Category hompeage

When exposed to direct sunlight, asphalt surfaces are capable of reaching temperatures up to 172 degrees Fahrenheit. Roads and rooftops everywhere bake during the hottest time of the year, creating a “heat island effect.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, heat islands are “built up areas that are hotter than nearby rural areas. The annual mean air temperature of a city with 1 million people or more can be 1.8–5.4°F (1–3°C) warmer than its surroundings. In the evening, the difference can be as high as 22°F (12°C). Heat islands can affect communities by increasing summertime peak energy demand, air conditioning costs, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, heat-related illness and mortality, and water quality.”

Luckily, a new technology might provide a solution. Researchers at the University of Technology in Sydney have developed a new material that can keep roofs cooler than the air above them — even in direct sunlight — thus reducing the effect of heat islands.

“We demonstrate for the first time how to make a roof colder than the air temperature around it, even under the most intense summer conditions,” said study co-author and Emeritus Professor Geoff Smith in a press release.

The super cool material is made of specialized plastics stacked on top of a layer of silver, and reflects 97% of the sunlight that hits it. In other words, it reflects sunlight so well that it doesn’t even warm up.

Compared to the energy efficient roofing materials currently available, the new material stays a whopping 50 degrees cooler.

“Cool roofing reduces the severity of the urban heat island problem in towns and cities and helps eliminate peak power demand problems from the operation of many air conditioners,” said Smith.

Although the material is not yet available to the market, it hopefully will be soon. With a warming planet and massive populations already suffering, the new material may be the key to staying cool in the face of a global inferno.

As the Duluth News Tribune describes it, “The research shows Minnesota is the best state for women, having made progress in key areas since 2004.”

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research is a nonprofit organization, Newsmax states, and researchers collected female-focused data on employment, pay rates, political participation, poverty, educational and professional opportunities, family responsibilities, and health.

Minnesota was ranked in the top 10 for the majority of these issues, and it even took the highest score for women’s health and well-being, primarily because of the state’s low rates of heart disease fatalities and diabetes among women.

The state dropped to 16th place concerning reproductive rights, however, which reflects poorly on the state but which is common for states across the country. In many cases, women have neither the resources nor the money to seek out procedures and preventative measures regarding sexual health, largely because reproductive rights are seen as controversial political topics rather than health issues.

For example, under 40% of sexually-active young women in the U.S. are tested for STIs and STDs like chlamydia, and many schools still abide by “Abstinence Only” education plans for sex ed classes.

Nevertheless, these concerns seem to be insignificant considering how well Minnesota scored in other areas of the recent report: 33% of state legislature positions are held by women, 34% of Minnesotan women have a bachelor’s degree or higher (an 8% improvement from 2000), and the average income of women in the state is about two cents higher than the national income for women.

Although Minnesota may still have many improvements to make before the state truly provides a welcoming environment for women, the most important trend that this data uncovered was that the state continually improved each year in multiple areas.

The Altoona Mirror reports that GACTC is one of the few schools in the country that offers an “Expanded Function Dental Auxiliary” (EFDA) program. The program teaches dental assistants the traditional skills of dental work as well as more sophisticated procedures. Though EFDAs are not permitted to drill teeth, they can place fillings, install temporary crowns and bridges, and perform other dental work that conventional dental assistants cannot.

According to Tom Zajac, the EFDA program coordinator, the purpose of EFDA training is to provide more services to the public previously reserved for dentists. The more EFDAs who graduate from dental schools, the more bridge work and fillings can be performed — without the long waits and appointment dates in dentist offices across the country.

“The thought behind physicians assistants was so that doctors could see more patients every day,” Zajac said. “An EFDA is like a physicians assistant for a dentist.”

The program can be fulfilled in one of two ways: a full-time 10-month program or a part-time 12-weekend program. Though the two options vary in span, they both require the same amount of class and clinical time.

“It’s a very rigorous process because it puts the academic and hands-on (work) together,” Zajac said.

Students interested in the program must complete at least 200 hours of schooling and pass the State Board of Dentistry Exam before acceptance.

One of those students, 19 year-old Ashlee Fagans, said the program puts a heavy emphasis on clinical work.

“I’m more of a hands-on person,” Fagans said. She admitted her favorite part of the program is “definitely working with the patients.”

“I kind of just fell in love with it,” she said.

Dental work, both cosmetic and non-cosmetic, is increasing in popularity in the United States. Three million Americans, for example, have dental implants — with half a million new patients getting them every year.

After the devastating bomb blast in Afghanistan that left Army Staff Sgt. Alex Dillmann paralyzed from the abdomen down, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was there to help with his long recovery. They paid to retrofit Dillman’s Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck so he could drive it, and even bought him a handcycle that would allow him to continue exercising.

