Parenting the littlest media users: A study shows what concerns new parents

Are parents concerned about their wee ones becoming addicted to new media? Meh, not really. Nor are they saying media use is a source of conflict, a new study says.?

By Anne Collier,?Guest Blogger / June 19, 2013

The littlest among us, children under 8-years-old, are growing up with new media. How do parents perceive their wee one's media use? A new study seeks to find out.

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Increasingly, digital media are just part of the rhythm of everyday US family life, a significant new study of parents of young children indicates. The study, ?Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology,? conducted by Northwestern University?s Center on Media & Human Development, surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 2,300 parents of children 8 and under about how media ? both ?traditional? and digital ? inform and fit into their everyday lives and parenting. The authors found that ?78% report that their children?s media use is not a source of family conflict, and 59% said they aren?t concerned their kids will become addicted to new media,? according to?US News & World Report.?

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Guest Blogger

Anne Collier is editor of NetFamilyNews.org and co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a Web-based interactive forum and information site for teens, parents, educators, and everybody interested in the impact of the social Web on youth and vice versa. She lives in Northern California and has two sons.

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What?s most on parents? minds (Source: the ?Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology? report).

What does concern those parents is the impact of lots of screen time on kids? health ? ?the negative impact screen time has on kids? physical activity levels. More than 60% said video games result in less movement by their children, with similar proportions saying the same about TV, computers and mobile devices,? US News reports. The authors themselves wrote that parents ?are more likely to find a positive than negative effect of media and technology on many of their children?s academic skills.?

Family media use very individual

But it?s so individual from family to family, both the report and author, professor and tech parenting expert Lynn Schofield Clark indicate. Dr. Clark, who attended the release event in Washington, had an important take-away: ?We don?t all experience media in the same way.? For some families in some neighborhoods, for example, staying inside playing video games might be safer than playing outside.

In her post about the report in?PsychologyToday.com, she points to what I think of as an ideal approach to parenting where media?s concerned: ?an ethic of respectful connectedness,? Clark calls it. ?To the extent that media can help parents and family members to stay connected and to remain respectful of who they are and where they?ve come from, media can be seen as useful and helpful in relation to family goals.?

Less is better? It depends

So far in the digital age, our society tends to believe less media is better, but ?not all parents can engage in the kind of concerted cultivation activities hat tend to make media use lighter,? Clark writes. Families ?may face economic, health, language, or job- or transportation-related challenges?. ?Helicopter parenting? and concerted cultivation are rooted in the idea that young people can achieve and improve their lives through participation in existing societal structures, whether that?s school, sports or the arts. But while families facing greater economic challenges?hope?that these things will help, they don?t?trust?that they will [emphases hers]. They look to their families, neighborhoods, friends and communities to help their children develop the resilience they will need to face the challenges of racism, prejudice, and structural inequalities.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/iHhwJOYQKBI/Parenting-the-littlest-media-users-A-study-shows-what-concerns-new-parents

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Obama says still wants to close Guantanamo Bay prison (reuters)

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Viewpoint: Defining Obesity as a Disease May Do More Harm Than Good

The label is supposed to improve awareness and treatments for the condition, but similar proclamations about alcoholism and other addictions haven?t been so successful.

Rejecting the advice of one of its own committees, physicians at the American Medical Association (AMA) will now classify obesity, which affects about one-third of Americans, as a disease, similar to diabetes and cancer. While there is no standard criteria for such definitions, the designation could contribute to de-stigmatizing obesity, lead to wider coverage of treatments by insurers? Medicare and other insurers currently exclude reimbursement for weight loss drugs? and greater willingness by doctors to address and treat the condition among their patients.

?Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans,? the AMA said in a statement from board member Dr. Patrice Harris, ??The AMA is committed to improving health outcomes and is working to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, which are often linked to obesity.?

As admirable and well-intentioned as those goals are, however, there is little precedent that disease labeling will make them achievable. A recent review of studies on conditions like addictions and other psychological problems that can have genetic causes found that such classification generally does reduce the blame heaped on people with the disorders, both by themselves and society. But the labels also increased pessimism about recovery, probably because people assume that as diseases with biological and genetic bases, they are immutable. One study on alcoholism, for example, found that the more people bought into the idea that addiction was a ?chronic relapsing disease? over which they were ?powerless,? the worse their relapses were. Although the label didn?t increase relapse itself, it made it worse if it did occur? and the majority of people with alcoholism will relapse at least once.

