To Dominate the Arctic, Trump Needs Ice-Breaking Ships. Finland Wants to Help.
HELSINKI—Smashing ice is straightforward—except when it is more than 10 feet thick and you're using a ship, even one designed for the job.
If an icebreaker's hull is the wrong shape, the ice bends but doesn't break. Without the right paint, the ship grates against the ice like sandpaper. Spin the propellers too fast or too slow and deflected chunks of subsea ice can make the ship reverberate like a gong.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Medscape
a day ago
- Medscape
Antibiotics Pre-Appendectomy Don't Lower Perforation Risk
Antibiotic treatment while awaiting appendectomy does not lower risk for appendiceal perforation in patients with uncomplicated acute appendicitis, according to a new study. While the percentage of surgical site infections (SSIs) was small for both groups, patients who received antibiotics during the waiting period had lower rates of these infections. The trial — titled PERFECT-Antibiotics — was a substudy embedded in a larger PERFECT clinical trial, which aimed to determine whether an in-hospital delay of appendectomy resulted in increased risk for appendiceal perforation when compared to emergent surgery. The trial 'concluded that appendectomy does not need to be performed promptly in acute uncomplicated appendicitis and can be scheduled within 24 hours without increasing complications,' senior author Panu Mentula, MD, of the department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland, and colleagues wrote in the study. 'The next question is whether preoperatively started antibiotic treatment reduces the risk of appendiceal perforations.' The findings were published online in JAMA Surgery on May 14, 2025. Trial Design PERFECT-Antibiotics was an open-label, randomized trial conducted at two hospitals in Finland and one hospital in Norway. Researchers enrolled 1774 individuals diagnosed with acute uncomplicated appendicitis, diagnosed clinically or via imaging. Patients were placed in one of two groups: The antibiotic group received intravenous (IV) cefuroxime (1500 mg) and metronidazole (500 mg) every 8 hours until surgery, while the nonantibiotic group waited for surgery without antibiotics. All patients received one dose of IV cefuroxime (1500 mg) and metronidazole (500 mg) during anesthesia induction. The primary outcome was perforated appendicitis and secondary outcomes included complication rate and SSIs within 30 days of follow-up. The median age of patients was 35 years (interquartile range [IQR], 28-46 years), and 55% of patients were men. Patients waited a median time of 9 hours (IQR, 4.3-15.5) from study randomization to undergoing surgery. No Difference in Appendiceal Perforation Of the 888 patients in the preoperative antibiotic group, 26.2% received one dose, 38.7% received two doses, 22.6% received three doses, and 11.8% received four or more doses of antibiotics, including the antibiotic dose given during anesthesia. A total of 74 patients (8.3%) in this group had a perforated appendix. Of the 886 patients not given preoperative antibiotics, 79 (8.9%) had a perforated appendix, which met the predetermined noninferiority threshold. The groups had similar complication rates over the 30-day follow-up, though SSIs were lower in the antibiotic group (1.6%) than the no antibiotic group (3.2%). The researchers estimated that the number needed to treat for antibiotic therapy was 63 for SSIs, 83 for intra-abdominal SSI, and 125 for reintervention. 'Although longer preoperative antibiotic treatment resulted in slightly lower rate of postoperative infectious complications, the actual difference was very small and probably clinically not significant to justify longer preoperative antibiotic treatment,' Mentula and colleagues wrote. Lower Infection Rates With Antibiotics Commenting on the study for Medscape Medical News , Theodore Pappas, MD, professor of surgery at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, placed greater importance on these secondary outcomes. Intra-abdominal infections, a subset of SSIs, were more than twice as common in the no-antibiotic group (1.9%) than in the antibiotic group (0.7%; P = .02). Positive blood cultures were also more common in the no-antibiotic group than the antibiotic group ( P = .02). While the authors qualified these results, 'the reality was it was better to use antibiotics,' he said. There was also a 'big overlap between the two groups,' he said, which may have muted differences between the two groups. For example, one fourth of patients in the antibiotic group received only one dose of antibiotics, the same treatment regimen as the no-antibiotic group. 'Although protocol required prophylaxis in all patients in the induction of anesthesia, some clinicians thought that it was unnecessary, because antibiotics had already been given only a couple of hours ago' in patients in the antibiotic group, Mentula told Medscape Medical News . She did not think that would affect the study's results. The PERFECT trial and the antibiotics subtrial answer two important questions that have been asked for years, Pappas continued: Whether appendectomy for uncomplicated acute appendicitis needs to be performed emergently and if antibiotics administered while waiting for surgery improve outcomes. 'Basically, the study shows that you probably should keep them on antibiotics while you're waiting,' he said.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
