This Is How South Florida Babies React To Snow

When I got an email from my daughter's preschool, titled "Snow Day!" I was confused. In the Northeast, where I grew up, snow days mean the school is closed. Do South Florida schools use fake snow days as an excuse to close? The message was even more confusing: Eight tons of SNOW will be delivered to our preschool straight from the North Pole! The cost of bringing in the snow is $1,500.00 so for this special activity the cost per child is only $15.00. Every year, Marty Enis, owner of Florida Ice Manufacturing, comes down from Westford, Mass., to deliver snow to South Florida schools, malls, and churches from around Thanksgiving through February. He's kind of like a snowbird, but he comes Flexible hose here to work. On the day of the event at my daughter's Little Havana preschool, a truck arrives filled with 3-foot-tall blocks of ice that several men line up on a ramp, and then slide into what looks like an old train engine. That machine cuts up the ice, shoots it through a hose, and in a less than a minute -- presto! Snow. (Technically, this is not snow, which is frozen water vapor, as opposed to frozen water liquid. But in South Florida, this distinction probably doesn't matter.) The first group to play is the 1-year-olds. The kids are wearing a ridiculous amount of clothing for the 70-degree weather: puffy jackets, snow pants, hats and mittens. All of the clothing looks completely new. But after a few minutes of sitting chemical hose on the snow, the 1-year-olds are crying – a lot. I ask one parent, Jorge Munoz of Coral Gables, about his daughter's reaction: "She's still wondering what this white stuff is. She doesn't want to sit on the snow because it's way too cold, and she's wondering why she is here." My daughter Juno, who's 2, wasn't very interested either. My constant suggestions that she touch or play with the snow are met with pleading cries of "nooo" and demands to pick her up as she tries to maintain her balance on the melting snow. Jorge grew up in Venezuela, where it's warm year-round. He says they did not sing about snow there: "We're not as obsessed as Americans about the weather because it's a non-issue. It's always warm so why would you even care about it, right?" So why do we care in warm sunny South Florida? I just didn't want my daughter to be left out of a class activity. But is the reason for this kind of event driven by people missing some place with cold winters? Or just a feeling that Christmas here should match all the snowy imagery attached to the holiday?

Let's be careful out there

You can't always count on traffic control at fire scenes, either. Fire crews get there and get to work, so drivers need to be thinking: don't drive over hoses, don't drive between engines and fires, don't drive amongst crew members and equipment. Slow down and go around, or carefully stop and turn around.A man is being held without bond after he was found showering naked with a hose next to a girls locker room at Key West High School.Three girls attending an overnight band camp at the school walked by Paiboon Sunthroncharti, 33, sometime after midnight on Saturday, Key West Police said.

Band director Gary Hernandez told police that the girls were walking next to the girls locker room and saw a man'pletely naked, washing off with a garden hose, officials said. Hernandez said both the girls and boys locker room doors were propped open, but no one was found inside,fuel hose according to authorities.Police finally found Shunthroncharti laying on the track field after a search, and the officer recognized him as a man who had been on school grounds earlier in the evening, according to an arrest report."I came in through the hockey rink and there are no signs saying I can't be here," Sunthroncharti said, according to the report.

He told the officer he entered the school through a double gate next to the softball field, the report said.He then denied using the hose to take a shower, but said he had seen "two short Mexicans" leaving the school property,chemical hose police said. The officer noted that Sunthroncharti's hair and shirt were wet in the arrest report.Jail records list Shunthroncharti as living in Miami Beach. He has not yet been released on trespassing charges and it is not known whether he has a lawyer.

Let's be careful out there

You can't always count on traffic control at fire scenes, either. Fire crews get there and get to work, so drivers need to be thinking: don't drive over hoses, don't drive between engines and fires, don't drive amongst crew members and equipment. Slow down and go around, or carefully stop and turn around.A man is being held without bond after he was found showering naked with a hose next to a girls locker room at Key West High School.Three girls attending an overnight band camp at the school walked by Paiboon Sunthroncharti, 33, sometime after midnight on Saturday, Key West Police said.

Band director Gary Hernandez told police that the girls were walking next to the girls locker room and saw a man'pletely naked, washing off with a garden hose, officials said. Hernandez said both the girls and boys locker room doors were propped open, but no one was found inside,fuel hose according to authorities.Police finally found Shunthroncharti laying on the track field after a search, and the officer recognized him as a man who had been on school grounds earlier in the evening, according to an arrest report."I came in through the hockey rink and there are no signs saying I can't be here," Sunthroncharti said, according to the report.

He told the officer he entered the school through a double gate next to the softball field, the report said.He then denied using the hose to take a shower, but said he had seen "two short Mexicans" leaving the school property,chemical hose police said. The officer noted that Sunthroncharti's hair and shirt were wet in the arrest report.Jail records list Shunthroncharti as living in Miami Beach. He has not yet been released on trespassing charges and it is not known whether he has a lawyer.

Covidien launches new catheter for treatment of Barrett's esophagus

Covidien PLC, a provider of healthcare products, has launched a new catheter for the treatment of Barrett's esophagus and other specific gastrointestinal bleeding disorders in the United States and Europe.The Dublin-based'pany, with U.S. headquarters in Mansfield, Mass., on Tuesday launched the Barrx Channel RFA Endoscopic Catheter. When Barretts esophagus, a precancerous condition of the esophageal lining that is a'plication of gastroesophogeal reflux disease, is left untreated, it can lead to cancer of the esophagus.

According to Covidien, its Barrx line of catheters is based on technology that controls the amount of RF radio frequency energy delivered during a procedure to remove diseased tissue, leaving the healthy tissue untouched. By using the catheter, doctors can shorten the time of procedures because the new design allows for few endoscope introductions and removals, according to Covidien."Covidien continues to offer patients and physicians a solution to address Barrett's esophagus," said Vafa Jamali, vice president and general manager of GI Solutions at Covidien. "The newest addition to the Barrx portfolio is designed to simplify the procedure by delivering our proven RF technology through the working channel of the endoscope.

"Our increasing reliance on implantable devices such as catheters and stents,'bined with the rapid evolution of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria has created a challenge for the medical'munity.The covalent immobilisation of antimicrobial peptides on the surface of devices to give them an antimicrobial coating has been suggested many times before. However, host cell toxicity and reduced activity following sub-optimal immobilisation strategies often hinder the success of immobilised AMPs.