There is also some danger that making obesity a disease may lead to some unintended, and potentially harmful, consequences. Consider the example of alcoholism; in 1956, the AMA medicalized alcoholism, with the hope that doctors would begin to ask about and treat cases of excessive drinking and address the medical problems, including liver damage, in a more consistent and effective way. As a result, there is certainly greater awareness of the problems ?both social and medical?that alcoholism can cause. But as a disease, doctors and patients are also more likely to believe that over-indulging requires some kind of intervention and must be treated, most often with total abstinence. The disease concept wound up creating a ghettoized treatment system aimed only at severe cases, with few options for the vast majority of people with alcohol problems who don?t require such extreme measures.

In fact, the American Psychiatric Association?s disease manual, which was revised this year, reflects an ongoing trend of ?medicalizing? normal behavior, leading to inappropriate use of psychiatric medications to treat them. Previous editions of the diagnostic manual included two, discrete categories of substance misuse problems: abuse, which was considered time-limited and amenable to treatment beyond abstinence; and dependence, which was basically chronic addiction.? Now, there is only ?substance use disorder,? which covers mild, moderate or severe cases ? suggesting, for people educated in the idea of alcoholism as disease, that college binge drinkers have the same disease as skid row alcoholics.

MORE:?Mental Health Researchers Reject Psychiatry?s New Diagnostic ?Bible?

Viewing genuine addictions as diseases is certainly an improvement over seeing them as moral weaknesses? and no doubt the same is true with respect to unhealthy weight.?But is being heavy a disease that always warrants a diagnosis, treatment plan and ?correction?? The AMA Council on Science and Public Health, which advised against considering obesity a disease noted that it is more of a risk factor for other conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure than a disease in itself. In other words, it has the same relationship to disease as heavy drinking does to alcoholism: it?s a risk factor, not a disorder. The committee also noted that there are no standard criteria for drawing a line between healthy and unhealthy weights. After a year of study, it?argued?[PDF]:

Without a single, clear, authoritative, and widely-accepted definition of disease, it is difficult to determine conclusively whether or not obesity is a medical disease state. Similarly, a sensitive and clinically practical diagnostic indicator of obesity remains elusive.

Body Mass Index (BMI), which is the most commonly used measure that incorporates height and weight, can incorrectly label muscular, healthy people as being overweight, while also misclassifying some people with unhealthy levels of fat and insulin resistance as being of healthy weight.

The Council also noted that the relationship between being overweight and mortality is complicated? some studies actually found a protective effect of being mildly overweight? suggesting that we are far from understanding the myriad ways in which weight and health are connected.

MORE:?Viewpoint: My Case Shows What?s Right ? and Wrong ? With Psychiatric Diagnoses

In addition, incorrectly categorizing people who can control their lifestyle by changing their diet or becoming more physically active as being unable to do so without medical help could lead to unnecessary surgery, drug treatments and other interventions that come with side effects and complications. College binge drinkers typically cut down on their own after graduation; similarly, most people with mild weight problems do not require medical attention.

All of this doesn?t discount the fact that weight is indeed connected to higher risk of some health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes. But it does suggest caution in viewing obesity itself as a disease. Some obese people do have food addictions that may be driven by genetic and metabolic conditions that are clearly not simply failures of willpower. But?not everyone who is obese has such problems.

Telling all obese people that they have a disease could end up reducing their sense of control over their ability to change their diet and exercise patterns. As experience with addictions has shown, giving people the sense that they suffer from a disease that is out of their control can become self-defeating. So the disease label should be used sparingly: just as not all drinking is alcoholism, not all overeating is pathological. These lines are hard to draw, but they can have profound effects on exactly what the AMA is hoping to achieve? greater awareness and more effective treatment of obesity.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/viewpoint-defining-obesity-disease-may-more-harm-good-190023494.html

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Education Chief Lets States Delay Use of Tests in Decisions About Teachers? Jobs

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Source: www.nytimes.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Responding to complaints, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said states could postpone for a year using more rigorous tests to make career decisions about teachers. ? ? ? ? ...

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/education/us-lets-states-delay-using-tests-to-rate-teachers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Hanson Powers Up For 'Unique' O Music Awards Performance: Tune In Tonight!

