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[h=4]The Short List: Earth's new twin; chemo's effects on end-stage cancer patients; EU takes on Hollywood[/h]Out of the loop today? We've got what you missed.
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Out of the loop today? We've got what you missed.(Photo: NASA/JPL-CalTech/R. Hurt)
NASA found a new planet someone may call home. And they're not from Earth
This is an amazing discovery. Scientists said Thursday that NASA's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Kepler telescope<span style="color: Red;">*</span>found a planet that is so Earth-like she could be her cousin. What this means. It's the most likely known place outside our solar system to harbor life. NASA is<span style="color: Red;">*</span>calling the planet Kepler-452b (somehow this doesn't seem to do her justice). Why she's like Earth. She's about the same size. She's orbiting a star that closely resembles the sun. And 452b has been at just the right temperature to boast liquid water for about<span style="color: Red;">*</span>6 billion years. Haven't we found Earth-like planets before? In terms of size, yes. But those planets circle dim, cool stars very different from our own sun, whereas 452b is hitched to a star very much like ours. If we could send plants to 452b, Jon Jenkins of NASA's Ames Research Center said, they could comfortably photosynthesize. (Yea, no, he really said that.) The newly discovered planet "is the closest thing we have to another place that somebody else might call home," Jenkins said. And if there's an apocalypse, we only have to travel 1,400 light-years to get there. Always have a plan.
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Scientists have spotted a planet much the same size as our Earth orbiting a star that closely resembles our sun. USA TODAY'S Shannon Rae Green and reporter Doyle Rice explain what makes a planet habitable. Shannon Rae Green, Doyle Rice, Waldy Diez, USA TODAY
Chemo doesn't improve end-stage cancer<span style="color: Red;">*</span>patients' quality of life
Chemo. It’s a treatment often part of the cancer patient’s fight and can carry some grueling side effects. A study published Thursday in JAMA Oncology finds that half of cancer patients received chemotherapy in their final months of life, even though the therapy had no chance of curing them. Doctors often prescribe chemo to people in the end stages of cancer in the hope that the drugs will shrink patients’ tumors and make them feel better, says study co-author Holly Prigerson of the Center for Research on End-of-Life Care at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. Her research, however, found no evidence that chemo improved patients' quality of life. For the healthiest, least-disabled patients, quality of life actually got worse after chemo, Prigerson says. The study of 312 patients included only people expected to live six months or less. "People … tend to overestimate the odds that treatment will work," said Timothy Quill, a medical professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center, who wasn't involved in the study. That doesn't mean chemo has no benefit. It<span style="color: Red;">*</span>can cure many types of early cancers or<span style="color: Red;">*</span>give people more time, said Thomas Smith, director of palliative medicine at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. But if cancer continues to spread after two or three chemo rounds, there's usually a "vanishingly small" chance that more will prolong someone's life, Smith said. For people with end-stage cancer, "we didn't find any positive outcome to chemotherapy," Prigerson says.
In this 2013 photo, chemotherapy is administered to a cancer patient at Duke Cancer Center in Durham, N.C.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Gerry Broome, AP)
The European Union goes after Mickey Mouse
Six giant Hollywood studios are having a bad day. The EU's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>antitrust arm Thursday accused Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers studios, along with broadcaster Sky UK, of blocking viewers' access to movies and other media. Explain. The European Commission<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said the studios prevented viewers from watching their content depending on where people were located. So, someone who's subscribed to a pay-TV service in the U.K. can't access that service while on a beach vacation in Spain. The commission says this is not OK. It wants people to be able to watch the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>pay-TV channels no matter where they live or travel in the 28-country EU. Why it's a big deal. If upheld, the commission<span style="color: Red;">*</span>has the authority to fine each studio up to 10% of its most recent annual global sales. The charges could also change the way subscription television services are paid for and watched throughout the European Union.
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The European Union has launched an antitrust case against six major U.S. movie studios, including Disney and Warner Bros, and British satellite broadcaster Sky UK for restricting access across the 28-country bloc. USA TODAY
Taylor Swift makes up with Nicki Minaj after revealing she's not the perfect feminist
All is right in the world again. Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj have put down their fighting mics. How it started. Nicki and Taylor got into a Twitter back-and-forth after Nicki criticized the VMAs for snubbing her record-breaking Anaconda video and ignoring non-white artists as a whole. Taylor, whose Bad Blood video nabbed a Video of the Year nomination, jumped in to chide Nicki for being anti-women. "Maybe one of the men took your slot," she asked. It was pretty predictable from there. Why it's important. The exchange between Nicki and Taylor illuminated a painful-yet-important reality as old as modern music itself — the erasure of non-white voices in music — and asked who's responsible. And by stepping into the conversation to put Nicki on blast, instead of standing by her valid complaints of the VMAs' lack of representation, Tay Tay revealed herself to be not quite the perfect feminist icon she's presented herself as. How it ended. Taylor humbly tweeted: "I thought I was being called out. I missed the point, I misunderstood, then misspoke. I'm sorry, Nicki." Nicki tweeted back: "That means so much Taylor, thank you." If you want to read more about why this feud matters (like why it's not OK for artists to appropriate black culture while failing to recognize its original creators) you can read more here.
Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj attend the Billboard's Sixth Annual Women in Music event at the Capitale on Dec. 2, 2011, in New York City.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Larry Busacca, Getty Images)
Explorers find one of Lake Michigan's deepest shipwrecks
Shipwreck explorers combing the watery graveyards of Lake Michigan hit gold. Well, historical gold. In June, crewmembers of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association found a steamship that sank in<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the Great Lake in 1899. It's one of the deepest wrecks ever discovered in Lake Michigan. It was 116 years ago that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>ice struck a hole in the 214-foot John V. Moran. Water began pouring in, and it sank 365 feet to the floor. Local maritime historians say 1,200 of the 2,000 sunken vessels in Lake Michigan no longer exist because they hit shore and broke apart. One of the most remarkable things about the John V. Moran is that it's so intact. In a case of unfortunate irony, its captain, E.G. Crosby, shared the same icy fate as his ship just 13 years later. He died on board the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic in 1912, when the ship hit ice and slipped beneath the frozen waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Yet another shipwreck has been found at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Experts add that about 360 wrecks have been found in the lake's deeper water. One recently discovered is the 214-foot John V. Moran that sank in 1899. USA TODAY
If you only read one thing tonight, read this:<span style="color: Red;">*</span>VA has 41,500 unfilled medical jobs, forcing vets into costly private care
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Extra Bites:
That's quite a staring contest.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>French bullfighter Sebastian Castella confronts his second bull during the fourth bullfight at the Santiago Fair in the Cuatro Caminos bullring in Santander, Spain.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Swipe through more great shots from the Day in Pictures.
French bullfighter Sebastian Castella confronts his second bull during the fourth bullfight at the Santiago Fair in the Cuatro Caminos bullring in Santander, Spain.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Esteban Cobo, epa)
Have you seen it? When heroes come in little packages.
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A very alert 4-year-old girl in Boise, Idaho saw smoke coming from a house in her neighborhood. She told her dad, and he was able to alert the family inside before it was too late. VPC
We all need a little distraction at some point during the day (what else are smartphones for?), so add DISTRACTME on the YO app. It'll be fun, we promise.
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This is a compilation of stories from across USA TODAY.
Contributing: Traci Watson, Special for USA TODAY; Liz Szabo,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Jane Onyanga-Omara, Kevin McCoy, Maeve McDermott, USA TODAY; Brent Ashcroft , WZZM-TV
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