Note condition when employee first invokes FMLA ? Business ...

Generally, simply calling in sick doesn?t trigger an employer?s obligations to offer FMLA leave. But what if the employee was very specific about his medical condition when he first called in and clearly was eligible for FMLA leave for that first absence?

Does he have to be equally specific later? That?s up in the air, according to a recent case.

Recent case: Michael was an ambu??lance driver. He first suffered a transient ischemic attack (TIA), commonly called a ?mini-stroke.? Most people recover quickly, but may be susceptible to major strokes later. Michael called in after the first incident and then requested FMLA leave to recover for a few days. His supervisor suggested he take paid leave instead.

Later, Michael called in several more times, but didn?t specify whether he suffered another TIA. He was terminated for excessive absences and then sued, alleging that the absences were covered by the FMLA and should not have been used against him.

The employer argued that it never knew why Michael had called in sick and therefore wasn?t obligated to consider possible FMLA leave.

The court refused to dismiss the case, reasoning it would need more evidence on exactly what Michael said during the calls and whether the supervisor should have suspected another TIA was involved. (Bowman v. St. Luke?s Quakertown Hospital, No. 12-797, ED PA, 2012)

Final note: A case like this puts em??ployers in an awkward position. If you ask an employee whether his latest absence is related to an earlier illness, you may be setting yourself up for a ?regarded as disabled? ADA lawsuit. Your question may indicate you think the employee is disabled and unable to work. But if you don?t ask and count the time against him, you may be denying appropriate FMLA leave.

The best approach: Educate employees about the FMLA, including that they must let HR know that they have a serious health condition when calling in.

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Kim Kardashian Attends Divorce Hearing Alone, Kris Humphries A No-Show

Humphries blames his absence on flight complications, reports say.
By Driadonna Roland

Kim Kardashian leaves a courthouse in Los Angeles, California on Friday
Photo: David McNew/ Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705571/kim-kardashian-divorce-hearing-kris-humphries.jhtml

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New technique measures evaporation globally

Apr. 11, 2013 ? Researchers at Columbia Engineering and Boston University have developed the first method to map evaporation globally using weather stations, which will help scientists evaluate water resource management, assess recent trends of evaporation throughout the globe, and validate surface hydrologic models in various conditions. The study was published in the April 1 online Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"This is the first time we've been able to map evaporation in a consistent way, using concrete measurements that are available around the world," says Pierre Gentine, assistant professor of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia. "This is a big step forward in our understanding of how the water cycle impacts life on Earth."

Earth's surface hydrologic cycle comprises precipitation, runoff, and evaporation fluctuations. Scientists can measure precipitation across the globe using rain gauges or microwave remote sensing devices. In places where streamflow measurements are available, they can also measure the runoff. But measuring evaporation has always been difficult.

"Global measurements of evaporation have been a longstanding and frustrating challenge for the hydrologic community," says Gentine. "And now, for the first time, we show that simple weather station measurements of air temperature and humidity can be used across the globe to obtain the daily evaporation."

Evaporation is a key component of the hydrological cycle: it tells us how much water leaves the soil and therefore how much should be left there for a broad range of applications such as agriculture, water resource management, and weather forecasting.

Gentine, who studies the relationship between hydrology and atmospheric science and its impact on climate change, collaborated on this research with Guido D. Salvucci, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston University and the paper's lead author. Using data from weather stations, widely available across the globe, they focused on evaporation and discovered an emergent relationship between evaporation and relative humidity that gave them the evaporation rates.

Gentine and Salvucci plan to provide daily maps of evaporation around the world that will enable scientists to evaluate changes in water table, calculate water requirements for agriculture, and measure more accurate evaporation fluctuations into the atmosphere.

"Sharing our data with researchers around the world will help us learn more about Earth's hydrologic cycle and assess recent trends such as whether it is accelerating," adds Gentine. "Acceleration could greatly impact our climate, locally, nationally, and globally."