Hanson open up to MTV News about their set at OMusicAwards.com, launching at 7 p.m. ET and playing all day Thursday.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Christina Garibaldi

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709290/hanson-o-music-awards-performance-tease.jhtml

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Adam Jones Arrested, Accused of Slapping Woman

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/adam-jones-arrested-accused-of-slapping-woman/

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Rachel Uchitel Divorce: Matt Hahn Files, Cites "Cruel and Inhumane Treatment"

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/rachel-uchitel-divorce-matt-hahn-files-cites-cruel-and-inhumane/

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Russia would consider asylum for U.S. cyber leaker

By Steve Gutterman

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia would consider granting asylum to the American who has exposed top-secret U.S. surveillance programs, if he were to ask for it, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said on Tuesday.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stopped short of saying Moscow would accept Edward Snowden, but pro-Kremlin lawmakers spoke out in favor of the idea, tapping into a lingering Cold War rivalry with the United States and a vein of anti-American sentiment Putin has often encouraged.

"Promising Snowden asylum, Moscow takes upon itself the defense of people persecuted for political reasons," Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the international affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, said on Twitter.

"There will be hysteria in the United States. They recognize this as their right alone," he said.

Putin and other Russian officials have often accused the United States of hypocrisy, saying it tries to impose standards of human rights, freedom and democracy on other nations while falling far short of them itself.

"This is an ideological catastrophe for the United States," Pushkov said, referring to Snowden's release of top secret details of National Security Agency eavesdropping programs.

Snowden, who provided the information for reports that revealed broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data by the NSA, fled to Hong Kong and has said he hopes that Iceland might grant him asylum.

"WE'LL CONSIDER IT"

He is not known to have mentioned the possibility of asylum in Russia, where the government taps the phones of opposition members and keeps close tabs on social networks, but Peskov was quoted in Russian daily Kommersant as saying Moscow was open to such an approach.

Asked by Reuters whether Russia would be inclined to grant a request from Snowden, the spokesman said: "It is impossible (to say) now. No one has applied yet. If he says: I request (political asylum), then we will consider it."

Accused by the West of curtailing democracy and civil liberties over 13 years in power, Putin has missed few chances to champion public figures who challenge Western governments, and to portray Washington as an overzealous global policeman.

He has pursued warm ties with U.S. foes such as the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, and this year granted Russian citizenship to Gerard Depardieu after the French actor abandoned his homeland to escape high taxes.

In 2010, the Kremlin suggested Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be nominated for a Nobel prize.

"By tapping telephones and conducting surveillance on the Internet, the U.S. security services have violated the laws of their own country. In this sense Snowden, like Assange, is a rights defender," Pushkov tweeted on Tuesday.

Russia recently began criticizing the United States in annual reports on the state of human rights around the world - fighting back for the drubbing Russia gets in yearly rights reports by the U.S. State Department.

In another pointed intervention, Putin offered on Friday to send Russian troops to the Golan Heights buffer zone between Israel and Syria, after Austria said it would withdraw from a U.N. peacekeeping force. His proposal went down badly in the West because of Russia's support for the Syrian government.

(Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-consider-asylum-american-cyber-furor-134130875.html

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Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3 announced for PlayStation 4

When Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura made a cameo at Sony's E3 press conference, we expected to hear an update on Final Fantasy Versus XIII -- we were wrong, but not disappointed. Instead of the heavily anticipated spinoff, Nomura revealed Final Fantasy XV to the world, promising the title for the PlayStation 4. It was hard to tell from the action packed trailer, but XV seems to to be a departure from the series' traditional turn-based combat, looking more to us like an action title than an RPG. Speaking of highly anticipated Square-Enix titles that eschew the RPG norm, Nomura followed the announcement with a trailer for Kingdom Hearts III. Unfortunately, neither title was given a specific release date, only the promise that both of them could be enjoyed on the PlayStation 4. Eh, we'll take it.

Follow our liveblog for all of the latest news from E3 2013.

Filed under: Gaming, HD, Sony

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Self-fertilizing plants contribute to their own demise

Public release date: 9-Jun-2013
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Contact: Sean Bettam
s.bettam@utoronto.ca
416-946-7950
University of Toronto

TORONTO, ON Many plants are self-fertilizing, meaning they act as both mother and father to their own seeds. This strategy known as selfing guarantees reproduction but, over time, leads to reduced diversity and the accumulation of harmful mutations. A new study published in the scientific journal Nature Genetics shows that these negative consequences are apparent across a selfing plant's genome, and can arise more rapidly than previously thought.

