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Posted: 10-10-2013 14:24 Post subject:

Dr Akong Tulku Rinpoche, co-founder of the Kagyu Sammye Ling, Tibetan Bhuddist monastery and meditation centre, near Eskdalemuir, Dumfries & Galloway, has been murdered along with two companions, in China.

Posted: 10-10-2013 19:49 Post subject:

Sounds suspiciously like an assassination.

Posted: 11-10-2013 02:49 Post subject:

Mercury astronaut, Scott Carpenter, second man to orbit the Earth, dies at the the age of 88.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24485864

Once one of the most famous men who'd ever been out of the World. Back when we left the Age of Austerity, for the Space Age. Not knowing that eventually, we'd all return to Earth with a bump.

Posted: 11-10-2013 23:16 Post subject:

Farewell, you pioneer. And we thank you.

Posted: 11-10-2013 23:26 Post subject:

He has sailed beyond the sunset.

Posted: 11-10-2013 23:32 Post subject:

Is that Homer?

Posted: 11-10-2013 23:52 Post subject:

Posted: 12-10-2013 04:29 Post subject:

A small personal tribute to Scott Carpenter ...

I was 10 years old when he went into space, and that day I exploited the school's unusual offer allowing me to bring a transistor radio (and earpiece) into my 5th grade classroom and listen to the mission all day long.

The uncertainties surrounding his de-orbiting and reentry made for tense times, which extended into worrisome hours once it became known he'd missed the planned landing zone by a large margin. There were intimations that he might not have survived. This was the first occasion when the dangers in space flight came to the fore during an actual mission.

... But that's not the reason I considered Carpenter my 'favorite' among the original seven astronauts.

The prior 5 missions (2 Soviet; 3 American) had focused on simply getting a man up there and back again. In effect (and with all due respect ...) they were serving as test pilots for the hardware.

Scott Carpenter was the first astronaut to be sent up with an agenda to run scientific experiments, take photos, etc. He was reporting on what he observed during the course of his mission - for example, confirming and describing the 'fireflies' phenomenon John Glenn had noted on the previous flight and commenting on its probable cause.

I monitored all the early missions as they occurred, and Carpenter's was the first mission in which I got the sense he (and, by extension, 'we') were actually _doing_ something in space. To my young mind, Carpenter's mission seemed to mark the beginning of actual space 'exploration.'

The first astronaut cadre was recruited from among experienced military pilots - primarily 'fighter jocks'. Carpenter was the only one whose piloting experience had been with large multi-engined aircraft rather than fighters, and this induced a certain condescension toward him as a pilot. Ironically, he was arguably the first American astronaut to serve as more than 'spam in a can' (as they termed it ...), because he had to assume manual control to perform re-entry. As such, he was the first one to deliberately 'pilot' his capsule rather than being along for the ride.

The technical malfunctions that underlay his having to assume manual control and landing so far off the mark were not clearly acknowledged at the time. Director Chris Kraft blamed Carpenter for having attended too much to enjoying the ride and delaying his reentry actions. As a result, Carpenter joined Gus Grissom as the astronauts widely insinuated to be 'screw-ups'. Both Carpenter and Grissom would eventually be exonerated of blame for the problems on their respective flights, but it was too little too late.

Carpenter left the space program, but continued to hold my interest as he turned his attentions to the seas and arguing for the importance of aquanauts in addition to astronauts. As such, he was the first astronaut to establish himself in a post-NASA vocation.

For these reasons, Scott Carpenter looms large in my personal experiences following the early space program - much larger than the mere footnote(s) to which he was relegated in the 50 years since.

To my mind he was the first scientist (OK - lab assistant ...) in space; first hands-on spacecraft pilot; first post-space career shifter; and first to promote the earth itself as deserving of the enthusiastic attentions we were giving the heavens.

Thank you, Commander Carpenter ... You're still my 'favorite' among the Mercury 7.

Posted: 12-10-2013 08:15 Post subject:

Posted: 15-10-2013 10:19 Post subject:

How many of us might not be here, without the work of this man?