The research has been funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Journal Reference:

1. G. D. Salvucci, P. Gentine. Emergent relation between surface vapor conductance and relative humidity profiles yields evaporation rates from weather data. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1215844110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/oyhTVDh21yA/130411194647.htm

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New way to clear cholesterol from the blood

Apr. 10, 2013 ? Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified a new potential therapeutic target for lowering cholesterol that could be an alternative or complementary therapy to statins.

Scientists in the lab of David Ginsburg at the Life Sciences Institute inhibited the action of a gene responsible for transporting a protein that interferes with the ability of the liver to remove cholesterol from the blood in mice. Trapping the destructive protein where it couldn't harm receptors responsible for removing cholesterol preserved the liver cells' capacity to clear plasma cholesterol from the blood, but did not appear to otherwise affect the health of the mice.

In the research, published April 9 in the online journal eLife, scientists found that mice with an inactive SEC24A gene could develop normally. However, their plasma cholesterol levels were reduced by 45 percent because vesicles from liver cells were not able to recruit and transport a critical regulator of blood cholesterol levels called proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9. PCSK9 is a secretory protein that destroys the liver cells' receptors of low-density lipoprotein- LDL, the so-called "bad cholesterol" -- and prevents the cells from removing the LDL.

"Inhibiting SEC24A or PCSK9 may be an alternative to statins, and could work together with statins to produce even greater effects," said Xiao-Wei Chen of the Ginsburg lab, the first author on the paper. "Also, they might be effective on patients who are resistant to or intolerant of statins."

Initial studies of anti-PCSK9 therapies in humans have shown that eliminating PCSK9 can lower cholesterol dramatically and work with statins like Lipitor to lower it even further. The Ginsburg lab's research points to a new area for study: rather than inhibiting PCSK9 itself, perhaps future therapies could block the transport mechanism that allows the destructive protein to reach the LDL receptors.

The paper, "SEC24A deficiency lowers plasma cholesterol through reduced PCSK9 secretion," explains the mechanism by which cells transport PCSK9. Vesicles transport proteins in the cell; the Ginsburg lab's research focused on a specialized type of vesicle packaged by the Coat Protein Complex II, which regulates the metabolism of cholesterol, among many other things. These vesicles selectively transport cargo proteins including PCSK9.

Without those LDL receptors (LDLR), liver cells are not able to remove LDLs from the bloodstream, so protecting the LDLR from PCSK9 would allow the receptors to continue to remove cholesterol.

"Without SEC24A, much of the PCSK9 couldn't make its way out of the cells to destroy the LDLR, which then clears cholesterol from the blood," Chen said.

The part of the vesicle that selects which proteins to transport is SEC24. By blocking SEC24A gene, the researchers disabled the vesicle's selection of PCSK9. The destructive protein remained trapped within the cells, leaving the LDLR intact and enabling the liver to clear the body of cholesterol that otherwise could accumulate in arteries.

"We have no reason at this point to expect that this strategy will be any better than anti-PCSK9 therapy for treating high cholesterol, but it would be another alternative approach, and it's hard to predict which drugs will work the best and be the safest until we actually try them out in people," Ginsburg said.

Ginsburg is a research professor at the Life Sciences Institute, where his laboratory is located. He is also the James V. Neel Distinguished University Professor and the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor in the Division of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Department of Internal Medicine and departments of Human Genetics and Pediatrics at the U-M Medical School and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

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Journal Reference:

1. X.-W. Chen, H. Wang, K. Bajaj, P. Zhang, Z.-X. Meng, D. Ma, Y. Bai, H.-H. Liu, E. Adams, A. Baines, G. Yu, M. A. Sartor, B. Zhang, Z. Yi, J. Lin, S. G. Young, R. Schekman, D. Ginsburg. SEC24A deficiency lowers plasma cholesterol through reduced PCSK9 secretion. eLife, 2013; 2 (0): e00444 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.00444

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/aOwne_jUt2w/130410141535.htm

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Walk this way: New research suggests human ancestors may have used different forms of bipedalism during the plio-pleistocene

Apr. 11, 2013 ? According to a new study, our Australopithecus ancestors may have used different approaches to getting around on two feet. The new findings, co-authored by Boston University researchers Jeremy DeSilva , assistant professor of anthropology, and Kenneth Holt, assistant professor of physical therapy, appear in the latest issue of the journal Science in an article titled "The Lower Limb and Mechanics of Walking in Australopithecus sediba." The paper is one of six published this week in Science that represent the culmination of more than four years of research into the anatomy of Australopithecus sediba (Au. sediba). The two-million-year-old fossils, discovered in Malapa cave in South Africa in 2008, are some of the most complete early human ancestral remains ever discovered.

