It's all about health

Why Leather Football Helmets Could Provide a Better Defense Against Concussion

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If we want to cut down on football concussions, should we bring back the leather helmet? Not quite, says a new study in the Journal of Neurosurgery, though the noggin-protectors of yore do at least as good of a job as modern helmets at staving off concussions.

Modern helmets do a much better job of preventing deadly skull fractures. But on the type of lower-impact hits to the head you typically see in college and high school games — the constant subconcussive blows that can also cause brain damage — leatherheads do a comparable, and sometimes better, job of reducing concussion risks than today's helmets, according to Cleveland Clinic researchers.

“The fact that leather helmets were even in the neighborhood with modern helmets was surprising,” says Adam Bartsch, the study's lead researcher and director of the Spine Research Laboratory at the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Spine Health.

To reach this conclusion, Bartsch says his team basically “smashed some helmets together.” In the experiments, 11 widely-used high school football helmets and two vintage turn-of-the-century models were placed on the heads of crash-test dummies. The researchers simulated head impacts at gravity-force (Gs) levels of 75 Gs or less, which are typically encountered in high school and college games. They simulated impacts at different angles – a head-on collision, a hit to the side of the head, a hit to the back of the head – and measured their effects on skull rotation, neck force, neck torque and other head movements.

MORE: Study Ranks 10 Football Helmets for Concussion Safety

This data was input into a software program that estimates risk of brain contusions, acute subdural hematoma (bleeding on the surface of the brain), and diffuse axonal injury (DAI), which causes the shearing of nerve cells within the brain. “Overall,” the study concludes, leather helmets and modern helmets provide a “similar protectiveness profile” during subconcussive hits. In fact, under one testing scenario, a leather helmet provided a lower level of DAI risk than any of the modern helmets.

How could a leatherhead possibly be more protective? One reason, Bartsch says, probably has to with the stiffness of today's helmets. While these helmets are effective shields against catastrophic skull fractures, they don't do as good a job absorbing energy from a lower impact hit. These hits might not break the skull, but they can cause the brain to shift a little bit within the skull. And such jiggling causes concussions.

Bartsch offers a useful analogy: Think about hitting your thumb with a hammer. If you put, say, a piece of a padded gym mat on your thumb, that padding will absorb the impact from the hammer, and dull the pain. Now, imagine putting a two-by-four on top of your thumb. Whack the hammer against that stiffer surface; your thumb will probably hurt more than the gym mat. Think of the leatherhead as the gym mat, and a plastic helmet as the two-by-four. The hammer is like a football hit, while the thumb is like your head.

MORE: Study: Boys, Girls Suffer Different Concussion Symptoms

Still, we won't be returning to the leather helmet days; no one wants fatalities on the football field. Yet it's worth considering whether today's football helmets might benefit from a slightly softer outer shell.

For inspiration, Bartsch suggests that the sporting-goods industry look at car companies. “Unlike cars, in which seat belts, airbags and crumple zones make the choice between a 1920s Model T and the modern mini-van a no-brainer," said Bartsch in a release that accompanied the study, "these results tell us that modern helmets have ample room to improve safety against many typical in-game hits."

Sean Gregory is a staff writer at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @seanmgregory. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

News

Indian town battles against encephalitis

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 23:00 GMT A man holding the body of a child who died of encephalitis at a Gorakhpur hospital

A man holding the body of a child who died of encephalitis at a Gorakhpur hospital

The majority of the victims are children More than 460 people, mostly children, have died after a fresh outbreak of encephalitis in northern India. The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder travelled to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh to find out why the town is struggling to cope with the disease.

Ward number 12 at Gorakhpur's main hospital is overflowing with sick children, two or three squeezed into a single bed.

Many of them are visibly sick and are having to be administered oxygen or being put on an intravenous drip.

Every day, 30 to 40 children are brought here after having contracted encephalitis. Many of them come from the countryside, after having travelled several hours because this is the best hospital in the region.

"I brought my daughter from our village 25km (15 miles) away," says one young woman.

"She was very sick. But here in the hospital, there are five babies dying every couple of hours. I am so frightened."

