Malignant mesothelioma has a few major symptoms. Pleural mesotheliomas main symptom is shortness of breath as a consequence of pleural effusion ” fluid being built up in the pleura, or membrane, encompassing the lung. The next most common symptomis chest pain because the chest wall is being attacked by the tumor. Other symptoms may include weight loss, fatigue, and night sweats

The primary symptomof patients with peritoneal mesothelioma, which originates in the abdomen, is the swelling of the abdomen because of fluid accumulation (ascites), abdominal pain, and bowel obstruction.

Its vital to know that many of these symptoms may be caused by other conditions. But if you have experienced any of these symptoms and have had asbestos exposure, you should see your doctor.

Peritoneal mesothelioma cancer is difficult to diagnose, because less serious conditions also cause similar symptoms. Symptoms typical for mesothelioma:

• Shortness of breath
• Chest or lower back pains due to accumulated fluid in the pleura
• Burning up
• Nausea
• Breathy voice
• Difficulty swallowing
• Coughing up blood

Do not attempt self-diagnosis. One suffering from any of the above symptoms should see a doctor and remain calm. Performing a biopsy is the standard way to confirm the condition. A pathologist takes a small tissue sample from the suspicious area and performs an examination that will result in a very accurate diagnosis. Usually, biopsies do not hurt.

CT scans (Computed Tomography) are an option to avoid a biopsy. A CT scan is basically an X-ray procedure where cross-sectional images are taken as a scanner rotates around the body. Sometimes, the patient ingests a dye that helps define the picture. CT scans have the advantage of being non-invasive and easier, and they are considered an effective way of diagnosing the disease. Opinion is divided as to whether the scan is more or less cost-effective than a biopsy. If there are abnormalities, a biopsy may be needed on top of the CT scan to confirm whether or not the irregularity is a tumor, and if so, if the tumor is benign or malignant. It is also possible to diagnose pleural mesothelioma by looking for cancer cells in a sample of fluid from the pleura.

Mesothelioma can also be screened and then diagnosed by any of these methods. Patients who may think they are at risk but do not display any symptoms are typically screened, to catch the cancer early or to make sure the patient is not otherwise in danger. People who need to be screened include those with a history of asbestos exposure..

Generally people relate ’steam power’ to the slow moving steam trains and boats of an age long since left in the dust, a sentimental picture of a Victorian railway perhaps… not exactly state of the art eco-power you may say. However steam power is getting a re-vamp thanks to a company who are trying to make the steam-engine more efficient and compatible with modern day technology.

Clean Power Technologies, in Newhaven on the English south coast, are trying to create a car that runs on steam power. They are developing steam hybrid engines that cut down and reuse the huge amount of energy wasted by the internal combustion engine. “When you talk of steam people think you are going backwards,” said Abdul Mitha, the company’s CEO and president, “Anywhere where you are wasting a lot of heat, we can go in, capture the heat and turn it into energy savings … Steam has tremendous power. If it can drive a steam locomotive, why can’t it drive an automotive engine?”

Of the energy in a vehicles petrol tank, just 27% is converted into forward motion, 33% is spent cooling the engine, 4% is lost as friction and a huge 36% is lost as exhaust heat. The company is aiming to harness the wasted heat that is pumped out of the exhaust and convert it into useful power. “There is a lot of heat that is created and totally wasted. Clean Power Technologies aims to recover 40% of this exhaust heat”, Mitha.

Clean Power Technologies have created an experimental model in which engine exhaust at 750C, the typical for a lorry, is run through a steam accumulator which heats water to 360C plus, creating high pressure steam which they are ultimately aiming to pump back to the main engine to drive the pistons. However at the moment they are using the steam to run refrigeration units transporting frozen goods on the trucks. A demonstration truck is under construction to be completed by the end of October.

The plans are supported by Dr Ralph Clague, a mechanical engineer at Imperial College London, “Recycling exhaust heat and energy that is rejected from the engine has got to be the way forward in the future.” He feels that there has been no need to improve the efficiency before, however people are now faced with minimal fuel supplies and rocketing prices, “A tank of petrol or a tank of diesel is such an incredibly good energy store that we have been able to afford to throw some of it away up until now.”Although these ideas have been around in the industry for a while, Clean Power technology is addressing them practically and productively. “It’s a perfectly feasible idea … Obviously now with rising oil prices etc it becomes essential to extract more energy from the fuel you are putting in.” Clague.

Hannah Walker is a writer for www.ecoswitch.com

“Above all other birds it is the soaring eagle, with its size and weight, that gives the most abiding impression of power and purpose in the air,” declared Edwin Way Teale in Atlantic Monthly in 1957. Unique to North America and revered for its majestic appearance, legendary strength and longevity, the bald eagle became the national emblem of the United States in 1782 and continues to be an easily recognized symbol of patriotism.

Once endangered in all of the lower 48 states, bald eagles came dangerously close to extinction. However, due to increased awareness, protective legislation and widespread conservation efforts over the past fifty years, the bald eagle population is making a remarkable comeback, and eagle watching is becoming a popular pastime for nature lovers across the country, especially in Arkansas as well as parts of Missouri.

Kelly Farrell, Park Interpreter for DeGray Lake Resort State Park in Bismarck, Arkansas, has seen hundreds of bald eagles during her numerous jaunts as an eagle-watching tour guide. “It never gets old,” she remarked. “They are amazing and captivating each and every time I get a glimpse.”

Park Interpreter Sarah Keating of Lake Dardanelle State Park concurred. “The feeling of seeing this majestic bird soaring across the lake for the first time is still awe-inspiring even to me. Therefore, any time you can help a visitor experience a ‘first’ like this is truly gratifying.”

Bald eagles follow seasonal food supplies, so they travel south along the Mississippi Flyway from around Canada, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois when the northern waters begin to freeze. Migratory patterns vary according to John Morrow, Park Interpreter at Petit Jean State Park. “Some eagles are here year-round, and some are coming in from Canada and the far northern states. Some don’t migrate at alllike in Alaska, where they are almost as common as dirt.”

Eagles begin to arrive in Arkansas as early as mid-October and stay all winter long, departing around February and as late as mid-March. Over 1,700 eagles may winter in The Natural State, depending on weather conditions. Wintering eagles favor the Ouachitas and Ozarks for the excellent habitat replete with open waters, food and shelter. “The locations they choose are usually remote with little disturbance, and good winter roosting areas are available,” commented Park Naturalist Merle Rogers of Roaring River State Park in Cassville, Missouri.

Mainly fish eaters, bald eagles are attracted to the area’s abundant lakes, undeveloped shorelines, countless streams and wild rivers. “When the lake’s surface water temperature falls to 41-42 F, there is a mass die-off of shad, a small fish that is a favorite among eagles,” revealed guide Jay Viator of Belle of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs. “Young, immature bald eagles, not yet skilled at catching fish, frequent chicken barns in the area to eat dead chickens thrown out by farmers,” he continued.

In addition to fish and carrion, eagles feed on turtles, waterfowl and small mammals, which they hunt themselves or pirate from smaller raptors. “They are lazy birds!” exclaimed Park Interpreter Lori Anderson of Petit Jean State Park. “They want to find food without much work. Being the largest bird around, the eagle will steal food that other birds catch.”

While bald eagles are unscrupulous when it comes to finding meals, they remain faithful mates. At age 4 or 5, an eagle reaches sexual maturity and shifts its focus to both finding a mate and raising offspring. The typical courtship ritual includes aerial somersaults during which the pair whirls through the air with locked talons. Eagles can live up to 30 years in the wild, and they mate for life.

Producer Gary Cooley of Ozark Mountains Website, Inc., named His Place Resort on the White River just outside of Mountain Home as the premier place for watching an eagle pair that returns each year to nest.

“These eagles are fascinating to watch. The male brings sticks and other nesting materials to the female, who promptly throws them away. Then the bickering starts between the two birds,” he shared.

The peak months for eagle watching are December through February, and January is Eagle Awareness Month in Arkansas. When embarking on an eagle-watching expedition, keep the following in mind:

Get out early.
Eagles soar in thermal updrafts, so the best time to see one in the air is when the temperature is rising during mid- to late morning.

Stay behind a blind.
A tree or car acts as an effective blind. Eagles sometimes are shy creatures. People walking around or towards a perched eagle will chase it off its roost, and flying away drains energy needed by the eagle to survive in winter temperatures.

Look near the waterways.
For the most part, eagles stay 3/4 of the way up trees while fishing from the banks. Their white heads and tail feathers are easy to see against the trees along the shore. Many resorts or marinas on lakes have pontoon boats for rent.

