APA: Internet addiction may cause mental disorders

With new tech toys constantly popping up like the 3G- iPhone and other small portable hand-held Internet devices, some people might be wondering if it's a good idea to be on the Internet so much.
You see it everywhere, whether waiting in lines, in classrooms, on the bus, at the grocery store, or even in the car.
The Internet has even transformed language with such words as "blog," "text," "IM," and "LOL."
The next generation has seemingly turned into the "text" generation with the ability to have information at finger tips and chat with friends and family at the touch of a button.
But not only are legislators now taking a look at whether "texting" and over-obsessive Internet use is safe in the car, but the issue has become a main topic of discussion in psychiatric groups.
"Internet Addiction," termed in the American Psychiatric Association committee's editorial published in March, 2008, appears to be a common disorder that merits inclusion in DSM-V (Five), the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the latest manual for revising mental conditions in America.
The article in the American Journal of Psychiatry was written by Dr. Jerald J. Block, who briefly discussed the epidemic on a recent showing of the Coast-to-Coast am radio program.
The diagnosis is a compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder that involves online and/or off line computer usage and consists of at least three subtypes: excessive gaming, sexual preoccupations, and email/text messaging.
All of the variants share the following four components, excessive use, often associated with a loss of sense of time or a neglect of basic drives, withdrawal, including feelings of anger, tension, and/or depression when the computer is inaccessible, tolerance, including the need for better computer equipment, more software, or more hours of use, and negative repercussions, including arguments, lying, poor achievement, social isolation, and fatigue.
According to the APA, most research on Internet addiction has been published in South Korea, where Internet gaming cafes actually have become violent. Using data from 2006, the government says about 210,000 South Korean children (2.1 percent, ages 6 to 19 are afflicted and require treatment. About 80 percent of those needing treatment may need psychotropic medications and perhaps 20 percent to 24 percent require hospitalization.
China is also concerned about the disorder with about 10 million teenagers afflicted by the disorder.
In the United States, accurate estimates of the prevalence of the disorder are lacking. Unlike in Asia, where Internet cafes are frequently use and in the US games and virtual sex are accessed from the home. Attempts to measure the phenomenon are clouded by shame, denial and minimization, and further complicated by comorbidity, with about 86 percent of Internet Addiction cases having some other disorder diagnosis present.

Governor vetos water quality funding

This week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated any on-going funding for the implementation of a water quality bill in a line item veto for the recently-approved state budget, according to Heal the Bay.
Water quality monitoring is the latest casualty of environmental programs due the state's billion dollar deficit this year.
In the last decade, such water quality monitoring has been funded by AB411, a state law that created public health bacteria standards and monitoring requirements for ocean water quality at California public beaches during high-traffic summer season.
The nearly $1 million program for the state's 15 coastal counties stands to be threatened of possibly cut out.
Although new funding might not be coming our way, beaches all over California saw another clean summer, according to Heal the Bay's end of summer report card.
About 91 percent of the 514 beaches monitored statewide this summer received A or B grades, which indicated excellent or very good water quality. Those grades are essentially the same as last year when 92 percent of sites got good grades.
Two years of drought conditions contributed to the positive results statewide, because the dry conditions limited the amount of urban runoff, the biggest source of pollution, according to the group.
Also, infrastructure enhancements also played a part, funded by the state's $100 million Clean Beach Initiative, to improve grades at beaches.
Los Angeles County still leads the state for bad grades though.
According to Heal the Bay, nearly one out of five beaches tracked in the county received F grades, 21 out of 109 sites monitored this summer.
Despite some modest improvements, Long Beach still suffers the worst water quality in the state, largely because it sits at the terminus of the contaminant-plagued Los Angeles River. With nearly half of its 25 monitored beaches receiving C to F grades, the city of Long Beach has undertaken proactive source tracking and abatement measures.
Water quality dipped at Santa Monica Bay beaches this summer as well, with 86 percent of 63 monitored beaches receiving A or B grades, compared to 93 percent last year. Bay beaches receiving D or F grades this summer include Malibu‟s fabled Surfrider Beach, Paradise Cove, Solstice Canyon at Dan Blocker Beach and Marie Canyon at Puerco Beach. Further south in the bay, Venice City Beach at Topsail, Dockweiler
Beach at Ballona Creek and Santa Monica beaches at the Santa Monica Pier and at Wilshire Boulevard also received D or F marks.
If Los Angeles County beaches are removed from the grading curve, state water quality marks improve dramatically. Nearly 97 percent of the 405 beaches outside the county earned A and B grades, with only six locations receiving failing grades.
Heal the Bay assigns an A to F letter grade to beaches along the California coast every summer, based on levels of bacterial pollution reported from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. The Beach Report Card is based on the routine monitoring of beaches from Humboldt County to the Mexican border by local health agencies and dischargers. Water samples are analyzed for bacteria that indicate pollution from numerous sources. The better the grade a beach receives, the lower the risk of illness to ocean users.
Orange County boasted outstanding water quality this summer, improving upon already excellent grades, with 98 percent of its 104 beaches receiving A or B grades. Doheny Beach at San Juan Creek and Poche Creek Beach in San Clemente were the only two locations to receive D or F grades. Historical trouble spots in Huntington and the Doheny beaches maintained their improved A and B marks.