The hospital is trying its best to cope but is overwhelmed by the numbers.

"We have about 500 children in our ward and only 95 beds," says Dr KP Kushwaha, the hospital's chief paediatrician.

Those who aren't lucky to make it to a bed are made to wait with their parents in the corridor outside which is filled to capacity. The children lie on the floor, exposed to the dust and dirt.

But lack of space is not the only issue.

Regular outbreak

The hospital does not have enough doctors and so medical students are being roped in to help out.

Gorakhpur experiences an outbreak of encephalitis every year, typically after the monsoon season when stagnant water left over after the rains becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

But this year's strain is not the more common Japanese encephalitis, doctors say, but a virus being blamed on contaminated water.

"We had managed to contain the spread of Japanese encephalitis with our immunisation programme," says Dr Kushwaha.

"But this has proved to be more difficult."

Children, with lower immunity systems are particularly vulnerable.

Child suffering from viral encephalitis in a Gorakhpur hospital

Hundreds of patients have been admitted to Gorakhpur's main hospital

Ritu, a baby girl aged 18 months, was one of the many who didn't make it.

Her mother, Lata, clutches at a frayed photograph of her daughter as she recalls what happened.

"She was very sick at home. We tried to cure her through medicines but when she just didn't get better, we took her to the hospital."

She died in less than a week.

Officials say part of the problem is that many people fail to bring their children to a medical facility in time.

'Neglected'

"In my assessment, we can reduce the deaths by 50% if people follow basic hygiene and then take their child to the nearest hospital quickly," says Sanjay Kumar, Gorakhpur's top administrator.

But the families of many of those affected say that's quite hard to do.

"There are no proper hospitals near our village," says Manju whose three-year-old boy is recovering from encephalitis.

"It's a long journey - six to seven hours. And we don't know how long we'll have to stay here. That's why not many like to come."

This is one of India's most neglected regions and those affected are among the poorest.

Lack of proper sanitation and access to clean water sources is being described as the main reason for the spread of the disease.

So, with every passing hour more children are being brought into the hospital - not all of them will survive.

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Panel Advises Against Routine Prostate Screening

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Visuals Unlimited, Inc. / Dr. Gladden Willis / Getty Images

No major medical group recommends routine PSA blood tests to check men for prostate cancer, and now a government panel is saying they do more harm than good and healthy men should no longer receive the tests as part of routine cancer screening.

The panel's guidelines had long advised men over 75 to forgo the tests and the new recommendation extends that do-not-screen advice to healthy men of all ages.

The recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, being made public on Friday, will not come as a surprise to cancer specialists.

Yet, most men over 50 have had at least one PSA blood test, the assumption being that finding cancer early is always a good thing.

Not so, said Dr. Virginia Moyer of the Baylor College of Medicine, who heads the task force.

"We have put a huge amount of time, effort and energy into PSA screening and that time, effort and energy, that passion, should be going into finding a better test instead of using a test that doesn't work," Moyer told The Associated Press late Thursday.

Too much PSA, or prostate-specific antigen, in the blood only sometimes signals prostate cancer is brewing. It also can mean a benign enlarged prostate or an infection. Worse, screening often detects small tumors that will prove too slow-growing to be deadly. And there's no sure way to tell in advance who needs aggressive therapy.

MORE: Saw Palmetto No Better Than Placebo for Prostate Symptoms

The task force analyzed all the previous research on this subject, including five major studies, to evaluate whether routine screening reduces deaths from prostate cancer. The conclusion: There's little if any mortality benefit.

But there is harm from routine screening: impotence, incontinence, infections, even death that can come from the biopsies, surgery and radiation, Moyer said.

One study estimated 2 of every 5 men whose prostate cancer was caught through a PSA test had tumors too slow-growing to ever be a threat.

Yet Moyer said 30 percent of men who are treated for PSA-discovered prostate cancer suffer significant side effects, sometimes death, from the resulting treatment.

About a third of men ages 40 to 60 have brewing prostate cancer but "the huge majority of them will never know it in their lifetime if they are not screened," she added.