Hugh Jackson
Hugh Jackson, the paediatrician, who has died aged 95, campaigned to prevent injury in children, contributing to such causes as childproof packaging for medicines which saved scores of lives each year.
6:22PM BST 14 Oct 2013

In 1964 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, a one year-old child was admitted under Jackson’s care having accidentally ingested 12 of his depressed mother’s amitriptyline tablets. Despite everyone’s efforts the child died. The distraught mother kept repeating that no one had told her the tablets were potentially dangerous.

The episode had a profound effect on Jackson and he vowed to do something about it. After studying the circumstances of 300 children admitted with poisoning, he published his findings in the British Medical Journal. It turned out that admissions of children for poisoning were very common at that time; in Britain more than 7,000 children were admitted each year for aspirin poisoning alone.

Jackson lobbied government, becoming a member of expert panels that recommended the introduction of child-resistant packaging; within two years of their introduction in 1976 the number of children admitted with aspirin poisoning had fallen to 2,000 a year with very few deaths.

By the 1970s the whole pattern of serious illness and death had changed with the introduction of antibiotics and immunisations. Jackson recognised that as a result the commonest causes of death after the first birthday were injury and poisoning, accidents which should largely be preventable.

Few if any doctors took the causes of accidents seriously. But Jackson was determined to get to do so. When a child was admitted to his ward with an injury, for example, he would go out with the hospital photographer to the scene of the event and reconstruct what had happened, so building up an enormously powerful set of stories and pictures which he used to educate local, then national, professionals to take safety seriously . Architects, engineers, designers and builders of the environment were all included in his target audience.

In 1976, with Professor Donald Court, he used his charm (and carefully selected evidence) to persuade the King’s Fund to provide start-up funding and office space to form the Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT), which continues to be highly effective, with the results of its work taken for granted or enshrined in legislation. Who would now consider building a staircase in a public place with bannisters which allowed, even invited, children to climb through? Yet it was Jackson’s observation of a child who died on a hospital staircase that led to this commonsense change.

Another lifesaver was the simple piece of work he did with a local ENT surgeon, David Mathias, on how teenagers could be prevented from dying by inhaling pen tops. They found a 4mm hole in the end of the pen top was sufficient to prevent asphyxiation.

Robert Hugh Jackson was born on May 9 1918 in Oldham into a medical family. There was never any doubt in his mind what he would do for a career. After Oundle he went up to Oxford to study Medicine, expecting a six-year course with clinical training in London. The war intervened, and he went on the fast track as one of the first cohort to do their clinical training in Oxford.

Taught by Sir Howard Florey, who was pioneering the use of penicillin, Jackson saw at first hand some of the early dramatic successes. His first posts were in the A&E Department of the Radcliffe Infirmary and then the Wingfield Orthopaedic Hospital where he met his future wife Shirley, who was doing research on peripheral nerve injuries. This background in trauma was important when he was called up to the Army as a medical officer, often on the front line.

In northern Italy he was at a house on the front line which had been occupied by a company of 30 Allied soldiers. When it was bombed, seven were killed and five escaped from the carnage. For 17 hours Jackson and two orderlies crawled through the wreckage to treat the other, trapped, men. After he arrived no one else died and eventually all survivors were evacuated safely. The citation for his MC noted that “by his stamina and good humour he inspired confidence”.

His interest in the social side of medicine began in Oxford. He and a friend, Keith Hodgkin, resurrected a boys’ club previously run for the deprived young people of Oxford by students from Balliol and New College. On leaving the Army he was advised to go to Newcastle to work with Sir James Spence, a pioneer in social paediatrics. Jackson was first appointed as a consultant to set up a new paediatric unit in North Shields and then a similar unit in Gateshead. He also had an appointment at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle where he began to establish sub-speciality work in gastroenterology and nephrology.

Following retirement he continued to be active in injury prevention at national and international level. He worked as an adviser in paediatric education in Sri Lanka, and for the World Health Organisation.

He was appointed OBE and, in 2000, was awarded the James Spence Medal by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in recognition of his contribution to child health.

Hugh Jackson’s wife, whom he married in 1945, predeceased him, as did one of their three sons. The other two are both doctors.

Hugh Jackson born May 9 1918, died October 5 2013

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10378427/Hugh-Jackson.html

Posted: 16-10-2013 02:58 Post subject: