at the UCSF-affiliated San Francisco Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, one of four hepatitis C centers nationally within the VA system. Like boomers, veterans are disproportionately affected by hepatitis C. The VA cares for 165,000 patients who are chronically infected with the virus.

Three Million in U.S. Diagnosed with Hep C

Chronic Hepatitis C has been diagnosed in about three million people in the United States. It often causes no symptoms, and many who have been infected for years or even decades may remain unaware of it until symptoms finally appear. The ultimate cause of death attributable to chronic infection is cirrhosis or liver cancer, although the disease progresses to cirrhosis in fewer than half of cases. There is no vaccine.

“The main risk factor in the United States is past injection-drug use,” Monto says. “The others most at risk are those who received blood transfusions before 1992,” Monto says, referring to the year when high-quality screening of the blood supply was implemented.

Compared to HIV or hepatitis B, the risk of hepatitis C being transmitted by sex is low, Monto says, but among men who have sex with men there has been an increase in reports of the virus being sexually transmitted, more so among those who are infected with HIV.

“Anybody with a history of ever being exposed to injection drugs or who received a transfusion before the blood supply was screened should be tested,” Monto says. “That’s not controversial at all. What has been controversial is whether or not all baby boomers should be screened.”

Another study in this week’s edition of the journal suggests that a one-time blood test ordered by primary care providers to screen for antibodies to hepatitis C in those born between 1945 and 1965 would be cost effective — costing $2,874 for each chronically infected patient identified — and would lead to the identification of more than 800,000 previously undiagnosed cases.

Those who are chronically infected may be able to reduce the likelihood of disease progression by avoiding alcohol, by maintaining a healthy weight, and by being vaccinated against hepatitis A and hepatitis B, Monto says.

Treatment Often Cures Hepatitis C

About four out of five who are infected do not rid themselves of the virus without treatment. For about a decade the standard treatment was a combination of two drugs — pegylated interferon given once per week by subcutaneous injection, and daily ribavirin pills, with treatment lasting from six to 11 months. This treatment represented a vast improvement — offering cure rates of 40 percent to 50 percent in most patients, according to Monto.

Hepatitis C virus. Image by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Within the past year two new drugs of a type known as protease inhibitors have become available. These are valuable for the 75 percent of U.S. hepatitis C patients infected with a form of the virus called genotype 1. With the protease inhibitors added to the mix, the duration of treatment may be shorter, and the cure rate has increased to about 70 percent in patients who have not previously been treated, Monto says. A cure may be less likely for those who have been previously treated, depending on how they responded to earlier treatment.

“New therapies are clearly getting better, and there are probably 25 to 30 new drugs in the pipeline, with many coming out in the next few years,” Monto says. “There are going to be drugs that are better than the ones we have so far.” Several UCSF researchers, including Monto, are helping to evaluate new drugs in clinical trials. UCSF researchers also are investigating the role of the immune system in hepatitis C and hepatitis B infection.

Not to Be Confused with Hepatitis B

Hepatitis B chronically infects about half as many as hepatitis C in the United States, and hits those of Asian descent especially hard — they account for half of hepatitis B infections. Hepatitis B is responsible for about 1,800 deaths yearly in the United States.

Despite the similar names, the two viruses are not closely related. Hepatitis B is spread much more easily through sexual intercourse, and passes from mother to newborn child much more easily. In most adults who become infected the immune system successfully controls infection. Only about five percent of adults exposed to hepatitis B become chronically infected, according to Monto.

There are vaccines for hepatitis B. A UCSF laboratory team led by William Rutter, PhD, now professor emeritus, first demonstrated that an uncontaminated source of material for a hepatitis B vaccine could be obtained by mass-producing viral proteins in genetically engineered, laboratory-grown yeast. This was the groundwork leading to the first marketed genetically engineered vaccine, made by Chiron, a company co-founded by Rutter.

Related Links:

The Increasing Burden of Mortality From Viral Hepatitis in the United States Between 1999 and 2007

The Cost-Effectiveness of Birth-Cohort Screening for Hepatitis C Antibody in U.S. Primary Care Settings

UCSF Liver Center

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Hepatitis C, a Leading Killer, Is Frequently Undiagnosed But Often Curable