MORE: Screening for Ovarian Cancer Doesn't Increase Women's Survival

The task force previously had considered the evidence for or against PSA screening inconclusive. The new recommendation says not to routinely screen. That recommendation is a draft that is open for public comment beginning next week.

"We have been long concerned, and it has been apparent for some years, that some supporters of prostate cancer screening have overstated, exaggerated and in some cases misled men about the evidence supporting its effectiveness," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society in a statement. "We need balanced, truthful information to be made widely available to physicians and patients when making important health decisions."

The society had not seen the new recommendation yet, but has long advised men to consider the pros and cons of PSA screening before deciding on their own.

Moyer said the recommendation only means that doctors shouldn't bring up the option for healthy men. If a man asks for a PSA test and wants it after being informed of the evidence, he should receive it, she said. Likewise, it's appropriate to use PSA tests to examine a man with possible prostate symptoms.

—By LAURAN NEERGAARD

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The age-old fight against the common cold

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4 October 2011 Last updated at 10:25 GMT By Jon Kelly BBC News Magazine Woman sneezing

As the weather finally cools, pharmacies brace themselves for the beginning of the "winter remedies" rush. But why are people still searching for a cure for the common cold?

Can you feel it coming on yet - the sore throat, the fever, the streaming nose, the headache?

If so, get well soon. But you can take comfort in the fact that you'll soon be in good company.

October marks the start of the peak season for the UK's "winter remedies" market - the over-the-counter pharmaceuticals used to treat the common cold.

But if decongestants, cough sweets and hot, lemon-flavoured drinks are the modern-day methods by which we tackle the familiar symptoms, humankind has a long tradition of searching out ways to soothing this most familiar of conditions.

From ancient Greece to mediaeval Europe, blood-letting, leeches and more resilient treatments like chicken soup have all been used in attempts to ease recovery.

But though our understanding of the viruses that cause colds has improved over time, and with it our remedies, a cure remains as elusive as ever.

And with the average UK adult suffering two to five colds a year, according to Cardiff University's Common Cold Centre, it is little wonder that un-bunging ourselves is big business.

In 2010, the market research company Mintel says sales of winter remedies were worth £532m - an increase of 10% over five years. In the US, it has been suggested that the cost of colds to the American economy could be as much as $40bn (£26bn).

Continue reading the main story Common cold is not a single disease but caused by up to 200 different virusesBy the time the symptoms - caused by the body's immune system reacting to these viruses - are present it would be too late for an antivirusAny new medication would have to be extremely safe as it would be very popularIt would not be worth taking unless the side effects were extremely mild or non-existent If the medicine was widely used, cold viruses would quickly develop resistance in the same way bacteria have overcome antibioticsThe advice given by doctors to patients suffering from colds may be straightforward - rest, drink lots of fluid, take moderate doses of painkiller and decongestant to ameliorate the symptoms. But treatments have varied wildly down the years.

According to Prof Ronald Eccles of Cardiff's Common Cold Centre, colds have been with us since humans gathered in any sort of community - at least since the Iron Age onwards.

For at least 3,000 years, the Chinese have treated blocked noses with ma huang, a plant often brewed as tea. It contains pseudoephedrine, commonly used in modern over-the-counter cold remedies as a decongestant.

Early thinkers believed cold symptoms were caused by the penetration of low temperatures into the body and warm drinks were used to treat this, Prof Eccles says.

The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who pioneered the practice of clinical observation, believed colds were caused by a build-up of waste matter on the brain.

Chicken soup was hailed as a treatment as early as AD60 by Pedacius Dioscorides, a Roman surgeon under Nero, and it was hailed as "an excellent food as well as medication" by the 12th Century physician Moses Maimonides. In fact, neither were far wide of the mark - modern studies have demonstrated that chicken contains the amino acid cysteine, which has mild decongestant proprieties.

James Wong and Sophie Dahl test Mrs Beeton's homemade cold remedy

However, not all early cold treatments had a kernel of science to them.

"Old European ideas related to accumulation of fluid in the body that was expelled via the nose - hence bleeding and medicines that made patients vomit were popular to rid body of excess fluid," Prof Eccles adds.

