Dream Big Dreams

Italian group claims to debunk Shroud of Turin

2009-10-05T22:02:00.001-05:00

By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 48 mins ago

ROME – Scientists have reproduced the Shroud of Turin — revered as the cloth that covered Jesus in the tomb — and say the experiment proves the relic was man-made, a group of Italian debunkers claimed Monday.

The shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood seeping out of nailed hands and feet, and believers say Christ's image was recorded on the linen fibers at the time of his resurrection.

Scientists have reproduced the shroud using materials and methods that were available in the 14th century, the Italian Committee for Checking Claims on the Paranormal said.

The group said in a statement this is further evidence the shroud is a medieval forgery. In 1988, scientists used radiocarbon dating to determine it was made in the 13th or 14th century.

But the dispute continued because experts couldn't explain how the faint brown discoloration was produced, imprinting on the cloth a negative image centuries before the invention of photography.

Many still believe that the shroud "has unexplainable characteristics that cannot be reproduced by human means," lead scientist Luigi Garlaschelli said in the statement. "The result obtained clearly indicates that this could be done with the use of inexpensive materials and with a quite simple procedure."

The research was funded by the debunking group and by an Italian organization of atheists and agnostics, he said.

Garlaschelli, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pavia, said in an interview with La Repubblica daily that his team used a linen woven with the same technique as the shroud and artificially aged by heating it in an oven and washing it with water.

The cloth was then placed on a student, who wore a mask to reproduce the face, and rubbed with red ochre, a well known pigment at the time. The entire process took a week, Repubblica said.

The shroud is first recorded in history around 1360 in the hands of a French knight — a late appearance that is one of the reasons why some scientists are skeptical of its authenticity.

Measuring 13 feet (4 meters) long and three feet (one meter) wide, it has suffered severe damage during the centuries, including from fires.

Owned by the Vatican, it is kept locked in a special protective chamber in Turin's cathedral and is rarely shown. The last public display was in 2000, when more than 1 million people turned up to see it, and the next is scheduled for 2010.

The Catholic Church makes no claims about the relic's authenticity, but says it is a powerful symbol of Christ's suffering.

The shroud has been strongly debated within the scientific community. Some researchers claim that patches used in the Middle Ages to repair the cloth after a fire altered the carbon-dating results.

Another study, by the Hebrew University, concluded that pollen and plant images on the shroud showed it originated in the area around Jerusalem sometime before the eighth century.

Garlaschelli told Repubblica he didn't think his research would convince those who have faith in the shroud's authenticity.

"They won't give up," he said. "Those who believe in it will continue to believe."

__

On the Net:

The debunking group (in Italian): http://www.cicap.org/

Shroud Web site of the Turin diocese: http://www.sindone.org/

What Causes Gravity?

2009-09-09T22:03:00.001-05:00

livescience

Greatest Mysteries:What Causes Gravity?

By Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 10 August 2007 09:20 am ET

Editor's Note: We asked several scientists from various fields what they thought were the greatest mysteries today, and then we added a few that were on our minds, too. This article is one of 15 in LiveScience's "Greatest Mysteries" series running each weekday.

In the deepest depths of space, gravity tugs on matter to form galaxies, stars, black holes and the like. In spite of its infinite reach, however, gravity is the wimpiest of all forces in the universe.

This weakness also makes it the most mysterious, as scientists can't measure it in the laboratory as easily as they can detect its effects on planets and stars. The repulsion between two positively charged protons, for example, is 10^36 times stronger than gravity's pull between them—that's 1 followed by 36 zeros less macho.

Physicists want to squeeze little old gravity into the standard model—the crown-jewel theory of modern physics that explains three other fundamental forces in physics—but none has succeeded. Like a runt at a pool party, gravity just doesn't fit in when using Einstein's theory of relativity, which explains gravity only on large scales

"Gravity is completely different from the other forces described by the standard model," said Mark Jackson, a theoretical physicist at Fermilab in Illinois. "When you do some calculations about small gravitational interactions, you get stupid answers. The math simply doesn't work."

Gremlins of gravity

The numbers may not jibe, but physicists have a hunch about gravity's unseen gremlins: Tiny, massless particles called gravitons that emanate gravitational fields.

Each hypothetical bit tugs on every piece of matter in the universe, as fast as the speed of light permits. Yet if they are so common in the universe, why haven't physicists found them?

"We can detect massless particles such as photons just fine, but gravitons elude us because they interact so weakly with matter," said Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago. "We simply don't know how to detect one."

Turner, however, isn't despondent about humanity's quest for gravitons. He thinks we'll eventually ensnare a few of the pesky particles hiding in the shadows of more easily detected particles.

"What it really comes down to is technology," Turner said.

Physicists aren't using mechanical wizardry to discover gravitons just yet, however. Efforts are currently focused on confirming the existence of the Higgs boson, which is the graviton's distant cousin particle responsible for giving matter mass.

Finding the 'toilet'

Sheldon Glashow, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, once called the Higgs the "toilet" of the standard model of particle physics.

Turner explained that Glashow coined the term because the Higgs performs an essential function: Keeping the standard model functioning, at least in an intellectual way.

"Really, the Higgs is more like a plumber with duct tape, holding the standard model together," Turner said. "A lot of the inelegance of it's all wrapped up in the Higgs."

And rightly so, he noted, because it's required to make the other forces involving mass—such as gravity—make sense.

"At the same time, the Higgs can be frustrating because it doesn't shed much light on gravity," Turner said, assuming that the particle is eventually discovered.

Accelerating answers

Discovering elusive particles such as the Higgs is something like traveling through time. By using enormous machines to whiz particles close to the speed of light, then smash them together, engineers can mimic the incredible energies present during the early universe.

So early in the universe's existence, particles were too energetic to stick together and form more familiar protons, neutrons and the like.

The Tevatron, Fermilab's 4-mile-circumference (6.3-kilometer) particle accelerator, may have already spotted the Higgs in accelerator data, according to physicists' Web logs. But Turner said the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) circling 17 miles (27 kilometers) beneath France and Switzerland should clearly confirm it within a few years.

"I think it will be a sigh of relief when the Higgs is discovered," he said. Will particle accelerators, however, eventually pop out a graviton?

Xavier Siemens, a gravitational theorist at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, said showing gravity acts like a wave needs to happen first.

"Classically, we can measure waves, and waves are made up of particles," said Siemens, who is also a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) that looks for wave-like evidence of gravity. By detecting gravitational waves, there would be grounds to suggest gravitons really exist—and begin seeking it out.

"At this point it seems like science fiction. Theoretically, however, we should be able to detect single gravitons," Siemens said. "But how is the big question."

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070810_gm_gravity.html

My Open Letter to The Cambridge Police Department's Public Information Officer

2009-07-24T23:24:00.002-05:00

Since you are the public information officer, I am hoping this will eventually get to the correct individual. I am outraged at the absurd response from your department of the claim of being in the right in the arrest of Dr. Gates. Hiding behind the badge and rallying around wrong-does only alienates an already suspicious African American and dark-skinned public of the lengths law enforcement will go to protect a fellow officer. What must we as the public now demand...should we demand video camera and audio evidence of every deployment, call, or response for police assistance?

If this Sergeant was such a professional as being purported by your department, surely a professional and seasoned officer would be able to differentiate between an irate African American and distinguished scholar being disrespected in his own house and an individual not belonging in that house and resisting the directions from your officer? Or, was your sergeant's response because of who Dr. gates was? Furthermore, if the claim of belligerence is such an important issue surely your department should be able to provide statical evidence of numerous similar cases where the outcome was the same, I doubt that you can?

Additionally, shouldn't the ability to suppress potential volatile interactions between the public and law enforcement be imperative and basic training for all law enforcement officers? Would your department support this as the desired response in a similar occurrence? This outcome should not be expected or tolerated from a rookie officer much-less a seasoned officer and a supposed leader. Is it possible that such training is not a high priority in your department and law enforcement in general? What temperament of personnel are you recruiting or promoting to leadership positions?

Black America has suffered at the hands of law enforcement actions far too long and far too much, your department's actions has only added to the already thick callous. The Cambridge police department's cowardliness only reinforces the image and belief that law enforcement does not protect African Americans and other dark-skinned individuals. To some Americans, this situation is only a highlight in the 24 hour news cycle, however, to most African Americans it is a boulder on the already gargantuan pile of evidence against law enforcement in these United States of America.

Even greater evidence of the surreality of this situation is your departments demand of an apology from the first black president of our country...how dare you – does your departments shame have no limits! If your department wanted attention - now you have it in buckets-full!

The first Europeans were cannibals: archaeologists

2009-06-28T18:38:00.003-05:00

by Virginie Grognou
Tue Jun 23, 11:21 pm ET

Skull named Miguelon, estimated to be 400,000 years old and the most complete skull of an Homo heidelbergensis ever found, is seen at the Atapuerca archaeological site, in the Atapuerca mountains in northern Spain. In 2007 a historic discovery of the fossilised remains of the 'first european' human was made at the site.
(AFP/File/Philippe Desmazes)

ATAPUERCA, Spain (AFP) – The remains of the "first Europeans" discovered at an archaeological site in northern Spain have revealed that these prehistoric men were cannibals who particularly liked the flesh of children.

"We know that they practiced cannibalism," said Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, one of the co-directors of the Atapuerca project, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A study of the remains revealed that they turned to cannibalism to feed themselves and not as part of a ritual, that they ate their rivals after killing them, mostly children and adolescents.

"It is the first well-documented case of cannibalism in the history of humanity, which does not mean that it is the oldest," he said.

The remains discovered in the caves "appeared scattered, broken, fragmented, mixed with other animals such as horses, deer, rhinoceroses, all kinds of animals caught in hunting" and eaten by humans, he said.

"This gives us an idea of cannibalism as a type gastronomy, and not as a ritual."

The Atapuerca caves were first discovered in the late 19th century, when a tunnel was blasted through the mountain for a railway line.

"But at the time in Spain, there was not enough scientific knowledge to begin research," said the other co-director, Eudald Carbonell.

The first excavations did not take place until 1978, then "in 1984, we found 150 human remains.

In 1992, they found a complete intact skeleton, and two years later, they discovered remains dating back more than 800,000 years.

Those remains probably correspond to the first humans who reached Europe, known as Homo antecessor, after the Latin word for pioneer or explorer.

Homo antecessor, who lived before Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens, probably came to the caves of Atapuerca after a long migration from Africa and through the Middle East, northern Italy and France.

It is a particularly good site for human settlement, at the confluence of two rivers with a comfortable climate and rich in fauna and flora, de Castro said.

They found water and food in abundance, could hunt wild boar, horses, deer, "which means that they did not practice cannibalism through a lack of food. They killed their rivals and used the meat," he said.

"We have also discovered two levels that contain cannibalised remains, which means that it was not a one-off thing, but continued through time," he said.

"Another interesting aspect ... is that most of the 11 individuals that we have identified" as victims "were children or adolescents".

"We think that there are also two young adults including a female, which indicates that they killed the base of the demographic pyramid of the group."

Atapuerca, situated on the edge of Eurasia, allowed Homo antecessor to develop in an isolated and more distinct way, with characteristics that were both archaic and modern.

In addition to hunting, they also made tools.

The area at the time was heavily forested, with oaks, chestnut trees and junipers, and abundant with bears, lynxes, panthers, foxes and hyenas.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Iran's political coup

2009-06-14T19:46:00.006-05:00

June 13, 2009

http://garysick.tumblr.com/

If the reports coming out of Tehran about an electoral coup are sustained, then Iran has entered an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history. One characteristic that has always distinguished Iran from the crude dictators in much of the rest of the Middle East was its respect for the voice of the people, even when that voice was saying things that much of the leadership did not want to hear.

In 1997, Iran’s hard line leadership was stunned by the landslide election of Mohammed Khatami, a reformer who promised to bring rule of law and a more human face to the harsh visage of the Iranian revolution. It took the authorities almost a year to recover their composure and to reassert their control through naked force and cynical manipulation of the constitution and legal system. The authorities did not, however, falsify the election results and even permitted a resounding reelection four years later. Instead, they preferred to prevent the president from implementing his reform program.

In 2005, when it appeared that no hard line conservative might survive the first round of the presidential election, there were credible reports of ballot manipulation to insure that Mr Ahmadinejad could run (and win) against former president Rafsanjani in the second round. The lesson seemed to be that the authorities might shift the results in a close election but they would not reverse a landslide vote.

The current election appears to repudiate both of those rules. The authorities were faced with a credible challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who had the potential to challenge the existing power structure on certain key issues. He ran a surprisingly effective campaign, and his “green wave” began to be seen as more than a wave. In fact, many began calling it a Green Revolution. For a regime that has been terrified about the possibility of a “velvet revolution,” this may have been too much.

On the basis of what we know so far, here is the sequence of events starting on the afternoon of election day, Friday, June 12.

* Near closing time of the polls, mobile text messaging was turned off nationwide
* Security forces poured out into the streets in large numbers
* The Ministry of Interior (election headquarters) was surrounded by concrete barriers and armed men
* National television began broadcasting pre-recorded messages calling for everyone to unite behind the winner
* The Mousavi campaign was informed officially that they had won the election, which perhaps served to temporarily lull them into complacency
* But then the Ministry of Interior announced a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad
* Unlike previous elections, there was no breakdown of the vote by province, which would have provided a way of judging its credibility
* The voting patterns announced by the government were identical in all parts of the country, an impossibility (also see the comments of Juan Cole at the title link)
* Less than 24 hours later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene`i publicly announced his congratulations to the winner, apparently confirming that the process was complete and irrevocable, contrary to constitutional requirements
* Shortly thereafter, all mobile phones, Facebook, and other social networks were blocked, as well as major foreign news sources.

All of this had the appearance of a well orchestrated strike intended to take its opponents by surprise – the classic definition of a coup. Curiously, this was not a coup of an outside group against the ruling elite; it was a coup of the ruling elite against its own people.

It is still too early for anything like a comprehensive analysis of implications, but here are some initial thoughts:

1. The willingness of the regime simply to ignore reality and fabricate election results without the slightest effort to conceal the fraud represents a historic shift in Iran’s Islamic revolution. All previous leaders at least paid lip service to the voice of the Iranian people. This suggests that Iran’s leaders are aware of the fact that they have lost credibility in the eyes of many (most?) of their countrymen, so they are dispensing with even the pretense of popular legitimacy in favor of raw power.

2. The Iranian opposition, which includes some very powerful individuals and institutions, has an agonizing decision to make. If they are intimidated and silenced by the show of force (as they have been in the past), they will lose all credibility in the future with even their most devoted followers. But if they choose to confront their ruthless colleagues forcefully, not only is it likely to be messy but it could risk running out of control and potentially bring down the entire existing power structure, of which they are participants and beneficiaries.

3. With regard to the United States and the West, nothing would prevent them in principle from dealing with an illegitimate authoritarian government. We do it every day, and have done so for years (the Soviet Union comes to mind). But this election is an extraordinary gift to those who have been most skeptical about President Obama’s plan to conduct negotiations with Iran. Former Bush official Elliott Abrams was quick off the mark, commenting that it is “likely that the engagement strategy has been dealt a very heavy blow.” Two senior Israeli officials quickly urged the world not to engage in negotiations with Iran. Neoconservatives who had already expressed their support for an Ahmadinejad victory now have every reason to be satisfied. Opposition forces, previously on the defensive, now have a perfect opportunity to mount a political attack that will make it even more difficult for President Obama to proceed with his plan.

In their own paranoia and hunger for power, the leaders of Iran have insulted their own fellow revolutionaries who have come to have second thoughts about absolute rule and the costs of repression, and they may have alienated an entire generation of future Iranian leaders. At the same time, they have provided an invaluable gift to their worst enemies abroad.

However this turns out, it is a historic turning point in the 30-year history of Iran’s Islamic revolution. Iranians have never forgotten the external political intervention that thwarted their democratic aspirations in 1953. How will they remember this day?
1 day ago

http://garysick.tumblr.com/

Warp Drive Engine Could Suck Earth Into Black Hole

2009-06-14T00:30:00.002-05:00

Eric Bland, Discovery News

June 11, 2009 -- "Star Trek" makes faster-than-light travel look easy, but according to new calculations by Italian physicists, a warp drive could easily create a black hole that would incinerate any passengers on a space craft and then suck Earth into a black hole.

"Warp drives are so far the best case scenario to attain faster-than-light travel," said Stefano Finazzi of Italy's International School for Advanced Studies. This paper "makes it much harder to realize, if not almost impossible, warp drives."

WATCH VIDEO: Explore the possibilities of time travel with Michio Kaku.

In normal physics, nothing can move faster than the speed of light. Einstein's theory of relativity forbids it. In normal space any object approaching the speed of light will increase in mass exponentially, and require an exponential increase in the amount of power needed to propel it forward.

There are two exceptions to this rule however. The first is what's commonly called a worm hole, a bridge connecting two different parts of space. A ship crossing this bridge would move at below light speed, but still arrive before a beam of light that would have had to go the long way around.

Warp drives are the second and more appealing option. A ship can't move through space faster than the speed of light. But with enough energy, space itself can move faster than the speed of light.

Known for the Mexican physicist Michael Alcubierre who originally developed the idea in the 1990's, an Alcubierre warp drive would create a bubble of energy behind the ship and a lack of energy in front of the ship, like a giant cosmic wave a space ship could surf. That particular section of space can travel faster than the speed of light in the surrounding space, and anything on or in that bubble will accelerate with it.

Finazzi and his colleagues propose creating this bubble of space-time by using a massive amount of "exotic matter," or dark energy. (Exactly how this bubble would be created is still a mystery.) According to their calculations and simplified, it would take a huge amount of energy to create the bubble, and then increasing amounts of energy to contain the highly repulsive dark energy.

Eventually the energy would run out. The bubble would rupture, with catastrophic effects. Inside the bubble the temperature would rise to about 10^32 degrees Kelvin, destroying almost anything on the bubble.

Anyone watching the ship nearby wouldn't be much better off.

"We know that the warp drive will be destabilized," said Finazzi. "But we do not know if it will in the end explode or collapse to a black hole."

Other physicists agree with the Italians' calculations, up to a point.

"It's a good paper; their results are sound," said Gerald Cleaver, a professor of physics at Baylor University who reviewed the work. The results make sense, at least, when creating warp drive using exotic matter in a universe where 1 plus 1 equals 2.

In a universe where 1 plus 1 equals 3, a possibility with string theory instead of the semi classical physics used by the Italians, a stable warp drive is viable.

Last year Cleaver and co-author Richard Obousy detailed a string theory-based warp drive that creates a bubble of space time by expanding one of the tiny, rolled-up dimensions (instead of a bubble of dark energy) predicted by string theory.

The biggest sticking point to a extra dimension-based warp drive? The entire mass of Jupiter would have to be converted into pure energy to power it.

The real question is not whether a warp drive, which by Cleaver's estimate is hundreds of years away, will be stable or not. It's about the fundamentals of the universe; do we live in a universe where 1 plus 1 equals 2 or 3? Until scientists can answer that question, there will be significant limitations on scientific models of the universe.

"These papers suggest limitations to what we can and can't do," said Cleaver. "We as scientists enjoy these papers because then we can look for ways to get around those limitations."

Clashes erupt in Iran over disputed election

2009-06-13T14:02:00.002-05:00

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writers 24 mins ago

TEHRAN, Iran – Supporters of the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police and set up barricades of burning tires Saturday as authorities claimed the hard-line president was re-elected in a landslide. The rival candidate said the vote was tainted by widespread fraud and his followers responded with the most serious unrest in the capital in a decade.

By nightfall, cell phone service appeared to have been cut in the capital Tehran. And Ahmadinejad, in a nationally televised victory speech, accused the foreign media of coverage that harms the Iranian people. There was more rioting at night and fires continued to burn on the streets of Tehran.

Several hundred demonstrators — many wearing the trademark green colors of pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign — chanted "the government lied to the people" and gathered near the Interior Ministry as the final count from Friday's presidential election was announced.

It gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 to Mousavi — a former prime minister who has become the hero of a youth-driven movement seeking greater liberties and a gentler face for Iran abroad.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, closed the door on any chance he could use his limitless powers to intervene in the disputes from Friday's election. In a message on state TV, he urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, calling the result a "divine assessment."

Mousavi rejected the result as rigged and urged his supporters to resist a government of "lies and dictatorship."

"I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation," said a statement on Mousavi's Web site. "The outcome of what we've seen from the performance of officials ... is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran's sacred system and governance of lies and dictatorship," it added.

Mousavi warned "people won't respect those who take power through fraud." The headline on one of his Web sites read: "I won't give in to this dangerous manipulation."

Mousavi appealed directly to Khamenei to intervene and stop what he said were violations of the law. Khamenei, who is not elected, holds ultimate political authority in Iran and controls all major policy decisions.

Mousavi and key aides could not be reached by phone.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. hopes the outcome of the election reflects the "genuine will and desire" of the Iranian people. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. administration is paying close attention to reports of alleged election irregularities.

At a joint appearance with Clinton, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said his country was "deeply concerned" by reports of irregularities in the election.

The clashes in central Tehran were the more serious disturbances in the capital since student-led protests in 1999. They showed the potential for the showdown to spill over into further violence and challenges to the Islamic establishment.

The demonstrations began Saturday morning shortly before the government announced the final results.

Protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry and anti-riot police fought back with clubs and smashed cars. Helmeted police on foot and others on buzzing motorcycles chased bands of protesters roaming the streets pumping their fists in the air. Officers beat protesters with swift blows from their truncheons and kicks with their boots. Some of the demonstrators grouped together to charge back at police, hurling stones.

Plumes of dark smoke streaked over the city, as burning barricades of tires and garbage bins glowed orange in the streets. Protesters also torched an empty bus, engulfing it in flames on a Tehran street.

