Lumber Prices up 4.4% for 2010

In this aritcle from the Charleston Regional Business Journal, the Forest2Market wood-fiber consulting service explains the significant rise in price of lumber in 2010. This article caught my interest because I am originally form a lumber producing town that has suffered immensely for the past few years.

Beginning in December of 2009, the price of lumber rose from $252 per board feet to $263 per board feet at the end of 2010.

If you only look at price, it doesn't look like there has been a significant difference from 2009 to 2010. Looking further into the problem you can see that the significant difference is the amount of logs being supplied to the sawmills. At the beginning of 2010, sawmills faced log shortages due to an unusually wet fall. Becuase of this factor, the mills could not produce enought board feet for the increasing production demands of 2010. Because of the lack of logs during the better half of 2009 and the recession, the price of board feet rose pushing lead times out weeks and even months.

This year the inventories are healthier and are predicted to stabilize with the growing demand later in the year. As long as the mills can meet the market demand, prices should stay relatively the same.

The question I have is "is the log shortage affecting mills all over the United States or is it only affecting mills that manufacture certain species of trees?" I know that mills in the Pacific Northwest are suffering rightnow and this article was written about mills on the east coast.

http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/news/37521-lumber-prices-up-4-4-for-2010

Middle Schoolers, Sports Medicine, and Anatomy

This is an article I found through LexisNexis that discusses how middle school students are being taught sports medicine and anatomy. These kids are not even in high school yet and are already talking about going into the medical field. Each year around 60 Sherwood middle school students read from college level textbooks, touch human cadavers, and tape sprained ankles. This class is funded by a non-profit organization who supports them and grants the money for newer textbooks, materials and better programs. Students who sign up for this course know that it is going to be a challenge. They are required to take hands on tests and properly tape ankles. These students are even given the opportunity to visit Linfield College and George Fox University where they work with human cadavers and learn sports medicine at a college level. Each trimester offers a different study for these students. In the fall they learn to identify different parts of the body and are able to dissect a cat, sheep liver and brain. The winter trimester focuses on treating sports injuries and the correct way to tape sports related injuries.
I think that this is a wonderful experience for these students. While I was in high school, I had the opportunity to take a Sports Medicine and Medical Terminology class that began when I was a Freshman and ended my Senior year. This is where I became interested in the Medical Field. I think that it is important to offer different subjects and introduce subjects like this when the students are young.
If you had the opportunity to participate in a subject like this, would you? Do you think that students would take a different approach to college if they learned the basics of a certain trade/job while in high school? This is an article that discusses how middle school students are being taught sports medicine and anatomy. These kids are not even in high school yet and are already talking about going into the medical field. Each year around 60 Sherwood middle school students read from college level textbooks, touch human cadavers, and tape sprained ankles. This class is funded by a non-profit organization who supports them and grants the money for newer textbooks, materials and better programs. Students who sign up for this course know that it is going to be a challenge. They are required to take hands on tests and properly tape ankles. These students are even given the opportunity to visit Linfield College and George Fox University where they work with human cadavers and learn sports medicine at a college level. Each trimester offers a different study for these students. In the fall they learn to identify different parts of the body and are able to dissect a cat, sheep liver and brain. The winter trimester focuses on treating sports injuries and the correct way to tape sports related injuries.
I think that this is a wonderful experience for these students. While I was in high school, I had the opportunity to take a Sports Medicine and Medical Terminology class that began when I was a Freshman and ended my Senior year. This is where I became interested in the Medical Field. I think that it is important to offer different subjects and introduce subjects like this when the students are young.
If you had the opportunity to participate in a subject like this, would you? Do you think that students would take a different approach to college if they learned the basics of a certain trade/job while in high school?

To locate this article navigate to LexisNexis
Title: Class teaches middle schoolers sports medicine and anatomy
By: MICHELLE MA
The Oregonian

Dental Companies Giving Back to the Community

In this article from Proofs magazine, BENCO Dental Supply Company shows how they are giving back to the community. Dentists have the opportunity to make a great impact in their hometown/community. As a future dentist, I wanted to see what dental companies are doing right now for charity.

Each year BENCO donates approximately five percent of their profit to charities. They have been supporting charities such as the Dental Trade Alliance Foundation and the National Foundation of Dentistry for the Handicapped. When a customer makes a donation to the NFDH (Nation Foundation of Dentistry for the Handicapped) BENCO lowers the customer's bills. The United Way is also closely associated with BENCO Dental Supply Company and the two often work together to support local community organizations. Operation Smile is strongly supported by BENCO and provides free reconstructive surgery to needy children in twenty developing countries and the United States.

BENCO has a BluChip Rewards program which allows customers to earn BluChips when they buy specific products from BENCO. The customers can either make one of two decisions with the chips. Either the customers can buy themselves a gift or they can make a financial donation using the BluChips. Does BENCO offer a greater reward to donate the BluChips to a charity or does it offer a greater reward when used by the customer to buy a personal gift? Is BENCO always trying to look out for charity even when it comes down to reward points?

Drug Testing: criminal issue or public health issue?

This article found in the South China Morning post focuses on the issue of whether or not drug testing should be treated as a criminal issue or and a public health issue.The author is looks at approaches used by other countries to decrease the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the IV drug communities and the effectiveness of such approaches.

The main two approaches to remedy this rising crisis are random drug testing of individuals and clean syringe distribution centers. Based on the research, countries such as The Netherlands and Switzerland that have viewed drug use as a social problem and treated it as such, using free syringe distribution centers have seen a huge decrease in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS within that particular sub-group. Many other universities in the U.S. conducted random drug tests involving numerous students. These tests proved to be futile and ineffective in decreasing the prevalence rate of those who contracted the virus.

This article interests me because it has to do with public health, which is an area that in incredibly important in todays world. It is important to consider what the best methods for maximizing health are over what personal opinions are. Does offering free needles and syringes to drug users encourage drug use? Does it matter that they are safer if the amount of drug users is increasing?

South China Morning Post

The futility of treating drugs a criminal, not public health, issue

Welcome to our blog

Hello class,

Welcome to our class blog, home of our biz buzz posts for the next few weeks. Here's a refresher about how to write your biz buzz posts:

1. Find a news article online or though OSU's databases that sparks your interest. The topic of the news article should, in some way, relate to the general focus or interest of the non-profit that you will eventually write your newsletter for (i.e. if your non-profit will be a group that helps cancer patients, because you know that you want to become an oncologist, write your bizz buzz posts about something happening in cancer research, health technology, new research on cancer-causing products, or cancer-preventing foods, etc. etc.) You don't need to "force" this connection, but save yourself some time by researching news in the field that your final project will relate to. 
2.  Write a short reflection about the article. This reflection should explain why you were drawn to the article, why you think it's interesting or unusual, and should include at least one question that the article made you think about. Include a link to the article in your post.
3.  Comment on one class mate's post. Your response should be long enough for you to pose (or answer) a question, make an observation about the article, or for you to relate it to your post. Please avoid responses that are trivial (ex. "wow, great biz buzz post Steven!"), and respond thoughtfully to your peers.

Each of the 5 Biz Buzz assignments (including post and comment) will be worth 10 points. Thanks!