New creatures found off Great Barrier Reef

If you ever saw the movie "The Abyss," then you might be familiar with the type of brightly colored creatures found deep in the ocean.
But this time it's not a movie and the the hundreds of new marine creatures found in three reefs of Australia are a lot smaller, in fact some are the size of sand grains, according to scientists.
The new discovery led by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, also uncovered 150 soft corals, never seen before shrimps, worms and crustaceans.
Here is a story published in National Geographic Magazine.
The exploration is part of a 10-year project to look at the world's ocean diversity, involving systematic sampling hidden reef animals at Lizard and heron Islands on the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef on the country's west coast.
In total, about a hundred new isopod species could emerge from the study.
Other finds include a potentially new class of marine worm known as bristle worms, relatives of leeches and earthworms.
The team is also analyzing organisms such as seaweeds, urchins, and lace corals.
Corals depend on a symbiotic relationship with temperature-sensitive algae that live inside their tissues and provide both food and color.

Calling all volunteers for Coastal Cleanup Day!

California Coastal Cleanup Day is the premier volunteer event focused on the marine environment in the country.
Coastal Cleanup Day is the highlight of the California Coastal Commission's year 'round Adopt-A-Beach program and takes place every year on the third Saturday of September, from 9 a.m. to noon.
This year, the event will be held on Sept. 20.
In 2007, more than 60,000 volunteers worked together to collect more than 900,000 pounds of trash and recyclables from our beaches, lakes, and waterways. California Coastal Cleanup Day has been hailed by the Guinness Book of World Records as "the largest garbage collection” (1993). Since the program started in 1985, over 800,000 Californians have removed more than 12 million pounds of debris from the state's shorelines and coast.
Pre-register with your local Coordinator, or simply show up at any of our drop-in sites (which will be placed on the county contact pages as they become available).
For more information, contact (800) COAST-4U or coast4u@coastal.ca.gov.
Here is a list of locations and times to volunteer:
Long Beach
Help is needed at the 112th consecutive monthly “30-Minute Beach Cleanup” this Saturday at 10 a.m. This month's cleanup is being sponsored by University by the Sea. There is free parking at the start/finish point: 1 Granada Ave., Long Beach (Belmont Shore). All groups and individuals of all ages are welcome.
The “30-Minute Beach Cleanup” in Long Beach, presented by Justin Rudd's nonprofit 501c3 Community Action Team (C.A.T.), has collected thousands of bags of trash with the help of volunteers of all ages over the past nine years. The efforts have helped to keep our beaches clean and safe with volunteers helping just 30 minutes on the third Saturday of each month at 10 a.m., rain or shine.
Door prizes (tickets from the Aquarium of the Pacific, gift cards from Aroma di Roma and coupons from Polly's Coffee) & refreshments from Duthie Power Services, and University by the Sea will be given immediately after the half hour cleanup.
Bags, gloves, refreshments, volunteer credit forms, door prizes and free parking are provided.
Volunteers may contact Rudd at Justin@JustinRudd.com or 562/439-3316.
Seal Beach
Save Our Beach conducts a monthly beach cleanup in Seal Beach from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the 1st Street Beach Lot (corner of Ocean & 1st in the Rivers End restaurant parking lot) in Seal Beach.
Garbage bags and protective gloves will be provided.
For more information email kim@saveourbeach.org or call (562) 884-6764.
Bolsa Chica Wetlands/ State Beach
At the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, operations will begin at 7 a.m. to remove trash and debris while the tide is low. The cleanup will start at the North Lot at 3842 Warner Ave. in Huntington Beach. Tools and refreshments will be provided. Come with a hearty spirit, closed toe shoes, sunscreen and a hat.