An Associated Press photographer saw a plainclothes security official beating a woman with his truncheon. Italian state TV RAI said one of its crews was caught in the clashes in front Mousavi's headquarters. Their Iranian interpreter was beaten with clubs by riot police and officers confiscated the cameraman's tapes, the station said.

In another main street of Tehran, some 300 young people blocked the avenue by forming a human chain and chanted "Ahmadi, shame on you. Leave the government alone." There was no word on any casualties from the unrest.

It was not clear how many Iranians were even aware of Mousavi's claims of fraud. Communications disruptions began in the later hours of voting Friday — suggesting an information clampdown. State television and radio only broadcast the Interior Ministry's vote count and not Mousavi's midnight news conference.

After night fell, Tehran's cell phone network appeared to be down. When users tried to call cell phones, a message appeared on their phones saying "error in connection." There was no immediate comment from Iran's Telecommunications Ministry and it did not appear that cell phones were down throughout the country. Residents in several provinces say their service is working.

Nationwide, the text messaging system remained down Saturday and pro-Mousavi Web sites were blocked or difficult to access. Text messaging is frequently used by many Iranians — especially young Mousavi supporters — to spread election news. It was also difficult to access social networking sites such as Facebook, which Mousavi's campaign used to galvanize supporters.

Ahmadinejad called on the public to respect the vote and attacked the foreign media's coverage.

"All political and propaganda machines abroad and sections inside the country have been mobilized against the nation. They have launched the heaviest propaganda and psychological war against the Iranian nation. Many global networks continuously worked, employing very complicated methods, that work against our nation and arranged a full-fledged battle against us."

Mousavi's campaign headquarters urged people to show restraint.

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, who supervised the elections and heads the nation's police forces, warned people not to join any "unauthorized gatherings."

The powerful Revolutionary Guard cautioned Wednesday it would crush any "revolution" against the Islamic regime by Mousavi's "green movement." The Revolutionary Guard is directly under the control of the ruling clerics and has vast influence in every corner of the country through a network of volunteer militias.

Even before the vote counting began, Mousavi declared himself "definitely the winner" based on "all indications from all over Iran." He accused the government of "manipulating the people's vote" to keep Ahmadinejad in power and suggested the reformist camp would stand up to challenge the results.

"It is our duty to defend people's votes. There is no turning back," he said, alleging widespread irregularities.

Mousavi's backers were stunned at the Interior Ministry's claim that Ahmadinejad won after widespread predictions of a close race — or even a slight edge for the reformist candidate.

Turnout was a record 85 percent of the 46.2 million eligible voters.

"Many Iranians went to the people because they wanted to bring change," said Mousavi supporter Nasser Amiri, a hospital clerk in Tehran. "Almost everybody I know voted for Mousavi but Ahmadinejad is being declared the winner. The government announcement is nothing but widespread fraud. It is very, very disappointing. I'll never ever again vote in Iran."

At Tehran University — the site of the last major anti-regime unrest in Tehran in 1999 — the academic year was winding down and there was no sign of pro-Mousavi crowds. But university exams, scheduled to begin Saturday, were postponed until next month around the country.

In the capital, several Ahmadinejad supporters cruised the streets waving Iranian flags out of car windows and shouting "Mousavi is dead!"

The election outcome will not sharply alter Iran's main policies or sway major decisions, such as possible talks with Washington or nuclear policies. Those crucial issues rest with the ruling clerics headed by Khamenei.

But the election focused on what the office can influence: boosting Iran's sinking economy, pressing for greater media and political freedoms, and being Iran's main envoy to the world.

Iran does not allow international election monitors. During the 2005 election, when Ahmadinejad won the presidency, there were some allegations of vote rigging from losers, but the claims were never investigated.

_____

Associated Press reporter Nasser Karimi contributed to this report from Tehran.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc.

List of passengers aboard lost Air France flight

2009-06-02T19:36:00.001-05:00

By The Associated Press The Associated Press Tue Jun 2, 3:02 pm ET

A list of the named passengers aboard Air France Flight 447, which disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris carrying 228 people:

-Luiz Roberto Anastacio, 50; Brazilian; president for South America, Michelin

-Stephane Artiguenave, 35; French; salesman at electrical distributor CGED

-Sandrine Artiguenave, 34; French

-Aisling Butler, 26; Irish, of Roscrea, Ireland; doctor

-Brad Clemes, 49; Canadian from Guelph, Ontario; Coca-Cola executive

-Arthur Coakley, 61; British; structural engineer for PDMS

-Jane Deasy, 27; Irish; doctor

-Pedro Luis de Orleans e Braganca, 26; Brazilian; descendent of Brazil's last emperor

-Jozsef Gallasz, 44; Hungarian; partner of Hungarian victim Rita Szarvas.

-Antonio Gueiros; Brazilian; information systems director, Michelin

-Michael Harris, 60; American, from Lafayette, Louisiana; geologist

-Anne Harris; American, from Lafayette, Louisiana

-Erich Heine, 41; South African-born; member of executive board of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG

-Claus-Peter Hellhammer, 28; employee of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG based in Germany

-Giovanni Battista Lenzi, Trentino area, Italy

-Zoran Markovic, 45; Croatian, from Kostelji, Croatia; sailor

-Christine Pieraerts; French; engineer at Michelin

-Rita Szarvas; Hungarian; therapist at a Budapest center for children with motor disabilities. Her 7-year-old son was also aboard, but his name was not released.

-Eithne Walls, 29; Irish; doctor

_Rino Zandonai; Trentino area, Italy.

-Luigi Zortea; Trentino area, Italy.

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

America's Best Colleges - Learning How To Learn

2009-05-24T21:06:00.001-05:00

America's Best Colleges
Learning How To Learn
Daniel Born 08.13.08, 6:00 PM ET

Caught between the platitudes of smiling deans and the stomach-churning prospects of one more Gen Ed requirement, another raft of 18-year-olds will begin its passage this fall into higher education's mysteries.

Some will come stoked by excellent scores on their SATs, precociously announcing their plans for med school. Still others will arrive with the ease of seasoned veterans, nursing fantasies of baseball careers, professionals in their mastery of the tobacco wad and stealth spittoon in the back row of freshman composition.

I have taught both kinds of students. And I've discovered that certain kinds of intelligence and ignorance are pretty well distributed throughout this diverse human sample.

One thing most students can't explain--regardless of their individual ability, tattoos, headgear or ethnic identity--is what this entity known as a liberal arts education amounts to. Sure, they can parrot the blather about being educationally "well-rounded."

During their undergraduate experience, they're likely to overhear talk about "core competencies" and "learning outcomes" if they listen at orientation or eavesdrop on their professors' intramural quarreling. But for most, getting on with the major is what matters, and in their view, the liberal arts stuff is synonymous with the dreaded general education core.

To talk to freshmen about the liberal arts as an education for freedom (the Latin liber, as in "free") will strike many as absurd. Liberal arts requirements are the stuff most students try to "get out of the way" as soon as possible, the grunt work one does prior to shopping for courses that hold real allure. Note: A certain segment of students will change majors once or twice, bushwhacked unexpectedly by courses they thought they would never enjoy.

Who can blame the students for not knowing any better? At many institutions of higher learning, the liberal arts have become a mere shadow, usually reduced to an ever more attenuated batch of distribution requirements between the major divisions of arts, humanities, math, and sciences.

Usually--though not always--the general education core dominates one-quarter of the student's courses over a four-year span. For many students, this is the stuff thrown at the flypaper.

Academics organize themselves along the lines of disciplines, departments, schools and professions--accredited by appropriate agencies, each wielding a particular brand of expertise. We are a long, long way from the medieval ideal of asking what the well-educated person ought to know and then providing a pat answer: the trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric; the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.

And unlike our medieval predecessors, few of us believe there is one ideal model of a well-educated person. We are predominantly pluralists. Educators who dare to suggest that students integrate their knowledge into a coherent whole, or unified vision of the world, are likely to be perceived as megalomaniacs or ideologues.

Still, there are hardy souls who continue to try to define rigorously what a liberal arts education is, and how it ought to be delivered. Among these have been Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, who reformed the general education requirements at the University of Chicago along the lines of a strict "great books" model during the 1930s and 1940s.

Hutchins, who led the university for more than two decades, railed against the sort of vocational training that he saw infiltrating the best liberal arts institutions. He argued, and I think correctly, that the great books are those works that have stood the test of time because they engage the perennial questions of human existence. He famously declared: "The best education for the best is the best education for all."

His faculty, however, was not universally pleased with the list of books that his principal consiglieri Adler drew up for them to teach. After Hutchins retired as university chancellor in 1951, his two-year great books general education program unraveled, the victim of resurgent departmental fiefdoms.

A version of the Hutchins educational program goes on to this day--most notably at St. John's College (with campuses in Annapolis, Md., and Sante Fe, N.M.), and at Shimer College in Chicago. Columbia University, the original birthplace of the great books idea, still requires that all its undergraduates go through two year-long seminars in great books, a list periodically revised by the faculty who teach sections of these courses.

This educational immersion in core texts is described brilliantly in David Denby's Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World (1996).

I readily identify with parts of the great books teaching agenda, which is enjoying a resurgence around the country. Not too long after reading Denby, I helped design a great books honors program (four courses over two years) at a small liberal arts college in Ohio.

At the present time, many colleges are revisiting the question of their core curriculum, trying to figure out how to make it more than a random amalgam of courses plucked from the academic divisions. Some find that a focus on books that demand a response from each new generation of readers is a productive one. It can invigorate students and faculty alike.

I teach great books because they require seriousness and rigor. And I think it's unreflective poppycock to say that the great books simply reify dead white male conservative values. To read the great books is to recognize that liberals, conservatives, straight and gay, male and female, imperial and subaltern voices are all part of the mix, all part of the great conversation to which we are invited.

Yet there are problems with building an entire liberal arts curriculum around the notion of great books or even core texts. The first is one of authority. Few grown-up academicians willingly take it on someone else's authority what texts they are supposed to teach. Just as students want freedom to choose, so do faculty. To wish for a "grandmaster generalist" who can answer the question of what every undergraduate should know is to wish for some kind of secular papacy. That strikes me as un-American.

There are few generalists who have the intellectual authority to tell the rest of us what we absolutely ought to read--or teach. And if such a person existed, would I want to bow at his or her knee? I don't think so.

E. D. Hirsch Jr., author of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (1987) provided a valuable corrective to American educational theory when he advanced the startling and much-needed claim more than 20 years ago that education actually needs some factual content in order to matter--not just a bunch of soft, and usually mealy-mouthed pedagogical "objectives" lacking substance.

But even Hirsch--who has spoken in several of my classes as a guest lecturer--recognizes with appropriate humility his own disciplinary blinders. He doesn't lay claim to the same expertise in microbiology that he claims as a fairly rambunctious literary theorist. If he did, nobody would listen to him.

There is a second problem with a purely great books approach to higher education, and it is this: Many of the students making that initial plunge into the sea of higher learning need us to help them learn a few simple strokes. And that is usually not accomplished by hitting them over the head with Plato's Republic when they're just beginning to tread water. Hutchins could do it at the University of Chicago because his student population was exceptional; those of us in the higher education trenches don't always enjoy that luxury.

For a number of years, I tinkered with my English composition course, eventually highlighting the learning objective of getting my students into the habit of reading for pleasure. It was one mid-December day when one of the hulking athletes in the back row came up to me after the last class of the semester. We had concluded the course with five sessions of reading and discussing Orson Scott Card's science fiction classic Ender's Game.

This is an action-oriented pulp adventure novel. It rewrites in key ways Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, and between the smoking-hot battle sequences it actually smuggles in some great books themes and ideas, cleverly alluding to Locke, Demosthenes, Machiavelli and others. Moreover, it is a book that raises profound questions about group loyalty, command and obedience, xenophobia and abuse of authority. It's not a great book, but it is a very good one.

The kid unfolded his tall frame from his desk and ambled toward me and stuck out his hand. I looked up as I was gathering my books and the pile of student essays to head back to my office.

He shook my hand. "Dr. Born," he said, with a big smile on his face, "thank you for this class. I wanted you to know this is the first book I've ever read from cover to cover."

He wasn't going to be an academic superstar, but he was on his way to making better, more articulate arguments and learning how to summon evidence, on his way to moving with less fear and more freedom through the world of the text. He had learned that he could speak up and make a contribution to the dialog. He was going to survive college. He was learning how to learn.

He would probably run into a few great books--not all of them, perhaps. But I knew that at least some of the stuff I had thrown at him was going to stick. And because of that, his thinking was clearer and his freedom a little more free.

Daniel Born was McCoy associate professor of English at Marietta College in Ohio before taking a position at the Great Books Foundation in Chicago. He edits the foundation's quarterly magazine, The Common Review, and is a lecturer in Northwestern University's School of Continuing Studies.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/13/liberal-arts-education-oped-college08-cx_db_0813born.html

Go Boldly, or Go Home: The Vanity Mirror Universe of STAR TREK (2009)

2009-05-14T00:19:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Star Trek (2009 -- hereafter Star Trek '09) contains many punchings, shootings and implodings of things. It is sort of funny and sort of dumb, which makes it par for Summer Movie Fun Zone course. The story retraces the meteoric rise of James Kirk immediately before and after -- but only for three minutes during -- his Starfleet Academy training, and first hours on the job as captain of the USS Enterprise. The external conflict concerns Leonard Nimoy as the Spock of 2387 attempting to stop save Romulus from its own sun going supernova. He fails and is sucked into a black hole -- which somehow translates as "time warp wormhole" -- with a surviving Romulan mining vessel, and upon reemergence 153 years earlier the vengeance-crazed Nero (Eric Bana, playing straight as possible) declares war on all Spocks young and old. The emotional story is about Kirk realizing his potential rather than succumb to anger and adrenaline addiction, and Spock suffering the tortures of biracial identity issues. This may sound like rich material, and that is because it has been rich material for 40 years. Trek '09 does not actually engage these human concerns, not in the specific or abstract, but uses them to clumsily throw characters into roughly the correct location for the next action setpiece.

Director J.J. Abrams is a great TV concept man, though his most successful hour, Lost, is a straight-faced adult suspense remake of Gilligan's Island. He is a fine producer, though Lost rapidly lapsed into improperly planned idiocy, he did not touch script or camera for the excellent Cloverfield. He is, however, a terrible writer -- responsible for Regarding Henry, Armageddon, Gone Fishin', etc... -- and a worse director. Abrams' best directorial quality is a knack for hiring excellent actors then getting the hell out of their way. Unable to communicate in anything but big head close-ups of actors, and special effects shots which he technically did not "shoot" so much as "approve storyboards for", Abrams never needs to compose a striking, poetic, informative, or dramatic frame, because he is going to wiggle the hand-held around all over the mise-en-scène anyway. The script is not his doing, but it is entirely Abrams' fault that Trek '09 looks like a modern, boring garbagey TV show, rather than the beautiful, lurid, exciting and dreamy garbagey TV show it is based upon.

Star Trek '09 attempts an impossible, contradictory project regarding Trek Lore, desiring to reinvigorate these vigorous characters with a rousing space opera adventure and simultaneously mummify them in reverent awe, as pop culture icons whose every step toward their fated seats on the bridge of the Enterprise. Neither writers nor actors know whether to play this as if we are meeting characters afresh, or if everyone is in on some colossal and unhilarious joke about destiny and remakes. The result is a lot of quite literal smirking and mugging by the cast when they do something in character... If that makes sense, which it does not.

Chris Pine captures the bravado, temper and swagger of J.T. Kirk, but not the sheer lustiness and vigor, the sweatiness and passion. He also has bad skin, is not as handsome, and does not bulge in any of the sexy or unhealthy places as WIlliam Shatner. Pine's Kirk is less about joie de vivre than goofing around like everything is a blast all the time. This is, perhaps, not his fault, as the script gives him no opportunities for scenery chewing at a Shatnerian level, and not even much fuel for scenery licking. While the timeline disruption merely saddles Kirk with unnecessary daddy issues -- his frustration with the Kobyashi Maru test are motivated by the horror that his father died in exactly the same situation, rather than the perfectly sufficient reasons built into the character as Shatner played him -- this is nothing next to the reconfiguration forced on Spock.

Zachary Qunto, pasty and eyebrow-shaved, does what he can despite being miscast and having to interpret a version of Spock which removes virtually everything that makes the character Spock. If two generations of the awkward and scholastically gifted have deified Spock, it is because they admire not just the Vulcan half-breed's brains and efficient self-defense technique, but his resolute coolness, his detachment, that he comes from a math culture. Spock 2.0 is birthed by creators who do not respect or understand Vulcan itself, let alone the appeal at the heart of the character. In point of fact, the plot hinges on watching Vulcan collapse in on itself. Quinto, while certainly odd-looking, does not have the authoritative bass-baritone rumble, etched-granite skin, equine facial bones, hollow cheeks or penetrating glare of his predecessor; he is neither Other enough nor strangely beautiful as Leonard Nimoy. It may even be that Leonard Nimoy's very Jewishness informed Spock to a degree that cannot be replaced. Do-over Spock variously fumes beneath the bowl-cut over his Vulcan-ness, which is here not a metaphor for anything, or resents his human-ness; symbols of both cultures are sacrificed, forcing us to witness the appalling sight of Amanda Grayson falling in a big hole, and rendering Spock confused and with a vague identity crisis. Perhaps as ironic counterpoint, but more likely in grave misestimation, Winona Ryder gives an emotionally thin and otherworldly performance as Spock's human mom, while Ben Cross is more recognizably human as Sarek. The brilliance of Nimoy's original has always been that Spock, raised Vulcan and icy, has always had emotions, but no equipment for expressing them. In Trek '09, he has always been a mess (better not to delve into an out-of-nowheres smoochy relationship with Uhura, which must be singularly unsatisfying for the lady in red, and replaces the more interesting sight of Nurse Chapel pining for Spock). The very story of Spock is of a being put in touch with his humanity through prolonged contact and friendships on the Enterprise and with Kirk in specific. For a film purportedly about Kirk and Spock's dynamic, this imbalance is disastrous. Spock unequipped to deal with emotional turmoil + Kirk's lust for life = the formula the birthed the very notion of slash fiction. This has always been the pulse of this relationship, and Trek '09 makes hash of it.

Trek '09 is not about much of anything but itself and maybe the very idea of Trek Mythos. Some not-sense about people from the future impacting the way the Enterprise crew started hanging out and an old (well, future) enemy seeking straightforward revenge via convoluted plan is the kind of imagination-retarded story you might invent while playing with your Mego action figures. It is a huge mistake on the screenwriters' part to think the Wrath of Khan plot is hotswappable with a kiddie-Trek story. The recycling (thievery, if you prefer) renders the resonances of Khan moot, is one of the reasons the story doesn't work or feel like it makes "sense" (not to mention: they got paid for that?). It is symptomatic of the screenwriters only sort-of getting it. Because Khan's is partly a story about the end of Kirk's youthful derring-do, and career-long struggle with the Prime Directive. It is a story of the headstrong, boldly-going youth's bad decisions catching up with him in middle-age.

Trek '09 tries to graft the decade-spanning revenge and aging story onto an origin story. The result is a movie about young adult Spock forced to deal with a villain who wants to make Spock pay for perceived sins he will not commit for more than a century and a half... an error which is not even really Spock's fault.

In a very funny list posted to Mobius Home Video Forum, Lenny Moore outlined extremely basic hard-science problems at the root of the plot, not the least of which is how Spock and Nero's crew survive being sucked into a black hole, or exactly what Romulus is supposed to do with no sun and a matter-vacuum directly adjacent to its atmosphere. As above, problematic too is the crucial emotional-truth logic of how characters are behaving at any given time. Nothing in Trek '09 makes any goddamn sense. This is because it is, again, sort of dumb and weird as well. For some (waffling, sucking-up, ass-covering) reason, this re-whatevering of Trek does not simply jettison all previous continuity, as in, say the Ultimate Marvel comics line. It not only does not refuse to start over and let everyone in the audience deal with their own hang-ups about this, Star Trek '09 devotes its entire running time to explaining why it is not Star Trek starring Messers Shatner and Nimoy and the ship's bridge looks like an Apple store rather than a rec room, and the phasers look like cheap plastic squirt guns instead of bad-ass squirt guns. This is not ten minutes of applied phlebotinum, but the entire story. The baffling result is that the movie has no story of its own and spends two hours justifying its own existence.

The Trek notion of time-travel has always been inconsistent, but nowhere in Star Trek '09 is it obvious or logical that Star Trek '66 still exists. The new film doesn't "branch off" the timeline so far as I can tell, but supersede the Original Series... and therefore Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space 9. Don't worry about Enterprise, because I guess it wouldn't fall in the black hole, and already had continuity issues of its own. There is a vast amount of horrible Star Trek already, so under lab conditions I do not care a whit for dogged faithfulness to a continuity that does not serve the needs of storytelling. But Trek '09's A Story is preoccupied with little else but series continuity. This is the Star Trek equivalent of Crisis on Infinite Earths. As such, it begs for exactly the kind of scrutiny the screenwriters have presumably been tasked by Paramount to alleviate. And, as with all else, it is highly illogical at best.