Despite this, some mediaeval treatments were inadvertently valuable. In the Middle Ages, some Christians believed the soul could leave the body during sneezing, so cold sufferers were urged to cover their mouths - a custom which would have prevented the spread of viruses.

As the early modern period dawned, it was external rather than internal precipitation that became the focus, according to Dr Carole Reeves of University College London's Centre for the History of Medicine.

"The idea of catching cold was that it was about getting wet, getting it in the rain, getting a chill, being out in the cold weather," she says. "The idea of catching it from other people wasn't there in the way it is now."

For this reason, she says, bathing was discouraged for cold sufferers.

"It was believed that it would soften your skin and weaken your body," adds Dr Reeves.

Continue reading the main story

From Mrs Beeton's Book of Home Management, published in 1861

"TO CURE A COLD. Put a large teacupful of linseed [seeds, not oil], with 1/4 lb. of sun raisins [these are just raisins] and 2 oz of stick liquorice, into 2 quarts of soft water, and let it simmer over a slow fire till reduced to one quart; add to it 1/4 lb of pounded sugar-candy [sugar], a tablespoonful of old rum, and a tablespoonful of the best white-wine vinegar, or lemon-juice.

"The rum and vinegar should be added as the decoction is taken; for, if they are put in at first, the whole soon becomes flat and less efficacious.

"The dose is half a pint, made warm, on going to bed; and a little may be taken whenever the cough is troublesome.

"The worst cold is generally cured by this remedy in two or three days; and, if taken in time, is considered infallible.

"COLD ON THE CHEST. A flannel dipped in boiling water, and sprinkled with turpentine, laid on the chest as quickly as possible, will relieve the most severe cold or hoarseness."

These notions were eventually dispelled by none other than Benjamin Franklin, the noted polymath, scientist and Founding Father of the United States, who conducted studies into the common cold and concluded that it was transmitted through the air between individuals.

The dawn of the Victorian era saw no let-up in the search for a cure. In Mrs Beeton's Book of Home Management, a best-seller for decades after it was first published in 1861, there is a chapter on first aid and home remedies - including a hot toddy cold treatment.

Containing linseed, sun raisins, liquorice and rum, Mrs Beeton wrote that the "worst cold is generally cured by this remedy in two or three days". She added that the mixture, "if taken in time, is considered infallible".

Her claim that the mixture could cure colds may have been an overstatement. But according to Prof Eccles, it would certainly have proved soothing.

"Any hot, sweet, tasty remedy will provide good relief from common cold symptoms, especially cough and sore throat," he says.

Many of the treatments we see on the shelves of modern-day pharmacists were developed in the wake of studies carried out by the Common Cold Unit, a research institute near Salisbury, Wiltshire, which operated from 1946 to 1989.

Its founding purpose - to find a cure - may never have been achieved. But the unit deepened scientific understanding of the condition, isolating coronaviruses and rhinoviruses, two of the most frequent causes of colds.

Its research was conducted by studying paid volunteers who would stay at the site for around 10 days at a time. According to Prof Tilli Tansey, a medical historian at Queen Mary University of London, who has studied the unit, it became an oddly popular form of package holiday during the post-war years.

"It was a bit like Butlins," she says. "Some people did see it as a holiday - this was the era of austerity. You'd go off for a couple of weeks, stay in a chalet and have your meals cooked for you."

Such was the basis of our modern "winter remedies". In the 21st Century, however, few are likely to treat a cold as a leisure break.

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What's behind the backlash against transgender people?

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Story on transgender children generates heated commentsHostility toward transgender people comes from challenging gender conventionsDiscomfort for transgender also stems from religious views

(CNN) -- Tuesday's CNN.com story about transgender children and their families shed light on an emotional topic and provoked strong response.

"Transgender kids: Painful quest to be who they are" centered on identity, gender, health, parenting and child development. It's not unusual for a popular story on CNN.com to have hundreds or thousands of responses, but the overwhelmingly negative tone of Tuesday's comments raised the question about the root of the hostility. What exactly provoked such harsh opinions?

The discomfort toward transgender people comes from challenging conventions, said one academic who focuses on social attitudes and behavior.