The locomotion findings are based on two Malapa Au. sediba skeletons. The relatively complete skeletons of an adult female and juvenile male made possible a detailed locomotor analysis, which was used to form a comprehensive picture of how this early human ancestor walked around its world.

The researchers hypothesize this species walked with a fully extended leg (like humans do), but with an inverted foot (like an ape), producing hyperpronation of the foot and excessive rotation of the knee and hip during bipedal walking. These bipedal mechanics are different from those often reconstructed for other australopiths and suggest that there may have been several forms of bipedalism throughout human evolution.

Australopithecus sediba has a combination of primitive and derived features in the hand, upper limb, thorax, spine, and foot. It also has a relatively small brain, a human-like pelvis, and a mosaic of Homo- and Australopithecus-like craniodental anatomy. The foot in particular possesses an anatomical mosaic not present in either Au. afarensis or Au. africanus, supporting the contention that there were multiple forms of bipedal locomotion in the Plio-Pleistocene. (The recent discovery of an Ardipithecus-like foot from 3.4-million-year-old deposits at Burtele, Ethiopia, further shows that at least two different forms of bipedalism coexisted in the Pliocene.)

"Our interpretation of the Malapa skeletal morphology extends the variation in Australopithecus locomotion," says DeSilva. "As others have suggested, there were different kinematic solutions for being a bipedal hominin in the Plio-Pleistocene. The mode of locomotion suggested by the Malapa skeletons indicates a compromise between an animal that is adapted for extended knee bipedalism and one that either still had an arboreal component or had re-evolved a more arboreal lifestyle from a more terrestrial ancestor." DeSilva adds that there is some evidence that the South African species Au. africanus may have been more arboreal than the east African Au. afarensis. "A hypothesized close relationship between Au. africanus and Au. sediba, along with features in the upper limbs of the latter thought to reflect adaptations to climbing and suspension, is consistent with a retained arboreal component in the locomotor repertoire of Au. sediba."

Co-authors of this study are Kristian J. Carlson, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN; Christopher S. Walker, Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC; Bernhard Zipfel, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, , South Africa; and Lee R. Berger, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

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Journal Reference:

1. J. M. DeSilva, K. G. Holt, S. E. Churchill, K. J. Carlson, C. S. Walker, B. Zipfel, L. R. Berger. The Lower Limb and Mechanics of Walking in Australopithecus sediba. Science, 2013; 340 (6129): 1232999 DOI: 10.1126/science.1232999

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/ohXpT7oNkJc/130411142710.htm

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Early returns show wide lead for Kelly for Illinois seat (reuters)

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Starz Developing Vietnam War Drama From 'Newsroom' Writer Gideon Yago

By Tim Kenneally

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Starz is going to war with its latest project.

The network is developing a new drama series, "Airborne," from Gideon Yago, a writer on the first season of HBO's media drama "The Newsroom," Starz said Tuesday.

The project is billed as "a coming of age story set at the dawn of the Vietnam War" that "follows a young helicopter crew as they fight for survival, sanity, their souls, and each other in a country - and war - that are descending into chaos."

Rob Tapert, who executive produced Starz's "Spartacus: War of the Damned," will also executive produce "Airborne."

CBS News and MTV News alum Yago, who's won an Emmy and a Peabody award for his previous work, said that he hopes "Airborne" will extend beyond the theme of Vietnam to touch on "timeless" themes.

"Even though we are using Vietnam and the early days of air cavalry as a backdrop, our hope is to bring the audience timeless stories about what makes a hero and how a group of young people fight to retain their humanity in the midst of a surreal and terrible conflict," Yago noted.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/starz-developing-vietnam-war-drama-newsroom-writer-gideon-004730138.html

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