Indeed, as the faithful yelped after seeing the trailer, James Kirk Prime cannot drive a 20th Century motor vehicle, as seen in "A Piece of the Action". But no matter: Black Hole Universe Kirk picked up the skill. You may or may not buy this, but after the temporal anomaly, any and every detail may be chalked up to The Hole. But!:

Events which occur in Trek continuity before the timeline alteration are violated before the Trek '09 plot patch-in even occurs: Jim Kirk's older brother Sam is a no-show, the Kelvin is able to identify a Romulan ship and nothing is made of how historic the encounter is, despite Kirk's clear question in the episode "Balance of Terror": "After a whole century, what would a Romulan ship look like...?"... or after 60 years, for that matter? Spock, McCoy and Scott's (pre-temporal anomaly) birthdays have been left nebulous, therefore presumably unchanged (and, [hand-wave] they look a good deal younger, though the actors are roughly the correct age, save Karl Urban as McCoy, who is ten years shy of DeForest Kelly at the inception of his five-year mission). Perhaps their personal histories since birth have been altered since the timeline anomaly, yet it causes all three men to enter Starfleet service at grossly late dates in life. This "altered" timeline seems awfully preoccupied with making sure all of the Enterprise crew is either the same age, or goes through Academy together, and all end up on the bridge faster than the first go-round (in Original Series continuity, Sulu started as a physicist and Chekov didn't make navigator until second season). The timeline also seems to have it in for Dr. Piper and Gary Mitchell, who must have been inspired to seek other paths in life, but exceptionally kind to Capt. Christopher Pike.

At the end, Spock Prime is trapped in this Hell dimension, where Vulcan has been Alderaan'ed, no one knows who he is, and all his friends are turned into smirking babies. Note: this potentially nightmarish s-f idea is not actually explored in the movie. Because no "ideas" are explored in the movie.

Putting myriad other shortcomings aside (if possible?), this is where Trek '09 fails to be Star Trek. Since the end of Original Series, Trek Universe turned into the dreariest of places, more fun to think about than to visit. Star Trek was colorful and shooty and goofy, sexy and boozy, and peoples' shirts got torn all the time because they were wrassling each other on piles of foam rocks. The first episode is about how McCoy has to metaphorically shoot his ex-girlfriend because she turned into a succubus. But it was also sincere and authentic speculative fiction. It waddled the line between hard and soft s-f. There are weaponized ship battles, and a space-Western spirit of adventure, but most every Original Series story is centered on some brainy classic s-f thought experiment, serious social, political or religious allegory, philosophical conundrum or, in purest form, asked seriously: what if?

Fine enough. Screenwriters Orci and Kurtzman never ask What If?, only ask How did they get on that spaceship? They got the action and adventure relatively right, but that is only part of the Star Trek spirit. Taking someone else's toys and playing with them in semi-clever, very loud and enjoyable way may be what these fellows do best, anyhow. In 2007 they wrote a better script for a movie about the Transformers than a sane person could reasonably expect (similarly sabotoged by a director's refusal to learn how to impart a sense of geography to any scene, be it epic robot battle or simple dialogue exchange). The plotting is lazy as well, hinging every joint on sheer coincidence -- often triple-hinging on coincidence -- but in a multiplex Space-Shot-ride film, this is not remarkable; excusable but not admirable. To their credit, the writers think of many thrilling and breathless things to do with the transporter room, Sulu's swordfighting skills, and invent brutal ways to smoke Redshirts. It also copiously steals from Star Wars pictures, including duplicating that part with the fish monsters from The Phantom Menace. While it may provide some nihilistic charge to proving that in this do-over Trek anything truly goes, making Spock part of a dying culture is neither as useful or fun as being able to visit Vulcan in future installments.

Oh, and the script hits several Trek tropes and in-jokes that made people in my theater chortle. I am nerdy enough that I think I "got" them, but not nerdy enough to pretend they were funny or that it was any kind of thrill to find out what happened to Jonathan Archer's dog.

Star Trek '09 plays like a Holodeck simulation of Star Trek '66. Fun while you're inside, harmless by design, but it dissolves before your eyes, insubstantial. Simulation over.

- Chris Stangl at 2:35 PM

Indexed in: Star Trek, televison

Obsession with Naked Women Dates Back 35,000 Years

2009-05-14T00:12:00.001-05:00

Clara Moskowitz

LiveScience.com clara Moskowitz Staff Writer Wed May 13, 1:21 pm ET

If human culture seems obsessed with sex lately, it's nothing new. Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known artistic representation of a woman - a carved ivory statue of a naked female, dating from 35,000 years ago.

The figurine, unearthed in September 2008 in Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany, may be the oldest known example of figurative art, meaning art that is supposed to represent and resemble a real person, animal or object. The discovery could help scientists understand the origins of art and the advent of symbolic thinking, including complicated language.

"If there's one conclusion you want to draw from this, it's that an obsession with sex goes back at least 35,000 years," University of Cambridge anthropologist Paul Mellars told LiveScience. He was not involved in the new finding. "But if humans hadn't been largely obsessed with sex they wouldn't have survived for the first 2 million years. None of this is at all surprising."

The fixation wasn't just for naked women, though. Early carvings of phalluses appeared in Europe at about the same time.

Little 'Venus'

The tiny statue is carved out of the tusk of a woolly mammoth and is less than 2.5 inches (60 millimeters) long. Instead of a head, it has a ring that scientists think meant it was worn as a pendant looped through string. Paleoanthropologist Nicholas Conard of Germany's Tubingen University reported the discovery in the May 14 issue of the journal Nature.

The oldest human art dates back much further, to between 75,000 and 95,000 years ago in Africa. But that art was abstract, and consisted of geometrical designs engraved on pieces of red iron oxide. This is the first known art to represent a woman, and possibly the first art to represent anything real at all. Another find, a simple drawing that may represent a half-man, half-animal, could be a few thousand years older, but the date on that is uncertain.

The jump from abstract art to representative art seems significant, and might reflect a leap in the cognitive capacity of the human brain around this time. Some experts think that the development might have gone along with a leap in the complexity of human language.

"Language is a symbolic system - words are symbols for things. And so is art," Mellars said. "Art is a glaring illustration of a capacity for symbolic thinking. Since symbolic thinking lies at the core of language, people have often tried to link the two."

Mellars pointed out that there isn't enough evidence to really understand how complex human language was at this point, though.

Sex on the brain

The statue is notable not just for its symbolism, but for its style - particularly its sexuality.

"The figure is explicitly - and blatantly - that of a woman, with an exaggeration of sexual characteristics (large, projecting breasts, a greatly enlarged and explicit vulva, and bloated belly and thighs) that by twenty-first-century standards could be seen as bordering on the pornographic," Mellars wrote in a commentary essay in Nature.

Scientists guess that it may have represented female fertility, or been related to shamanistic rituals and beliefs.

* Ancient Cave Art Full of Teenage Graffiti
* Image Gallery: Microscopic Images As Art
* 10 Surprising Sex Statistics

* Original Story: Obsession with Naked Women Dates Back 35,000 Years

LiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

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Selflessness -- Core Of All Major World Religions -- Has Neuropsychological Connection

2009-05-04T23:27:00.001-05:00

New findings suggests that all individuals, regardless of cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences, such as transcendence. (Credit: iStockphoto/Dawn Poland)

ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2008) — All spiritual experiences are based in the brain. That statement is truer than ever before, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. An MU study has data to support a neuropsychological model that proposes spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain.

The study is one of the first to use individuals with traumatic brain injury to determine this connection. Researchers say the implication of this connection means people in many disciplines, including peace studies, health care or religion can learn different ways to attain selflessness, to experience transcendence, and to help themselves and others.

This study, along with other recent neuroradiological studies of Buddhist meditators and Francescan nuns, suggests that all individuals, regardless of cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences, such as transcendence. Transcendence, feelings of universal unity and decreased sense of self, is a core tenet of all major religions. Meditation and prayer are the primary vehicles by which such spiritual transcendence is achieved.

“The brain functions in a certain way during spiritual experiences,” said Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the MU School of Health Professions. “We studied people with brain injury and found that people with injuries to the right parietal lobe of the brain reported higher levels of spiritual experiences, such as transcendence.”

This link is important, Johnstone said, because it means selflessness can be learned by decreasing activity in that part of the brain. He suggests this can be done through conscious effort, such as meditation or prayer. People with these selfless spiritual experiences also are more psychologically healthy, especially if they have positive beliefs that there is a God or higher power who loves them, Johnstone said.

“This research also addresses questions regarding the impact of neurologic versus cultural factors on spiritual experience,” Johnstone said. “The ability to connect with things beyond the self, such as transcendent experiences, seems to occur for people who minimize right parietal functioning. This can be attained through cultural practices, such as intense meditation or prayer or because of a brain injury that impairs the functioning of the right parietal lobe. Either way, our study suggests that ‘selflessness’ is a neuropsychological foundation of spiritual experiences.”

The research was funded by the MU Center on Religion and the Professions. The study – “Support for a neuropsychological model of spirituality in persons with traumatic brain injury” – was published in the peer-reviewed journal Zygon.

“Our research focused on the personal experience of spiritual transcendence and does not in any way minimize the importance of religion or personal beliefs, nor does it suggest that spiritual experience are related only to neuropsychological activity in the brain,” Johnstone said. “It is important to note that individuals experience their God or higher power in many different ways, but that all people from all religions and beliefs appear to experience these connections in a similar way.”

Men Are From Mars - Neuroscientists Find That Men And Women Respond Differently To Stress

2009-05-04T22:05:00.000-05:00

April 1, 2008 — Functional magnetic resonance imaging of men and women under stress showed neuroscientists how their brains differed in response to stressful situations. In men, increased blood flow to the left orbitofrontal cortex suggested activation of the "fight or flight" response. In women, stress activated the limbic system, which is associated with emotional responses.
See also:
Mind & Brain

* Stress
* Mental Health
* Anxiety
* Disorders and Syndromes
* Alcoholism
* Intelligence

Reference

* Functional neuroimaging
* Stress (medicine)
* Sympathetic nervous system
* Sleep deprivation

There are many books and movies that highlight the psychological differences between men and women -- Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, for example; but now, neurologists say they have brain images that prove male and female brains do work differently -- at least under stress.

Same species, different genders … And now, a new high-tech scientific study reveals the differences between men and women may really start at the top. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania used a high-tech imaging method to scan the brains of 16 men and 16 women. The subjects were placed inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, or fMRI.

"Using this state-of-the art-functional magnetic resonance imaging technique, we try to directly visualize what the human brain does during stress," Jiongjiong Wang, Ph.D., a research assistant professor of radiology and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Ivanhoe.

Researchers then purposely induced moderate performance stress by asking the men and women to count backward by 13, starting at 1,600. Researchers monitored the subject's heart rate. They also measured the blood flow to the brain and checked for cortisol, a stress hormone.

When the scans were completed, neuroscientists consistently found differences between the men's stressed-out brains and the women's. Men responded with increased blood flow to the right prefrontal cortex, responsible for "fight or flight." Women had increased blood flow to the limbic system, which is also associated with a more nurturing and friendly response.

Doctors say this information may someday lead to a screening process for mood disorders. "In the future, when physicians treat patients -- especially depression, PTSD -- they need to take this into account that really, gender matters," Dr. Wang explains.

Other experts caution that hormones, genetics and environmental factors may influence these results, bringing to light yet another difference between men and women. Neuroscientists say the changes in the brain during stress response also lasted longer in women.

WHAT IS fMRI? Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses radio waves and a strong magnetic field rather than X-rays to take clear and detailed pictures of internal organs and tissues. fMRI uses this technology to identify regions of the brain where blood vessels are expanding, chemical changes are taking place, or extra oxygen is being delivered.

These are indications that a particular part of the brain is processing information and giving commands to the body. As a patient performs a particular task, the metabolism will increase in the brain area responsible for that task, changing the signal in the MRI image. So by performing specific tasks that correspond to different functions, scientists can locate the part of the brain that governs that function.

FIGHT OR FLIGHT: Certain events act as "stressors," triggering the nervous system to produce hormones to respond to the perceived danger. Specifically, the adrenal glands produce more adrenaline and cortisol, releasing them into the bloodstream. This speeds up heart and breathing rates, and increases blood pressure and metabolism. These and other physical changes help us to react quickly and effectively under pressure.

This is known as the "stress response," or more commonly, as the "fight or flight response." But if even low levels of stress go on too long, it can be detrimental to one's health. The nervous system remains slightly activated and continues to pump out extra stress hormones over an extended period, leaving the person feeling depleted or overwhelmed, and weakening the body's immune system.

STRESS-REDUCING TIPS: There are several easy, practical things people can do to reduce the amount of stress in their lives. (1) Be realistic and don't try to be perfect, or expect others to be so. (2) Don't over-schedule; cut out an activity or two when you start to feel overwhelmed. (3) Get a good night's sleep. (4) Get regular exercise to manage stress -- just not excessive or compulsive exercise -- and follow a healthy diet. (5) Learn to relax by building time into your schedule for reading or a nice long bath.

Race And Gender Determine How Politicians Speak

2009-05-04T22:01:00.000-05:00

ScienceDaily (Jan. 13, 2009) — New study looks at speech patterns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others. Race and gender influence the way politicians speak, which is not always to their advantage. Camelia Suleiman from Florida International University and Daniel O’Connell from Georgetown University in the US have come to this conclusion as a result of their findings, published online in Psycholinguistic Research.
See also:
Mind & Brain

* Gender Difference
* Racial Issues
* Language Acquisition

Science & Society

* Political Science
* Racial Disparity
* Bioethics

Reference

* Illusion of control
* Conflict resolution research
* Self image
* Misogyny

Suleiman and O’Connell compared the language of male and female, and black and white politicians to determine whether ethnicity and gender play a role in the way they speak. They studied transcripts of interviews between Larry King on CNN TV and Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. Specifically, they looked at how the politicians’ speech was constructed: the number of syllables spoken, the use of interjections, interruptions, self-referent ‘I’, non-standard English such as ‘gonna’, y ’ know, and laughter.

Their analysis shows that language reflects a social hierarchy that is not explicitly acknowledged. The “subordinate” roles of black race and female gender are revealed in speech patterns with “dominant” white males. And they are expressed differently in conversations with a white female, a black male and a black female. In effect, a degree of racism and sexism is reproduced by the very people who oppose these societal attitudes.

The researchers, in focusing on Barack Obama’s language, in particular, found that his presentation of himself is nothing like the traditional black political orator Martin Luther King or Jesse Jackson. Barack Obama does not deliver the poetic sermon of a past generation of African American leaders. Rather, like Condoleezza Rice, he displays self-confidence and serenity and remains calm and composed under stress. He stays focused and does not communicate obvious emotion.

According to the authors, both Obama and Rice are accomplished models of a new generation of African American leaders. It seems that they need to be even more careful about what they say than their white political colleagues, because they are judged on the use of their language differently than their white counterparts.

Journal reference:

1. Suleiman et al. Race and Gender in Current American Politics: A Discourse-Analytic Perspective. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2008; 37 (6): 373 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-008-9087-x

Adapted from materials provided by Springer Science+Business Media, via AlphaGalileo.

Perceived Warmth, 'Babyfaceness' Positive Characteristics For Black CEOs

2009-05-04T21:55:00.001-05:00

ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2009) — As President Barack Obama commemorates his 100th day as the country's first black commander-in-chief, a new study by Kellogg School of Management researchers examines the intersection of race and power in corporate America. While many traits of successful leaders transcend racial or ethnic bounds, this study sought to focus on one particular facet of blacks' ascensions to power: the physical characteristics of so-called "babyfaces," and their influence on perception and achievement.

"The Teddy Bear Effect: Does babyfaceness benefit Black CEOs?" will appear in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science and is co-authored by Robert Livingston and Nicholas Pearce of the Kellogg School.

Searching for traits common to black CEOs who have successfully navigated treacherous cultural and corporate terrain, the researchers demonstrate that babyfaces – and perceived warmer physical appearances and personality traits – can benefit black CEOs and act as disarming mechanisms within the social hierarchy. Black CEOs categorized as having a babyface tend to be at the helm of more prestigious corporations than black CEOs who have a more mature appearance.

"Prior research has shown babyface-type traits are a liability for those striving for a leadership role because they undermine perceptions of competence, but these studies focused on white males," said Livingston, lead author and assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management. "Because a babyface is disarming, we hypothesized that it would provide an advantage to black leaders who have a history of being stigmatized as too threatening to occupy positions of high power."

Methodology

Non-black women and men were shown 40 headshot photos of black men and white women and men. Though the faces were not recognized by participants, all were current or former CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

Participants were asked to rate how babyfaced, how attractive, and also how old, each person appeared. They also rated each in terms of perceived personality traits. For example, how warm did a person appear? How competent would they be as a leader? Participants were then asked to use those same personality criteria to rate, in general, how they perceive blacks and whites. Finally, participants guessed how much money each person earned.

Babyface Definition

The researchers have identified several traits associated with "babyfaceness" including a rounder face, larger forehead, smaller nose, larger ears and fuller, pouty lips. Despite these individual features, babyface is a "gestalt" or whole that is easily recognizable by people. Babyfaceness is an attribute that generalizes across regions, ethnicities, gender and even species, as identified by social psychologists. There is a universal, evolutionary response to babies across all cultures because infants require special care, attention, and nurturing in order to survive.

This adaptive response to infants is over-generalized to adults who have features that resemble babies. The result is that babyfaced adults are treated differently compared with maturefaced adults: babyfaced adults are considered more warm, innocent and trustworthy.

The hypothesis of the current study was that babyfaceness could serve as a "disarming mechanism" that would attenuate the fear, hostility and aggression typically associated with black males. Thus babyfaceness would facilitate the ascension of black males but not white males.

Results

Babyface features had a clear influence on professional achievement, both perceived and real. Black CEOs were rated as being more babyfaced, and having warmer personalities, than whites.

The more babyfaced the black CEO, the more he was also thought to earn. In terms of real, not just perceived, earnings and achievement, the more babyfaced the black CEO, the more prestigious was the company he actually led, reflected by both Fortune 500 ranking and annual corporate revenue. These perceived and real professional benefits were correlated with physical appearance, not to perceptions of age, which was not found to be linked to babyfaceness.

Livingston pointed out that while the 10 black CEO faces were considered warmer than the white faces, blacks as a group were considered less warm than whites overall. Thus, the visual influence of babyfaceness clearly shifted perception, and the playing field. He said, "To function effectively as an African American male in the U.S. it helps to have a disarming mechanism." A disarming mechanism is a physical or behavioral trait, noted Livingston, that eases perceptions of threat—it signals to whites that they do not have a reason to fear this particular black individual. Babyfaceness is but one example: political conservatism, style of speech or dress, smiling behavior, or even a Harvard education might also serve a similar disarming function.

The research notes disarming mechanisms, like warmth, are only necessary for groups that are perceived to be hostile or threatening by default. Prior research has shown warmth to be counterproductive for white male leaders and women leaders. "Female leaders are already 'disarmed' because of traditional caregiver roles and stereotypes," said Livingston. "Women leaders must prove to be strong and assertive, frequently at the expensive of being perceived as lacking warmth." The implication is that black leaders may have to adopt a gentler leadership style compared with white males who can get angry or pound their fists in order to accomplish leadership objectives.

Beyond the Babyface

While facial features may present natural advantages or obstacles to some, other behavioral traits can be developed and used by most anyone. "There are other mechanisms thought to help minorities function and achieve without stoking envy, resentment, fear," said Livingston. "For example, some point to Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice as someone who internalizes shared ideology with the dominant group, and is therefore seen as non-threatening." Livingston adds that although Barack Obama does not possess all of the typical features associated with babyfaceness per se, he does have a disarming appearance. "Big ears or a simple smile can disarm one's appearance from suggested perceptions of threat that might otherwise be associated with black males. This could serve to increase the appeal of the president or even one of Hollywood's most successful actors—Will Smith," he said.

FDA says dieters should stop using Hydroxycut now

2009-05-01T17:34:00.000-05:00

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Writer 54 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Government health officials warned dieters and body builders Friday to immediately stop using Hydroxycut, a widely sold supplement linked to cases of serious liver damage and at least one death.

The Food and Drug Administration said the company that makes the dietary supplement has agreed to recall 14 Hydroxycut products. Available in grocery stores and pharmacies, Hydroxycut is advertised as made from natural ingredients. At least 9 million packages were sold last year, the FDA said.

Dr. Linda Katz of the FDA's food and nutrition division said the agency has received 23 reports of liver problems, including the death of a 19-year-old boy living in the Southwest. The teenager died in 2007, and the death was reported to the FDA this March.

Other patients experienced symptoms ranging from jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, to liver failure. One received a transplant and another was placed on a list to await a new liver. The patients were otherwise healthy and their symptoms began after they started using Hydroxycut.

Iovate Health Sciences, which makes the diet pills, said it agreed to the recall out of "an abundance of caution." The company is based in Canada and its U.S. distributor is headquartered near Buffalo, N.Y.

"While this is a small number of reports relative to the many millions of people who have used Hydroxycut products over the years, out of an abundance of caution and because consumer safety is our top priority, we are voluntarily recalling these Hydroxycut-branded products," the company said in a statement on its Web site. Consumers can get a refund by returning the pills to the store they purchased them from, the company said.

Dietary supplements aren't as tightly regulated by the government as medications. Manufacturers don't need to prove to the FDA that their products are safe and effective before they can sell them to consumers.

But regulators monitor aftermarket reports for signs of trouble, and in recent years companies have been put under stricter requirements to alert the FDA when they learn of problems. In 2004, the government banned ephedra, an ingredient in many supplements, linked to heart attacks and strokes.

Katz said it has taken so long to get a handle on the Hydroxycut problem because the cases of liver damage were rare and the FDA has no authority to review supplements before they're marketed. "Part of the problem is that the FDA looks at dietary supplements from a post-market perspective, and an isolated incident is often difficult to follow," she said.

The FDA relies on voluntary reports to detect such problems, and many cases are never reported, officials acknowledge.

Health officials said they have been unable to determine which Hydroxycut ingredients are potentially toxic, partially because the formulation has changed several times.

Public health researcher Ano Lobb, who has studied Hydroxycut and other dietary supplements for Consumer Reports, said the problem may be an ingredient called hydroxycitric acid. Derived from a tropical fruit, it's been linked to liver problems in at least one medical journal study. Lobb said it's likely that other supplements containing the same ingredient remain on the market.