While the former squad leader and his wife, Holly, were grateful for the assistance and support, they were also disappointed that the VA wouldn’t help pay for what they wanted the most: a family of their own.

The agency designed to care for former soldiers covers part or all of the cost of treatment for many ailments and conditions veterans may suffer from, but infertility isn’t one of them. The VA does not provide any financial assistance for in vitro fertilization (IVF), which fertility specialists agree offers those with traumatic genital and spinal cord injuries the best chance of having a biological child.

In fact, the VA is legally prohibited from covering IVF costs, under a 23-year-old law. Congress adopted the ban following growing conservative opposition over the ethics surrounding assisted reproductive technology (ART), due to concerns that unused fertilized embryos may be discarded.

Now, however, a bipartisan effort from both veterans and lawmakers is seeking to overturn the ban, which many feel is outdated considering the global acceptance and popularity of IVF. The law predates both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where widespread use of deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against U.S. forces has resulted in far more reproductive injuries than previous conflicts.

The Dillmans are now just one of thousands of young post-combat couples who struggle to start a family after blast injuries left them unable to conceive via natural methods.

IVF treatments can cost tens of thousands of dollars and often require multiple attempts before a viable pregnancy is produced. The combination of the emotional toll and the financial burden can be utterly overwhelming for many combat-wounded veterans and their significant others, especially if they are learning to live without a limb or adapting to life in a wheelchair.

Some combat-wounded veterans and their families have taken on debt to cover the cost of IVF treatments, while others have put off an education provided to them under the GI Bill so they jump back into the job market and start earning a salary right away. Others have rethought their plans to start a family altogether.

“At the end of the day, I’m so lucky to be alive. Part of that is this dream to be a parent,” said Dillmann, whose dirty-blond hair is still kept neatly cut high and tight. “But this is a big pill to swallow for all veterans facing combat injuries, which have hurt their chances to have children.”

After two failed rounds of IVF, the Dillmanns are ready for their upcoming round, which will cost $25,000 and wipe out years of careful saving. Regardless, they remain dedicated in pursuing their goal.

Congressional efforts to overturn the ban that prohibits the VA from covering IVF costs for combat-wounded veterans were met with resistance last year over how to pay for it. Though a new push is underway, it would only provide wounded military members with a small window of time between when their injury was sustained and the time of their discharge from the military. Yet many veterans are concerned that small time frame will only make matters even more difficult.

“The timing was just all wrong. It’s the time when you are trying to learn to shower and get your mind around the fact that you will never walk again. I wasn’t in the position to think about starting a family at that moment,” Alex explained.

It would be a shocking spectacle for any other graduation ceremony, but for Sulkowicz and her classmates, it was just another day.

Since the school year began in September 2014, Sulkowicz began carrying her mattress to protest the school’s values — or lack thereof — regarding sexual assault. Sulkowicz herself is a rape survivor, and she began speaking out about the lack of protection in American colleges for rape survivors after she discovered that the school took no actions against her rapist, who was also a student at Columbia and who was allowed to finish out his education, graduating on the same stage as Sulkowicz.

As her senior thesis performance art project, Sulkowicz decided to carry her mattress everywhere she went on campus — for as long as her rapist was allowed to attend classes, which ended up being the entire year.

The project, titled “Mattress Performance” (and alternatively “Carry That Weight”) quickly grabbed the attention of major media outlets and it also brought new light to the health concerns of young women, particularly college students, across the country.

As nymag.com recently wrote, it’s difficult for researchers to determine concrete numbers regarding sexual violence and sexual health on college campuses. In some cases, as in Sulkowicz’s case, university administrations simply don’t provide resources for students who are recovering from traumatic events.

In other cases, resources are available, but the fear of stigmatization and judgment from peers causes students to avoid seeking help.

STDs and STIs, for example, are fairly common among young adults today — but only 40% of sexually active young women are tested for common and treatable infections like chlamydia.

And on-campus rape, researchers are finding out, is happening more often than previously estimated. According to a new study conducted at an unnamed university in Upstate New York, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, approximately one in every five women have been the victims of attempted or committed rape — during their freshman year of college alone.

It’s because of brave women, like Sulkowicz, that more women and men have finally begun to speak out about sexual violence and health concerns. The results are far higher — and more worrisome — than researchers predicted just a few years ago, but the recent findings make it clear that these issues are too widespread to be ignored any longer.

“Our findings show that cities continue to be laboratories of innovation when it comes to energy efficiency, with many pushing the envelope for more energy savings in the last few years,” said lead author David Ribeiro in a May 20 news release. “Cities are also improving their approaches when it comes to tracking and communicating their efforts to save energy. By capturing these efforts in the [City Energy Efficiency] Scorecard we hope local leaders from cities of all sizes can learn best practices from each other and deliver the benefits of energy efficiency to their communities, such as a stronger economy and a cleaner environment.”

