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Fuzzy future for commercial drone use

Wed, 02 Jul 2014 13:01:16 +0100

[A note: I'm participating in a challenge to blog every day in July. With a full time job and various freelance projects (not to mention starting marathon training!) it's been a bit hard to give this space the attention I'd like. I'm hoping this new challenge will help me get in more of a routine!]

Today I want to do a little self-promotion and talk about a feature I wrote yesterday for Law360 about the issues surrounding the use of drones for commercial purposes, specifically marketing real estate.

Drones have been in the news recently for a lot of reasons, but this week the NY Post reported that a few New York City real estate brokerages had received subpoenas from the FAA about their unmanned aircraft use.

Turns out, there's no actual regulation on small drones, but the FAA's official position is that they can't be used for commercial purposes. This poses a problem for tech-savvy real estate brokers who have been enjoying the ability to show potential renters and buyers what the view from their penthouse could look like, via camera-strapped drone.

But changes are coming, and the attorneys I talked to seemed at least somewhat optimistic about the future of commercial unmanned flying cameras in the real estate and other businesses.

You can check out the details here!

Yes, you should still get a regular pap smear.

Wed, 02 Jul 2014 01:47:43 +0100

Today was another big day for "that medical procedure you've been having? It's useless!" stories. This time it was women's pelvic exams, although much of the reporting seemed to lump all of those things that happen at the gynecologist's office into one big "in the stirrups" event, and claim that it was all a waste of time.

The Annals of Internal Medicine released a study recommending against "performing screening pelvic examination" in patients without symptoms that would suggest they need their pelvis examined.

But, as writer and registered nurse Kelli Dunham points out at the New Republic, that doesn't actually count as a condemnation of the whole event. The pap smear that is usually done in the middle of a pelvic exam still gets the green light from the American College of Physicians and the American Cancer Society.

I highly recommend heading over to the New Republic to read Dunham's piece. Not only does she delve into just what the study said and how those covering it failed, in many cases, to capture this key detail, she also shares her personal experience as a registered nurse working with patients who already experience so much stigma and anxiety connected with getting examined at all.

Click-bait headlines and mixed messages do nothing to alleviate this stigma and anxiety, let alone provide the clear message that health journalism should be striving to deliver. We synthesize the information in medical studies because it's already confusing or inaccessible to the average reader; inattention to important details like the difference between a pelvic exam and a pap smear, especially with a study that gives such a clear recommendation, can be both sloppy and dangerous.

Catching up: autism and pesticides, fighting superbugs with dirt, and vitamin overdose

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:46:23 +0100

I just got back from a wonderful vacation in Colorado, and discovered that a lot of interesting health science happened (or was published, at least) while I was away!

I was particularly interested to see the headlines about a study out of the University of California, Davis, showing that babies born to mothers who live close to crops treated with pesticides may be more likely to develop autism.

Any time I read a claim about autism spectrum disorders I get a little skeptical, because autism -- like vaccines, Lyme disease, fibromyalgia and other tricky-to-diagnose-and-understand conditions -- is a lightning rod for confusion and scare-mongering. But the results of this study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, are pretty striking.

It looked at women living within a mile of crops treated with organophosphate pesticides, and found that children born to women living less than a mile away were 60 percent more likely to have an autism spectrum disorder than those born farther away. Children of pregnant women living near crops treated with chlorpyrifos, which was banned for residential use more than a decade ago based on concerns about its neurological impact on children, were 3.3 times more likely to have an autism spectrum disorder, according to the UC Davis study.

It's the third study linking prenatal exposure to pesticides with autism, and the first to show a link with pyrethroids, which have been used as the "safer alternative" to chlorpyrifos, according to study authors, who told Scientific American that current data does not show a direct causation between any particular pesticide and an individual's autism risk. I'm looking forward to reading more research on this in the future.

In exciting bacteria news, researchers at McMaster University in Ontario have reportedly found a way to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria using a soil sample from Nova Scotia. In Nature's current cover report, researchers detail their finding that a compound produced by the Aspergillus fungus can block NDM-1, the enzyme responsible for the antibiotic-resistant properties of many bacteria.

