What Obama Doesn't Get About Americans and Health Care

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Toddler Has Same IQ Score as Stephen Hawking

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Texas Among First States Predicted to Recover from Recession

Bill Dedman, MSNBC.com, Investigative reporter, updated 10:19 p.m. CT, Sun., May. 31, 2009

NEW YORK— If you want to be in the right place when the recovery starts, that place may be in Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Texas or Washington.

The recession didn't start at the same time in every state, and it won't end at the same time either. A new forecast from Moody's Economy.com predicts that jobs growth will return first in those five states, starting in the last quarter of this year. Four of those states benefit from strong high-tech industries, and the fifth, Texas, has a strong base of energy industries.

A second wave of jobs growth, in the first quarter of 2010, is predicted in seven states: Alabama, Georgia, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The next wave, in the second quarter of 2010, is expected in seven states: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming.

That leaves 31 states and the District of Columbia waiting until the third quarter of 2010 for jobs to start growing again.

The new forecast is released along with the monthly Adversity Index. Each month, Moody's Economy.com and msnbc.com use data on employment, industrial production, housing starts and house prices to label each state or metro area as expanding, at risk of recession, in recession or recovering.

Like a jigsaw puzzle nearing completion, the index shows that the recession reached 373 of the nation's 381 metro areas, and 49 out of 50 states (Alaska was spared), by the end of March.

Here are several ways to explore this month's Adversity Index:

An interactive map on this page shows the economic health of every state and metro area. You can "play" the map to watch the progress of recessions over 15 years, or select any state to see data for each metro area. You can also see the map on its own page.              

*A month-by-month chart shows when the current recession enveloped each metro area, and which eight metro areas were not yet in decline.

*The updated index will be published every month at http://adversity.msnbc.com. There is a lag of nearly two months, so April data will be out later in June.

*An explainer tells how the Adversity Index assesses the economy.

A head start on recovery: Why will some states recover faster than others?

High-tech industry is one element. A slowdown in technology spending in 2008 and 2009 has created a pent-up demand for technology — businesses that know they need to upgrade and are waiting for the ability to spend.

"States that have a high concentration in tech-related industries are well positioned to take advantage of this trend, which is particularly true of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Washington and to a lesser extent Texas," said economist Andrew Gledhill of Moody's Economy.com.

"Although not scheduled to begin its recovery until a quarter later, New Mexico also fits into this category of benefiting from a tech recovery."

Why is Texas, which has less high-tech industry, on the list for early job growth?

"The state had largely missed out on the housing boom (as did Colorado) and was among the last to join the recession, in large part due to lingering impacts from the energy boom of years past," Gledhill said. "Similarly, other expected early risers such as Washington and Colorado were also relatively late to join the recession for various reasons. Thus, as conditions begin to turn nationally, they have less of a hole to dig themselves out of."

Another element for those early risers: better credit ratings.

"One factor that the five early job recovery states all have in common is less erosion in household credit conditions, with the worst of the group being Idaho," Gledhill said. "As a result, once it seems apparent that recovery is setting in, households in these states will be more able to turn and inject money back into their local economies. There is less de-leveraging of household balance sheets in these states. This will in turn prompt a more favorable trend in certain types of service industries."

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Many Doctors Voicing Concern About Teens & Texting

Trouble for texting teens?: Constant text-messaging concerns doctors

Teens' text-messaging is on the rise, raising concerns ranging from anxiety and sleep deprivation to repetitive stress injury.

THOMAS JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES A young attendee at Endfest in 2007 uses her cellphone to text-message. Some experts say too much texting may make it hard for teens to separate from their parents.

By KATIE HAFNER

The New York Times

They do it late at night when their parents are asleep. They do it in restaurants and while crossing busy streets. They do it in the classroom with their hands behind their back. They do it so much their thumbs hurt.

Spurred by unlimited texting plans offered by carriers such as AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, U.S. teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages a month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Co., almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier.

The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.

Dr. Martin Joffe, a pediatrician in Greenbrae, Calif., recently surveyed students at two high schools and said he found many were routinely sending hundreds of texts every day.

"That's one every few minutes," he said. "Then you hear that these kids are responding to texts late at night. That's going to cause sleep issues in an age group that's already plagued with sleep issues."