Look into a guided tour.
There are many half- or full-day tours with expert guides available. For inexperienced boat operators, running the river in low water can be very challenging.

Report any nest sightings.
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission monitors all eagle nests in the state as part of nationwide conservation efforts. Anyone who observes a bald eagle nest is asked to report it to the AGFC’s Wildlife Management Division at 877.873.4651.

Be mindful of the law.
Possession of an eagle feather or other body part is a felony with a fine of up to $10,000 and/or imprisonment. Exceptions apply only to certain Native American tribes with appropriate legal documents.

Use your resources.
Go to for a complete list of eagle-watching tours and eagle-related events, including DeGray’s 25th Annual Eagles Et Cetera Festival to be held on January 23-25, 2004.

For information on more eagle-watching opportunities, contact your local park rangers or naturalists.

About the Author

Jeannette Balleza is Co-Owner of Vulcan Creative, a creative agency specializing in identity with integrity. Vulcan Creative consults with clients on communication strategy and concept development and refinement for graphic design and web site development projects. Go to http://www.vulcancreative.com for more information and to request a free initial consultation.

LV(oil Treatment, oil Filtration, oil Purification, oil
Recycling, oil Filter, oil Restoration, oil Regeneration, oil
Filtering, oil Reclamation)series oil purifier are suitable
especially for purifying and restoring hydraulic oil, machine
oil, coolant oil and various other lubrication oil. The most
breakdown of machinery which has lubrication oil system results
from contaminated lubrication in which has water, gas,
impurities etc. LV series can rapidly remove water, gas,
particulate matters and impurities from lubrication oil and
improve properties of lubricating oil so as to greatly extend
lifetime of machinery which has lubrication system.

In the famous kid’s fairy tale ‘The Three Little Pigs’ one of the pigs built a house of straw that made him almost pay with his life. The pig was blamed in the tale for choosing the wrong building material. But his material was definitely the right one. He was just not aware of one important secret of construction. However, some of the professional builders know the secret, and they apply it in many places throughout the world. As the result, the winners of the situation are reasonable American millionaires.

Why straw? Firstly, it may sound as a paradox, but straw, when handled correctly, is the natural material that maximally resistant to decomposition. The recent researches by US scientists have shown that compressed straw packs about 100 years old contained some sorts of grasses, which have already disappeared. Moreover, they were preserved safe and sound. Geneticists received really unique materials for their work, while builders received confirmation of strength and durability of the forgotten building materials.

Secondly, in the course of studying the myth about straw’s fire risk was also denied. Fire tests gave out wondering results. Of course straw house can be burned down, unless straw is finished with plaster or stucco, for instance. However, after straw went under finishing, it could compete with metal by refractoriness. The temperature that made metal constructions melt could be resisted by straw structures for extra 40 minutes. Apart from this, straw buildings showed high energy-saving coefficients.

I could spend hours telling you about positive impact of straw on human health. The USA and Western Europe witness the real straw-construction boom. And this is very easy to explain - straw is a lot cheaper that most conventional building materials, while the final results corresponds considerably with the requirements of eco-houses. Although carcassless technology allows erecting only one-storied buildings, the construction on carcass basis enables to erect buildings with multiple number of floors.

Read more about articles within “Eco-houses” series below

Eco-house concept: pro and con

Mega firmament in real estate

About the Author

Cameron G. Lindblom is a Sweden-born businessman who’s built his success in real estate. Apart from running his business, he is the Editorial Board Manager at RealEstateGates Ltd (http://www.realestategates.com).

One of his outstanding works is called ‘Drugs and Society’, 1998.

“Wrong choice goes from ignorance of the better”, Cameron often says to people and this seems to be his lifetime motto.

Eric Svein

NSH GER Gas engine oil regeneration(oil purifier,oil
purification,oil filtration,oil filter,oil treatment,oil
recycling,oil regeneration,oil filtering, oil reclaim plant,oil
recovery,waste managment,oil disposal,oil reclamation.oil
restoration) System is particularly suitable to regenerate
internal-combustion engine oil including diesel engine oil,
gasoline engine oil and internal-combustion engine oils. GER
series can effectively remove colloid, oxid, acid, pitch,
particles, impurities, water, gas in the oil. Specially, GER can
restore the color of used internal-combustion engine oil and
remove the scent rapidly.