The compound is called aspergillomarasmine A, or AMA, and it was actually discovered more than 50 years ago as one of the causes of wilting in plants. As it turns out, it also might help fight superbugs. The researchers are now hoping to find a way to use AMA in conjunction with existing antibiotics to treat those who contract resistant bacteria, which is becoming an increasing concern around the world.

And vitamins are making headlines again, thanks to a new report from the Environmental Working Group suggesting that kids who eat breakfast cereal may be getting an "overdose" of certain vitamins. Most people don't get enough calcium, vitamin D or vitamin E, but according to the new EWG paper (and Mother Jones), kids who eat cereal are likely consuming too much niacin, zinc and vitamin A, which can cause liver problems, anemia, skin issues and osteoporosis, among other unfortunate things.

As with linking autism and pesticides, it's next to impossible to prove that an individual kid contracted a specific condition from overconsumption of one or a few particular vitamins, but the researchers say that long-term continued consumption of cereal and cereal bars that are "vitamin enriched" may contribute to the development of chronic health issues associated with vitamin overconsumption.

Can tree-planting for better air backfire?

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:46:43 +0100

A few months ago I was at a real estate conference here in New York, and near the end of the day there was a presentation by a non-profit that plants trees in low-income neighborhoods. A big part of the pitch was the idea that the additional trees would not only be an aesthetic improvement and give local kids an opportunity to garden, but they would improve the air quality and potentially cut down on asthma rates.

New York has very, very high rates of asthma. It's a leading cause of emergency room visits in the poorest neighborhoods, and about 8.4 percent of children and 9.3 percent of adults are affected, according to the health department.

And air pollution in general contributes to about 6 percent of deaths in the city each year, according to the Department of Environmental Protection. During the summer, I regularly get alerts on my phone warning me about dangerously high ozone levels.

Ever since hearing about the tree-planting programs I've been wondering how much of an impact they can really have on these numbers. I haven't been able to find a lot of good research showing that there's a positive impact, at least when it comes to asthma rates. But today I came across this article in the Atlantic's City Lab, explaining how well-intentioned tree-planting can actually have the opposite of the intended effect.

Trees emit volatile organic compounds, which combine with mono-nitrogen oxides to form ozone when exposed to sunlight, and scientists recently found that certain trees are bigger culprits than others. Black gum trees emit about 15 times more VOCs than birch trees, for example.

Ozone production from VOCs is only expected to become a bigger problem as climate change proceeds, so researchers are working to ensure that programs that plant trees to better local environments don't end up creating an even bigger problem.

The City Lab article does a great job of explaining the research and what cities should do, and has some cool graphics as well. Definitely worth a look!

Roundup: Cheese, Land Banks, #PrezRezVisit

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:47:15 +0100

Happy weekend! Here are some of the things that caught my eye this week:

The FDA, a truly bad NY Times pun, and the fate of my favorite food

On Wednesday, the New York Times published a story with a pretty tame headline, but the Tweet they wrote for it caused some major eye-rolls: "An F.D.A. ruling on cheese has produced a stink that rivals Limburger." But, being a huge cheese lover (and living in artisanal product heaven - Brooklyn), I was intrigued. Turns out the FDA is concerned about the use of wooden boards to age cheese; because of their porous nature, it's not clear how well they can be cleaned, potentially raising the risk of the spread of Listeria and other bacteria.

A lot of cheese is aged on wooden boards, including one of my personal favorites - cheddar. And the FDA's concern extends to imported cheese as well. I keep using the word "concern" and not "rule" or "ruling," because later in the week the FDA published a comment on its Facebook page in response to the mini-uproar created by the Times article:

"The FDA does not have a new policy banning the use of wooden shelves in cheese-making, nor is there any FSMA requirement in effect that addresses this issue...Moreover, the FDA has not taken any enforcement action based solely on the use of wooden shelves."

It is concerned about the boards/shelves though, and said it "is always open to evidence that shows that wood can be safely used for specific purposes, such as aging cheese."