"You really have to be careful about dietary supplements, especially weight-loss pills," said Lobb. "People believe that the FDA has verified that these products are at least safe and effective, and that's really not the case. When you see fantastic claims — that's generally what they are."

___

On the Net:

FDA press release: http://tinyurl.com/cfxjbe

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Africans have world's greatest genetic variation

2009-04-30T16:57:00.000-05:00

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer 21 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth, according to a new study that helps narrow the location where humans first evolved, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border.

The largest study of African genetics ever undertaken also found that nearly three-fourths of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to West Africa. The new analysis published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.

"Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, they have had time to accumulate dramatic changes" in their genes, explained lead researcher Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.

People have been adapting to very diverse environmental niches in Africa, she explained in a briefing.

Over 10 years, Tishkoff and an international team of researchers trekked across Africa collecting samples to compare the genes of various peoples. Often working in primitive conditions, the researchers sometimes had to resort to using a car battery to power their equipment, Tishkoff explained.

The reason for their work? Very little was known about the genetic variation in Africans, knowledge that is vital to understanding why diseases have a greater impact in some groups than others and in designing ways to counter those illnesses.

Scott M. Williams of Vanderbilt University noted that constructing patterns of disease variations can help determine which genes predispose a group to a particular illness.

This study "provides a critical piece in the puzzle," he said. For example, there are clear differences in prevalence of diseases such as hypertension and prostate cancer across populations, Williams said.

"The human genome describes the complexity of our species," added Muntaser Ibrahim of the department of molecular biology at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. "Now we have spectacular insight into the history of the African population ... the oldest history of mankind.

"Everybody's history is part of African history because everybody came out of Africa," Ibrahim said.

Christopher Ehret of the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, compared genetic variation among people to variations in language.

There are an estimated 2,000 distinct language groups in Africa broken into a few broad categories, often but not always following gene flow.

Movement of a language usually involves arrival of new people, Ehret noted, bringing along their genes. But sometimes language is brought by a small "but advantaged" group which can impose their language without significant gene flow.

Overall, the researchers were able to study and compare the genetics of 121 African groups, 60 non-African populations and four African-American groups.

The so-called "Cape-colored" population of South Africa has highest levels of mixed ancestry on the globe, a blend of African, European, East Asian and South Indian, Tishkoff said.

"This will be a great population for study of diseases" that are more common in one group than another, she said.

The study also found that about 71 percent of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to western African origins. They also have between 13 percent and 15 percent European ancestry and a smaller amount of other African origins. There was "very little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans, Tishkoff said.

Ehret added that only about 20 percent of the Africans brought to North America made the trip directly, while most of the rest went first to the West Indies.

And, he added, some local African-American populations, such as the residents of the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina, can trace their origins to specific regions such as Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education at Vanderbilt University, the L.S.B. Leakey and Wenner Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard and Burroughs Wellcome foundations.

___

On the Net:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Africans have world's greatest genetic variation
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer 21 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth, according to a new study that helps narrow the location where humans first evolved, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border.

The largest study of African genetics ever undertaken also found that nearly three-fourths of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to West Africa. The new analysis published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.

"Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, they have had time to accumulate dramatic changes" in their genes, explained lead researcher Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.

People have been adapting to very diverse environmental niches in Africa, she explained in a briefing.

Over 10 years, Tishkoff and an international team of researchers trekked across Africa collecting samples to compare the genes of various peoples. Often working in primitive conditions, the researchers sometimes had to resort to using a car battery to power their equipment, Tishkoff explained.

The reason for their work? Very little was known about the genetic variation in Africans, knowledge that is vital to understanding why diseases have a greater impact in some groups than others and in designing ways to counter those illnesses.

Scott M. Williams of Vanderbilt University noted that constructing patterns of disease variations can help determine which genes predispose a group to a particular illness.

This study "provides a critical piece in the puzzle," he said. For example, there are clear differences in prevalence of diseases such as hypertension and prostate cancer across populations, Williams said.

"The human genome describes the complexity of our species," added Muntaser Ibrahim of the department of molecular biology at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. "Now we have spectacular insight into the history of the African population ... the oldest history of mankind.

"Everybody's history is part of African history because everybody came out of Africa," Ibrahim said.

Christopher Ehret of the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, compared genetic variation among people to variations in language.

There are an estimated 2,000 distinct language groups in Africa broken into a few broad categories, often but not always following gene flow.

Movement of a language usually involves arrival of new people, Ehret noted, bringing along their genes. But sometimes language is brought by a small "but advantaged" group which can impose their language without significant gene flow.

Overall, the researchers were able to study and compare the genetics of 121 African groups, 60 non-African populations and four African-American groups.

The so-called "Cape-colored" population of South Africa has highest levels of mixed ancestry on the globe, a blend of African, European, East Asian and South Indian, Tishkoff said.

"This will be a great population for study of diseases" that are more common in one group than another, she said.

The study also found that about 71 percent of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to western African origins. They also have between 13 percent and 15 percent European ancestry and a smaller amount of other African origins. There was "very little" evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans, Tishkoff said.

Ehret added that only about 20 percent of the Africans brought to North America made the trip directly, while most of the rest went first to the West Indies.

And, he added, some local African-American populations, such as the residents of the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina, can trace their origins to specific regions such as Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education at Vanderbilt University, the L.S.B. Leakey and Wenner Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard and Burroughs Wellcome foundations.

___

On the Net:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Denial Can Bring Marital Bliss

2009-04-25T00:28:00.000-05:00

Meredith F. Small
Fri Apr 24, 10:25 am ET

With the divorce rate hovering around 50 percent, and so many people married more than once, it sometimes feels like humans are terrible at figuring out long-term love.

The typical pattern starts with falling head-over-heels for someone, with all its heat-thumping, starry-eyed craziness, and it takes a while before that fog dissipates and the real object of desire comes into focus. Often, the truth doesn't hit until after marriage when the real person, warts and all, wakes up next to you in bed wearing a wedding ring.

Reality check, with it's evil twin disillusionment, are sure ways to kill off a marriage.

In a study to be published in July in the journal Psychological Science, Northwestern University psychologist Daniel Molden and colleagues were interested in the possible differences between the way dating and married couples see each other. They asked 92 dating couples and 77 married couples to complete questionnaires about satisfaction with their relationship, and not surprising, marriage changes things.

Everyone, married or dating, thinks the best partner is one who acts as a cheering section and brings out our best. But that sort of relationship only translates into a truly happy marriage when the partner seems to accept real commitment and helps in the day-to-day obligations of life as a couple.

The surprise here is not the switch from a focus on "me" to a focus on "us," as anyone who has gone from the first blush of love to picking up someone else's underwear off the floor knows to be true. What really stands out is the idea that satisfaction within any relationship is based on perception rather than actual fact, and therein lies the rub of not only love, but also of living with someone on intimate terms.

In Molden's study, the authors focus on their subjects' "perception" of the other person, not the reality of the situation. If we perceive a date to be supportive of our goals, we're happy. If we perceive a spouse as committed to the family, we're even more happy. Although the researchers point to the shift in the focus of perception from ourselves to the couple as an indicator of a good or bad marriage, the real problem for love is the very issues of projecting anything on another person, no matter the focus.

Humans seem to think they are really good at knowing others, but the truth is our own agendas get in the way of really knowing someone. As self-interested, self-absorbed creatures, our own thoughts, feelings, needs and goals come first, and that sometimes means fooling ourselves into thinking we are the center of other people's thoughts, feelings, needs and goals when, in fact, they are mired in their own business.

But should we be disillusioned by our own illusions? Maybe not. Happy marriages might just be those in which both partners uphold a very nice projection of each other, even when things aren't so great. And this makes sense. Happiness is a state of mind, and if denial paints a partner better than they really are, the relationship is bound to be satisfying, as long as no one is slapped in the face with reality.

Scientists discover a nearly Earth-sized planet

2009-04-21T16:49:00.000-05:00

By JENNIFER QUINN, Associated Press Writer, 26 mins ago

HATFIELD, England – In the search for Earth-like planets, astronomers zeroed in Tuesday on two places that look awfully familiar to home. One is close to the right size. The other is in the right place. European researchers said they not only found the smallest exoplanet ever, called Gliese 581 e, but realized that a neighboring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habitable zone for potential life.

"The Holy Grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone,'" said Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist at Geneva University in Switzerland.

An American expert called the discovery of the tiny planet "extraordinary."

Gliese 581 e is only 1.9 times the size of Earth — while previous planets found outside our solar system are closer to the size of massive Jupiter, which NASA says could swallow more than 1,000 Earths.

Gliese 581 e sits close to the nearest star, making it too hot to support life. Still, Mayor said its discovery in a solar system 20 1/2 light years away from Earth is a "good example that we are progressing in the detection of Earth-like planets."

Scientists also discovered that the orbit of planet Gliese 581 d, which was found in 2007, was located within the "habitable zone" — a region around a sun-like star that would allow water to be liquid on the planet's surface, Mayor said.

He spoke at a news conference Tuesday at the University of Hertfordshire during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.

Gliese 581 d is probably too large to be made only of rocky material, fellow astronomer and team member Stephane Udry said, adding it was possible the planet had a "large and deep" ocean.

"It is the first serious 'water-world' candidate," Udry said.

Mayor's main planet-hunting competitor, Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, praised the find of Gliese 581 e as "the most exciting discovery" so far of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system.

"This discovery is absolutely extraordinary," Marcy told The Associated Press by e-mail, calling the discoveries a significant step in the search for Earth-like planets.

While Gliese 581 e is too hot for life "it shows that nature makes such small planets, probably in large numbers," Marcy commented. "Surely the galaxy contains tens of billions of planets like the small, Earth-mass one announced here."

Nearly 350 planets have been found outside our solar system, but so far nearly every one of them was found to be extremely unlikely to harbor life.

Most were too close or too far from their sun, making them too hot or too cold for life. Others were too big and likely to be uninhabitable gas giants like Jupiter. Those that are too small are highly difficult to detect in the first place.

Both Gliese 581 d and Gliese 581 e are located in constellation Libra and orbit around Gliese 581.

Like other planets circling that star — scientists have discovered four so far — Gliese 581 e was found using the European Southern Observatory's telescope in La Silla, Chile.

The telescope has a special instrument which splits light to find wobbles in different wavelengths. Those wobbles can reveal the existence of other worlds.

"It is great work and shows the potential of this detection method," said Lisa Kaltenegger, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

___

Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

How to Solve Toddler Tantrums: Think Like a Neanderthal

2009-03-26T22:46:00.000-05:00

By Meredith F. Small

posted: 22 February 2008 09:43 am ET

You're in a store, little kid in hand, and then suddenly she tries to pull away. You bend down and whisper quietly in her ear, "Stay with Mommy, honey," knowing full well that this reasonable request is a foolish attempt to dampen the temper tantrum that is rising like a tsunami inside your kid. With a pounding heart, you scoop her up and run from the store before someone shouts, "Bad parent. Dreadful child. Get out!"

No one knows why 2-year-olds have temper tantrums, but most of them do. It starts with mild anger over something simple but then quickly escalates into full blown fury dramatized by screaming, fist pounding, foot-stomping, and screaming. The child also descends psychologically into a place where they can't be reached by words or physical comfort, and parents stand by helpless and confused.

Clearly, the child is distressed, but to the parent, the distress seems way out of proportion to the situation. And it is physically stressful for the child, which suggests that there must be some evolutionary reason why temper tantrums are so universal for little kids.

Pediatrician Harvey Karp, author of "The Happiest Toddler on the Block," and an expert in getting babies and toddlers to quiet down, claims that tantrums are an expected product of human development. He sees our little darlings as less-evolved savages driven by instinct and emotion, not thoughtful reasoning, and he suggests it's our job as parents to civilize them into Homo sapiens.

And so, Dr. Karp suggests, in the midst of a tantrum a parent should reach way back to our ancient ancestors and think like a Neanderthal and become one with the child and figure out how to stop the screaming.

His method is to speak in short phrases that reflect the primitive emotions of the child ("You are angry") rather than addressing the adult modern Homo sapiens situation of the moment ("Please stop. Big girls don't scream in stores.")

Apparently, nothing infuriates these little Neanderthals more than Homo sapiens logic. They just want to be heard and their emotions acknowledged and a tantrum is best controlled by the simple, "I hear you. I feel you."

Of course, Dr. Karp maligns Neanderthals by suggesting there were instinctual creatures swayed by emotions rather than thought. Neanderthals didn’t have language, but they had bigger brains than modern humans and could probably do logic problems with the best of us.

His advice is better couched in the notion that Homo sapiens, and presumably our ancestors, were designed to feel very deeply, and little kids simply want their emotions acknowledged, just like adults.

In fact, adults spend millions of dollars each year to talk to counselors and get their feelings heard. And relationships work best when people are able to see and hear each other's pain, misery, happiness and joy.

And so parents need not read the history of human evolution to know how to deal with their unruly kids.

All we have to do, even in the middle of the most embarrassing public tantrum, is to reach inside and feel that same frustration and anger with the world, and then bend down and say, as Dr Karp would, "I know just how you feel."

Meredith F. Small is an anthropologist at Cornell University. She is also the author of "Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" (link) and "The Culture of Our Discontent; Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness" (link).

Secret to Toddler Vocabulary Explosion Revealed

2009-03-26T22:43:00.000-05:00

Health

By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 02 August 2007 02:04 pm ET

Learning 10 new words a day may seem daunting, but it's actually fairly simple for toddlers, who must tackle this vocabulary milestone to eventually talk like the rest of us, a new study suggests.

At about the age of 18 months, children experience a "vocabulary explosion" that suddenly involves learning new words, left and right. Many parents likely remember being amazed by how smart their child seemed during this stretch.

Researchers have previously thought complex mechanisms must govern this voracious rate of word-learning.

"The field of developmental psychology and language development has always assumed that something happens at that point to account for this word spurt: kids discover things have names, they switch to using more efficient mechanisms and they use their first words to help discover new ones," said study author Bob McMurray of the University of Iowa. "Many such mechanisms have been proposed."

But these mechanisms aren’t necessary, according to McMurray, whose study of a mathematical model to describe the vocabulary explosion is detailed in the Aug. 3 issue of the journal Science.

While children may engage those types of specialized mechanisms to help them learn new words, McMurray says, computational simulations he conducted suggest that simpler mechanisms—such as word repetition and learning multiple words at once—can explain the vocabulary explosion.

"Children are going to get that word spurt guaranteed, mathematically, as long as a couple of conditions hold," McMurray said. "They have to be learning more than one word at a time, and they must be learning a greater number of difficult or moderate words than easy words. Using computer simulations and mathematical analysis, I found that if these two conditions are true, you always get a vocabulary explosion."

McMurray likens the word-learning process to filling up jars, with jar size increasing with the difficulty of the word.

Experts previously suggested that when a child learned a word, it was easier for him or her to learn more words, analogous to shrinking the jar size. But McMurray's model found that even if jar size is increased, the vocabulary explosion still occurs.

The key is the relative number of small jars to big jars (or easy words to difficult words)—as long as there are more difficult words than easy words, which is generally the case with languages, the vocabulary explosion will happen.

"Clearly, the specialized mechanisms aren't necessary," McMurray said. "Our general abilities can take us a lot farther than we thought."

Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told

2009-03-26T22:40:00.000-05:00

livescience.com Tue Mar 24, 10:45 pm ET

Are you listening to me? Didn't I just tell you to get your coat? Helloooo! It's cold out there...

So goes many a conversation between parent and toddler. It seems everything you tell them either falls on deaf ears or goes in one ear and out the other. But that's not how it works.

Toddlers listen, they just store the information for later use, a new study finds.

"I went into this study expecting a completely different set of findings," said psychology professor Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "There is a lot of work in the field of cognitive development that focuses on how kids are basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they're just not as good at it yet. What we show here is they are doing something completely different."

Munakata and colleagues used a computer game and a setup that measures the diameter of the pupil of the eye to determine the mental effort of the child to study the cognitive abilities of 3-and-a-half-year-olds and 8-year-olds.

The game involved teaching children simple rules about two cartoon characters - Blue from Blue's Clues and SpongeBob SquarePants - and their preferences for different objects. The children were told that Blue likes watermelon, so they were to press the happy face on the computer screen only when they saw Blue followed by a watermelon. When SpongeBob appeared, they were to press the sad face on the screen.

"The older kids found this sequence easy, because they can anticipate the answer before the object appears," said doctoral student Christopher Chatham, who participated in the study. "But preschoolers fail to anticipate in this way. Instead, they slow down and exert mental effort after being presented with the watermelon, as if they're thinking back to the character they had seen only after the fact."

The pupil measurements showed that 3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it.

"For example, let's say it's cold outside and you tell your 3-year-old to go get his jacket out of his bedroom and get ready to go outside," Chatham explained. "You might expect the child to plan for the future, think 'OK it's cold outside so the jacket will keep me warm.' But what we suggest is that this isn't what goes on in a 3-year-old's brain. Rather, they run outside, discover that it is cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and then they go get it."

The findings are detailed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Munakata figures the results might help with real situations.

"If you just repeat something again and again that requires your young child to prepare for something in advance, that is not likely to be effective," Munakata said. "What would be more effective would be to somehow try to trigger this reactive function. So don't do something that requires them to plan ahead in their mind, but rather try to highlight the conflict that they are going to face. Perhaps you could say something like 'I know you don't want to take your coat now, but when you're standing in the yard shivering later, remember that you can get your coat from your bedroom."

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Wife divorcing ex-CEO: $43 million not enough

2009-03-19T11:55:00.000-05:00

By DAVE COLLINS, Associated Press Writer Dave Collins, Associated Press Writer Wed Mar 18, 5:23 pm ET

HARTFORD, Conn. – A 36-year-old Swedish countess divorcing a former CEO says she cannot live on $43 million.

Marie Douglas-David, a former investment banker, says she has no income and needs her 67-year-old husband, George David, to pay her more than $53,000 a week — more than most U.S. households make in a year — to cover her expenses.

David stepped down last year as chief executive at Hartford-based United Technologies Corp. but is still chairman of the board and has an estimated net worth of $329 million. He and his wife accuse each other of extramarital affairs. Their divorce trial started Wednesday.

"I'm just very sad that we are where we are," Douglas-David said. "I hope we resolve this soon so everybody can move on with their lives."

David briefly took the stand Wednesday. Asked if his marriage is irretrievably broken, he simply answered, "Yes."

David and Douglas-David married in 2002, but the marriage was in trouble by 2004, court papers show. Amid a series of reconciliations, the couple signed a postnuptial agreement in October 2005 that would give her $43 million when they divorce.

Douglas-David wants the agreement invalidated. She accused her husband of coercing her to sign it by preying upon her fears of being divorced and childless. She's asking to be awarded about $100 million in cash and stock, plus $130,000 a month in alimony.

David is asking a judge to uphold the agreement and order Douglas-David to vacate their Park Avenue apartment but keep their properties in Sweden. His attorneys asked for a separate hearing Wednesday on the document's validity, but the judge declined.

Douglas-David has filed court papers showing she has more than $53,800 in weekly expenses, including for maintaining a Park Avenue apartment and three residences in Sweden. Her weekly expenses also include $700 for limousine service, $4,500 for clothes, $1,000 for hair and skin treatments, $1,500 for restaurants and entertainment, and $8,000 for travel.

At that rate, Douglas-David would burn through $43 million in less than 16 years. The Census Bureau estimates that the median U.S. household income in 2007 was just over $50,000.

Anne Dranginis, an attorney for David and retired Connecticut Appellate Court judge, predicted that Douglas-David will get much less money in the divorce if she doesn't accept the terms of the postnuptial.

In court papers, Douglas-David said she quit her job as an investment banker for Lazard Asset Management to travel and entertain with David, who still earns $1 million a year from United Technologies. While chief executive in 2007, David made nearly $27 million in salary and bonuses.

Douglas-David's legal team includes prominent New York divorce attorney William Beslow, who represented Mia Farrow in her child-custody suit against actor-director Woody Allen and Marla Maples in her divorce from Donald Trump.

United Technologies is the parent company of Carrier, which makes air conditioning units, and Otis Elevators. It also owns Sikorsky, which makes commercial and military helicopters, and Hamilton Sunstrand, an aerospace manufacturer that makes components for NASA's space program.

David is expected to return to the stand Thursday for several days of testimony.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

Cuomo says AIG paid $1M-plus bonuses to 73 workers

2009-03-17T16:07:00.000-05:00

Tuesday March 17, 4:41 pm ET
By Michael Virtanen, Associated Press Writer
NY atty gen Cuomo: AIG paid $1M-plus bonuses to 73 employees, including 11 no longer with firm

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Troubled insurance giant American International Group paid bonuses of $1 million or more to 73 employees, including 11 who no longer work for the company, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.

Cuomo subpoenaed information from AIG on Monday to determine whether the payments made over the past weekend constitute fraud under state law. Contracts written last March guaranteed employees 100 percent of their 2007 bonus amounts for 2008, "despite obvious signs that 2008 performance would be disastrous in comparison to the year before," Cuomo said.

President Barack Obama and Washington lawmakers have blasted AIG for paying more than $160 million in bonuses to employees of its Financial Products division, the unit primarily responsible for the meltdown that led to a federal bailout of the company, while the company has received billions in taxpayer bailout funds.

Cuomo said AIG mailed the retention bonus checks Friday.

In a letter Tuesday to Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, Cuomo outlined the bonus and contract information and asked the panel to take up the issue at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

"AIG also claims that retention of individuals at Financial Products was vital to unwinding the subsidiary's business," Cuomo wrote. But AIG has been unwilling to provide their names, despite his subpoena for the list, making it impossible to test that claim, Cuomo said. He said his office will do "everything necessary" to get the information.