Ecuador is a rich country when it comes to biodiversity. Even
though Ecuador is only the size of the state of Nevada, its
biodiversity exceeds the one from the United States in total.
According to the World Resource
Institute Ecuador is one of the few countries on earth
categorized as “megadiverse,” owing to the variety of its
ecosystems and species.

Within three hours, you can drive in Ecuador from arctic tundra
to sweltering beaches, from a temperate pine forest to a
tropical wet forest, from a desert landscape to wetlands filled
with mangroves. Ecuador is also the most ethnically diversified
country in Latin America, a home to large Arab, Asian,
Caucasian, African, and Jewish populations. In the Native Indian
population, one can find tribes living in very primitive
conditions, from those who were recently head shrinkers to the
most entrepreneurial otavalenos, known around the globe for the
quality of their textiles.

According to the Natura
Foundation, an environmental non governmental organization
(NGO), approximately 50 percent of Ecuador is suffering from
various degrees of soil erosion, and deforestation is 45 percent
in the lowlands, 48 percent in the highlands, and 8 percent in
the Amazon basin. Thousands of acres of forest disappear daily,
despite laws that prohibit the cutting down of trees and the
exportation of wood. It has been calculated that deforestation
amounts to 680,000 acres per year (approximately 2,000 per day),
and in less that forty years not a single forest will remain.

We can certainly say that biodiversity in Ecuador is decreasing
rapidly. Several aspects of the society are to blame. Mainly the
lack of enforcement of laws and the corruption by the government
seem to have a great affect on the preservation of the countries
most valuable treasure. The lack of insight in small communities
who own large parts of natural habitat of animals is also a
threat. Preservation of the biological diversity can be achieved
by educating these communities and stimulating ecotourism, or
sustainable development.

Do You Ken John Peel?

My daughter Abi turned thirteen recently and as head of the family she thinks it’s about time her parents became vegetarians. She has been a convert, with occasional lapses, for around two years. I’m certainly not against the idea. We hardly eat meat anyway; just the odd bacon sandwich and an extremely rare steak (rare in the numerical rather than the French culinary sense), but it would be good to lose that feeling of guilt experienced when a cow looks at you over the fence with those mournful eyes.

Actually the cow is not at all sad - it’s probably wondering if you are going to pass it some of that long green grass on the other side of the fence, but the guilt is real enough.

Of course, not everybody feels that way. In another life I used to be a musician and I remember driving to a gig with a black American blues singer called Johnnie Mars. I pointed out some ducks which were flying low over the band bus in formation. Johnnie looked up and said yep, he thought they were mighty fine, and after a moment, ‘Especially with roast potatoes’.

This was said without a trace of irony. He told me later, with the same straight face, that he was well known in East Poland and Latvia, which reminded me irresistibly of Dorothy Parker’s line about being famous in two continents - ‘Greenland and Iceland’.

Anyway, as I said, I’d like to become a vegetarian, but I think you have to pick the right time. It’s like giving up smoking, something I finally managed to do ten years ago after many attempts. One day, all the conditions were right and I stopped, just like that.

That’s how I imagine it would be when giving up meat, although as far as I know, meat is not addictive. There’ll be no retrievals of half used packs of bacon from the bin, or furtive trips to the corner shop, (’Just going to take the dog around the block, dear. Won’t be long’).

These ruminations (isn’t that what cows do? - Ed) were brought on by the fact that we’ve recently moved house. We’re now twelve miles further north and within sight of the Moray Firth. (In Scotland an estuary is called a firth, so for example we have the Firth of Forth - see?). Anyway, in those few miles, we’ve moved out of the Highlands and onto the coastal plain, which drops gently down to the sea, about six miles away, giving us a clear view of the few solitary cottages and farmhouses in the area, plus the remains of Duffus castle and the Lossiemouth lighthouse.
All this is very different from the Highlands, with its hills and valleys, rough ravines and forests. Almost a different country, almost a different people. Before the Jacobite uprising in the 18th century and the subsequent destruction of the clan system, the ‘wild, wykked hieland men’ used to swoop down onto the coastal plain, steal all the cattle they could cope with, burn a few cottages and disappear back into the hills.

Well, the clans are no longer a force, and instead there are large shooting estates, sometimes owned by old established families and sometimes by wealthy newcomers. Clients pay the equivalent of the price of a good second hand car for a few days shooting. We used to live in a farmhouse right in the middle of one of these estates. Pheasants were as common as pigeons and sparrows are in town. It was not at all unusual to see two or three elderly gents stroll past our house, stepping stiff-legged over barbed wire fences (ouch), with their broken shotguns cradled over one arm and their labradors at heel.