The Times and other publications painted it as a "retraction" or a "backpedaling," and a hopeful end to the cheesepocalypse. Here's the official, more detailed statement from the FDA so you can decide for yourself.

New York adding 10 more land banks

This is a little less exciting than cheese, but I found them both equally interesting this week. The New York state legislature has passed a bill that would double the number of land banks in the state, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to sign it soon.

Land banks give municipalities a way to aggregate parcels of blighted or underdeveloped land, making it easier to sell them for redevelopment. Cuomo initiated New York's land bank program in 2011 in an effort to speed up economic recovery in some of the cities hardest hit by the economic downturn. The state has the capacity for 10 land banks right now, and with the new law will be able to create 10 more.

I wrote this week for Law360 about what property owners and developers across the state (and their attorneys) should know if their city - or a city they want to invest in - creates a land bank.

Obama becomes third president in 76 years to visit Indian Country

I am a big fan of Twitter hashtags for livetweeting, humor, activism, and for bringing attention to things that I might not otherwise notice are happening. The latter happened on Friday when I started noticing the #PrezRezVisit hashtag. A lot of the Tweets were from Native Americans concerned about the lack of media coverage the event was getting and expressing skepticism about how the event would actually play out.

The president visited the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Nation in North Dakota, and the main theme seemed to be that the U.S. could be doing a lot more to support tribal nations, particularly with regard to education and economic programs. Obama's speech included some specific goals: reforms at the Bureau of Indian Education and the removal of red tape that impairs infrastructure and other developments on tribal lands.

The event was livecast on WhiteHouse.gov (you can see the video here), and the general feeling, on Twitter at least, was that it was a positive, productive day that had been a long time coming.

Brooklyn is buzzing...

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:47:53 +0100

As a person with a series bee allergy, the news earlier this week that an 18-wheeler carrying approximately 20 million bees overturned on I-95 in Delaware, spilling the little stingers everywhere, was pretty terrifying.

"Whew, thank goodness it's so far away!" I thought, as I googled "how far can bees fly?" (Turns out to be only about 80 miles, FYI.)

But then, later in the day yesterday, I came across this story about a swarm in Williamsburg. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Only a few miles from where I live.

"What the hell!? Is this normal? Should I stay inside all summer? Should I get those desensitization shots after all?"

The story mentions "Tony Bees," the NYPD's resident bee guy. He's a police detective, but he also happens to keep bees, at hives in Connecticut and Queens. Sometimes, when there's a swarm, the NYPD calls in Tony Bees and he vacuums them up (yes, literally) and takes them to his own hives, or someone else's, far away.

After the terror of looking at a picture man calmly leaning over a swarming pile of thousands of bees subsided, I did a little bit of research, and learned why bees swarm. You know how after this long, gross winter we feel like our apartments are too small and we kind of want to get away from our roommates and significant others? Bees feel that way too. Except they've literally been multiplying all winter, and now their hives are bursting and it's time for some to go.

Technically, what happens is that there are so many bees in there, some can't even smell the queen's pheromones anymore, so they elect a new queen, and a whole group takes off with her in search of a new, roomier hive. Maybe in Bushwick, with a dishwasher!

Anyway, that's why during the summer we occasionally see massive swarms of evil-looking and -sounding insects. They are busy when they're swarming, following the queen around and going off to scout for a new hive, so they aren't super dangerous, unless you mess with them. Or unless you've seen "My Girl" and are convinced you're doomed regardless of what anyone says.

I had some more questions, so I reached out to Tony Bees himself. Here's what he had to say about avoiding getting stung:

Lovely!

But in all seriousness, Tony is a friendly guy, and very willing to answer your bee questions. You can email him at tonybees3006@hotmail.com.

Why don't more women make it to equity partner status in BigLaw?

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:48:39 +0100

The legal trade publication I work for, Law360, is in the midst of a series about women in law based on some data we gathered over the last few months. The data, as you might expect, is not super encouraging if you are hoping for gender parity in one of the nation's most lucrative and powerful industries.