In American culture, sex and gender belong in one of two categories, said Diane Everett, professor of sociology at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. As soon as humans are born, the first thing people ask is whether the baby is a boy or girl.

"We tend as a society to put people into boxes," she said. "Someone who is transgender is not only crossing gender boundaries, but also defying them. If people can't relate to you as an either-or, they have a hard time relating to you in their general comfort level."

Then there are people who for religious reasons believe transgender is fundamentally wrong, that "God created man and woman. Automatically, man is male, woman is female, and they shouldn't cross these lines."

The issues usually end up in a debate about which bathroom transgender people use, Everett said. It's a symbol of the entire controversy because it has to do with gender, sexuality and comfort level.

The discomfort stems from the view that a person is either female or male -- and in rare cases, intersex. Changing what you're born with is "basically self-mutilation," said Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, a group that works with people who no longer practice gay, lesbian or transgender lifestyles. "You're talking about surgery to alter who you really are from a biological standpoint."

People with gender identity disorder deserve proper medical and psychiatric help, she said.

Not conforming to gender is not a disorder, says group

Griggs said she has heard from parents who have transgender staff in their children's schools and that "they're being told that it's normal, natural and healthy, (that they) have to respect them and approve."

"Why are we hiring people who are cross dressing? Why should children be told that's acceptable behavior? That's where the line is being drawn. We're telling people it's natural, healthy, normal behavior and it's still classified as a mental illness."

Gender identity disorder is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the "bible" of psychiatry.

Transgender people challenge the ideas ingrained in society about gender and sex, said Mara Kiesling, founding executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. People are taught that boys stay as boys, girls as girls, and that boys will marry girls.

"All of those things are true for most people," she said. "It's true that most people are either male or female and it is immutable for most people. Most boys act like stereotypical boys, most girls act like girls. What we're learning now is none of those things are immutable as we were taught. It's striking at some naïve orthodoxy that people have been taught by society since our childhood."

Transgender people face minority stress, meaning that they're made to feel unwelcome or an odd minority, Kiesling said. They also face stigma, sometimes from their own family, job discrimination and bullying.

"Why in the world would anybody be so hostile about parents really trying to understand something about their children that wasn't in the original playbook as parents?" she said. "They're doing the best they can trying to do right by their kids."

The hostility can come at surprising times.

A transgender woman, Amber Yust, who changed her name from David, went to her local Department of Motor Vehicles in San Francisco to update her license last year. She received a letter from one of their employees accusing Yust of acting in a way that is "an abomination that leads to hell." That employee was identified and subsequently resigned.

Chaz Bono, born a girl to entertainers Sonny and Cher and now publicly transitioning to life as a man, has been the most recent transgender person to be the focus of news reports. When it was announced that Bono would compete on "Dancing with the Stars," conservative family groups protested and started an online campaign against the popular reality show.

A Foxnews.com contributor chimed in suggesting that parents not allow their children to watch Bono on TV, because it could inappropriately influence children.

"The last thing vulnerable children and adolescents need, as they wrestle with the normal process of establishing their identities, is to watch a captive crowd in a studio audience applaud on cue for someone whose search for an identity culminated with the removal of her breasts, the injection of steroids. ..." wrote Dr. Keith Ablow, psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team.

His post got 33,000 Facebook recommends and more than 2,000 Tweets.

But not everyone on the network agreed. His views were challenged by Fox anchor Megyn Kelly, who questioned his evidence.

Analysis: States lobby against Medicaid cuts in Congress

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON | Thu Sep 29, 2011 5:18am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With billions of dollars in Medicaid spending at risk in Congress, states are forming a loose confederacy to oppose any federal cuts that could damage state budgets already awash in red ink.

The "red" and "blue" states that mark America's political divide between conservative and liberal sympathies are often far apart on issues involving healthcare, including Medicaid, the $420 billion-a-year program for the poor.

But lobbyists say governors, legislators and other state officials, Republican and Democrat alike, have found common ground in a push to convince a special congressional deficit panel that White House-backed Medicaid cuts totaling $41 billion will only weaken a system that already struggles to deliver care to 60 million beneficiaries.

