A hacker who claims to have stolen the health records of over 8.3 million Virginia residents is demanding $10 million for their return.The case is now being investigated by federal and state authorities.
The secure site run by the Virginia Department of Health Professions for the prescription monitoring program was hacked on last Thursday. The site is shut down since then as the hacker posted a message demanding ransom.The hacker claimed to have deleted the original database and created an encrypted backup copy .The state authorities have started an investigation and it is unclear whether the database is secure or not.
The Prescription Monitoring Program is administered by the Virginia Department of Health Professionals.It collects information about every prescription for certain federally controlled drugs dispensed by Virginia pharmacies. Virginia had established the prescription monitoring database in 2003 to track the sales of controlled substances.
The ransom demands were posted by the hacker in the open Wikileaks.org. It read
I have your s***! In *my* possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh :(For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password.You have 7 days to decide. If by the end of 7 days, you decide not to pony up, I’ll go ahead and put this baby out on the market and accept the highest bid.
Sandra Whitley Ryals, director of the Department of Health Profession said the database was backed up properly and the data was safe.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Man freezes off his 'hated' right leg
An Australian man who had hated his right leg plunged it in a bucket of dry ice for six hours so doctors had to amputate his leg.
David Openshaw, 29, had "hated" his right leg for the past 25 years. According to him, he suffered from a rare neurological condition called body integrity identity disorder (BIID), which sufferers claim is a medical condition characterized by an overwhelming desire to lose a limb or become a paraplegic.
Openshaw got his leg amputated last year and gets about on crutches now. He said that he had no regrets about being on crutches.
I had all these years of constantly having mind games with myself and then this one day, out of the blue, it's no longer there.It took quite a little bit to get used to.
It is believed that there are many people around who have BIID, although many psychologists refuse to recognize it as a genuine identity trait..Many of the sufferers have amputated their healthy organs on their own. In 2000, Scottish surgeon Robert Smith had performed several amputations for many BIID sufferers, who according to him would have taken their own lives unless their demand for amputation was not met. Later he was ordered to stop.
David Openshaw, 29, had "hated" his right leg for the past 25 years. According to him, he suffered from a rare neurological condition called body integrity identity disorder (BIID), which sufferers claim is a medical condition characterized by an overwhelming desire to lose a limb or become a paraplegic.
Openshaw got his leg amputated last year and gets about on crutches now. He said that he had no regrets about being on crutches.
I had all these years of constantly having mind games with myself and then this one day, out of the blue, it's no longer there.It took quite a little bit to get used to.
It is believed that there are many people around who have BIID, although many psychologists refuse to recognize it as a genuine identity trait..Many of the sufferers have amputated their healthy organs on their own. In 2000, Scottish surgeon Robert Smith had performed several amputations for many BIID sufferers, who according to him would have taken their own lives unless their demand for amputation was not met. Later he was ordered to stop.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Hong Kong reports first confirmed flu case, quarantines hotel
The first confirmed case of swine flu in Asia was reported on Friday after a Mexican man who had travelled to Hong Kong via Shanghai tested positive for the virus.
Authorities in Hong Kong ordered a week long quarantine of a Hotel after lab tests confirmed that a 25-year-old visitor from Mexico who arrived from Shanghai had the disease. The traveler and his two companions are put under observation, although his companions didn't show any symptoms of the deadly disease.The man had arrived at the Hotel on Thursday afternoon.
Donald Tsang,the chief executive of Hong Kong said:
I ask that the Hong Kong people not be afraid — the government has the fortitude to effectively contain the virus before it spreads.
Hong Kong case is the first confirmed case of swine flu in Asia,although South Korea had reported three probable cases of the disease.
Hong Kong was severely hit by the SARS virus in 2003, with 300 deaths reported in the city alone. SARS had killed more than 900 all over the world.So Hong Kong is taking no chances with the new virus.It has stockpiled Tamiflu vaccines equal to three times its population, the highest in the world.
Meanwhile, China decided to suspend flights from Mexico to Shanghai after the confirmation of swine flu in Hong Kong .It will send a charter plane to Mexico to collect Chinese passengers who had planned to fly to Shanghai.
Authorities in Hong Kong ordered a week long quarantine of a Hotel after lab tests confirmed that a 25-year-old visitor from Mexico who arrived from Shanghai had the disease. The traveler and his two companions are put under observation, although his companions didn't show any symptoms of the deadly disease.The man had arrived at the Hotel on Thursday afternoon.
Donald Tsang,the chief executive of Hong Kong said:
I ask that the Hong Kong people not be afraid — the government has the fortitude to effectively contain the virus before it spreads.
Hong Kong case is the first confirmed case of swine flu in Asia,although South Korea had reported three probable cases of the disease.