Keeping parents close

The rise in texting is too recent to have produced conclusive data on health effects. But Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who is director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who has studied texting among teenagers in the Boston area for three years, said it might be causing a shift in the way adolescents develop.

"Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be," she said. "Texting hits directly at both those jobs."

Psychologists expect to see teenagers break free from their parents as they grow into autonomous adults, Turkle added, "but if technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, that's harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, 'Should I get the red shoes or the blue shoes?' "

As for peace and quiet, she said, "it makes it very difficult to be in that state of mind."

"If you're being deluged by constant communication," she added, "the pressure to answer immediately is quite high. So if you're in the middle of a thought, forget it."

Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said teens have a "terrific interest in knowing what's going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop."

For that reason, he said, the rapid rise in texting has potential for great benefit — and great harm.

"Texting can be an enormous tool," he said. "It offers companionship and the promise of connectedness. At the same time, texting can make a youngster feel frightened and overly exposed."

Thumbs take thumping

Texting also may be taking a toll on teenagers' thumbs. Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth-grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on her tiny LG phone as fast as she typed on a regular keyboard. She noticed a painful cramping in her thumbs a few months ago. (Lately, she has been using the iPhone she received for her 15th birthday, and she says texting is slower and less painful.)

Peter Johnson, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, said it was too early to tell whether this kind of stress is damaging. But, he added, "based on our experiences with computer users, we know intensive repetitive use of the upper extremities can lead to musculoskeletal disorders, so we have some reason to be concerned that too much texting could lead to temporary or permanent damage to the thumbs."

Wagner said that although her school, like most, forbids cellphone use in class, with the LG phone she could text by putting it under her coat or desk. "You pretend you're getting something out of your backpack," her classmate Ari Kapner said.

Teachers often are oblivious.

"It's a huge issue, and it's rampant," said Deborah Yager, a high-school chemistry teacher in Castro Valley, Calif. Yager recently gave an anonymous survey to 50 students; most said they texted during class.

"I can't tell when it's happening, and there's nothing we can do about it," she said. "And I'm not going to take the time every day to try to police it."

Parents don't notice

Joffe said parents tend to be far less aware of texting than of, say, video-game-playing or general computer use, and the unlimited plans often mean parents stop paying attention to billing details. "I talk to parents in the office now," he said. "I'm quizzing them, and no one is thinking about this."

Some parents are starting to take measures. Greg Hardesty, a reporter in Lake Forest, Calif., said his daughter, Reina, 13, racked up 14,528 texts in one month late last year. She would keep the phone on after going to bed, switching it to vibrate and waiting for it to light up and signal an incoming message.

Hardesty wrote a column about her texting in his newspaper, The Orange County Register, and her volume quickly soared to about 24,000 messages. When her grades fell precipitously, her parents confiscated the phone.

Her grades have improved, and the phone is back in her hands, but her text messages are limited to 5,000 a month, and none between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. weekdays.

 

GPS for the Body® Tracks Cancer in Patients During Treatment

What is GPS for the Body®?

The implanted Beacon® electromagnetic transponders work with the Calypso® 4D Localization System™ to provide guidance to the clinician on the position and movement of the prostate during radiation therapy. Clinicians use the motion data provided by the Calypso System to guide radiation therapy setup and monitor the prostate position during treatment delivery.

The implanted Beacon® transponders and the Calypso System provide the clinician continuous, real-time monitoring of the prostate and alerts the clinician when the target is outside of acceptable boundaries due to organ motion, thereby enabling corrections during treatment delivery — GPS for the Body®. The implanted Beacon® transponders and the Calypso System provide objective guidance that enables the clinician to manage organ motion and expanded treatment delivery opportunities. In addition, clinician confidence is enhanced through accurate sub-millimeter1 electromagnetic localization accuracy and additional non-ionizing radiation doses are not needed.



The Beacon® electromagnetic transponders and the Calypso® 4D Localization System™, referred to as GPS for the Body®, is a system that provides an innovative solution for target localization and monitoring during radiation therapy delivery.

The Calypso® 4D Localization System™ displays and records prostate motion—continuously in real-time—through an intuitive graphical user interface. Clinicians use the visual and audio cues to manage prostate motion when the organ moves outside of the thresholds set by the radiation department.