I can't give too much away here (that's what people buy subscriptions for!) but I wanted to quickly make note of something I discovered about the uphill battle to achieving equity partnership at a BigLaw firm while reporting my contribution to the series.

The biggest takeaway for me was this: while there is certainly the sense that women have a disproportionate burden to make the choice between family and a successful career — and in BigLaw as in other high-intensity careers that is indeed a choice many women feel they have to make — and this is likely a major reason that only a small percentage of equity partners are women, it's only part of the story.

The bigger issue may be that women are blocked early in their careers from some of the vital client-making opportunities that their male counterparts have access to, often simply because some men still don't feel comfortable mentoring, working with or giving credit to female attorneys.

To see what female equity partners and experts believe is behind the persistence of these ideas, check out the story — and others in the series by my colleagues, complete with our numbers on women in BigLaw at the 400 largest U.S. firms — here.

Girls View Sexual Violence As Normal

Tue, 15 Apr 2014 23:27:17 +0100

That's the title of a press release from Sociologists for Women in Society, which announced on Monday that a new study in the journal Gender & Society supports the theory that many young girls avoid reporting rape and other types of assault because they view this as "normal" behavior and/or feel they will be shamed for making a "big deal" about it.

The study, conducted by sociologist Heather Hlavka of Marquette University based on interviews with 100 girls aged three to 17, aims to go deeper than simply answering the question of why girls don't report abuse, to focus on "how violence is produced, maintained and normalized among youth," and on the language that girls use to describe this violence.

It's a study of the direct impact of rape culture, or what Hlavka calls "a patriarchal culture that normalizes and often encourages male power and aggression, particularly within the context of heterosexual relationships," citing Fineran and Bennett and Deboral Tolman.

In introducing the study, Sociologists for Women in Society cites a statistic from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN): 44% of sexual assault victims are under the age of 18, and 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to police.

RAINN has recently found itself a springboard both for those who decry rape culture and those who claim that it doesn't exist. It issued a letter to the White House in February with recommendations for how the Obama administration should address sexual assault.

To feminists and sexual assault victims and advocates, the language - RAINN put "rape culture" in quotes and asked the White House to focus on perpetrators instead of cultural factors - seemed a bit strange, but didn't necessarily read as a rejection of the existence of rape culture, or societal norms and factors that contribute to high rates of sexual assault, low rates of reporting and conviction and further victimization (by law enforcement and peers) of those who experience rape.

To those who argue that the idea of rape culture is absurd, or that it implicates too many people in what is a singular violent act, RAINN's words were a signal that feminists and advocates may be doing more harm than good by putting energy toward the destruction of cultural norms like catcalling, songs about "blurred lines" and jokes about rape and women's "place" as subordinate.

I won't go too much into my personal feelings on the issue here. You can see my Twitter timeline for that (it comes up a lot). But I just wanted to point out that regardless of whether or not you subscribe to the idea that ours is a culture that encourages - or fails to discourage - sexual assault, this new study includes some compelling evidence that at least some young girls believe that it's "normal" for boys to touch them without their consent, that boys "can't help it," and that it isn't safe for girls to report unwanted touching or sexual advances because adults are not likely believe them, and other female students or friends will label them "sluts" and "whores."

Not to undermine my last post, I will note that yes, this is obviously just one study. But it's clear from this study as well as the many others Hlavka cites and increasingly prevalent anecdotal accounts on social media that we have a problem.

Whatever we label it, the evidence is hard to deny: young girls - and many grown women - feel that their sexual assaults are inevitable, something men "just do," and something they need to just "get over" and accept. While the interviews in Hlavka's study are hard to read, I'm hopeful that her work will help to push forward the conversation about why that is.

To veg or not to veg? The jury's probably still out.

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 16:50:42 +0100

There's some interesting research being reported today about the health impact of a meatless diet. Specifically, an Austrian study found that people who ate a vegetarian diet had 50 percent more heart attacks and 50 percent more cancer diagnoses than those who ate meat.

A little shocking, right?

