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![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) 30toseoul | |
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Wow. We got this forwarded message from the Russians today about a fire earlier this week. (They're maybe 900 1,000 miles away so we had no reason to hear about it sooner; we could get to the moon about as easily as we could help another station on the continent.) Katie sent it around with reminders to be vigilant and to give our full attention to turning over emergency response duties to the new people when they arrive. Dear COMNAP members,
With great regret I have to inform you that at night on 5 October around 2.00 Moscow time (4.00 local time) there was a fire at Progress station in the two-storeyed living building. The station team was not able to cope with the fire by their own efforts and the building was completely destroyed by fire. The station team comprised 29 people including 10 builders. As a result of the fire, one person is missing (the body was not yet found) and two persons were injured (fractures of different gravity). All three people are from the construction team. The injured people are now at the medical unit of the station. On 7 October the Progress personnel began dismantling the collapsed structures and probably they will find the body of the third builder at this place. Most of communication facilities and part of scientific equipment including all PCs were destroyed. At present the station team (28 people) lives in the old small houses left by previous builders. The fire did not spread to the other station facilities, so we have the mess-hall and the galley, the medical unit, "warm" and "cold" warehouses, all transport vehicles and also the facilities of the new wintering station under construction (diesel-electric power station, garage and repair shops, a bath-house, a heli-pad, fuel storage and the carcass of the new building). All food, fuel and medical supplies were preserved. The people are provided with normal meals, polar clothing and medical service. The station continues to fulfil the program on geomagnetism, partly on coastal oceanography and hydrography. Meteorological observations and receiving satellite information were temporarily stopped. The Progress station now has HF radio-communication and telephone satellite communication via Iridium and RAE daily communicates with the station and Progress station communicates with Mirny or Vostok stations twice a day. We are very grateful to Chinese colleagues from Zhongshan station for their immense help and various assisstance provided after the fire. The Zhongshan station is at a distance of 1.5 km from Progress station in the Larsemann Hills on the coast of Prydz Bay. The burnt building was built in 1991. RAE plans to organize a flight of BT67 airplane from Novolazarevskaya station in early December. If the state of the injured people aggravates, RAE will make this flight in early November for evacuating these people. The R/V "Akademik Fedorov" will approach the Progress station on 20 December and deliver the necessary equipment and supplies and new personnel.
So far the cause of the fire was not determined. We have informed all our wintering stations about this accident with the request to check all equipment and safety emergency action plans.
We are not asking the Antarctic community for help as the situation at the station is not critical and station continues operation.
Have a good Antarctic season.
Best wishes.
Valery Lukin
RAE Head
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elfs | |
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Quoted in full. Kerry doesn't have ads, so I don't feel guilty, but you can drop him a line if you feel the need: There is a massive gap between Obama’s actual rhetoric and the conservative portrayal of him as some sort of naive, starry-eyed internationalist. There is no globalist in this election, naive or otherwise. There is the candidate who insists that foreigners are bloodthirsty killers, and the one who keeps reminding you that foreigners will shutter your factories, poison your children, and destroy your domestic motorcycle industry. Yes, yes, I realize that we aren’t supposed to listen when the Obama campaign depicts economic engagement as un-American. That’s just smoke and mirrors for some nice folks in Michigan; the rest of us are supposed to shove our fingers in our ears, dream of container ships, and wait for Austan Goolsbee to fix the whole thing later. The problem with this approach is that every time Barack Obama says something intelligent about trade, some guy in Ohio plugs his own ears and waits for Obama to stop pandering to globe-trotting pansies too weak to build their own vehicles or churn their own butter. The only thing I know about Obama is that he is less scary than the other guy.
McCain’s bloodlusty glory-and-honor-at-any-cost orientation terrifies me. On the other hand, I’m reasonably hopeful that Obama will emerge a calculating and not at all honorable politician, thus talking the protectionist talk and doing nothing to advance an economics of resentment. I have a largely unjustified faith in Obama’s faithlessness, which is why I am voting for him. Tags: shrill
Current Mood:  thoughtful
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mzrowan | |
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This whole ovulating kick I've been on for the past year has led me to discover the joys of relaxin. In brief, relaxin is a hormone that helps to break down collagen and suppress its production. In women it's primarily produced by the corpus luteum after ovulation; in men, by the prostate. Men generally have lower levels of relaxin. Why am I excited about it? Collagen is a primary component of tendons. My tendons, particularly in the hips and hamstrings, have always been ridiculously tight. Over the past year, for two weeks of every month, I have felt them give a little. And if I take advantage of that to do some careful stretching, each month they tighten up a little less, and next month they give a little more. Last night I put my hands flat on the floor while doing a wide-legged forward bend with straight legs. Six months ago I would have bet you $1000 that I would never be able to do that. Note the emphasis on careful stretching: it is much easier for me to over-stretch during my relaxin time. Being able to feel the difference between stretching far enough and too far is a subtle thing that you just have to develop over time by paying attention to how your body feels while you stretch (and the day after you stretch). I actually knew I was over-stretching a bit last night with that hands-on-floor thing; I just couldn't resist when I realized it was so close. And I'm paying for it today with mildly traumatized hamstrings. Over-stretching does not help one get more flexible; scar tissue isn't bendy. Interestingly, there isn't much information out there about relaxin compared to the other hormones, and almost nothing about how it may affect (and help or hurt) people who are physically active. This page mentions this: "Also reported in some of the literature is an increase in musculoskeletal and joint injuries during [the luteal phase] of the menstrual cycle. ... One theory is a relationship of increased relaxin levels and increased flexibility and elasticity of connective tissue, such as in articular joints." Synthetic human relaxin is available by prescription. The on-label use for it is with a certain skin condition caused by too much collagen. I wonder if anybody who works for Cirque du Soleil is getting it prescribed to them for certain off-label uses...I wonder if anyone I know has an accommodating doctor who might do the same for them, as an experiment. You can get porcine relaxin for mega-bucks. Having seen mixed comments from the medical establishment on how effective non-human relaxin is in humans, I am dubious. I am especially dubious when they say things like "The hormone is necessary to maintain the integrity of collagen and connective tissue" and "Relaxin hormone causes thickening of the epidermis by promoting skin cell renewal, so that cells divide at a rate typical of younger skin," which seem to be the opposite of what it actually does. The same person recommends you spend mega-bucks on his product if you have fibromyalgia, which would seem to make more sense, if porcine relaxin were effective in humans. He himself says that it was pulled from the market in the late sixties because the manufacturer couldn't prove its effectiveness in humans. So, um, yeah. And the only references I can find to using relaxin to treat fibromyalgia are from that one guy, so take that with a grain of double-blind salt. To my local university-library-connected friends: I'd love to get my hands on a copy of this, particularly the article about the relationship of relaxin to knee laxity in athletes, and also this, on the effectiveness of porcine relaxin in humans. Tags: life, links, yoga
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