Now, you might think I’m out of sympathy with the hunting fraternity, and you’d be right, up to a point, although it’s true I did a lot of fishing in my early teens, and I once owned a beautiful .22 BSA air rifle with an oiled stock and a rifled barrel. I gave up fishing when I discovered girls, and I exchanged the rifle for my first guitar and never looked back.

As a young teenager, part of my reading was about the safari hunters of Africa and India, last of a dying breed. One of the most interesting of these was Jim Corbett. He became well known as a writer and his best book was probably ‘The Man-Eaters of Kumaon’. He had respect and even love for the man-eaters that he had to shoot. He was not just a hunter; he was also a naturalist and an early conservationalist, who warned against ‘the indiscriminate hunting of the tiger, which if not controlled would eventually deprive India of the finest of her fauna’.

About this time I discovered two great American writers; Hemingway via ‘The Green Hills of Africa’, written in 1933, and William Faulkner through ‘The Bear’. Written in 1942 as a long short story, ‘The Bear’ is Faulkner at his prophetic best. It’s about a group of men and boys who go on a hunting trip every year’, and each time they have to drive further to find the wilderness as the Mississippi Delta shrinks. At the time the story was written, conservation was not at all fashionable, nor was it twenty years later when I read it, but it made me realize that there could be a link between hunting and conservation.

I have no desire to hunt or shoot any animal, but I’m hardly in a position to criticize anyone else while I still eat meat. The arguments in favour of hunting are not easy to refute. For instance, it’s claimed that without foxhunting, farmers would quickly eradicate the fox and that in Scotland the Red deer population would soar without adequate control.

Maybe, but I can’t help thinking Oscar Wilde got it right when he wrote about ‘The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable’. Besides, as a solution to the deer population problem, I’m for the re-introduction of the wolf, absent from the Scottish Highlands since before Bonnie Prince Charlie went home to Italy. This is a serious and considered proposition, now championed by the Green Party, and it feels right to me. It works in Montana - why not here in the Highlands? In the meantime, at least I’ve moved out of earshot of the shotguns on the estate.
James Collins

http://www.pet-portraits-scotland.com
email:collinsdallasart@tiscali.co.uk

About the Author

James Collins is an artist, writer and musician who works in the north of Scotland. These days he specialises in portraits of pets and other animals. He lives with his wife, daughter, and three dogs in a house overlooking the Moray Firth.

Despite numerous advantages of eco-houses along with vast
research experience and positive attitude of physicians and
ecologists, they can hardly take their firm place in our life.
The reason for it may be in the fact that the value of the
natural materials (like straw) is too low. A building
constructed of straw assembly units can be about five times
cheaper than that of conventional brick. It’s easy to make a
simple conclusion that massive building of such houses may
radically change the market situation leading to recession of
construction companies’ and developers’ incomes. They don’t have
it on the agenda right now for sure. At the same time, the
wealthiest people really care about what inheritance they hand
down to their descendants. That’s why they are usually concerned
with the environmental conditions, apart from all the financial
matters that are on their list of important things. You can
never buy new health, can you? Thus, care about health is no
longer an individual matter, but social in general. Every single
person is responsible here. Therefore, the first and the main
important duty of eco-houses is to minimize negative impact on
the environment and utilize wastes with minimal damages. That’s
what the whole reasonable world must learn. Read more about
articles within “Eco-houses” series below Eco-house concept: pro
and con Mega firmament in real estate Straw as real estate
building material

SMOKING

Tendrills of smoke circle my head
The smell of it fills me with dread.
Especially when I don’t smoke
It’s only when other people take a toke.

It burns
It makes my stomach churn
My eyes hurt
And I’m very curt.

I’m curt because I want my health
A killer that can attack in utter stealth
I want to keep my lungs inside of me
Healthy

Why can’t they see that the habit’s bad
For all of us, and it’s so sad.
For the children around…the next generation
Breathe it in….It gets maximum penitration

Coughs and athsma, allergies and such
Makes this all too much
For they have a filter in their mouth.as they puff
We don’t, and enough is enough.

About the Author

I live in Edmonton Alberta Canada. Ever since having to stand outside at a Christmas party, I have made a stand against smoking.