Heavens

GOLDEN, Colo. (October 13, 2009) – The largest annual study of patient outcomes at each of the nation's 5,000 nonfederal hospitals found a wide gap in quality between the nation's best hospitals and all others. According to the study, issued today by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization, patients at highly rated hospitals have a 52 percent lower chance of dying compared with the U.S. hospital average, a quality chasm that has persisted for the last decade even as mortality rates, in general, have declined.

Forecasters were watching a storm they designated as 91 yesterday, October 6, until it organized into a tropical cyclone east of the Leeward Islands around 5 p.m. EDT. It was then named "Tropical Storm Henri," the eighth named tropical cyclone of the Atlantic hurricane season.

The National Institute for Computational Sciences' (NICS's) Cray XT5 supercomputer—Kraken—has been upgraded to become the first academic system to surpass a thousand trillion calculations a second, or one petaflop, a landmark achievement that will greatly accelerate science and place Kraken among the top five computers in the world.

Depression happens to everyone, even tropical storms, and Henri is now tropically depressed. NASA satellite imagery has confirmed he's weakened to a tropical depression and he is further expected to degenerate into a remnant low pressure area.

At 11 a.m. EDT on October 8, Henri's maximum sustained winds were down to 35 mph and waning. The National Hurricane Center used NASA's QuikScat satellite wind date from 6:12 a.m. EDT this morning to confirm Henri's wind speed.

At 7:30 a.m. EDT on October 9, a two-ton rocket body will slam into a crater near the moon's south pole. By studying the resulting plume of gas and dust, scientists hope this grand experiment will confirm the presence of ice in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles.

Melor began as a tropical depression back on the 29th of September 2009 about 1000 miles (~1600 km) east-southeast of Guam in the Northern Mariana Islands. Over the next couple of days, the system steadily intensified, first into a tropical storm on the 30th, then into a typhoon on the morning of the 1st of October.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When cancer spreads to the bone, radiation treatments can help relieve the pain caused by the tumor. But how best to deliver the radiation may vary widely from one oncologist to the next.

A new analysis from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center shows cost also varies widely from one delivery method to the next. Costs can range from around $1,700 for a single treatment with conventional radiation techniques to more than $16,000 for four treatments using a system of radiation delivery called Cyberknife.

Forecasters were watching a storm they designated as 91 yesterday, October 6, until it organized into a tropical cyclone east of the Leeward Islands around 5 p.m. EDT. It was then named "Tropical Storm Henri," the eighth named tropical cyclone of the Atlantic hurricane season.

There's double-trouble in the Western Pacific with one typhoon and one tropical storm bringing soaking rains, dangerous surf and gusty winds to two different locations. Typhoon Melor is affecting the east coast of Japan and watches and warnings are up today. Further south, Tropical Storm Parma continues to rain on Luzon in the northern Philippines.

Typhoon Melor is currently affecting southern Japan and bringing gusty winds, heavy rains and high waves there. High Wave and Gale Watches and warnings have been posted in Japan in the prefectures of Miyazaki and Kagoshima today.

Rapid viral diagnosis tests for respiratory diseases in children who arrive in emergency departments have the potential to reduce pressures on health systems by enabling doctors to reach a quicker diagnosis, according to Cochrane Researchers. However, they say larger trials are needed to confirm this finding.

"The existing evidence is not strong enough to prove that these tests help to reduce pressure on health systems, but it certainly does look promising," said lead researcher, Quynh Doan of the British Columbia Children's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada.

More studies that directly compare the effectiveness of different biologic drugs for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are needed, say Cochrane Researchers. The researchers reviewed all previous Cochrane Systematic Reviews assessing the effectiveness of biologic disease-modifying drugs for treatment of RA and found that although all were very effective, there was little data on direct comparisons between the drugs that could help doctors decide which to prescribe.

Despite twenty years of research on the use of electrostimulation techniques (TENS) for treatment of osteoarthritis in the knee, researchers still cannot say whether it reduces pain or physical disability. This is the conclusion of a Cochrane Systematic Review of electrostimulation trials in osteoarthritis.

Abatacept, a member of a new class of drug that targets immune cells to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA), is effective against RA, according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review. The review examines recent trials to assess safety and efficacy of the drug.

Exercise programs designed to improve strength and stamina are safe and effective treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review. The researchers reviewed dynamic exercise program trials in RA patients and found moderate benefits associated with this type of treatment.

U.S. satellite measurements show Arctic sea ice extent in 2009 – the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by floating ice – was the third lowest since satellite measurements were first made in 1979. The ice area at minimum was an increase from the past two years, but still well below the average for the past 30 years.