The company and some federal regulators have said it was obligated by contract to make the payments. Cuomo said the bonuses might have been fraudulent if AIG officials knew the company couldn't afford them.

Cuomo said that despite their contracts, Financial Products employees agreed to take 2009 salaries of $1 in exchange for receiving their retention bonus packages. He said the fact AIG could negotiate the terms of the payments "flies in the face of AIG's assertion" that it had no choice but to make the contractual bonus payments.

"You could argue if the taxpayers didn't bail out AIG, those contracts wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on," he said Monday.

There was no immediate AIG comment following Cuomo's disclosure Tuesday of the bonus amounts.

According to the attorney general's office, the top individual bonus was more than $6.4 million, and the top seven received more than $4 million each.

(This version CORRECTS that contracts guaranteed 100 percent of 2007 bonuses sted 2007 pay.)

Rep. Frank wants to see if AIG bonuses recoverable

2009-03-15T12:46:00.000-05:00

2 hrs 3 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said on Sunday the government needs to determine if millions in employee bonuses at American International Group Inc can be recovered.

"We need to find out whether these bonuses are legally recoverable," Frank, a Democrat, told the "Fox News Sunday" program, adding that the timing of the company's commitment to make the awards to its employees was important.

Embattled insurer AIG, which has received three government bailouts totaling $180 billion, had promised to pay about $1 billion in retention bonuses over a period of several years, half of which has already been paid.

AIG Chairman Edward Liddy said in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that the firm was legally obligated to make already-committed 2008 employee-retention payments, the value of which were set early last year before problems at the Financial Products unit became public.

About half of the $1 billion was due to be paid to staff of AIG's main insurance businesses and the rest to employees of the largely unregulated AIG Financial Products.

AIG Financial Products was the unit that made bad bets on toxic mortgages and credit default swap contracts that led to the company's near collapse.

According to company documents obtained by Reuters on Saturday, the financial products unit is obligated to pay $220 million in employee retention payments for 2008, $55 million of which were paid in December and $165 million required to be paid by Sunday.

Liddy said in the letter the company agreed to revamp its system for paying bonuses after the Obama administration objected to the payouts.

(Reporting by Philip Barbara and John O'Callaghan; Editing by Bill Trott)

Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited.

Lawmakers blast AIG

2009-03-15T12:45:00.002-05:00

Lisa Lerer, 46 mins ago

Lawmakers blasted American International Group on Sunday, slamming plans by the mega-insurer to pay out huge bonuses after collecting more than $170 billion in government rescue funds.

"It is wrong," House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. "This is an example of people at the commanding heights of the economy misbehaving, abusing the system."

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that AIG planned to pay out $450 million in bonuses to employees of the financial products division – the same unit that underwrote many of the risky subprime mortgages that sparked the current recession. Another $121 million will be paid to senior executives and other company employees.

The payments will fuel voter backlash to Wall Street bailouts and could threaten future attempts by the new administration to ask Congress for additional fund to rescue the troubled financial system.

"The message here, I'm afraid, to any any business out there that is thinking about taking government money is 'Let's enter in a bunch of contracts real quick and we'll have the taxpayers pay bonuses to our employees,'" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on ABC's "This Week." "This is an outrage."

The administration defended its efforts to limit the bonuses, arguing that the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve took every legal step possible.

“What the Obama administration has done, based on the advice of attorneys, is done everything it can to, within the law and within the tradition of upholding law that we have in this country, to limit these bonuses,” said top White House economic aide Larry Summers on ABC’s “This Week.” “Obviously, this whole area is something we're going to have to look at, as we think about regulation in the future.”

Frank signaled that Congress plans to investigate whether the government can recoup any of the money spent on bonuses.

"We need to find out when [the bonuses] are legally recoverable. We can't just violate legal obligations, I understand that," Frank added. "But I do want to understand at what point those legal obligations were incurred. We need to find out who said we're going to give these bonuses no matter what. And I do think it's inappropriate for those people to stay in power in those companies."

AIG's financial products unit is already under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office. The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises has a hearing scheduled for Wednesday to investigate the firm's impact on the global financial system.

AIG’s decision to distribute bonuses increases the political risk for Congress to authorize more financial system bailout funds, on top of the $700 billion it approved last fall.

The administration’s budget includes a $750 billion contingency request for “potential additional financial stabilization efforts.” The administration estimates that they could cost taxpayers $250 billion in losses, assuming it would eventually recoup some of the funds.

On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reportedly told AIG that its bonus payments were unacceptable and urged them to cut the nearly $10 million going to top company executives.

In a letter to Geithner dated Saturday, Chief Executive Edward Liddy wrote that “AIG's hands are tied." The company, argued Liddy, was legally bound to fulfill its “contractual obligations.”

Since last fall, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve have spent more than $170 billion propping up the insurer. Two weeks ago, regulators suggested that the company may require additional government support if markets continue to spiral downwards. Some analysts believe that at least another $60 billion will be required to help AIG, bringing the total government investment in the company close to a staggering quarter of a trillion dollars.

Regulators and Wall Street believe that the global financial system could not withstand the sudden collapse of the company, which could cause a domino effect across many different sectors of the economy. AIG provides insurance to more than 30 million policy holders and 100,000 different entitles, including small businesses, cities, pension plans, and Fortune 500 companies. If AIG fell, banks, financial firms, and other AIG trading partners would have to write down the value of their securities—a loss that some fear could make those companies insolvent, as well.

But earlier this month, lawmakers questioned the impact AIG’s fall would have on average Americas.

“I just hope that in the days ahead, the Fed is going to come clean as to why this is so essential,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “Insurance companies in Oregon don’t take these kinds of risks, and people want to know how we got into this situation and, specifically, what’s being done to turn it around.”

“This amount of money that’s going into AIG, there is no upside now,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who sits on the Senate Banking Committee. “This is all just like gone money.”

Regulators admitted that they shared the congressional outrage, but warned of the dire consequences of not acting aggressively.

“If there’s a single episode in this entire 18 months that has made me more angry, I can’t think of one than AIG,” Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee after getting an earful about the latest rescue of American International Group. “It’s a terrible situation, but we’re not doing this to bail out AIG or their shareholders, certainly. We’re doing this to protect our financial system and to avoid a much more severe crisis in our global economy.”

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc.

Insurance giant AIG to pay $165 million in bonuses

2009-03-15T12:35:00.001-05:00

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer.
Sun Mar 15, 7:55 am ET

WASHINGTON – American International Group is giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses even though it received a taxpayer bailout of more than $170 billion dollars.

AIG is paying out the executive bonuses to meet a Sunday deadline, but the troubled insurance giant has agreed to administration requests to restrain future payments.

The Treasury Department determined that the government did not have the legal authority to block the current payments by the company. AIG declared earlier this month that it had suffered a loss of $61.7 billion for the fourth quarter of last year, the largest corporate loss in history.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has asked that the company scale back future bonus payments where legally possible, an administration official said Saturday.

This official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that Geithner had called AIG Chairman Edward Liddy on Wednesday to demand that Liddy renegotiate AIG's current bonus structure.

Geithner termed the current bonus structure unacceptable in view of the billions of dollars of taxpayer support the company is receiving, this official said.

In a letter to Geithner dated Saturday, Liddy informed Treasury that outside lawyers had informed the company that AIG had contractual obligations to make the bonus payments and could face lawsuits if it did not do so.

Liddy said in his letter that "quite frankly, AIG's hands are tied" although he said that in light of the company's current situation he found it "distasteful and difficult" to recommend going forward with the payments.

Liddy said the company had entered into the bonus agreements in early 2008 before AIG got into severe financial straits and was forced to obtain a government bailout last fall.

The large bulk of the payments at issue cover AIG Financial Products, the unit of the company that sold credit default swaps, the risky contracts that caused massive losses for the insurer.

A white paper prepared by the company says that AIG is contractually obligated to pay a total of about $165 million of previously awarded "retention pay" to employees in this unit by Sunday, March 15. The document says that another $55 million in retention pay has already been distributed to about 400 AIG Financial Products employees.

The company says in the paper it will work to reduce the amounts paid for 2009 and believes it can trim those payments by at least 30 percent.

Bonus programs at financial companies have come under harsh scrutiny after the government began loaning them billions of dollars to keep the institutions afloat. AIG is the largest recipient of government support in the current financial crisis.

AIG also pledged to Geithner that it would also restructure $9.6 million in bonuses scheduled to go a group that covers the top 50 executives. Liddy and six other executives have agreed to forgo bonuses.

The group of top executives getting bonuses will receive half of the $9.6 million now, with the average payment around $112,000.

This group will get another 25 percent on July 14 and the final 25 percent on September 15. But these payments will be contingent on the AIG board determining that the company is meeting the goals the government has set for dealing with the company's financial troubles.

The Obama administration has vowed to put in place reforms in the $700 billion financial rescue program in an effort to deal with growing public anger over how the program was operated during the Bush administration.

That anger has focused in part on payouts of millions of dollars in bonuses by financial firms getting taxpayer support.

In his letter, Liddy told Geithner, "We believe there will be considerably greater flexibility to reduce contractual payments in respect of 2009 and AIG intends to use its best efforts to do so."

But he also told Geithner that he felt it could be harmful to the company if the government continued to press for reductions in executive compensation.

"We cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses, which are now being operated principally on behalf of the American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury," Liddy said.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

Testing, not studying, makes for strong long-term memories

2009-03-14T02:24:00.003-05:00

Posted on 17 February, 2008 by Ed Yong

Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchIt’s a familiar scene - the wee hours of the morning are ticking away and your head is bent over a stack of notes, desperately trying to cram as much knowledge into your head before the test in the morning.

Exam roomBecause of the way our education system works, this process of hard studying has become almost synonymous with the act of learning, and the inevitable tests and exams that bookend this ordeal merely assess how much information has stuck.

But a new study reveals that the tests themselves do more good for our ability to learn that the many hours before them spent relentlessly poring over notes and textbook. The act of repeatedly retrieving and using learned information drives memories into long-term storage, while repetitive revision produced almost no benefits.

Studying vs. testing

To separate the effects of studying and testing on memory, Jeffrey Karpicke from Purdue University and Henry Roediger III from Washington University in St Louis set a group of local university students to a simple learning exercise.

At first, all of them were asked to study 40 pairs of English words and their Swahili equivalents, such as boat and mashua and were then tested on each pair to see how many they could remember. The students were then split into four groups who were put through three more rounds of studying and testing but with important differences.

For Group 1, the three further rounds were exactly like the first. For Group 2, any recalled pair of words were dropped from the study lists but were still tested. Group 3 faced the opposite condition - their correct answers were dropped from the subsequent tests but they were still asked to study them. And finally, Group 4’s correct answers were omitted both from later study sessions and later tests.

Computer testThis fourth situation most closely mirrors what conventional wisdom tells us to do. Once something is learned, that’s the end of the story and our attentions should focus on trickier facts that haven’t been so amenable to memory.

After four rounds, the students had done an almost perfect job. Almost all of them remembered almost all of the 40 word pairs and all four groups picked up the words at the same rate.

Testing times

The successful students were sent away, but Karpicke and Roediger reconvened them one week later for a final test of their rudimentary Swahili vocabularies. All the students from the four groups had predicted that in a week’s time, they would remember about half of the words they had learned. But the reality was very different - two of the groups achieved much higher scores than the others.

Repeated testing was the critical factor. The first two groups were repeatedly tested on all the word pairs regardless of whether they successfully remembered them or not. A week later, they still remembered 80% of the words they had learned and Group 2, who didn’t have to study words they correctly remembered did just as well as Group 1, who had to pore over the full lists.

Students in the last two groups were not tested on words once they had remembered them correctly once, and they suffered for it. After a week, they remembered only about a third of the 40 pairs. Even Group 3, who repeatedly studied every pair in every study period fared much worse in the long run than Group 2, who studied selectively but were tested comprehensively.

Exam papersThe study’s results are as amazing as they are counter-intuitive. They showed that where long-term memory is concerned, the act of repeated studying brings essentially no benefits, especially once a piece of information can already be dredged up from memory. Repeated testing, on the other hand, is of paramount importance, even for facts that can already be successfully recalled.

Implications

If this seems like an obvious conclusion in retrospect, consider the fact that the students themselves were unaware of it. All of them predicted that they would score about 50% in the final test where in fact, the average scores were either substantially higher or lower.

Indeed, surveys have shown that very few students use self-testing as a strategy for revision. When they do, it’s more to work out what they have or have not learned rather than as an active part of the process. And once they have successfully memorised something, they tend to drop it from further practice.

Karpicke’s and Roediger’s study makes a case for tests and exams to move away from their crude use as assessment tools. Currently, they are stressful and high-stakes affairs, deployed at the end of academic terms to mark an endpoint of the learning process. Perhaps, if they were used in a more continuous and informal capacity, they could actually contribute too.

Photos by Gabriel Pollard, Michael Surran and Milford

Reference:Karpicke, J.D., Roediger, H.L. (2008). The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning. Science, 319(5865), 966-968. DOI: 10.1126/science.1152408

http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/testing-not-studying-makes-for-strong-long-term-memories/#more-735

A head with a heart

2009-03-12T23:22:00.002-05:00

KEVIN CULLEN

By Kevin Cullen, Globe Columnist | March 12, 2009

It was the kind of meeting that is taking place in restaurant kitchens, small offices, retail storerooms, and large auditoriums all over this city, all over this state, all over this country.

Paul Levy, the guy who runs Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was standing in Sherman Auditorium the other day, before some of the very people to whom he might soon be sending pink slips.

In the days before the meeting, Levy had been walking around the hospital, noticing little things.

He stood at the nurses' stations, watching the transporters, the people who push the patients around in wheelchairs. He saw them talk to the patients, put them at ease, make them laugh. He saw that the people who push the wheelchairs were practicing medicine.

He noticed the same when he poked his head into the rooms and watched as the people who deliver the food chatted up the patients and their families.

He watched the people who polish the corridors, who strip the sheets, who empty the trash cans, and he realized that a lot of them are immigrants, many of them had second jobs, most of them were just scraping by.

And so Paul Levy had all this bouncing around his brain the other day when he stood in Sherman Auditorium.

He looked out into a sea of people and recognized faces: technicians, secretaries, administrators, therapists, nurses, the people who are the heart and soul of any hospital. People who knew that Beth Israel had hired about a quarter of its 8,000 staff over the last six years and that the chances that they could all keep their jobs and benefits in an economy in freefall ranged between slim and none.

"I want to run an idea by you that I think is important, and I'd like to get your reaction to it," Levy began. "I'd like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don't want to put an additional burden on them.

"Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice," he continued. "It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits."

He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when Sherman Auditorium erupted in applause. Thunderous, heartfelt, sustained applause.

Paul Levy stood there and felt the sheer power of it all rush over him, like a wave. His eyes welled and his throat tightened so much that he didn't think he could go on.

When the applause subsided, he did go on, telling the workers at Beth Israel, the people who make a hospital go, that he wanted their ideas.

The lump had barely left his throat when Paul Levy started getting e-mails.

The consensus was that the workers don't want anyone to get laid off and are willing to give up pay and benefits to make sure no one does. A nurse said her floor voted unanimously to forgo a 3 percent raise. A guy in finance who got laid off from his last job at a hospital in Rhode Island suggested working one less day a week. Another nurse said she was willing to give up some vacation and sick time. A respiratory therapist suggested eliminating bonuses.

"I'm getting about a hundred messages per hour," Levy said yesterday, shaking his head.

Paul Levy is onto something. People are worried about the next paycheck, because they're only a few paychecks away from not being able to pay the mortgage or the rent.

But a lot of them realize that everybody's in the same boat and that their boat doesn't rise because someone else's sinks.

Paul Levy is trying something revolutionary, radical, maybe even impossible: He is trying to convince the people who work for him that the E in CEO can sometimes stand for empathy.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/12/a_head_with_a_heart/?s_campaign=yahoo

© Copyright The New York Times Company

Obama overturns Bush policy on stem cells

2009-03-09T15:31:00.002-05:00

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer 23 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Reversing Bush policy, President Barack Obama on Monday cleared the way for a significant increase in federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research and promised no scientific data will be "distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda."

Obama signed the executive order on the divisive stem cell issue and a memo addressing what he called scientific integrity before an East Room audience packed with scientists. He laced his remarks with several jabs at the way science was handled by former President George W. Bush.

"Promoting science isn't just about providing resources, it is also about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said. "It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."

He said his memorandum is meant to restore "scientific integrity to government decision-making." He called it the beginning of a process of ensuring his administration bases its decision on sound science; appoints scientific advisers based on their credentials, not their politics; and is honest about the science behind its decisions.

Fulfilling a campaign promise, Obama signed the order that on stem cell research that supporters believe could uncover cures for serious ailments from diabetes to paralysis. Proponents from former first lady Nancy Reagan to the late actor Christopher Reeve had pushed for ending the restrictions on research.

Obama paid tribute to Reeve, calling him a tireless advocate who was dedicated to raising awareness to the promise of research.

Obama's action reverses Bush's stem cell policy by undoing his 2001 directive that banned federal funding for research into stem lines created after Aug. 9, 2001.

The president said his administration would work aggressively to make up for the ground he said was lost due to Bush's decision, though it can't be known how much more federal money will be spent on the research until grants are applied for and issued.

"Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident," Obama declared.

Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can morph into any cell of the body. Scientists hope to harness them so they can create replacement tissues to treat a variety of diseases — such as new insulin-producing cells for diabetics, cells that could help those with Parkinson's disease or maybe even Alzheimer's, or new nerve connections to restore movement after spinal injury.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, criticized Obama, saying in a statement that the president had "rolled back important protections for innocent life, further dividing our nation at a time when we need greater unity to tackle the challenges before us."

Bush limited the use of taxpayer money to only the 21 stem cell lines that had been produced before his decision. He argued he was defending human life because days-old embryos — although typically from fertility clinics and already destined for destruction — are destroyed to create the stem cell lines.

The Obama order reverses that without addressing a separate legislative ban, which precludes any federal money for the development of stem cell lines. The legislation, however, does not prevent funds for research on those lines created without federal funding.

Researchers say the newer lines created with private money during the period of the Bush ban are healthier and better suited to creating treatment for diseases.

Obama called his decision a "difficult and delicate balance," an understatement of the intense emotions generated on both sides of the long, contentious debate. He said he came down on the side of the majority of Americans who support increased federal funding for the research, both because strict oversight would prevent problems and because of the great and lifesaving potential it holds.

"Rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values," Obama said. "In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering."

Obama warned against overstating the eventual benefits of the research, but he said his administration "will vigorously support scientists who pursue this research," taking another slap at Bush in the process.

"I cannot guarantee that we will find the treatments and cures we seek. No president can promise that. But I can promise that we will seek them actively, responsibly, and with the urgency required to make up for lost ground," he said.

It's a matter of competitive advantage globally as well, the president argued.

"When government fails to make these investments, opportunities are missed. Promising avenues go unexplored," Obama said.

But the president was insistent that his order would not open the door to human cloning.

"We will develop strict guidelines, which we will rigorously enforce, because we cannot ever tolerate misuse or abuse," Obama said. "And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

Vatican Backs Excommunications Stemming From an Abortion

2009-03-08T22:15:00.000-05:00

March 8, 2009

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

ROME (Agence France-Presse) — A senior Vatican cleric on Saturday defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a 9-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped. The child was pregnant with twins.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for Bishops, told La Stampa, an Italian daily newspaper, that the case was sad, but that “the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated.”

The regional archbishop, José Cardoso Sobrinho, excommunicated the mother for authorizing the operation. He also excommunicated the doctors, who carried out the operation for fear that the 80-pound girl would not survive a full-term pregnancy.

“God’s law is above any human law,” Archbishop Cardoso said Thursday.

The girl’s stepfather, whom she accused of sexual abuse, has been jailed.

The case has incited fierce debate in Brazil. Abortion is illegal there, but exceptions are allowed in cases of rape and when the mother’s life would be endangered by giving birth.

One of the doctors involved, Rivaldo Albuquerque, told Globo television that he would keep going to Mass, regardless of the archbishop’s order.

The girl, who was not identified because she is a minor, was found last week to be four months pregnant after being taken to the hospital for stomach pains.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

MOTHER EXCOMMUNICATED AFTER RAPED GIRL, 9, HAS ABORTION

2009-03-08T22:12:00.001-05:00

Associated Press
March 7, 2009, 7:52PM

RIO DE JANEIRO — A Roman Catholic archbishop says the abortion of twins carried by a 9-year-old girl who allegedly was raped by her stepfather means excommunication for the girl’s mother and her doctors.

Despite the nature of the case, the church had to hold its line against abortion, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said in an interview aired last week by Globo television.

“The law of God is higher than any human laws,” he said Thursday. “When a human law — that is, a law enacted by human legislators — is against the law of God, that law has no value. The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion have incurred excommunication.”

Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao rebuked the archbishop, saying, “I’m shocked by two facts: by what happened to the girl and by the position of the archbishop, who in saying he defends life puts another at risk.”

Abortion is generally illegal in Brazil, but the procedure is allowed when the mother’s life is in danger, when the fetus has no chance of survival or in rape cases where the woman has not passed her 20th week of pregnancy.

Doctors said the girl was 15 weeks pregnant when the abortion was performed. Health officials said the life of the girl — who weighs 80 pounds — was in danger.

SOURCE: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/6299368.html

Organism Sets Mutation Speed Record, May Explain Life's Origins

2009-03-08T21:35:00.005-05:00

By Brandon Keim EmailMarch 06, 2009 | 6:24:42 PMCategories: Evolution

471pxhammerhead_ribozyme_ribbons

An uber-primitive plant pathogen made from naked strands of genetic material mutates faster than any other known organism — and it might just illuminate the origins of life.