Raptor research project presented Sept. 23

Scott Thomas, the director for the Sea and Sage Conservation, will host a presentation on his latest findings of the "Orange County Raptor Research Project" on Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Irvine Ranch Water District Duck Club at the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Irvine.
Thomas and biologist Pete Bloom, a 35-year veteran raptor researcher, led a group of young scientists and students from University California, Irvine as well as Audubon volunteers in an effort to research the status of the county's raptor population.
Sponsored by the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, where many predators still dwell, this free slide-show illustrated presentation highlights their efforts, including information that can be obtained from monitoring birds using satellite telemetry.
Some biologists and specialists say a declining amount of predators, such as red-tailed hawks, cooper’s hawks, owls and American kestrels, throughout Southern California, could be declining in numbers.
“It’s puzzling,” said Bloom, a biologist for the Audubon California Starr Ranch Sanctuary. “Certain species have declined dramatically.”
Although no official numbers have been recorded, data shows the dwindling amounts of “Birds of Prey” could be caused by a variety of environmental concerns, Bloom said.
Fewer protected habitats because of fires and development, climate change caused by global warming, West Nile virus outbreaks and less prey are all factors in the shortened number of nests over the last few decades.
Some of these predators are sometimes displaced or treated in the hands of veterinarian Scott Weldy, who works for a wildlife hospital in Lake Forest.
Weldy has seen a difference in both the kinds of predators that are brought into his hospital and the amount.
“I can tell you the numbers are a general anecdote,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s not a representation of them dying, but in general, numbers have significantly dropped down.”
Weldy works with federal and state wildlife officials on birds of prey where he treats each one in cages until they can be re-released or relocated.
He said a better representation of whether predator birds are declining would be to take a survey from all of the biologists over the state, look at the nest sightings and see how many babies fledge out of that site.
Photo by Forget Me Not Photography

"Save our park" from toll road Sept. 22

Even though some surfers were sent home packing when scientists concluded that a toll road wouldn't have affected Trestles as much as previously thought, environmental groups still had won when the California Coastal Commission shot down the proposed Foothill South fast trak in February.
Now, environmental groups who want to protect the San Onofre State Beach from development are at it again— but this time many have changed their focus.
Instead of decrying the project because it might have affected the renowned surf break, which brought out hundreds of surfers from groups like the Surfrider Foundation, this time groups like Friends of the Foothills and the Sierra Club seem to be focusing their efforts more on protecting the San Mateo Campground.
The toll road proposed by the Transportation Corridor Agencies, they say, would have cut down on traffic congestion, along with environmentally sensitive buffers for endangered species, but the Coastal Commission didn't think so.
Following the commission's vote of 8-2, disapproving the proposed extension of the 67-mile system, the TCA filed an appeal with the United States Department of Commerce.
The upcoming Sept. 22 U.S. Commerce Department Toll Road Hearing will be held on Monday, Sept. 22 at the Del Mar Fair grounds, O'Brien Hall from 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. at 2260 Jimmy Durante Boulevard.
Environmental groups have already begun a campaign to encourage people to testify to help stop the toll road construction that would inadvertently by built on top of campgrounds and wildlife habitats.
"Speak now or forever lose our park!" states a flier. "U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez is hearing from special interests and the TCA's lobbyists. Now he needs to hear from you."
Among the hundreds of attendants who came out to the commission meeting Feb. 7 many said the Environmental Impact Report was done sloppily and hides certain unavoidable concerns regarding the proposed project. Their efforts are driven to preserve state land and uphold the Coastal Act.
Either way, the TCA is still going to have one public relations hurdle if the department of commerce ever decides to overturn the commission's decision.