Energy efficiency refers to doing the same amount of work with less energy — essentially, improving energy usage without sacrificing any function or convenience. With efficiency in mind, Boston has implemented a number of city-wide energy policies as well as focused on energy and water usage in large and medium-sized buildings.

The city has also made efforts to engage residents on a personal level and get them invested in conservation and efficiency efforts. Many of the choices made in the home, particularly when it comes to appliances, can have a large collective effect on overall efficiency; heating and cooling equipment, for example, tends to become less efficient over time, but few people know that HVAC equipment often physically lasts longer than it is economically viable.

Boston was followed in the rankings by New York City, Washington, San Francisco and Seattle. The lowest-ranking city was Oklahoma City, with Birmingham, Raleigh, Detroit and New Orleans rounding out the bottom five.

Several cities near the top of the list have shown marked improvement since last year’s assessment from the ACEEE. Those include Washington (2), Los Angeles (12), Chicago (6), Minneapolis (7) and Seattle (5).

As the report points out, however, there’s still quite a bit of room for improvement even in the most efficient cities. Boston was the only city to earn above 80 points (out of 100), and only 13 cities total scored above a 50%.

Over the Memorial Day weekend in Asheville, NC, a photo of a young couple sharing a tender moment prior to saying their “I Do’s” has already been shared millions of times, appearing all over social media and in tabloid magazines the world over.

The photo shows high school sweethearts Marine Cpl. Caleb Earwood, 21, and his bride-to-be Maggie, 22, holding hands in prayer while standing on opposite sides of a door, so as to not break the tradition of seeing each other before the bride walks down the aisle. Caleb, looking handsome in his uniform, and the beautiful Maggie, sobbing tears of joy, may have just gotten the best candid wedding photo of the year.

Being able to monetize their viral fame might come in handy for the couple, considering the average budget for a wedding and reception is a combined $28,400 in 2015.

When asked what he was praying for, Caleb said, “I prayed to God for my beautiful and intelligent wife that he blessed me with and the amazing family I was marrying into.

The intimate romantic snapshot launched the newlyweds to internet fame overnight, while the unsuspecting couple were preparing for a honeymoon trip to Dolly Parton’s Dollywood theme park.

“When I first grabbed his hand, he was shaking really bad, so I knew he was really nervous,” the blushing bride said.

And in the United Kingdom, another young couple has found unexpected wedding fame over the weekend. English groom Shaun Palmer hired a trained snowy owl, like the famous Hedwig of Harry Potter fame, to fly a pair of rings down the aisle. Video of Bilbo — that’s the owl’s name — and the bride’s stunned reaction has gone viral, too.

“Why play a game,” a promotional trailer for the park asks, “when you can live it?”

At The Void, VR helmets and vests will layer virtual environments over physical ones, creating numerous possibilities, worlds and scenarios for visitors to explore. The rooms will be reconfigurable, and even the surfaces will be customized to individual scenarios. If in your virtual world you are hiding behind a tree, for example, then the room’s surfaces will be made to feel like rough bark under your fingertips; if you’re attempting to open a hatch, the surface will mimic that of cold metal.

Ken Bretschneider, the man behind this vision, says he was inspired by the disappointment he felt at having virtual reality be confined to a stationary experience.

“I wanted to jump out of my chair and go run around,” Bretschneider told the Washington Post May 8. “I wanted to be in there, but I felt like I was separated from that world just sitting down playing a game. So I often would stand up and then I couldn’t do anything.”

VR technology has taken several leaps forward in just the past few years, and the much-anticipated Oculus Rift headsets should be made available to the public next year. But Bretschneider, an experienced techie who sold his cybersecurity business to put more time into his VR ambitions, is making his own.

And in order to amp up the experience even further, The Void will include non-virtual elements that are much lower tech, such as blasts of steam (while high-pressure steam systems are associated with industrial applications, low-pressure systems of 30 psig or less are more akin to steam radiators, being very safe as long as they’re inspected about once a year).

Those types of elements will set the park apart from any experience that can be offered to home gamers, according to Bretschneider. “There isn’t any way to be able to go out and create the full potential of virtual reality in the home market,” he explained to the Post. “It became really apparent to me that we needed to build a facility where people could come to and not have to worry about hooking up virtual reality, making it work and trying to run around inside their house.”

Eventually, Bretschneider hopes to build centers in cities across North America, Asia and Europe. Of course, that dream will probably largely depend on how the Utah pilot is received.