Called hammerhead viroids, their mutation rates are orders of magnitude more rapid than those of viruses, the next-most-primitive organisms, which are orders of magnitude more rapid than lowly bacteria.

In less academic terms, the hammerhead viroid blueprint of life is being constantly redrawn.

Such accelerated mutation could have been useful four billion years ago, after a few quirky chemicals assembled into ribonucleic acid, or RNA — DNA's single-stranded forerunner.

Mutationrates_2At the time, hypothesize scientists, the pinnacle of life was the RNA replicon: a chunk of ribonucleic acid that didn't copy itself by making proteins, as DNA does, but instead pulled them from the primordial ooze.

Whether hammerhead viroids are descended from replicons isn't known. But in a study published Thursday in Science, University of Valencia plant biologists led by Rafael Sanjuan say the viroids at least resemble that long-lost link in the evolutionary chian.

Their traits could explain how RNA learned to make proteins — the next critical step towards self-assembling DNA and the complex life that flowed from it. And no other hammerhead viroid trait is more remarkable than its mutation rate.

"It's extremely high," said Irene Chen, a Harvard University systems biologist who studies the evolution of molecules. Chen was not involved in the study . "It's right at the Eigen error threshold" — the mutation rate at which replication becomes intrinsically self-destructive because every copy is so error-ridden.

Sanjuan's team used an ingenious trick to quantify the viroids' mutation rate: they measured their death rate.

Hammerhead viroids rely on a 15-molecule structure called the ribozyme to finalize copies of themselves. If a transcription error affects certain parts of the ribozyme, further replication is impossible.

By counting non-replicating viroids in each generation, the researchers calculated that replication produces roughly one mutation for every 400 pieces of RNA.

Such rates produce plenty of haywire copies, a dilemma solved by evolution in two ways: viroids are small, and endowed with prodigious powers of replication.

Their tiny genome means viroids inherit one mistake at a time. And they make so many copies of themselves that it doesn't matter when some are nonviable. Others will succeed — and perhaps improve on the original.

"Error correction mechanisms that reduced mutation rates and allowed replicons to increase their size" probably came next, said Sanjuan.

Chen called an improved ribozyme the "smoking gun" of RNA world evolution. Tantalizingly, she said, it appears that ribosomes — cellular components that assemble simple amino acids into complicated chains — "are just ribozymes, fancily decorated by proteins."

The replicons' updated ribozymes, then, may have led to protein-making RNA, which in turn gave rise to DNA, the ultra-efficient biological information carrier that made it possible for complex life to evolve.

But where did replicons come from? Hammerhead viroids can't tell us — but replicons may well be the product of non-biological evolution.

"Evolutionary dynamics are a universal principle. They can operate with whatever is at hand," said Harvard University evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak after an earlier study on the original formation of RNA.

All that's needed, he said, "is some chemical system that produces all sorts of chemicals, and some have the property of forming strings."

Citation: "Extremely High Mutation Rate of a Hammerhead Viroid." By Selma Gago, Santiago F. Elena, Ricardo Flores, Rafael Sanjuán. Science, Vol. 323 Iss. 5919, March 5, 2009.

Images: WikiMedia Commons / Science

Radical Approach to Block HIV Gets Some Results

2009-03-08T21:29:00.003-05:00

By Brandon Keim EmailMarch 04, 2009 | 3:55:49 PMCategories: AIDS/HIV

Faced with the continued failure of HIV-targeting microbicides, scientists have devised a radically different approach to preventing transmission of the killer virus: ignoring it.

Instead of aiming at the virus itself, they're focusing on the body's response to HIV's initial attack. By muting distress signals sent by HIV's first cellular victims, researchers hope to prevent the white blood cells on which HIV preys from responding and becoming infected themselves.

This cutting-fuel-to-the-fire approach is highly experimental, and has only been tried with a single compound. But it prevented infection in four of five macaque monkeys exposed to a close relative of HIV, signifying a potentially new direction in the fruitless search for a microbicide.

"If you can break one of the links in that chain, you can break the influx of target cells the virus needs," said University of Minnesota microbiologist Ashley Haase, co-developer of the new microbicide, described Wednesday in Nature.

The science is still uncertain, but so is the entire field of anti-HIV microbicides. Hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of researchers have yet to produce a substance that, when applied before sex, can reliably prevent transmission of a virus that kills nearly 3 million people every year.

A growing number of scientists think the progression of the disease is driven by inflammation. Previous research showed that exposure to SIV — the simian equivalent of HIV — prompts the immune system to summon specialized white blood cells, which are the primary victims of both HIV and SIV. Once under attack, they call in more white blood cells. These also fall prey. The cycle repeats until infection is firmly entrenched.

"We're trying to interfere with the host response on which the virus depends to establish infection," Haase said.

His team previously found that glycerol monolaurate, an FDA-approved antimicrobial compound normally used in soaps and other household products, dampened the inflammatory response in cell cultures. Now they've shown the same effect in monkeys.

Whether human immune response to HIV parallels the monkeys' response to SIV is unproven, but there are hints that it does: The same mechanisms can be observed in laboratory cultures of human cells, and high levels of vaginal inflammation are linked to higher HIV infection risks.

"Whether this particular drug would work in humans, nobody knows," said Leonid Margolis, a National Institutes of Health HIV researcher who was not involved in the study. But its significance, he said, resides less in these early tests than in signaling a conceptually new approach to microbicides.

Haase's team made its microbicide from a mix of glycerol monolaurate and K-Y lubricating gel. After testing its basic safety on macaques, they treated five monkeys who were then exposed to SIV. Over the next two weeks, only one of the monkeys became infected. In an unprotected control group, all five monkeys became infected.

The microbicide didn't appear to otherwise affect the monkeys, and left their vaginal bacterial flora — important to maintaining an environment hostile to infection — fully intact.

The macaques used by Haase's are far from a perfect model for studying HIV treatments, but are considered useful for modeling the disease's transmission. Still, said Haase, more and longer-term research is needed in monkeys before glycerol monolaurate can be tested in humans.

If it has even a small protective effect, "you could combine it with other approaches into a microbicide that targets several things the virus needs," said Haase. "Such an approach might be very effective — more effective than the components themselves might be."

Should glycerol monolaurate itself not work, some other inflammation-dampening compound might do the trick. "Inflammation is, in my mind, the engine that drives HIV infection," said Margolis.

Other scientists, however, warn against premature optimism.

Glycerol monolaurate also has surface-tension lowering properties in liquid, which could have directly inactivated the virus independent of any anti-inflammatory effects, said Robin Shattock, an HIV transmission specialist at St. George's University of London and chair of the International Partnership for Microbicides.

Another surfactant microbicide candidate, nonoxynol-9, showed promise in monkeys but actually increased HIV transmission risk during clinical trials.

Even if glycerol monolaurate worked by reducing inflammation, said Shattock, it's unclear whether it could sufficiently reduce real-world inflammation, which is often caused by multiple, sexually transmitted infections, of which HIV is only one.

"Only time will tell whether this is a major breakthrough, or if it is just another flash in the pan," he said.

Citation: "Glycerol monolaurate prevents mucosal SIV transmission." By Qingsheng Li, Jacob D. Estes, Patrick M. Schlievert, Lijie Duan, Amanda J. Brosnahan, Peter J. Southern, Cavan S. Reilly, Marnie L. Peterson, Nancy Schultz-Darken, Kevin G. Brunner, Karla R. Nephew, Stefan Pambuccian, Jeffrey D. Lifson, John V. Carlis & Ashley T. Haase. Nature, Vol. 457 No. 7233, March 4, 2009.

Image by Ashley Haase
Abstract of viral progression from SIV contact to systemic infection in macaques. Green crosses signify clusters of infected cells at 4, 7 and 10 days following exposure.

Vision Cure

2009-03-08T14:38:00.004-05:00

Poudre High School sophomore Macie Morse, 16, poses with her mother Rochelle after driving after her classes Thursday Feb. 12, 2009 in Fort Collins, Colo. Morse, who received her instruction permit in January, was born nearly blind but had experimental stem-cell injection treatment in China last summer and can now see.
(AP Photo/The Coloradoan, Rich Abrahamson)

U.S. healthcare system pinched by nursing shortage

2009-03-08T11:44:00.004-05:00

By Will Dunham Will Sun Mar 8, 8:10 am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. healthcare system is pinched by a persistent nursing shortage that threatens the quality of patient care even as tens of thousands of people are turned away from nursing schools, according to experts.

The shortage has drawn the attention of President Barack Obama. During a White House meeting on Thursday to promote his promised healthcare system overhaul, Obama expressed alarm over the notion that the United States might have to import trained foreign nurses because so many U.S. nursing jobs are unfilled.

Democratic U.S. Representative Lois Capps, a former school nurse, said meaningful healthcare overhaul cannot occur without fixing the nursing shortage. "Nurses deliver healthcare," Capps said in a telephone interview.

An estimated 116,000 registered nurse positions are unfilled at U.S. hospitals and nearly 100,000 jobs go vacant in nursing homes, experts said.

The shortage is expected to worsen in coming years as the 78 million people in the post-World War Two baby boom generation begin to hit retirement age. An aging population requires more care for chronic illnesses and at nursing homes.

"The nursing shortage is not driven by a lack of interest in nursing careers. The bottleneck is at the schools of nursing because there's not a large enough pool of faculty," Robert Rosseter of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing said in a telephone interview.

Nursing colleges have been unable to expand enrollment levels to meet the rising demand, and some U.S. lawmakers blame years of weak federal financial help for the schools.

Almost 50,000 qualified applicants to professional nursing programs were turned away in 2008, including nearly 6,000 people seeking to earn master's and doctoral degrees, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing said.

PAY DIFFERENCES
One reason for the faculty squeeze is that a nurse with a graduate degree needed to teach can earn more as a practicing nurse, about $82,000, than teaching, about $68,000.

Obama called nurses "the front lines of the healthcare system," adding: "They don't get paid very well. Their working conditions aren't as good as they should be."

The economic stimulus bill Obama signed last month included $500 million to address shortages of health workers. About $100 million of this could go to tackling the nursing shortage. There are about 2.5 million working U.S. registered nurses.

Separately, Senator Dick Durbin and Representative Nita Lowey, both Democrats, have introduced a measure to increase federal grants to help nursing colleges.

Peter Buerhaus, a nursing work force expert at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said the nursing shortage is a "quality and safety" issue. Hospital staffs may be stretched thin due to unfilled nursing jobs, raising the risk of medical errors, safety lapses and delays in care, he said.

A study by Buerhaus showed that 6,700 patient deaths and 4 million days of hospital care could be averted annually by increasing the number of nurses. "Nurses are the glue holding the system together," Buerhaus said.

Addressing the nursing shortage is important in the context of healthcare reform, Buerhaus added. Future shortages could drive up nurse wages, adding costs to the system, he said.

And if the health changes championed by Obama raise the number of Americans with access to medical care, more nurses will be needed to help accommodate them, Buerhaus said.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Mohammad Zargham)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited.

Man charged with impersonating experts

2009-03-07T12:21:00.002-06:00

Fri Mar 6, 1:17 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The son of an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls impersonated other experts in order to further his father's views on the 2,000-year-old documents, New York prosecutors said on Thursday.

During a six-month period in 2008, Raphael Haim Golb, whose father Norman Golb is a University of Chicago professor of Jewish history, created dozens of Internet aliases in the names of individuals who were active in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship.

The scrolls shed light on the life of Jews and early Christians at the time of Jesus. They were discovered by Bedouin shepherds in caves near the Dead Sea in 1947.

Many scholars believe the scrolls were assembled by a Jewish sect known as the Essenes who lived close to where the scrolls were discovered. Norman Golb has taken the position the scrolls were produced by multiple Jewish sects.

According to the Manhattan District Attorney's office, Golb was motivated by the belief that his father's theories were not taken seriously enough.

Norman Golb did not respond to a request for comment.

Golb is charged with identity theft, criminal impersonation and aggravated harassment, and faces a maximum of four years in prison if convicted.

(Reporting by Edith Honan, editing by Michelle Nichols and Philip Barbara)

Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited.

Telescope blasts into space to find other Earths

2009-03-07T12:11:00.001-06:00

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn, Sat Mar 7, 10:01 am ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA's planet-hunting telescope, Kepler, rocketed into space Friday night on a historic voyage to track down other Earths in a faraway patch of the Milky Way galaxy.

It's the first mission capable of answering the age-old question: Are other worlds like ours out there?

Kepler, named after the German 17th century astrophysicist, set off on its unprecedented mission at 10:49 p.m., thundering into a clear sky embellished by a waxing moon.

"It was just magnificent. It looked like a star was being formed in the sky," said Bill Borucki, Kepler's principal scientist. "Everybody was delighted, everybody was screaming, 'Go Kepler!'"

Kepler's mission will last at least 3 1/2 years and cost $600 million.

The goal is to find, if they exist, Earth-like planets circling stars in the so-called habitable zone — orbits where liquid water could be present on the surface of the planets. That would mean there are lots of places out there for life to evolve, Borucki said.

On the other hand, "if we don't find any, it really means Earths are very rare, we might be the only extant life and, in fact, that will be the end of 'Star Trek.' "

Once it's settled into an Earth-trailing orbit around the sun, Kepler will stare nonstop at 100,000 stars near the Cygnus and Lyra constellations, between 600 and 3,000 light years away. The telescope will watch for any dimming, or winks, in the stellar brightness that might be caused by orbiting planets.

Astronomers already have found more than 300 planets orbiting other stars, but they're largely inhospitable gas giants like Jupiter. Kepler will be looking for smaller rocky planets akin to Earth.

Kepler is designed to find hundreds of Earth-like planets if they're common and, perhaps, dozens of them in the habitable zone, Borucki said. The telescope is so powerful that from space, NASA maintains, it could detect someone in a small town turning off a porch light at night.

It won't be looking for signs of life, though. That's for future spacecraft.

NASA was counting on a successful launch to offset the loss last week of the space agency's Orbiting Carbon Observatory. That environmental satellite ended up crashing into the Antarctic because of rocket failure. It was a different type of rocket than the one used for Kepler.

Everything seemed to go well with Kepler's launch.

___

On the Net:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

Republicans, Democrats criticize Jindal's speech

2009-02-25T16:49:00.002-06:00

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer Beth Fouhy, Associated Press Writer 23 mins ago

NEW YORK – Insane. Childish. Disaster. And those were some of the kinder comments from political pundits about Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and his response to President Barack Obama's speech to Congress on Tuesday night.

Jindal, 37, a Rhodes scholar and son of Indian immigrants, is considered a rising star in Republican ranks and a likely 2012 presidential candidate. GOP leaders, looking for a fresh face for the party's image, tapped Jindal earlier this month for the high-profile task of rebutting Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress.

But in both style and substance, Jindal's speech has drawn flak from Republicans and Democrats alike.

His criticism of government spending for emergency economic relief has been widely panned, especially given his state's receipt of billions in federal assistance after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And Jindal's voice and earnest, awkward delivery have drawn comparisons to Kenneth Parcell, the geeky page on the NBC comedy "30 Rock."

Indeed, a new Facebook group titled "Bobby Jindal is Kenneth the Page" had already attracted more than 1,800 members Wednesday afternoon.

Republicans had high hopes for Jindal after his appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," where he delivered a forceful, concise critique of Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan and explained his decision to reject some of the money allotted for his state. He also impressed observers when he spoke to reporters after a meeting with Obama and other governors at the White House Monday.

Jindal spoke from the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge, and critics pounced on his remarks almost immediately, panning everything from his overly folksy demeanor to his complaint that Obama's plan to revive the economy was "irresponsible."

David Brooks, a conservative New York Times columnist who has criticized aspects of the stimulus plan, nonetheless called Jindal's arguments "insane" and tone-deaf given the dire economic challenges the country faces.

"To come up in this moment in history with a stale, 'Government is the problem, you can't trust the federal government' is just a disaster for the Republican Party," Brooks said on PBS' "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." "It's not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is."

Fox News commentator Juan Williams focused on Jindal's delivery.

"It came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was singsongy," Williams said, adding that the content of the speech was "very simplistic and almost childish."

Penni Pier, a political communication specialist at Florida's Nova Southeastern University, said Jindal's presentation was overly colloquial and his message of less government and more tax cuts was substantively thin.

"It sounded like the same old rhetoric — we had tax cuts the last eight years, and look where it got us," Pier said. "Jindal was also trying to be so familiar, he lost credibility. Obama is familiar, but at the same time always a statesman."

To be sure, Jindal had a tough act to follow in Obama, a naturally gifted orator whose argument for vast federal intervention to stem the nation's economic crisis was widely praised. A CNN poll taken after his speech found 92 percent of viewers had a positive reaction to it.

Rush Limbaugh, arguably the nation's most prominent conservative voice, defended Jindal on his radio show Wednesday while acknowledging that "stylistically," Obama had outshined Jindal.

"The people on our side are making a real mistake if they go after Bobby Jindal," Limbaugh said. "We cannot shun politicians who speak for our beliefs just because we don't like the way he says it."

Jindal was headed to Disney World Wednesday with his family for a vacation. But his chief of staff, Timmy Teepell, said his boss had prepared carefully for the speech and that his message was strong.

"It's a challenge for anybody to follow Obama. The guy is one of the most gifted speakers of our generation," Teepell said. "Bobby's his own harshest critic. He's always looking for ways to improve."

___

Associated Press Writer Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, La. contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

Promoting Doubt: Bill Maher on the DVD Release of Religulous

2009-02-21T10:52:00.002-06:00

by Greg Hanlon, Founder of football blog NYGMen.com
Posted February 20, 2009 | 10:36 AM (EST)

There's nothing like a Bill Maher sneer to puncture the pieties and moral certainty of the deeply religious. In his documentary Religulous, which came out in October and will be released on DVD this week, Maher deploys the sneer in a series of interviews with a gamut of religious believers to convey the following message: You don't know what you say you know, and deep down, you know it.

"I'm here promoting doubt -- that's my product," Maher says near the beginning of the movie. "The other guys are selling certainty. Not me. I'm on the corner with doubt."

The film was the seventh highest grossing documentary of all time, a tribute to the way it utilizes Maher's ability to think on his feet and produce comic rejoinders and cut-downs. Maher has been cultivating this talent since he found his niche with Politically Incorrect in 1993, and continues to do so with Real Time with Bill Maher, the new season of which premieres tonight.

His religious interview subjects on his world-tour range from the brilliant (Dr. Francis Collins, a scientist on the human genome project and an evangelical Christian), the bizarre (the actor who plays Jesus at The Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando), the quackish (Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who claims to be a reincarnation of Christ), and the downright frightening (Aki Nawaz, aka Propa-Gandhi, a Muslim British rapper who glorifies suicide bombing).

Most of the time, they come out on the butt-end of a Maher quip, their religious certainly no match for Maher's wit. With their certainty momentarily punctured, the film moves on and the viewer is left to revel in yet another victory for Maher, agnosticism, and comedy.

Maher is funny, but as always, he borders on contemptuous and dismissive, qualities that have long turned some people off to him. Needless to say, those who don't like Maher will not like this movie.

Critics say Maher's anger-tinged condescension undermines the ostensibly earnest purpose of his interviews: to find out why people believe. They also point out that, with a few exceptions, Maher's interview subjects are easy targets -- many of them are outlandish characters, and many of them just aren't as smart as he.

In an interview with me for HuffPost, Maher called this "a bogus criticism. We don't pick on the mentally infirm. There are a bunch of fringe characters who are very funny, but the majority of the movie is mainstream religious people."

He added: "What these [critics] fail to understand is that no matter who you are, no matter how quote-unquote intelligent you are, when you are defending religion, you sound like an idiot. That's the point: Anybody who defends the nonsense in religion is going to sound like a fool."

He was not finished: "If you believe in the core beliefs of the religion, that means you are tethered to the bible. You get your beliefs out of a book that condones slavery and says a man lived inside of a whale for 300 years. The religion comes from the book, and the book is full of nonsense and fucked-up ethics."

But Maher's contempt for religion is more than about making people look stupid. At the very end of the movie, the comedy gives way to a scathing monologue about religion and a call to political action. Maher cites a recent poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life saying that 16 percent of Americans classified themselves as unaffiliated with a major religion. This represents a greater percentage of Americans than blacks, Jews, homosexuals, or NRA members. Why, then, Maher wonders, has religious faith become a prerequisite for political life in America?

"Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking," he says, concluding the movie.

"It's nothing to brag about, and those who preach faith, and enable it and elevate it are our intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction."

Editor's Note: The first 10 HuffPosters to email their name and address to contest@huffingtonpost.com will receive a copy of the Religulous DVD signed by Bill Maher.

Study: Experiences make us happier than possessions

2009-02-19T21:55:00.001-06:00

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN

(CNN) -- Even in tough economic times, you may find yourself with a bit of cash to spare. You've been working hard, and you want to treat yourself. Should you spend it on an experience, such as a baseball game or concert, or a material object?

Psychological research suggests that, in the long run, experiences make people happier than possessions.

That's in part because the initial joy of acquiring a new object, such as a new car, fades over time as people become accustomed to seeing it every day, experts said. Experiences, on the other hand, continue to provide happiness through memories long after the event occurred.

Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, presented his findings this week at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting. VideoWatch for more on the study »

The study looked at 154 people enrolled at San Francisco State University, with an average age of about 25. Participants answered questions about a recent purchase -- either material or experiential -- they personally made in the last three months with the intention of making themselves happy.

While most people were generally happy with the purchase regardless of what it was, those who wrote about experiences tended to show a higher satisfaction at the time and after the experience had passed.

The most striking difference was in how participants said others around them reacted to either the purchased object or experience. Experiences led to more happiness in others than purchases did. A sense of relatedness to others -- getting closer to friends and family -- may be one of the reasons why experiences generate more happiness.