"Biology of Belief:" how to reprogram your mind

If you were able to tune in to Coast to Coast A.M. last night, you probably had an enlightening experience.
The Sci-fi-UFO-new-age radio program hosted by "night hawk" George Noory had an interesting guest on. His name is Dr. Bruce H. Lipton, who discussed his new book, "the Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles."
He revealed some interesting news brewing in the science and medical communities these days. The question is what actually causes the diseases, mental conditions, traumas or imbalances in our lives, that stop us from truly attaining peace and happiness. So many people feel they are bogged down by being an alcoholic, or a drug addict or depressed, because their father or mother was.
But Lipton said it doesn't have to be that way.
Lipton says that by tapping into a constant stream of consciousness, we are able to create "positive thinking," which can actually prevent these illnesses, once we "reprogram" our minds.
Sound weird? Well, let me explain...
He said more and more of today's biologists are turning away from the theory that genes control our destinies, and will in effect determine whether or not we will grow up to have illnesses, conditions and so forth.
For instance, he said he conducted an experiment with two stem cells, and later found out that the "field" or in our case our "mind," or our belief system, can actually affect whether someone will develop cancer. He said for example an adopted child actually began to have symptoms from that families blood line without even being related, but because they lived together and the child grew up to have the same beliefs.
Many people then say, well, you have the same problems like your parents, and so that is what they are told by the mainstream psychiatric world.
But Lipton said if our belief system does not change, than it doesn't matter how much therapy, medication or understanding we attain, because our unconscious mind will immediately begin to spring back into action like a "machine."
Our unconscious mind is developed at a very young age, from the age of birth to five years old. In fact in those very young years, he said, is when we only rely on a trance-like unconscious stream of thought, such as crying to get food or when in fear, or laughing when something is funny. But our conscious mind is developed about by the age of 7, and we are then able to decide and make conscious choices, but we still have an unconscious mechanism that we have to battle with.
An example he used is that when you fall in love, for instance, you are constantly living in a state of consciousness, to dress better, to feel better and to talk a certain way. You are very self aware at this point.
But after the honeymoon, and after the wedding, people often go back to their other stream of unconsciousness, allowing all the fears and negative thinking they learned as a child to take them over because there is nothing left to live up to anymore. And so many people will say, "wow, you aren't the person I married."
What Dr. Lipton says is that we can apply this simple theory of falling in love into our everyday lives and it doesn't have to stop after the honeymoon.
Dr. Lipton's Web site is offering a special for those who buy the book online until Sept. 8.

Talk wetlands with wine tonight!

Come join the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust for "Wine & Wetlands" tonight.
The event will be from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Gaslamp restaurant and bar 6251 Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach. The Land Trust will meet with the public the first Thursday of every month from there after.
Six tastings will cost $20, and there will be jazz by guitarist Frank Potenza.
The Los Cerritos Wetlands is an area of native marsh land, sustaining all sorts of coastal animals, birds and fish, even some endangered species.
The wetlands is located where the San Gabriel River meets the pacific ocean, sandwiched between Long Beach, Seal Beach and surrounding business development.
The land is home to herons, halibut, plovers, painted ladies, stingrays, crabs and cord grass according to the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust Web site.
The area has also been the center of controversy as land owners want to develop the land and preservationists continue to make strides in purchases to help salvage some of the last remaining wetland areas in Southern California.
Plans to build a Home Depot on one lot off of Loyns Drive, and Studebaker drew much commotion from not only environmentalists but neighbors who felt the proposal would add hundreds of cars to the already congested area.
However, after the California Coastal Commission deemed the developers environmental impact report flawed, the land owner had to go back to the drawing board and then eventually squashed the idea altogether, according to the press telegram. However plans are still moving ahead for possibly another type of development there.
Another high point of contention for the wetlands whether or not portions of the land are actually zoned for development or not, which can bring about a whole host of mitigation requirements that have or maybe have not been fulfilled.
Plans to redevelop the Alamitos Bay Marina and the near historic Marina Hotel off of PCH might also have an affect on the wetlands, but plans for that project have also stalled.

Arachnid meets reptile, or should I say eats!!!

Here is a photo of what looks like some type of a black widow spider that entangled a lizard in its web at my parent’s house in Westminster, CA.
The spider and lizard were hanging from an empty Jacuzzi, which is typically the kind of place these spiders hang out. Spiders, classified as Arachnids, are predatory invertebrate animals that produce silk, a thin protein strand that normally traps insects and then are able to inject poison with their fangs.
This lizard, classified as reptile, seemed to be paralyzed until my mom killed both of them with a broom.