US Coast Guard unveils first polar icebreaker in more than 25 years
PASCAGOULA, Miss. - The U.S. Coast Guard's newest polar icebreaker is officially operational, which the agency says will bolster its Arctic operations. The 360-foot-long icebreaker departed from its assembly port in Pascagoula, Mississippi and was headed to Seattle, where it will be based until renovations are completed at its homeport in Juneau, Alaska. Icebreakers clear passages through icy waterways in both the Arctic and Antarctic, and are known to aid in search and rescue missions as well as support scientific research operations. Similar-sized ships are known to break up ice that is upwards of 21 feet thick, due to their reinforced hulls and bows, with engines capable of producing a significant amount of horsepower. "The vessel is manned with a hybrid crew consisting of military cuttermen and civilian mariners. This is the second vessel in Coast Guard history to bear the name Storis. The original Storis, known as the 'Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast,' had a storied history conducting 64 years of icebreaking operations in Alaska and the Arctic before being decommissioned in 2007," the agency said in a statement. Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' Is Melting Away Differently Than Scientists First Thought The USCGC Storis will join the USCGC Polar Star and the USCGC Healy as part of the Polar Security Cutter Program. Both of the other icebreakers have faced challenges due to their age, with the Healy recently experiencing a significant fire, while the 50-year-old Polar Star was taken out of service for necessary repairs. "Our national security interests in the Arctic have also never been more critical, demonstrated by the joint Russian and Chinese naval and air task forces that have operated off Alaska's coastline these past two years. Since coming to the Senate, I've been working relentlessly to wake up our federal government to the strategic importance of this region," Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan previously said in a statement. World's Largest Iceberg On Possible Collision Course With Island In South Atlantic Ocean The Coast Guard says its fleet of large icebreakers must double or even triple in size to meet growing operational demands. "Russia has 55 icebreakers and is in the process of building more. By 2025, China, which has no sovereignty over any Arctic waters, is set to surpass the United States' icebreaker fleet. The Alaska congressional delegation has long since recognized this as a competitive disadvantage in the Arctic and advocated for additional resources to bolster the USCG icebreaker fleet," Alaskan legislators previously stated. The newly acquired vessel is expected to support missions later in the year, although a specific deployment schedule was not article source: US Coast Guard unveils first polar icebreaker in more than 25 years
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Good carbs and weight loss in mid-life help when old, doctors say
Curbing or preventing middle-aged spread could be key to avoiding serious medical problems in later life, with the type and quality of carbohydrates consumed during a person's 40s and 50s likely key to healthy ageing. "Sustained weight loss from overweight to healthy weight in mid-life was associated with decreased risk of chronic diseases, including and excluding type 2 diabetes," according to a team of doctors and scientists at the University of Helsinki, University of Turku and University College London. Achieving this weight loss "without surgical or pharmacological interventions" means "long-term health benefits beyond its associations with decreased diabetes risk," said the researchers, whose research covering around 23,100 people was published by the American Medical Association (AMA). The AMA also recently published a study of around 47,000 women done by a team from Tufts University and Harvard University in which the researchers say fibre and carbohydrates are "favorably linked to healthy ageing and other positive health outcomes in older women." "Intakes of total carbohydrates, high-quality carbohydrates from whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes, and total dietary fiber in midlife were linked to 6 to 37% greater likelihood of healthy aging and several areas of positive mental and physical health," they reported. At the same time, intakes of refined carbohydrates from added sugars, refined grain and starchy vegetables are "associated with 13% lower odds of healthy ageing." 'We've all heard that different carbohydrates can affect health differently, whether for weight, energy, or blood sugar levels. But rather than just look at the immediate effects of these macronutrients, we wanted to understand what they might mean for good health 30 years later," said Tufts' Andres Ardisson Korat. "Our results are consistent with other evidence linking consumption of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and legumes with lower risks of chronic diseases, and now we see the association with physical and cognitive function outcomes," said Qi Sun of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