"When people spend money on life experiences, whether they also take someone with them or buy an extra ticket or whatever, most of our life experiences involve other individuals," Howell said. People were fulfilling their need for social bonding while having these experiences, he said. Visit CNNhealth.com, your connection for better living

Another reason for increased happiness in experiences, the researchers found, was that people felt a greater sense of vitality or "being alive" during the experience and in reflection, Howell said.

"As nice as your new computer is, it's not going to make you feel alive," he said.

Most psychologists who study the phenomenon say people adapt to a new purchase in six to eight weeks, up to a maximum of three months, Howell said. That means the initial pleasure we get from a new possession generally fades in a matter of months.

Howell's study builds on earlier work by Thomas Gilovich, professor and chairman of the psychology department at Cornell University. Gilovich and colleague Leaf Van Boven's seminal 2003 paper "To do or to have: That is the question" found similar results about possessions bringing less happiness than experiences.

Experts also point out that people are less self-conscious when comparing experiences than they are about possessions. It will probably bother you more that your friend's home theater is better than yours than if your friend saw more sights on her South Seas vacation, Gilovich said.

Experiences form "powerful and important memories that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world," Gilovich said.

It's not just individuals who should be thinking about investing in experiences when making purchasing choices -- policy makers should also keep this reasoning in mind for their communities, he said.

"If you create municipalities with more parks, bike trails, more hiking trails that make experiences easier, then I think you're going to have a happier population," he said.

With Valentine's Day coming up, does this research mean you should give your honey a nice dinner or weekend getaway rather than a material present, such as a necklace or watch?

The issue of happiness conferred to others has been studied less, so the answer is unclear, experts said.

While Howell would expect this principle of experiences over possessions to still apply, Gilovich agreed that it may, but also points out that the act of giving or receiving an object as a gift is an experience in itself.

"Gifts of material possessions often become keepsakes and have sentimental value that increase with time, instead of diminishing like most material goods," Gilovich said.

All AboutPsychology

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/10/happiness.possessions/index.html

Men see bikini-clad women as objects, psychologists say

2009-02-19T21:51:00.002-06:00

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- It may seem obvious that men perceive women in sexy bathing suits as objects, but now there's science to back it up.

New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.

The research was presented this week by Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses," she told CNN.

Although consistent with conventional wisdom, the way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it's a byproduct of human evolution, experts say. The first male humans had an incentive to seek fertile women as the means of spreading their genes.

"They're not fully conscious responses, and so people don't know the extent to which they're being influenced," Fiske said. "It's important to recognize the effects."

The participants, 21 heterosexual male undergraduates at Princeton, took questionnaires to determine whether they harbor "benevolent" sexism, which includes the belief that a woman's place is in the home, or hostile sexism, a more adversarial viewpoint which includes the belief that women attempt to dominate men.

In the men who scored highest on hostile sexism, the part of the brain associated with analyzing another person's thoughts, feelings and intentions was inactive while viewing scantily clad women, Fiske said. Visit CNNHealth.com, your connection for better living

Men also remember these women's bodies better than those of fully-clothed women, Fiske said. Each image was shown for only a fraction of a second.

This study looked specifically at men, and did not test women's responses to similar images.

A supplementary study on both male and female undergraduates found that men tend to associate bikini-clad women with first-person action verbs such as I "push," "handle" and "grab" instead of the third-person forms such as she "pushes," "handles" and "grabs." They associated fully clothed women, on the other hand, with the third-person forms, indicating these women were perceived as in control of their own actions. The females who took the test did not show this effect, Fiske said.

That goes along with the idea that the man looking at a woman in a bikini sees her as the object of action, Fiske said.

The findings are consistent with previous work in the field, and resonate, for example, with the abundance of female strip clubs in comparison to male strip clubs, said Dr. Charles Raison, psychiatrist and director of the Mind/Body Institute at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Raison was not involved in the study.

Previous research found that people tend to similarly dehumanize those who are homeless or drug addicts, although the phenomenon in this case is somewhat different, Fiske said. People have reactions of avoidance toward the homeless and drug addicts, and the opposite for scantily clad women.

The broader purpose of the research was to explore circumstances under which people treat one another as the means to an end, Fiske said.

Past studies have also shown that when men view images of highly sexualized women, and then interact with a woman in a separate setting, they are more likely to have sexual words on their minds, she said. They are also more likely to remember the woman's physical appearance, and sit closer to her -- for instance, at a job interview.

Taken together, the research suggests that viewing certain images is not appropriate in the workplace, Fiske said.

"I'm not advocating censorship, but I do think people need to know what settings should discourage the display and possession of these kinds of things," she said.

Both women and men have something to learn from this line of research, Raison said. Women should be aware of how they are perceived when wearing provocative clothing, and men shouldn't let feelings of impersonal sexual longing interfere with their more personal relationships with other women, including female friends. "Many men make foolish choices because of sexual attraction," he said.

"The suggestion might be that there's some hard-wiring there that can interfere with the average man's ability to interact on deeper levels with really hot looking stranger women in bikinis," he said.

Women may also depersonalize men in certain situations, but published research on the subject has not been done, experts say. Evolutionary psychology would theorize that men view women as objects in terms of their youth and apparent fertility, while women might view men as instrumental in terms of their status and resources, Fiske said.

Another avenue to explore would be showing images of men's wives and girlfriends in bikinis, Raison said. He predicts the objectifying effect would not happen in this context.

All AboutPrinceton University • Psychology

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Solar Thermal Power May Make Sun-Powered Grid a Reality

2009-02-19T12:10:00.006-06:00

It's solar's new dawn. For five decades solar technologies have delivered more promises than power. Now, new Breakthrough Award–winning innovations are exiting the lab and plugging into the grid—turning sunlight into serious energy.
By Alex Hutchinson
Published in the November 2008 issue.

Solar Stirling Engine: Each Stirling Energy SunCatcher dish can produce 60,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year—enough to power a dozen U.S. homes.

Planted in the New Mexico desert near Albuquerque, the six solar dish engines of the Solar Thermal Test Facility at Sandia National Laboratories look a bit like giant, highly reflective satellite dishes. Each one is a mosaic of 82 mirrors that fit together to form a 38-ft-wide parabola. The mirrors’ precise curvature focuses light onto a 7-in. area. At its most intense spot, the heat is equivalent to a blistering 13,000 suns, producing a flux 13 times greater than the space shuttle experiences during re-entry. “That’ll melt almost anything known to man,” says Sandia engineer Chuck Andraka. “It’s incredibly hot.”

The heat is used to run a Stirling engine, an elegant 192-year-old technology that creates mechanical energy from an external heat source, as opposed to the internal fuel combustion that powers most automobile engines. Hydrogen gas in a Stirling engine’s four 95 cc cylinders expands and contracts as it is heated and cooled, driving pistons to turn a small electric generator. The configuration of the dish and engine represent the fruit of more than a decade of steady improvements, developed in collaboration with Arizona-based Stirling Energy Systems.

On a crisp morning this past January, Andraka and his colleagues fired up Dish No. 3. The temperature was around freezing, and the sky was 8 percent brighter than average—the contrast between the cold air and the hot sun helps the engine run more efficiently. When power began to flow from the 25-kilowatt system, it did so with the highest conversion efficiency ever recorded in a commercial solar device: 31.25 percent of the energy shining onto the giant dish flowed into the grid.

To Bruce Osborn, president and CEO of Stirling Energy, this merely confirmed something that he already knew: The system, which his company calls the SunCatcher, was ready to exit the laboratory. “The rocket science is already done,” he says. The challenge remaining is to turn the prototypes into a low-cost, mass-producible design—“just a question of good, old-fashioned engineering,” according to Osborn. To that end, Stirling Energy signed the two largest solar energy contracts in history with two Southern California utilities, promising to build up to 70,000 SunCatchers and provide power for a million homes. Construction starts next year.

Big promises from solar power companies are nothing new. “It is stern work to thrust your hand into the sun and pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men,” an AT&T publicity film crowed after the invention of the silicon photovoltaic (PV) cell in 1954. “Yet in this modern age, men have at last harnessed the sun.”

Well, sort of. The Bell Solar Battery, as it was called, had some successes—powering the first communications satellite, in 1962, for instance—but hopes of cheap, plentiful energy have remained elusive.

PV cells and concentrating solar thermal (CST), the two basic methods for harnessing the sun’s power, have made great strides since those early days. But inflation in the cost of raw materials, such as silicon, combined with decades of cheap fossil fuels has kept overall solar energy consumption in the U.S. at 0.08 percent. And a series of new technologies that looked promising in the lab have proved impractical on the open market, leaving many observers to conclude that the age of solar energy will always remain just around the corner.

Meanwhile, though, almost under the radar, a few solar technologies have reached maturity. A type of silicon-free solar panel, half as expensive as silicon cells, has rapidly turned Arizona-based First Solar into the biggest solar-panel maker in the country. And along with Stirling Energy’s SunCatcher, new CST designs promise to provide a steady flow of solar electricity—even at night.

Big power utilities love CST for two reasons, says Reese Tisdale, a senior analyst at Emerging Energy Research, based in Cambridge, Mass. “It’s large-scale and it’s [usually] steam-powered, so it’s not so different from the gas- and coal-fired plants they’re familiar with.” The idea is not new—in fact, nine CST plants with a combined capacity of 354 megawatts have been operating in the Mojave Desert since their construction between 1984 and 1991, powering the homes of 500,000 Californians and proving the design’s reliability. (An average coal plant produces about 670 Mw.) The plants use a “parabolic trough” design, with more than 900,000 mirrors, shaped like a skateboarder’s half-pipe in vast arrays over 1500 acres of desert. The mirrors adjust to track the sun across the sky, reflecting and concentrating its rays onto liquid-filled pipes. The hot liquid, in this case oil, then boils water, which produces steam to spin a turbine.

Progress on CST plants ground to a halt after natural gas prices plummeted in the 1990s. It wasn’t until last year that the next major plant in the United States opened: a 64-Mw parabolic trough system in Boulder City, Nev., called Nevada Solar One, built by the Spanish company Acciona. Now there are 13 other plants, totaling 5100 Mw, in advanced planning stages in Florida, Arizona and California; most will use parabolic troughs. Stirling Energy pursued a different kind of system, one that offers more flexibility and better efficiency.

Bruce Osborn started his research career at Ford Motor Co., and the key advantage of his solar dish is one his former employers would understand. “Henry Ford used to say you can have your car in any color as long as it’s black,” Osborn says, “and that’s our approach, too.” The planned 900-Mw Stirling Solar Two plant near San Diego will eventually have as many as 36,000 identical dishes, and the 82 mirror panels that make up each dish come in only two shapes. That design choice causes a slight decrease in power output, in exchange for the advantages of low-cost mass production

Parabolic Solar Trough: The long mirrors in parabolic trough plants are designed to focus incoming sunlight onto a narrow, liquid-filled tube that runs parallel to the array. At the Nevada Solar One plant, 180,000 mirrors help heat a mineral-oil transfer fluid to 735 F.

Modularity has other benefits, too. Since each 25-kw SunCatcher has its own Stirling engine producing electricity, there’s no single point of failure. “If something goes wrong with one dish, it doesn’t matter,” Osborn says. In contrast, the thousands of mirrors in a parabolic trough plant all feed a central turbine, so when the turbine is down for maintenance, power production stops. The SunCatcher design also shortens the wait for power during construction: Electricity will flow once the first 40 are built—a “solar group” that can churn out 1 Mw.

The breakthrough efficiency of the dish results from focusing the sun’s rays on a single spot instead of on a long pipe, which allows temperatures to reach 1450 F, compared to 750 F for parabolic troughs. In addition, the Stirling engine has a relatively flat efficiency curve: It produces close to maximum output even when the sun is obscured or low in the sky. So while the record 1-hour efficiency achieved earlier this year was 31.25 percent, the SunCatcher’s full-year, sunrise-to-sunset efficiency is still a respectable 24 to 25 percent, roughly double that of parabolic trough systems.

Another twist on CST designs confronts the challenge that dogs every solar power scheme: “When the sun sets, that’s it for the day,” as Tisdale puts it. “But in Arizona in midsummer, it’s hot as hades, so people have their a/c cranked until 9 or 10 in the evening.” A hot liquid can be stored more efficiently than electricity; the analogy used by one industry executive is that a $5 thermos can hold as much energy in the form of heat as a $150 laptop battery can store electrochemically. Two 50-Mw plants that should begin operations by the end of this year in Spain will operate on this principle, using what amounts to a giant thermos filled with molten salt.

In the U.S., a thermal storage facility is scheduled for completion in Gila Bend, Ariz., in 2011. The 280-Mw Solana plant, being built by Spanish company Abengoa Solar, will use a parabolic trough design, but will incorporate a thermal storage tank that can keep the plant running for 6 hours with no sun. “We could design a plant that runs 24 hours a day,” says Fred Morse, an adviser for Abengoa who was formerly the Department of Energy’s solar czar, “but that would make no economic sense.” Instead, the plant is designed to cover Arizona’s peak energy-use periods, when power is most expensive.

The enormous scale of the Abengoa and Stirling Energy plants provides an answer to skeptics who doubt whether a few rooftop panels here and there can ever play a meaningful role in the world’s energy portfolio. But size also creates its own set of problems. For one thing, the power has to be transmitted to where it’s needed, and the empty deserts best suited for sprawling CST plants tend to be in the middle of nowhere. The site of Stirling Energy’s future plant for the San Diego market currently has enough transmission capacity for 300 Mw, or 12,000 dishes. The remaining 24,000 dishes will be built only if San Diego Gas & Electric is able to complete a proposed 150-mile transmission line between the plant and the city.

Water use is another issue. CST plants with steam turbines can require hundreds of millions of gallons of water to cool their condensers—a challenge in regions where water is already at a premium. In this respect, Stirling Energy’s hydrogen-based system has a significant advantage, since it only uses water to rinse the mirrors every few weeks. Osborn estimates that the San Diego plant, when producing power for 500,000 households, would use the same amount of water as 33 average homes.

Utility-scale solar power also requires enormous capital, which keeps it out of reach of people in the developing world, where such solutions are desperately needed. That’s a challenge RawSolar, an MIT spinoff, is trying to meet with a dish that is just 12 ft. wide, and simple and cheap enough to make for stand-alone operation. The nonprofit Solar Turbine Group, another MIT spinoff, built an even more bare-bones mini-CST system in Lesotho last summer, using spare car parts for the heat engine.

The most natural fit for small-scale solar, though, is the good old photovoltaic cell. It takes in sunlight and spits out electricity with no moving parts, requires no water and can be situated wherever electricity is needed, to avoid transmission losses. PV panels can generate useful amounts of electricity even in the weaker sunlight of northern states where big CST plants aren’t practical. Also, they’re ideal for homeowners, since they are simple to install and maintain—in fact, integrated building materials like PV roof tiles will make new homes even easier to connect.

Thin-Film Photovoltaic
In July, Southern California Edison installed the first of what will be 250 Mw worth of PV panels located on commercial rooftops throughout the utility’s territory, where power is most in demand. But instead of silicon, the panels were made of a thin film of cadmium telluride, or “cad-tel” for short. Thin-film PV has been touted for years as a cheaper replacement for traditional silicon cells, but past designs have had trouble scaling up to mass production. Cad-tel technology has “completely changed what people thought could be done with thin films,” says Larry Kazmerski, director of the National Center for Photovoltaics at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado.

First Solar, the company that made the panels, estimates its manufacturing cost to be $1.14 per watt and falling, about half the cost of comparable silicon panels. As a result, Kazmerski says, “There’s a big turn happening.” First Solar quadrupled its manufacturing capacity from 2006 to 2007, to 396 Mw, and it expects to exceed 1000 Mw next year. Two years after its initial public offering, the company’s market value is over $20 billion—double that of General Motors.

Cad-tel isn’t the only promising thin-film technology on the market. Newer panels developed using a copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) semiconductor have efficiency ratings almost 30 percent higher than First Solar’s cad-tel PVs. The advances have sparked a flurry of startup companies. Venture capitalists are pouring in 20 to 100 times more money than government research funds are, Kazmerski says, creating what some are calling a dot.sun phenomenon.

California-based Nanosolar is among the companies racing to commercialize CIGS technology. But like First Solar, most of its sales have gone to European countries such as Germany and Spain, where long-established policies provide a stable, guaranteed price for solar power production. Here in the U.S., uncertainty looms about a 30 percent investment tax credit that is set to expire at the end of the year. For billion-dollar projects such as Abengoa’s Solana plant, extension of the tax credit is make-or-break: These projects simply won’t happen without an extension of at least eight years.

Ultimately, solar power will have to justify (and pay for) itself—and the market may be moving in that direction. The DOE predicts that solar electricity will be cheaper than the average grid price by 2015. What’s more, prices for natural gas have doubled in the past five years, coal has nearly tripled, and new nuclear plants won’t come on line for at least seven more years. Locking in a long-term contract with a solar plant whose fuel will never run out, on the other hand, is the very definition of energy security. “One thing we know about the sun,” Morse says, “is that the price never goes up.”

Jury acquits defendants in Politkovskaya murder

2009-02-19T10:41:00.004-06:00

By David Nowak, Associated Press Writer 54 mins ago

MOSCOW – In an embarrassing defeat for prosecutors, a Moscow jury acquitted three men on murder charges Thursday in the killing of investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.

The unanimous not-guilty verdicts came in a trial compromised from the start by the absence of the suspected gunman and any alleged mastermind behind the politically charged October 2006 killing. Prosecutors vowed to appeal.

The judge said the defendants were free to go, and they burst out of a courtroom cage and embraced relatives.

Ethnic Chechen brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov and a former Moscow police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, were accused of helping organize and arrange Politkovskaya's contract-style killing. All three were charged with murder and could have been imprisoned for life if convicted.

Politkovskaya's probing reports on atrocities in Chechnya and abuses by Russian authorities angered the Kremlin but won her international acclaim. Her shooting shocked the world and widened the rift between Moscow and the West, underscoring the risks run by independent journalists and government critics while hardening the Kremlin's depiction of Russia as a nation beset by foes.

The female captain of the 12-member jury read out the verdicts after about two hours of deliberations at a military courthouse on Moscow's main pedestrian souvenir-shopping street, the Old Arbat. When the judge repeated that the defendants were acquitted, relatives of the Makhmudov brothers broke out into clapping and cries of "Bravo!"

"Thank God, thank the jury," said Ibragim Makhmudov, still in the courtroom cage shortly after the verdict. "There was no other possible outcome."

"We're glad," said defense lawyer Murad Musayev. "This is something that happens rarely in Russia. This is what I call justice."

But relatives and former colleagues of Politkovskaya have said that regardless of the verdict, justice will not be served until the triggerman and the mastermind who had her killed are prosecuted.

The defendants are accused of helping organize and arrange the attack, but the suspected gunman — a third Makhmudov brother, Rustam — is said to be hiding abroad, and prosecutors have not named anyone believed to have ordered her killing.

"Everything is still ahead — the investigators now have to start a proper investigation," said Karinna Moskalenko, a prominent lawyer who represented Politkovskaya's family at the trial. "The more time goes by, the harder it gets."

Politkovskaya was shot in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006, as she returned from a supermarket with groceries.

Dzhabrail Makhmudov was accused of driving his brother Rustam to the building. Prosecutors say Ibragim Makhmudov warned of Politkovskaya's impending arrival with a telephone call to Dzhabrail. Khadzhikurbanov allegedly planned details of the attack, recruited the Makhmudov brothers and acquired a pistol with a silencer for the shooting.

In final arguments Tuesday, Musayev accused the prosecution of fabricating evidence and dismissed their case as "dust, fluff and ash."

Juries in Russia acquit defendants far more often than judges, who critics of Russia's justice system say are stuck in the Soviet tradition of presumed guilt. Jury acquittals can only be appealed on technical grounds, but prosecutor Vera Pashkovskaya said the judge had committed numerous procedural violations and said the state intends to appeal.

___

Moscow correspondent Steve Gutterman contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.

Medical Student Burnout and the Challenge to Patient Care

2009-02-17T20:01:00.002-06:00

October 31, 2008
Doctor and Patient

By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.

Not too long ago, I read a paper titled “Burnout and Suicidal Ideation Among U.S. Medical Students” in The Annals of Internal Medicine. It brought back a flood of memories.

Medical school was not easy for me. I knew that I wanted to become a doctor to help people, but I had given little thought to the process. I was poorly prepared for many things: the pressure to excel in ways that seemed so far from caring for people; rapidly mounting debts I signed off on every semester; a roller coaster existence from chronic lack of sleep; hazing from the more experienced students and residents; and the realities of patient suffering despite my best efforts.

Even surgical residency, despite the relentlessly long hours, seemed so much closer to what I wanted to do.

Some of my professors tried to “humanize” the process. They invited us to dinner in their homes, supported our extracurricular efforts to set up health screening clinics in low-income neighborhoods, and tried to make our basic science courses more relevant to working with patients. But sitting where I am now, as someone who teaches medical students and who loves helping others as a doctor, I can understand the challenge they faced. Given the fire hose of information medical students must learn in just four years, how does one ever gently take a sip?

Despite my teachers’ efforts, I was about as miserable in medical school as I had ever been. I felt alone. Neither I nor my classmates could admit to failure, and the last thing I wanted to do was to let anyone but my closest friends know just how unhappy I was. Success in medical school was the first step to a future of helping others, and I was not about to jeopardize that.

Last week I had dinner with two former classmates from that time. We had not seen each other in over a decade, and after catching up on personal news and reminiscing about gross anatomy lab and our first nights on call, one of them said quietly, “I hated med school. I wanted to quit.” The elephant in our collective memories had broken free.