Hong Kong was severely hit by the SARS virus in 2003, with 300 deaths reported in the city alone. SARS had killed more than 900 all over the world.So Hong Kong is taking no chances with the new virus.It has stockpiled Tamiflu vaccines equal to three times its population, the highest in the world.
Meanwhile, China decided to suspend flights from Mexico to Shanghai after the confirmation of swine flu in Hong Kong .It will send a charter plane to Mexico to collect Chinese passengers who had planned to fly to Shanghai.
NASA plans to eliminate 900 manufacturing jobs
NASA has announced plans to cut 900 manufacturing jobs as it prepares to retire its space shuttle fleet next year.The layoffs will be between now and the end of September.
The job losses come as NASA plans to retire its space shuttle fleet in September 2010.The three shuttles have just nine more flights to go between them before their retirement. According to NASA officials, The first 160 layoff notices will go out on Friday. Majority of the job cuts will be among the contractors producing the space shuttle fuel tanks outside New Orleans and the shuttle solid rocket boosters in Utah.
Announcing the plans on Thursday, shuttle Program Manager John Shannon said:
We have delivered the last pieces of hardware that those team members produce and we don't keep them on the (payroll). And that is in order to get our budget down to the marks and the assumptions we made early on. So we will start tomorrow and continue with the workforce reduction we had outlined.
NASA's workforce has come down significantly from a high of 24,000 in the nineties to about 13,800 now. More job losses are expected as NASA plans to replace the shuttles with Apollo-style capsules.
Some manufacturing jobs are expected to be created to build the shuttle's replacement, new capsule spaceships, named Orion.Money for developing Orion and its launcher, called Ares, is coming from funds that previously went toward shuttle operations and station construction. Orion is expected to make its debut by 2015.
The job losses come as NASA plans to retire its space shuttle fleet in September 2010.The three shuttles have just nine more flights to go between them before their retirement. According to NASA officials, The first 160 layoff notices will go out on Friday. Majority of the job cuts will be among the contractors producing the space shuttle fuel tanks outside New Orleans and the shuttle solid rocket boosters in Utah.
Announcing the plans on Thursday, shuttle Program Manager John Shannon said:
We have delivered the last pieces of hardware that those team members produce and we don't keep them on the (payroll). And that is in order to get our budget down to the marks and the assumptions we made early on. So we will start tomorrow and continue with the workforce reduction we had outlined.
NASA's workforce has come down significantly from a high of 24,000 in the nineties to about 13,800 now. More job losses are expected as NASA plans to replace the shuttles with Apollo-style capsules.
Some manufacturing jobs are expected to be created to build the shuttle's replacement, new capsule spaceships, named Orion.Money for developing Orion and its launcher, called Ares, is coming from funds that previously went toward shuttle operations and station construction. Orion is expected to make its debut by 2015.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Study: Action-filled video games boost eyesight
A recent study shows that playing action video games can boost part of eyesight called contrast sensitivity, one of the first parts of vision to be affected by aging.
Contrast sensitivity is the the ability to notice even minor changes in shades of grey against a uniform background which helps people in night driving. This ability is lost by ageing and by conditions such as such as amblyopia, also known as 'lazy eye'.
The research was conducted by a team comprising of Professors from Rochester University in New York ,Goldschleger Eye Research Institute and Tel Aviv University. The study says that that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently.
For the study, a group of students were divided into two groups. One group played the action games "Call of Duty 2" by Activision Blizzard Inc and Epic Games' "Unreal Tournament 2004." A second played Electronic Arts Inc's "The Sims 2," a game they said does not require as much hand-eye coordination.
The two groups played 50 hours of their assigned games over a time period of nine weeks. At the end of the training, those playing action games saw their ability to discern contrast improve by between 43 and 58 per cent, while the other group of players didn't show any improvement in their contrast sensitivity.
Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester who led the study team said:
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that contrast sensitivity can be improved by simple training.When people play action games, they're changing the brain's pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it, and we've seen the positive effect remains even two years after the training was over".
According to the study report, action video-game training may be a useful complement to eye-correction techniques.
Contrast sensitivity is the the ability to notice even minor changes in shades of grey against a uniform background which helps people in night driving. This ability is lost by ageing and by conditions such as such as amblyopia, also known as 'lazy eye'.
The research was conducted by a team comprising of Professors from Rochester University in New York ,Goldschleger Eye Research Institute and Tel Aviv University. The study says that that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently.
For the study, a group of students were divided into two groups. One group played the action games "Call of Duty 2" by Activision Blizzard Inc and Epic Games' "Unreal Tournament 2004." A second played Electronic Arts Inc's "The Sims 2," a game they said does not require as much hand-eye coordination.
The two groups played 50 hours of their assigned games over a time period of nine weeks. At the end of the training, those playing action games saw their ability to discern contrast improve by between 43 and 58 per cent, while the other group of players didn't show any improvement in their contrast sensitivity.
Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester who led the study team said:
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that contrast sensitivity can be improved by simple training.When people play action games, they're changing the brain's pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it, and we've seen the positive effect remains even two years after the training was over".
According to the study report, action video-game training may be a useful complement to eye-correction techniques.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Burning car rammed into French synagogue
A car rammed the doors of a synagogue in Toulouse in southern France on Monday night, causing the building to catch fire. Nobody was hurt in the blaze
A car packed with petrol bombs was set on fire and pushed by another car into a synagogue. At the time of the attack, twelve people were attending a lecture given from a rabbi. The synagogue door caught fire, but there was no other damage. No arrests have been made by the police till now.
The attack appears to be a spill over of anger over Israel's attacks in Gaza. France has the largest community of Muslims and Jews in Western Europe. The attack comes just one day after French defence minister met Jewish and Muslim community leaders requesting to stay away from violence.
Dominique Sopo, the head of France's main anti-racist movement SOS Racisme condemned the incident.
Those who want to import the Middle East conflict over here aren't helping the Israelis or the Palestinians, unless they can explain why hitting a Jew here improves the situation in Gaza, or how Arab-bashing helps protect Israel.
France has seen an increase in Anti-semitic violence since 2002 when Israel launched it's offensive on West Bank. Over 2,000 Jews have left France for Israel since 2002 as they felt insecure in France. France which had seen rioting by North African immigrants in the past fear more such incidents if the situation in Gaza deteriorates further. An Anti-Israel demonstration held on Monday in Paris had turned violent with the demonstrators torching cars and vandalizing several shops.
A car packed with petrol bombs was set on fire and pushed by another car into a synagogue. At the time of the attack, twelve people were attending a lecture given from a rabbi. The synagogue door caught fire, but there was no other damage. No arrests have been made by the police till now.
The attack appears to be a spill over of anger over Israel's attacks in Gaza. France has the largest community of Muslims and Jews in Western Europe. The attack comes just one day after French defence minister met Jewish and Muslim community leaders requesting to stay away from violence.
Dominique Sopo, the head of France's main anti-racist movement SOS Racisme condemned the incident.
Those who want to import the Middle East conflict over here aren't helping the Israelis or the Palestinians, unless they can explain why hitting a Jew here improves the situation in Gaza, or how Arab-bashing helps protect Israel.
France has seen an increase in Anti-semitic violence since 2002 when Israel launched it's offensive on West Bank. Over 2,000 Jews have left France for Israel since 2002 as they felt insecure in France. France which had seen rioting by North African immigrants in the past fear more such incidents if the situation in Gaza deteriorates further. An Anti-Israel demonstration held on Monday in Paris had turned violent with the demonstrators torching cars and vandalizing several shops.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Contraceptive pill is polluting environment : Vatican newspaper
A report in the semi-official Vatican newspaper claims that contraceptive pill is polluting the environment and is a key cause for the increase in male infertility.
L'Osservatore Romano ( The Roman Observer) is the semi-official Vatican newspaper published from Vatican. It covers views from important churchmen and runs official documents released from the Pope.
A report published in the newspaper by Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, claimed that they have enough evidence that contraceptive pill is a cause for male infertility. According to the report, the Pill is responsible for releasing tons of hormones into nature through female urine, polluting the environment . It quotes various WHO reports for substantiating it's claim.
The report says
We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill. We are faced with a clear anti-environmental effect which demands more explanation on the part of the manufacturers.
Many organisations have dismissed the claims made by the report saying it as baseless. Gianbenedetto Melis, vice-president of a contraceptive research association said.
Once metabolised, the hormones contained in oral contraceptives no longer have any of the characteristic effects of feminine hormones.
Over the years, Vatican has been against the use of contraceptives equating it to abortion. Many Women's rights organizations have voiced their concern over Vatican's stand on issues such as emergency contraception to rape victims.
L'Osservatore Romano ( The Roman Observer) is the semi-official Vatican newspaper published from Vatican. It covers views from important churchmen and runs official documents released from the Pope.
A report published in the newspaper by Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, claimed that they have enough evidence that contraceptive pill is a cause for male infertility. According to the report, the Pill is responsible for releasing tons of hormones into nature through female urine, polluting the environment . It quotes various WHO reports for substantiating it's claim.
The report says
We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill. We are faced with a clear anti-environmental effect which demands more explanation on the part of the manufacturers.
Many organisations have dismissed the claims made by the report saying it as baseless. Gianbenedetto Melis, vice-president of a contraceptive research association said.
Once metabolised, the hormones contained in oral contraceptives no longer have any of the characteristic effects of feminine hormones.
Over the years, Vatican has been against the use of contraceptives equating it to abortion. Many Women's rights organizations have voiced their concern over Vatican's stand on issues such as emergency contraception to rape victims.
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