In the study, an international consortium led by Stephen Wright in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto sequenced the genome of the plant species Capsella rubella, commonly known as Red Shepherd's Purse. They found clear evidence that harmful mutations were accumulating over the species' relatively short existence.

"The results underscore the long-term advantages of outcrossing, which is the practice of mating between individuals, that gives us the wide array of beautiful flowers," said Wright. "Selfing is a good short-term strategy but over long timescales may lead to extinction."

Red Shepherd's Purse is a very young species that has been self-fertilizing for less than 200,000 years. It is therefore especially well-suited for studying the early effects of self-fertilization. By contrasting Red Shepherd's Purse with the outcrossing species that gave rise to it, the researchers showed that self-fertilization has already left traces across the genome of Red Shepherd's Purse.

"Harmful mutations are always happening," said Wright. "In crops, they could reduce yield just as harmful mutations in humans can cause disease. The mutations we were looking at are changes in the DNA that change the protein sequence and structure."

The findings represent a major breakthrough in the study of self-fertilization.

"It is expected that harmful mutations should accumulate in selfing species, but it has been difficult to support this claim in the absence of large-scale genomic data," says lead author Tanja Slotte, a past member of Wright's research team and now a researcher at Uppsala University. "The results help to explain why ancient self-fertilizing lineages are rare, and support the long-standing hypothesis that the process is an evolutionary dead-end and leads to extinction."

The researchers said that with many crops known to be self-fertilizing, the study highlights the importance of preserving crop genetic variation to avoid losses in yield due to mutations accumulating.

###

The findings are reported in the paper "The Capsella rubella genome and the genomic consequences of rapid mating system evolution" in Nature Genetics this week. Other lead collaborators on the study included researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Tbigen, Germany and the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute. The research is supported by funding from the US Department of Energy, the Max Planck Institute, Genome Canada and Genome Quebec.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Stephen Wright Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Toronto 416-946-8508 stephen.wright@utoronto.ca

Sean Bettam Communications, Faculty of Arts & Science University of Toronto 416-946-7950 s.bettam@utoronto.ca

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 9-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Sean Bettam
s.bettam@utoronto.ca
416-946-7950
University of Toronto

TORONTO, ON Many plants are self-fertilizing, meaning they act as both mother and father to their own seeds. This strategy known as selfing guarantees reproduction but, over time, leads to reduced diversity and the accumulation of harmful mutations. A new study published in the scientific journal Nature Genetics shows that these negative consequences are apparent across a selfing plant's genome, and can arise more rapidly than previously thought.

In the study, an international consortium led by Stephen Wright in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto sequenced the genome of the plant species Capsella rubella, commonly known as Red Shepherd's Purse. They found clear evidence that harmful mutations were accumulating over the species' relatively short existence.

"The results underscore the long-term advantages of outcrossing, which is the practice of mating between individuals, that gives us the wide array of beautiful flowers," said Wright. "Selfing is a good short-term strategy but over long timescales may lead to extinction."

Red Shepherd's Purse is a very young species that has been self-fertilizing for less than 200,000 years. It is therefore especially well-suited for studying the early effects of self-fertilization. By contrasting Red Shepherd's Purse with the outcrossing species that gave rise to it, the researchers showed that self-fertilization has already left traces across the genome of Red Shepherd's Purse.

"Harmful mutations are always happening," said Wright. "In crops, they could reduce yield just as harmful mutations in humans can cause disease. The mutations we were looking at are changes in the DNA that change the protein sequence and structure."

The findings represent a major breakthrough in the study of self-fertilization.

"It is expected that harmful mutations should accumulate in selfing species, but it has been difficult to support this claim in the absence of large-scale genomic data," says lead author Tanja Slotte, a past member of Wright's research team and now a researcher at Uppsala University. "The results help to explain why ancient self-fertilizing lineages are rare, and support the long-standing hypothesis that the process is an evolutionary dead-end and leads to extinction."

The researchers said that with many crops known to be self-fertilizing, the study highlights the importance of preserving crop genetic variation to avoid losses in yield due to mutations accumulating.