The 12-member bipartisan panel, dubbed the "super committee" because of its powers, is tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in savings to cut huge U.S. deficits. The full Congress is due to vote on their recommendations by late December.

State officials appear most unified on an alternative cost-cutting strategy, which they say could save more than $100 billion by changing the healthcare delivery system for the poorest, sickest and most costly patients. Known as "dual-eligibles," they qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare, the government-run program for the elderly.

There are about 9 million dual-eligibles and state officials see billions of dollars in savings from shifting them into managed care plans better able to eliminate unnecessary doctor's visits, tests and hospital admissions.

"Support for that proposition is very broad," Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, told Reuters.

States also hope the super committee will adopt proposals to control Medicaid prescription drug costs, combat waste and fraud, and relax federal restrictions on benefits and eligibility, lobbyists said.

HEAD IN THE SAND

The current lobbying effort is expected to reach critical mass in October, when Democratic and Republican governors are due in Washington for separate initiatives that include private meetings with super committee members.

Medicaid and Medicare are central to the deficit debate between Republicans in Congress and President Barack Obama, who has vowed to veto any bill that would require sacrifices from the old and frail while allowing the wealthy to avoid taxes.

Medicaid is also key to the success of the 2010 U.S. health reform law, the centerpiece of Obama's domestic policy agenda, which calls for coverage to be extended to 16 million uninsured Americans who currently do not qualify as beneficiaries.

States, healthcare providers and beneficiaries lobbied successfully last summer to spare Medicaid from automatic cuts that would be imposed if the super committee failed to reach agreement by November 23.

This time, states may be less unified on larger questions about the future of Medicaid because of partisan differences including a Republican push to repeal Obama's health reforms and convert Medicaid into a block grant program with few federal rules, both of which Democrats oppose.

But they are not only pushing back against potential cuts.

"That's a head-in-the-sand approach. But there are ways to look at Medicaid changes -- some of which would be helpful and some of which would make the problem worse," said Matt Salo of the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

States are out of step with healthcare industry and consumer groups who hope the super committee will deadlock. A deadlock would trigger spending cuts that would spare Medicaid and impose only modest reductions on Medicare.

States oppose the triggers because they would cut up to $35 billion from discretionary federal grants for education, public health and other programs, according to Federal Funds Information for States, a Washington research group sponsored by governors and state legislatures.

FISCAL ALBATROSS

The sprawling Medicaid program, funded jointly by federal and state governments, is a fiscal albatross for many states still struggling with recession-induced deficits. Persistent joblessness is swelling the ranks of the needy and tax increases remain politically unfeasible.

U.S. states ended their last fiscal year on June 30 with an aggregate deficit of about $100 billion, with Medicaid accounting for nearly one-quarter of their spending, according to the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities, a Washington think tank.

State officials complain Medicaid is a problem because federal mandates make it hard for governors and lawmakers to address costs by adjusting benefits and eligibility.

At issue in Congress are two proposals that Obama forwarded to the super committee last week. One would force a $15 billion reduction in federal Medicaid contributions to states by altering the formula used to set Washington's matching rate.

The second would curtail states' ability to raise money through taxes on Medicaid providers, a key source of revenue for state contributions. That measure would cost states $26 billion, and has already drawn criticism.

Healthcare lobbyists believe Republicans on the panel have a strong political incentive to embrace the proposals because they call for reductions in entitlement spending and carry a Democratic president's endorsement.

"Every state is in agreement that if all the federal government does to reduce its deficit is push costs and mandates onto the states ... it's really a nonstarter," said Tony Keck, director of Health and Human Services in South Carolina, a state at the forefront of opposition to Obama's health policies.

Advocacy groups that represent Medicaid beneficiaries also oppose federal funding cuts. But with many states already cutting back on Medicaid, they warn that managed care plans for dual-eligibles and added flexibility for state governments could endanger the quality and breadth of care on which some of America's most vulnerable citizens depend.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

Woman wins court order against 1972 Idaho abortion law

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By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho | Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:35pm EDT

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - An Idaho woman prosecuted for terminating her own pregnancy with abortion pills she ordered online won a temporary court order on Friday barring enforcement of the decades-old law under which she was charged.

