Professor Tom Keane, who heads Ireland's revamping of its cancer treatment program, feels strongly that setting up regional centers of excellence is more important that making mediocre care available locally. He's trying to follow the lead of successful programs in other areas, notably British Columbia. While patients may have to travel quite a ways for treatment, follow-up care is local.

Keane noted that concerns about distance for treatment for cardiovascular disease don't seem to be factor, though they seem to be for cancer care.

The Independent

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) gave the ok to Failure Analysis to build the Defense Underground Mapping Satellite Tracking and Ranging (DUMSTR) system. The company proposed $100,000,000.00/year proposal to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in February, 2008. The project is a a low-earth-orbiting, satellite-based, underground mapping matrix that will use existing Air Force satellite technology from the Defense Mapping Satellite Program (DMSP) and the Global Positioning System (GPS). The technology will allow the mapping of underground civil and military facilities around the world and "provide geological science information for plate tectonics, underground volcano structure and growth of lava chambers promising to increase the likelihood of future earthquake prediction capability."

SatNews.com

UK Prime Minister Brown will be speaking at a Google event today and per Reuters will be announcing "a new animation available to users of Google's map programme Google Earth, which will show the effects of climate change. The animation is made using data from Britain's weather authorities and its Antarctic researchers."

More details at 24Dash.com.

A memo leaked to the Sunday Mail from the Scottish Ambulance Service details how drivers are to use maps over in car devices installed a year ago in 460 vehicles at the cost of L5 million. In particular the memo states:

"The system will guide you through the main route, which is not always necessarily the most direct or quickest possible.
"The systemis most effective once you are in close proximity to the address and is an aid to finding the correct location.
"A map route should always be used and should be available."

Saturday night the Ambulance Service stated:

"The satellite navigation system is not the primary navigational aide for staff.
"Drivers are advised to use ordinance survey maps and local knowledge.
"The mapping system we use, however, is constantly updated."

The devices were installed in reaction to an incident where an ambulance got lost and could not save a teen in a rural area after an accident in 2001. One paramedic clearly understands when the devices are helpful:

"It's only useful for finding remote or difficult locations like farms and country cottages or if you are lost.
"In most cases drivers know where they are going so there is no need to use it.

Patrick Marshall at GCN documents how Jim Walker, director of the Alabama's Department of Homeland Security collected county imagery by using carrots and local sheriffs. The outcome? The award-winning Virtual Alabama.

Map Action is the well-known mapping NGO that coordinates mapping and GIS functions in response to disasters. Just before the recent Nargis cyclone in Myanmar Collins Bartholomew, publishers of the Collins and Times world atlases, decided to share its base data with the organization. That meant that "Within 24 hours, aid agencies had access to an accurate 1:5,000,000 map – enough detail to identify cities and vital infrastructure, such as main roads."

- Independent via Business 24-7.ae