August 2009

Death Calculator Predicts Your Odds of Kicking the Bucket (LiveScience.com)

A new web site claims to give the odds on you dying next year, or
for whatever period you select, based on a few simple questions.

The site, DeathRiskRankings.com,
is the brainchild of researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon
University. It provides answers based on publicly available data from
the United States and Europe, comparing mortality risks by gender, age,
cause of death and geographic region. Put your info in, and it produces
the probable causes of your demise and provides insight on the timing
of that unfortunate event.

The site can compare such things as the odds of death next year by
breast cancer for, say, a 54-year-old Pennsylvania woman or her
counterpart in the United Kingdom.

Of course the results produced by the web site speak to groups of
people and cannot predict with accuracy when you might actually kick the bucket. The timing of your own end is based on many uncharted factors, from heredity to lifestyle to untimely accidents.

But noodling around with the interface can be enlightening, if not frightening.

"It turns out that the British woman has a 33 percent higher risk of
breast cancer death. But for lung/throat cancer, the results are almost
reversed, and the Pennsylvania woman has a 29 percent higher risk,"
explained Paul Fischbeck, site developer and professor of social and
decision sciences and engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon.

"Most Americans don't have a particularly good understanding of their own mortality risks,
let alone ranking of their relevant risks," said David Gerard, a former
professor at Carnegie Mellon who is now an associate professor of
economics at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.

The researchers found that beyond infancy, the risk of dying increases annually at an exponential rate.

A 20-year-old U.S. woman has a 1 in 2,000 (or 0.05 percent) chance
of dying in the next year, for example. By age 40, the risk is three
times greater; by age 60, it is 16 times greater; and by age 80, it is
100 times greater (around 1 in 20 or 5 percent).

"The risks are higher, but still not that bad," Gerard said. "At 80,
the average U.S. woman still has a 95 percent chance of making it to
her 81st birthday."

Other results for queries about dying within the year:

For every age group, men have a much higher annual death risk than
women. For 20-year-olds, the risk is 2.5 to three times greater for
men. Men are much more prone to accidents, homicides and suicides, and
the risk of dying from heart disease is always higher for men than
women, peaking in the 50s when men are 2.5 times at greater risk of
dying.

Women's cancer risks are higher than men's in their 30s and 40s.

For heart disease and cancer, U.S. blacks have a much higher death
risk than U.S. whites. Overall, blacks in their 30s and 40s are twice
as likely to die within the year as their white counterparts. Only for
suicides, do whites consistently exceed blacks, where whites typically
have two to three times greater chances of dying.

For 20-year-old males, 80 percent of their death risks are from
accidents, homicides and suicides. By age 50, however, these causes
make up less than 10 percent and heart disease is No. 1, accounting for
more than 30 percent of all deaths.

Obesity-related death risks
are much higher in the United States than in Europe. For example, the
annual diabetes death risk in the United States is three times that
found in northern Europe for 60 year olds.

Fischbeck and Gerard hope the site will add information to the U.S. healtchcare debate.

"We believe that this tool, which allows anyone to assess their own
risk of dying and to compare their risks with counterparts in the
United States and Europe, could help inform the public and
constructively engage them in the debate," Fischbeck said.

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Original Story: Death Calculator Predicts Your Odds of Kicking the BucketLiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

Sentence of life without parole in Tenn. slayings (AP)

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The first of four defendants to be tried in the carjacking, rape and murder of a young Tennessee couple was sentenced to life in prison without parole Wednesday by the same jury that convicted him of murder.
Letalvis Cobbins, 26, had faced the possibility of two death sentences for conviction of first-degree murder and felony. He took a deep breath and then sat down after the jury announced its decision, following less than three hours of deliberation.
The jury convicted Cobbins of Lebanon, Ky., on Tuesday in the January 2007 attack on 21-year-old Channon Christian and her 23-year-old boyfriend Christopher Newsom, both of Knoxville.
Christian's father grimaced as he listened to the sentence.
"The jury didn't do their job. They didn't render the verdict they should (have)," said Hugh Newsom, father of Christopher Newsom. "One consolation is he will not be on the street again."
Earlier Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Leland Price had tried to persuade the jury of six men and six women — brought from Nashville because of extensive pretrial publicity — that the crime "cries out for justice and the maximum punishment this state can impose."
Defense attorney Scott Green countered that Cobbins should be sent to prison for the rest of his life, "never getting out, sitting there to rot and think (about what he has done). He has earned it."
Christian's parents pleaded for a death sentence for the torture their daughter suffered. Cobbins' sisters and cousins from Memphis begged for mercy.
The victims were white and middle class, and the defendants poor and black. Some conservative Internet commentators and white supremacist agitators accused the national media of reverse discrimination by failing to give the case the same attention paid to white-on-black hate crimes.

Personalized Pencils

The archetypal pencil may have been the stylus, which was a thin metal stick, often made from lead and used for scratching on papyrus, a form of early paper. They were used extensively by the ancient Egyptians and Romans. The word pencil comes from the Latin word pencillus which means "little tail."

English and German pencils were not available to the French during the Napoleonic wars. It took the efforts of an officer in Napoleon's army to change this. In 1795 Nicholas Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing powdered graphite with clay and forming the mixture into rods that were then fired in a kiln. By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, the hardness of the graphite rod could also be varied. This method of manufacture which had been earlier discovered by the Austrian Joseph Hardtmuth of Koh-I-Noor in 1790 remains in use.

Personalized Pencils

Teak Bench

An open park bench in al-Mahdi Park, Tehran. the bench seat is a traditional seat installed in automobiles, featuring a continuous pad running the full width of the cabin. a punishment bench is used to have a punishee lie (and often be tied) down on for the administration of a corporal punishment, after which it may be specifically named, e.g. caning bench.

Various types of benches are specifically designed for and/or named after specific uses, such as a Bench (weight training) is used for fitness exercises, such as the bench press which is named after its use of a bench a Communion bench is not used as a seat Piano benches offer usually one person seating and are height adjustable. a spanking bench, such as a caning bench, is specifically designed for a spankee to lie upon, possibly strapped down, while submitting to paining of the posterior Swing seats are independently movable, suspended benches, used for play or as a relaxing porch swing. a courting bench (or kissing bench, or tête-à-tête): a two-seater with the seats pointing in opposite directions, thus almost facing each other. A friendship bench in a school playground is where a child can go when they want someone to talk to. The bench in a courtroom, behind which the judge is seated.

Teak Bench