###

The findings are reported in the paper "The Capsella rubella genome and the genomic consequences of rapid mating system evolution" in Nature Genetics this week. Other lead collaborators on the study included researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Tbigen, Germany and the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute. The research is supported by funding from the US Department of Energy, the Max Planck Institute, Genome Canada and Genome Quebec.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Stephen Wright Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Toronto 416-946-8508 stephen.wright@utoronto.ca

Sean Bettam Communications, Faculty of Arts & Science University of Toronto 416-946-7950 s.bettam@utoronto.ca

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/uot-spc060913.php

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Mom gives birth in minivan in hospital driveway

Marcus Ross, left, and his fianc? Melissa Jones hold their newborn daughter Mariah Faith Ross in her hospital room at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago. Jones couldn't make it inside of the hospital in time Thursday evening, and delivered Mariah in the family's minivan, just feet from the front door of Prentice Women's Hospital. (AP Photo/Scott Eisen)

Marcus Ross, left, and his fianc? Melissa Jones hold their newborn daughter Mariah Faith Ross in her hospital room at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago. Jones couldn't make it inside of the hospital in time Thursday evening, and delivered Mariah in the family's minivan, just feet from the front door of Prentice Women's Hospital. (AP Photo/Scott Eisen)

Melissa Jones holds her newborn daughter Mariah Faith Ross in her hospital room at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago, Friday, June 7, 2013. Jones couldn't make it inside of the hospital in time Thursday evening, and delivered Mariah in the family's minivan, just feet from the front door of Prentice Women's Hospital. (AP Photo/Scott Eisen)

Melissa Jones holds her newborn daughter Mariah Faith Ross in her hospital room at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago, Friday, June 7, 2013. Jones couldn't make it inside of the hospital in time Thursday evening, and delivered Mariah in the family's minivan, just feet from the front door of Prentice Women's Hospital. (AP Photo/Scott Eisen)

Melissa Jones holds her newborn daughter Mariah Faith Ross in her hospital room at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago, Friday, June 7, 2013. Jones couldn't make it inside of the hospital in time Thursday evening, and delivered Mariah in the family's minivan, just feet from the front door of Prentice Women's Hospital. (AP Photo/Scott Eisen)

CHICAGO (AP) ? Melissa Jones almost made it.

The suburban Chicago mom was heading to the hospital to give birth. She got as far as the hospital's driveway, but her daughter just wasn't going to wait any longer to come into the world. While nurses rushed out and her children looked on, Jones delivered her baby in the family's minivan Thursday ? just feet from the front door of Northwestern's Prentice Women's Hospital in downtown Chicago.

A doctor leaving work assisted with the front-seat delivery, calling out for gloves and blankets.

"All I could do was hold onto the dashboard and the side of the car" and push, said 30-year-old Jones of Calumet City.

Earlier that evening, Jones was at work as a restaurant cashier at a downtown Chicago hotel when she started having contractions. She called her fiance, Marcus Ross, and asked him to come get her, then made sure one more customer got his order, a milkshake.

Meanwhile, Ross put the four children in the couple's minivan and headed into the city. The plan was to head to the suburban hospital where they'd planned to deliver. His mother would meet them there and they'd hand off the children to her.

But it was soon clear the baby wasn't going to wait long enough to get to the suburbs. With contractions getting stronger and closer, they drove to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital campus and searched for the correct entrance.

"We passed it two or three times," Jones said. In the driveway at last, her water broke. "It pops like a balloon, I kid you not. I felt her slip down the birth canal."

Jones expects that her daughter ? 6-pound-8-ounce Mariah Faith Ross ? will be an unstoppable child because of the way she came into the world.

"She's going to give me a run for the money," Jones said. "She made a grand entrance."

The other children, Jones said, now know for sure where babies come from.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-06-07-Almost%20There%20Birth/id-27be46710076406b8e638084e93d54ed

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Nuclear plant closures show industry's struggles

Lyn Harris Hicks, a longtime opponent of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and a nearby resident, wears a banner on her hat as she waits for a news conference in front of the plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Lyn Harris Hicks, a longtime opponent of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and a nearby resident, wears a banner on her hat as she waits for a news conference in front of the plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Gary Headrick, right, hugs Steve Netherby, center, and his wife Laurie Headrick, left, before a news conference by opponents of the San Onofre nuclear power plant near the entrance to the plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Lyn Harris Hicks, a longtime opponent of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and a nearby resident, right, hugs Laurie Headrick, left, as they wait for a news conference in front of the plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Power lines cross a freeway as they make their way to the San Onofre nuclear power plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

A surfer rides a wave in front of the San Onofre nuclear power plant Friday, June 7, 2013, in San Onofre, Calif. The troubled power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The decision to close California's San Onofre nuclear plant is the latest setback for an industry that seemed poised for growth not long ago.