But the federal judge in the case also rebuffed her separate bid to block a newly enacted state law that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy unless there is proof the woman's life is in danger.

On that issue U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that Jennie Linn McCormack, 33, lacked legal standing to seek a temporary restraining order against Idaho's new "fetal pain" abortion law because she was no longer pregnant and could not demonstrate imminent harm from the statute.

Her lawsuit is believed to be the first federal court case challenging any of several late-term abortion bans enacted in Idaho and five other states the past two years, based on controversial medical research suggesting a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation.

McCormack's lawyer, Richard Hearn, said he would press to establish his client's standing at a future hearing on the new law, which was passed by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Republican Governor Butch Otter in April.

The suit, filed by McCormack in August, stems from a criminal charge brought against the Pocatello mother of three -- and later dismissed for lack of evidence by a judge -- under a 1972 Idaho law making it a felony for a woman to end her own pregnancy.

Because that criminal case could technically be refiled against her, Winmill ruled that McCormack did have standing to seek a court order against further enforcement of the measure.

He also ruled that McCormack was likely to succeed on the merits of her claim that the 40-year-old statute poses an unconstitutional barrier to her rights to seek an abortion.

Although the temporary restraining order he granted technically applies only to Bannock County prosecutors, Hearn said it would in effect keep the law from being enforced anywhere in the state for the time being.

Such an occurrence seems unlikely. County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Hiedeman said the case he brought against McCormack marked the first time in his 27 years as a prosecutor that he had ever invoked the 1972 statute. He also said he was not sure it was ever applied elsewhere in Idaho.

The two-pill abortion medication known as RU486 has been legally available in the United States since 2000, and by 2008 accounted for about one-fourth of U.S. abortions performed before nine weeks gestation, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights think tank.

As approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the two drugs -- mifepristone and misoprostol -- can be obtained from a physician and are not available in pharmacies. The medication is generally indicated for pregnancies of less than eight weeks.

Prosecutors said McCormack terminated her own pregnancy using abortion pills she obtained from an online distributor at between 20 and 21 weeks on December 24, 2010. Hearn has said she believed she was getting the pills from a legitimate medical provider.

Similar late-term abortion bills were adopted this year in four other states besides Idaho -- Alabama, Indiana, Kansas and Oklahoma. All were modeled after the "fetal pain" bill enacted last year in Nebraska, according to abortion rights advocates.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Bohan)

Glowing Kittens Help In Fight Against AIDS

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Here's an experiment: Turn off your lights, shine a blue flashlight on the cats in the room and look for the ones that turn neon green, like a glow stick.

That's how scientists at the Mayo Clinic identify cats that they've successfully treated against the feline immunodeficiency virus.

The AIDS epidemic in humans is well-known. Less known is that every year, millions of cats suffer and die from the disease.

To protect cats against feline AIDS, the Mayo Clinic and colleagues in Japan devised a treatment with a peculiar side effect. They took monkey genes that block HIV infection and injected them into cat eggs. Kittens born from those eggs produced AIDS-resistant protein in the same cells that get infected, effectively shielding them from the disease. Their offspring are also immune.

To tell the treated cats from the untreated ones, scientists added another simple ingredient to the mix: jellyfish genes, which make the modified cells glow a green color.

"It allows you to tell whether the gene of interest is in the cell without having to do an invasive test," Dr. Eric Poeschla, a molecular biologist with the Mayo Clinic, tells Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered. Scientists simply turn off the lights and shine a blue light to tell which cats have the AIDS-resistant gene.

The cats don't feel a thing, Poeschla says. "They're healthy and happy and they're playful."

The feline treatment could help other mammals down the line. The Mayo team isn't injecting human stem cells with the monkey-jellyfish concoction, but it is watching the cats for new insights.

"If they have the power to protect, then they could perhaps be used in the future in human gene therapy," Poeschla says.

Unfortunately, you can't get your own glow-in-the dark kitty just yet.

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All Things Considered–

Researchers at Crater Lake National Park have been documenting the park's soundscape.

Monkey genes protect cats against HIV infection; jellyfish genes make them glow.

"It's us against the snails," says an official leading the eradication effort.