The debate over whether or not being a vegetarian is healthier than being a carnivore is ancient, but for those on both sides, the scientific evidence thus far has been largely frustrating. I think this is mostly because it is rare to find researchers willing to say that "X causes Y so you should never/always do Z." (I wrote about this recently for The 2x2 Project, specifically with regard to the science - or lack thereof - for gluten-free diet recommendations in non-Celiac patients).

Perhaps more than research on many other health topics, diet research is of high public interest and often becomes a source of intense, heated debate. Diet is personal, and it's something that is relatively within our control, especially if we have the financial means to change it. Everyone wants a "magic pill," as Dr. Paul Crane, an researcher who has studied the potential link between blood glucose levels and dementia, told me in an interview for the gluten-free diet story. In reality, that "magic pill" is hard to find. Unfortunately, the frustration that stems from this reality sometimes leads to extrapolating diet advice from studies that aren't necessarily built to give it.

The media plays a big role in this, of course. Since people are drawn to diet-related cures and remedies for the varying things that ail us, it makes sense that when a study like this one, and the one before it that ostensibly came to the opposite conclusion, come along, they make headlines.

But it's important to note that despite what some of those headlines say — PolicyMic's "Scientists Prove What We All Secretly Think About Vegetarians" feels particularly sensational — the study itself may not say that at all.

To be fair, though, their story points out a bit farther down that while the researchers found that the vegetarians they studied experienced generally worse health and had higher levels of anxiety and depression, they also hypothesized that the subjects might be vegetarians because of these pre-existing health issues.

And the most interesting piece to me: the researchers noted that their vegetarian subjects also had "poor health care practices," such as failing to obtain preventative care and avoiding vaccines. Could that say more about the mindset of these particular vegetarians than about what a meatless diet is doing to their bodies? Hopefully the researchers will pursue this question further.

I think PolicyMic and sites like it take an important step in actually linking to the studies they're writing about, so if people are skeptical or simply curious, they can take a look at the data for themselves. But as journalists we have had to come to accept that a great number of the people who see the headline will either simply retweet without clicking through at all, or read only the headline and first few paragraphs of the story. They don't have time to read to the end of the story, let alone attempt to parse a long medical journal article; that's why we're presenting the material in a more easily-digestible format. We just need to be careful that the facts — inconclusive as they may be — aren't lost in the process.

Growing Pains

Sat, 15 Mar 2014 01:59:50 +0100

This week, two of the subjects I follow most closely - sexual assault activism and critiques of the media - converged to create a tense (and intense) conversation about how the latter should approach the former, when Christine Fox (@steenfox) asked sexual assault victims to tweet what they were wearing when they were assaulted. A writer at BuzzFeed who has covered sexual assault extensively for the site put together a post using some of the tweets, and what ensued was what I hope will be the tumultuous beginning to a more nuanced conversation about journalism ethics regarding the use of comments on social media.

Many responses to the situation focused on the point that Twitter is public, so those who participated in the "event" were not entitled to the privacy they later claimed.

As a feminist and a journalist, this has led to a lot of self-reflection for me over the last couple of days. So I'm going to mostly defer to this great piece by Kat Stoeffel for NY Magazine:

"[The BuzzFeed writer] was under no obligation to reach out to the people who participated in Fox’s conversation under public Twitter handles, some of whom were righteously proud to have been handed the BuzzFeed microphone. Still, none of that inoculates Testa or BuzzFeed or other purveyors of listicles from the critiques at hand: Posts like this amount to selling a recording of other people’s group therapy while sending a fire hose of potentially unfriendly attention in the general direction of its participants."

Stoeffel says this may represent an internet "growing pain." I would argue it also represents a growing pain in communications between journalists and their readers and subjects as those communications become easier and more frequent via social media.

We can preach about the laws and ethics we learn about in J School until we turn blue; that won't change the fact that someone felt victimized, and that approach can backfire. I know the importance of not letting your story get away from you or be controlled by a source, but I also know the importance of doing justice to the person who lived the story. And I think that means really telling a story, valuing context over speed, brevity or clicks. It also means that, as we become more immediately accountable for our work, "face-to-face" with our sources and readers online, we may need to find new ways to explain how and why we do what we do.