In Wisconsin, a utility shuttered its plant last month after it couldn't find a buyer. In Florida ? and now California ? utilities decided it was cheaper to close plants rather than spend big money fixing them and risk the uncertainty of safety reviews.

Meanwhile, the low cost of natural gas is discouraging utilizes from spending billions of dollars and lots of time to build nuclear reactors.

New technology allows drillers to extract more gas within the U.S., increasing the supply and pushing down prices. In states were utilities operate as monopolies, they are reluctant to ask their regulators for permission to build enormously expensive nuclear plants ? or even fix old ones ? when it so cheap to build gas-fired plants.

In places where utilities sell power into the open market, the low prices don't offset the financial risk of building expensive and time-consuming nuclear plants.

"The world has changed with natural gas prices being so low and so much gas being available for so long," said Mike Haggarty, a senior utility analyst for Moody's Investor Service.

Industry supporters acknowledge the challenging economics but say nuclear power still has long-term possibilities. While the costs to build plants are enormous, once online, the fuel and operating costs are relatively low. And reactors can reliably produce power with little or no carbon emissions, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbying group.

Plants fired by gas cost much more to run when prices surge.

"When gas prices are low, that's great," Kerekes said. "But a lot of people don't like to put all their energy eggs in one basket."

On Friday, Southern California Edison announced it would close its San Onofre plant between San Diego and Los Angeles rather than fix damaged equipment that critics said could never be safely replaced. The twin reactors were idled in January 2012 when a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of new tubes that carry radioactive water.

Despite spending more than $500 million on repairs and replacement power, the utility, owned by Edison International, decided to call it quits. It faced safety investigations and regulatory hurdles to restart the plant.

In February, North Carolina-based Duke Energy Corp. decided to close the Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida after workers cracked a concrete containment building during an attempt to upgrade the plant in 2009. The containment building is supposed to prevent a release of radiation in case of an accident. An attempt to fix the problem in 2011 resulted in more cracks.

Despite the shutdown, Duke still wants its customers to reimburse the company for $1.65 billion in plant investments. The utility will use $835 million from an insurance settlement to refund customers who had to pay for backup power.

Even working plants are being scuttled. Dominion Resources Inc. announced in October it would close the Kewaunee Power Station in Wisconsin because it couldn't find a buyer. Dominion CEO Thomas F. Farrell II said the plant's contracts to sell its electricity were ending while wholesale electricity prices are expected to remain low. The company is keeping reactors elsewhere in the country.

"This decision was based purely on economics," Farrell said at the time. "Dominion was not able to move forward with our plan to grow our nuclear fleet in the Midwest to take advantage of economies of scale."

Just a few years back, nuclear industry officials said the time was right for expanding. A more robust economy boosted demand for electricity, natural gas prices were higher, and it seemed Congress might pass legislation restricting the greenhouse gas emissions, a rule that could hurt fossil fuel plants and increase the demand for nuclear power. To further sweeten the pot, the U.S. government adopted tax credits and offered low-cost loans to subsidize construction.

The industry called it a "nuclear renaissance." It was short-lived.

The Great Recession trimmed the demand for electricity as business and consumers cut back, and natural gas prices fell. Several utilities have scrubbed their plans for new plants or delayed them far into the future.

Paul Patterson, a utility analyst for Glenrock Associates LLC, said the idea of a renaissance was "exaggerated to begin with," and low-cost natural gas ended such talk.

Only three nuclear construction projects have moved forward, and they are all under financial pressure.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is finishing a long-mothballed reactor at its Watts Bar plant. Initially budgeted at $2.5 billion, the utility has said finishing the project could cost up to $2 billion more.

Atlanta-based Southern Co. owns a 46 percent share of two new reactors being constructed at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia, a project originally estimated at $14 billion. Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power recently asked regulators to raise its share of the construction budget by $737 million to roughly $6.85 billion.

It may cost more. Georgia Power and the companies designing and building the plant are in a legal fight that may cost the utility more money. Separately, an independent monitor hired by Georgia regulators has warned of additional potential costs.

SCANA Corp. announced this week that it expects its costs to rise by around $200 million and the construction schedule to slip while building two reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina.

___

Henry reported from Atlanta and can be reached at http://twitter.com/rhenryAP . AP Energy Writer Jonathan Fahey also contributed to this report from New York.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-06-08-Nuclear%20Future/id-9aa9f3760b94483bbf77f19cec887d5b

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Can Raspberry Ketones Help You With Weight Loss

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