With that elephant now running loose, and the three of us more comfortable with our own professional accomplishments, the conversation grew more honest. “If you look over my entire lifetime,” my other friend said, “those four years were the lowest point in terms of self esteem.” He held his hand out in the air, plotting an imaginary line that dropped precipitously to his knees.

It took nearly 20 years for the three of us to learn that we had each been miserable as medical students. It has taken even longer for researchers to discover the extent to which such feelings exist among American medical students.

In 2006, Dr. Liselotte N. Dyrbye and her colleagues at the Mayo Clinic found that nearly half of the 545 medical students they surveyed suffered from burnout, which they defined as professional distress in three domains: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and low sense of personal accomplishment. Moreover, the researchers found that each successive year of schooling increased the chances students would experience burnout, despite the fact that they had entered medical school with mental health profiles similar to those of their peers who chose other career paths.

More recently, in the paper on burnout that had first caught my eye, Dr. Dyrbye and her colleagues widened the scope of their research, analyzing survey responses from 2,248 medical students at seven medical schools across the country. Again, nearly half of the students surveyed met the criteria for burnout. But the investigators discovered an even more ominous finding: 11 percent of all the students surveyed also reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year.

Dr. Dyrbye notes that we are just starting to learn about the high levels of distress in medical students. “It’s incredibly disconcerting,” she said. “What are the causes? And what can we do as educators to facilitate their well-being? We need a better understanding of the causes of stress to design interventions that will help improve student wellness. Students, just like doctors, need to take care of themselves in order to take care of their patients.”

Medical schools have more recently recognized the importance of this issue. For example, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting authority for medical schools in the United States, now mandates that all schools have a program for student wellness in place that includes “an effective system of personal counseling for its students.”

But beyond the personal implications, what are the ramifications of medical student burnout for patients?

In a third study, Dr. Dyrbye found that when tested for empathy, medical students at baseline generally scored higher than their nonmedical peers. But, as medical students experienced more burnout, there was a corresponding drop in the level of empathy toward patients.

“What do they really need to know before graduating from medical school, and how could they most efficiently learn?” Dr. Drybye asked, reflecting on one of the central challenges of medical education. “All the information we want to share with them is not necessarily what they really need to learn.”

By the time my dinner with my former classmates last week had ended, we had made plans to stay in touch and to do something I had never been sure I would ever do: return to my medical school in two years’ time to celebrate our 20th reunion. Over the course of our dinner conversation I felt strangely connected and nostalgic about medical school; I was deeply moved by what my two classmates had chosen to do with their education. One is a well-loved community obstetrician/gynecologist; the other is a psychiatrist devoted to teaching, working in a county medical clinic and caring for severely traumatized Hmong refugees. And both love their work as doctors.

As I listened to them talk about their work, I was reminded of one other thing Dr. Dyrbye had told me. “We need to change things,” she had said, “because maybe the students who are most vulnerable are the ones who are most empathic.”

Click here to share your comments on the Well blog, “The Misery of the Med Student.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Muslim TV exec accused of beheading wife in NY

2009-02-17T18:38:00.003-06:00

By CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer Carolyn Thompson, Associated Press Writer 30 mins ago

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. – The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes.

Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan is accused of beheading his wife last week, days after she filed for divorce. Authorities have not discussed the role religion or culture might have played, but the slaying gave rise to speculation that it was the sort of "honor killing" more common in countries half a world away, including the couple's native Pakistan.

Funeral services for Aasiya Hassan, 37, were Tuesday. Her 44-year-old husband is scheduled to appear for a felony hearing Wednesday.

The Hassans lived in Orchard Park — a well-off Buffalo suburb that hadn't seen a homicide since 1986 — and started Bridges TV there in 2004 with the message of developing understanding between North America and the Middle East and South Asia. The network, available across the U.S. and Canada, was believed to be the first English-language cable station aimed at the rapidly growing Muslim demographic.

Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said his officers had responded to domestic incidents involving the couple, most recently Feb. 6, the day Mo Hassan was served with the divorce papers and an order of protection.

"I've never heard him raise his voice," said Paul Moskal, who became friendly with the couple while he was chief counsel for the FBI in Buffalo. Moskal would answer questions in forums aired on Bridges TV that were intended to improve understanding between Muslim-Americans and law enforcement.

"His personal life kind of betrayed what he tried to portray publicly," Moskal said.

On Feb. 12, Hassan went to a police station and told officers his wife was dead at the TV studio.

"We found her laying in the hallway the offices were off of," Benz said. Aasiya Hassan's head was near her body.

"I don't know if (the method of death) does mean anything," said the chief, who would not discuss what weapon may have been used. "We certainly want to investigate anything that has any kind of merit. It's not a normal thing you would see."

Hassan was not represented by an attorney at an initial appearance on a charge of second-degree murder. Neither police nor the Erie County district attorney's office knew if he had hired a lawyer.

The New York president of the National Organization for Women, Marcia Pappas, condemned prosecutors for referring to the death as an apparent case of domestic violence.

"This was, apparently, a terroristic version of 'honor killing,'" a statement from NOW said.

Nadia Shahram, who teaches family law and Islam at the University at Buffalo Law School, explained honor killing as a practice still accepted among fanatical Muslim men who feel betrayed by their wives.

"If a woman breaks the law which the husband or father has placed for the wife or daughter, honor killing has been justified," said Shahram, who was a regular panelist on a law show produced by Bridges TV. "It happens all the time. It's been practiced in countries such as Pakistan and in India."

Acquaintances said Mo Hassan was not overtly religious — co-workers did not see him pray, for instance. But he seemed to adhere to many traditional practices.

Nancy Sanders, the television station's news director for 2 1/2 years, remembers him asking her to move her feet during her job interview so he would not see her legs. She was wearing a skirt and stockings.

He also would not let women enter his office unless his wife was there, and he blocked the station from airing a story about the first Muslim woman to win the title of Miss England in 2005, Sanders said.

Acquaintances said Aasiya Hassan was trained as an architect. Sanders described her as obedient to her husband, and that she wore a traditional hijab for a time but later stopped without explanation.

"She was beautiful, small, delicately built," she said, "while Mo would fill up a door frame. I always thought of him as a gentle giant."

Sanders, who left Bridges TV a year ago, said co-workers traded stories about Hassan's apparent violent streak, including one which had him running his wife's car off the road while the couple's two young children were inside. Aasiya herself never spoke of it, she said.

"I just do not feel it was an honor killing," Sanders added. "I think it was domestic abuse that got out of control."

Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita did not immediately respond to The Associated Press' request for a copy of the order of protection issued against Mo Hassan. Divorce records are sealed in New York state. Aasiya Hassan's lawyer would not reveal the reasons for the divorce filing.

Hassan graduated with an MBA from the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester in 1996, according to the TV station's Web site. Bridges broadcasts all over the United States and in Canada on various cable providers and Verizon FiOS. As of 6 p.m. Tuesday, the network was not broadcasting in the Buffalo area.

There was no answer at the network on Tuesday and it's Web site has a message saying Bridges is shocked and saddened and requests privacy.

___

On the Net:

Bridges: http://www.bridgestv.com

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

They're Not Cops, but Jewish Groups Patrol in Marked Cars

2009-02-15T13:57:00.002-06:00

On the Jewish Street Patrol

By JORDAN HELLER

Feb. 15, 2009 —

The disheveled man looks momentarily confused. He's wearing a puffy red coat that looks as if it was salvaged from the city dump. "Are you guys cops?" he asks.

He's been set upon by four Hasidic Jews in the center aisle of House and Home Hardware on Flushing Avenue, a commercial strip that runs through the Hasidic section of Williamsburg in Brooklyn a neighborhood uncanny for its resemblance to a 19th-century shtetl.

The man's presence is as misplaced as a Hell's Angel in Amish country. But it's not just the grimy clothes that make him unwelcome: His pants are inexplicably torn open, exposing his boxer shorts to the frightened Hasidic patrons he's been begging for money.

With bushy beards and black yarmulkes, the four Jews entreating the vagabond do so with an air of authority. Their intimidating posture, coupled with the two-way radios that hang from their belts, elicits the man's question again: "Are you guys cops?"

"Just get out of here," he's told, with an expletive thrown in to convey gravity. The man leaves and order is returned to the shop.

The four enforcers may not be members of the New York Police Department, but to the hardware store manager, if they're not exactly the law, they're certainly keepers of the peace. They're members of a volunteer civilian patrol called Shomrim (Hebrew for "watchers"), which, in addition to Williamsburg, has independently run chapters in Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Borough Park all Brooklyn enclaves densely populated by religious Jews.

Some people see them as a model for helping curb urban crime, though others fault them for clashing with outside groups and even among themselves.

Shomrim is not your typical neighborhood watch. For starters, the groups have a 24-hour hot line and dispatcher, their own marked vehicles, and a track record for dealing with everything from assault and battery to domestic violence.

"Everything that happens in the world happens here," says Yossi Pollack, a senior Shomrim member, as we drive through the streets of Williamsburg peering down alleyways. "Our telephone number is just like 911 they call us for everything."

It raises the question: In a city like New York, with one of the largest and most respected police forces in the world, why not just call the cops directly when a problem arises?

"A lot of people in the community are a little apprehensive of the police," says Binyomin Lifshitz, who, along with fellow Shomrim member Gadi Hershkop, took me on a separate ride-along in Crown Heights. "They don't want to interact with the police unless they absolutely have to."

And when that happens, adds Mr. Hershkop, "Shomrim is like the liaison between the community and the police."

The members of these Jewish enclaves feel more comfortable dealing with their own, both for language (Hebrew and Yiddish are prevalent) and cultural reasons. Furthermore, many are descendants of Eastern European and Russian shtetls, where, more often than not, it was the authorities who were behind their persecution.

Like the traditional dress, language, and customs sustained in these communities for centuries, apprehensions of law enforcement endure, too.

Community leaders also worry about the police getting involved and locking up someone who might not deserve it. When it comes to Jew-on-Jew crime, Crown Heights Shomrim will always consult a rabbi before involving the police.

"It's been for centuries that Jews settle matters internally," says Mr. Lifshitz. Yet the main focus of Shomrim seems to be protecting Jews from non-Jews. Williamsburg's patrol, in fact, was started in 1977 by Rabbi Moshe Hoffman because he was tired of seeing fellow Jews fall victim to violent muggings.

But checking crime can be a delicate undertaking, particularly in Crown Heights, a community rife with racial tension. After all, Crown Heights lends its name to the infamous riots that occurred here in August 1991, when, for three days, blacks and Jews clashed over the death of a young African-American boy who was struck by an automobile driven by a Jew. The neighborhood, it seems, has yet to fully recover.

As Hershkop drives the minivan, Lifshitz points out where two Jews were recently beaten by a group of black youths. And last spring, after Andrew Charles, a young black man, was attacked by, according to police, two Jewish men with mace and a nightstick, activists connected with the Rev. Al Sharpton came and, as Lifshitz puts it, "riled things up."

"Things got a little tense," he says. "They were marching the streets of Crown Heights for 'justice.' We even took [our marked cars] off the street because we felt they were countereffective."

Differences between the two communities linger. Richard Green, chief executive of the Crown Heights Youth Collective, says young black men are often profiled by the patrols as criminals. While he admits there have been improvements, Mr. Green thinks the patrols could benefit from more supervision by police and a better understanding of the black community.

For the most part, though, Green and other outsiders believe the patrols to be beneficial. Letitia James, the city council member who serves Crown Heights, says they "provide a service not only to the Jewish community, but also to the black community."

That's one test of a patrol's effectiveness: Does it serve everyone in the area or just one religious or ethnic group?

"Citizens should be responsible for preserving safety and order in their own neighborhoods," says Peter Moskos, a criminologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "But the question to ask is if Shomrim fights against all crime they see or just against crime done to their people. If it's the latter & then they're more like a private security agency."

While the Jewish patrols have had the occasional flare-up with outside groups, they also sometimes feud among themselves.

"To be blunt, we have a rival patrol, and they're not well-disciplined," says Hershkop, referring to Shmira, whose members also operate in Crown Heights and who can easily be mistaken for Shomrim.

A local grand jury has indicted Yitzhak Shuchat, who news reports have identified as a Shmira member, for various assault and hate-crime charges in relation to the Charles incident. "Some people compare us to the Bloods and the Crips. We try not to mix, and stay focused on the positive and the good," Hershkop says.

Shmira member Yossi Stern calls the Charles case simply an "altercation between two people." He denies Shmira was involved or uses heavy-handed tactics. He says Shmira has taken training with the NYPD and is the "official" security patrol for the Crown Heights Jewish community.

With Hershkop piloting the minivan down Eastern Parkway, Lifshitz points to an intersection and recalls an incident from five years back, which, he says, illustrates the Shomrim's reputation. Lifshitz was just 17 then, a newly minted Shomrim member. He was walking alone at night, on his way home from a wedding.

As he tells it, a black youth approached him and asked for the time. Lifshitz says he could see four other teens watching from across the street and knew he was about to get jumped.

"No, I don't have the time," Lifshitz told him.

"You got a dollar?" the boy asked.

"No, I don't got a dollar," Lifshitz shot back.

"Give me a dollar!" the boy demanded, and suddenly Lifshitz was surrounded. He pulled his two-way radio from beneath his coat and issued a distress code. "10-13, 10-13," he called. "Corner of Eastern Parkway and New York Avenue."

"Yo, it's the Jew police!" he says one kid yelled in alarm. The boys scattered, and, within minutes, 60 Shomrim arrived.

"They tried to mess with the wrong guy," says Lifshitz. "That's the stereotype I don't like, that we're prey. We're not prey."

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jrz...your supposition is wrong. i lived in boro park (one of the communities mentioned), and was an active member of that community. when my husband was beating me, and i finally had had enough, and was capable of acknowledging that i had had enough, i went to family court. when my husband was served with papers, he threatened to kill me. just like that. i called shomrim, and told them about what had been happening, and what was then happening... and shomrim had several members provide 'round the clock' surveillance, to keep me, and my kids, safe. and, something you're missing... frequently, people don't care what someone who isn't a member of their society thinks of them. however, what another member thinks, is very important. the police, for the most part, are 'faceless, nameless' men, who rotate, so there is NO chance of getting to know them as people. shomrim is made up of your neighbors, the people who go to your synagogue, people who shop in the same stores... people who know you, and who know everyone you know, as well. there's a tremendous strength on having that as a deterrant. sadly, it doesn't work for everyone, all the time. but for those who is does work.... it's (literally) a lifesaver!!!
Posted by:
tuxedoll 2:14 PM
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Community patrols should be encouraged and enhanced in both urban and suburbs, and should be organized as one of the major forces against a million of gang members across America. But I disagree they should have authority to judge domestic violence and crimes within same ethnic population. For long run, this prevents the integration of that ethnic group to American laws. It is possible a settlement within an ethnic group saves time and money for a routine US legal process, but the kids will go to colleges and dorms are not separated according to ethnic groups yet.
Posted by:
Wei_Quing 12:58 PM
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This is the land of the free home of the brave not if you don't look like us , you don't belong here , street patrols are good with in reason of course , they can not investigate murder, rapes and serious assault because they are not the cops there so they have limited authority if any there , Let the police do their jobs.
Posted by:
wicked k 443 12:12 PM
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Difernet, the key difference between sharia among Muslims and this is that civil court overrules religious law. Our system is trying to ensure that you and I are not subject to anyone's religious law as we may not be of that religion. The fact that driving on Saturday is unlawful to the Hasidim does not make it illegal for us; this is the BIG difference in our country.There's nothing wrong with groups patrolling their own neighborhood if they coordinate with the local government and citizenry -- ALL citizenry. And do not infringe on others' rights.
Posted by:
lennypwallbrook 11:34 AM
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In principle this is no different than stores and malls having private security, bars having bouncers, gated communities having armed guards, or the rich and famous having private bodyguards. The police are underfunded, understaffed and overloaded so that the response times in many areas are deplorable. Many times all they can do is file a report about incidents rather then prevent them. In NYC they won't even bother to investigate a report of auto theft or vandalism unless you own the property.
Posted by:
Publius_2K 11:02 AM
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Why don't they they just just claim that neighborhood as their own sovereignty and create problems with their neighbors when anyone questions why they've taken land that doesn't belong to them? Yes, I admit that's facetious, but they should be careful not to act as vigilantes. They could easily be held liable should anyone be injured or if property damage is caused while they intervene.
Posted by:
Dave34102 10:14 AM
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Agreed JrzWrld. When there are two sets of laws, civilian and religious, there can be no true safety within a community. This burden will, as always seems to happen, fall on the women and the children. What's the difference between this and sharia among Muslims?
Posted by:
differnet 9:28 AM
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I'm all for community patrols, but I am VERY disturbed by the fact that these guys are the first ones to get called rather than the police. Especially since they deal with domestic violence but are also "resolving" Jew-on-Jew crime issues. So some woman gets beat up by her husband, they come in and convince her everything's all right? This is a potentially very messed up scenario and the local police need to investigate how this group operates in great detail.
Posted by:
JrzWrld 8:14 AM

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Congress strengthens exec pay limits

2009-02-14T22:48:00.001-06:00

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 12 mins ago

CHICAGO – President Barack Obama's economic team tried to keep Democratic allies negotiating the stimulus bill from limiting paychecks for executives at banks in need of a bailout. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and economic aide Lawrence Summers failed.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, inserted strict rules into the $787 billion economic stimulus package over the White House's objections. Dodd's limits on bankers' bonuses are significantly more aggressive than those sought by Obama or Geithner in recent days, with much fanfare.

Dodd, D-Conn., said the restrictions — an executive making $1 million a year in salary could receive only $500,000 in bonus money, for example — are necessary if Obama plans to ask Congress for more money to save the financial sector.

"It will never happen as long as the public perceives that there are people getting rich," Dodd said in an interview. "Save their pay or save capitalism."

That tone among Democrats flavored much of the discussion about how to write the stimulus bill, which the president planned to sign on Tuesday in Denver. Despite direct appeals from Geithner, Summers and White House officials, Democrats didn't budge, according to administration officials.

The Obama administration's proposed restrictions applied only to banks that receive "exceptional assistance" from the government. It set a $500,000 cap on pay for top executives and limited bonuses or additional compensation to restricted stock that could only be claimed after the firm had paid the government back.

The stimulus bill, however, sets executive bonus limits on all banks that receive infusions from the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund. The number of executives affected depends on the amount of government assistance they receive. But as a rule, top executives will be prohibited from getting bonuses or incentives except as restricted stock that vests only after bailout funds are repaid and that is no greater than one-third of the executive's annual compensation.

The prohibition would not apply to bonuses that are spelled out in an executive's contract signed before Feb. 11, 2009.

At banks that received $25 million or less, the bonus restriction would apply only to the highest paid executives. At banks that receive $500 million or more, all senior executives and at least 20 of the next most highly compensated employees would fall under the bonus limits.

The White House claimed partial victory in this area. Officials also said that it would be up to Geithner to implement the bill and cautioned that the administration might be able to work out a deal with leaders on the Hill to modify some of the rules later.

The original bill said all banks receiving bailout money could give no bonuses to their top 25 employees. The White House worried that would dissuade smaller banks from taking — or keeping for long — the bailout money, which would slow their lending rates.

Administration officials also said they were worried Dodd's plan would still allow multimillion dollar paychecks, just not structured as bonuses. The Obama plan would cap the entire compensation at $500,000 — with anything above that coming from restricted stock. Dodd's plan provides no limit to base salary pay, which typically is relatively small but supplemented with gigantic bonuses.

Even so, the final bill was far stricter than the White House wanted.

"As he has already expressed, the president shares a deep concern about excessive executive compensation at financial firms that are receiving extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday.

White House officials took credit for influencing other parts of Congress' plan, including shareholder say on pay and a requirement for companies to disclose luxury expenditures, administration officials said.

Negotiators had removed a $400,000 pay cap included in an earlier draft. The Congressional Budget Office said it would cost some $11 billion in lost tax revenues by 2019.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington and Martin Crutsinger in Rome contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Public still sky-high on Obama 'brand'

2009-02-14T22:45:00.001-06:00

Ben Smith Ben Smith Sat Feb 14, 6:58 am ET

With Barack Obama’s victory in passing a massive stimulus package marred by days of bad press—as not a single House Republican backed the bill, his Health Czar went down in flames and his second pick for Commerce Secretary walked away—the administration has been cut down to size, and lost some of its bipartisan sheen.

Such, at least, has been the beltway chatter, but so far the numbers don’t back it up.

Obama’s approval rating remains well above 60% in tracking polls. A range of state pollsters said they’d seen no diminution in the president’s sky-high approval ratings, and no improvement in congressional Republicans’ dismal numbers.

And that’s before the stimulus creates billions of dollars in spending on popular programs, which could, at least temporarily, further boot Obama’s popularity.

“It’s eerie—I read the news from the Beltway, and there’s this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me,” said Ann Seltzer, the authoritative Iowa pollster who works throughout the Midwest.

That’s a perception treasured by Obama’s aides, who spent a two-year presidential campaign safeguarding “the brand,” as they called it, of a new, post-partisan sort of political figure.

With the stimulus safely passed, they say they’re relying on the steady support of a populace that, after a closely watched election, is tuning out the Washington cut and thrust, and views Obama as a high-minded reformer and his Republican rivals as bitter partisans.

“You shouldn’t judge his success in reaching out by the vote count in either chamber of Congress—you’ve really got to judge it based more on what people in the country are thinking and saying,” said John Del Cecato, a media advisor to Obama’s campaign and former partner of Obama aide David Axelrod.

“If you look at any number of public polls, and private polls support this, it’s not just Democrats and Independents who support the way he’s gone about advancing the stimulus plan—it’s a certain amount of Republicans too.”

A CBS News poll released February 5, for instance, found 81% of Americans said Obama is reaching out to congressional Republicans, while just 41 percent said the congressional Republicans were looking for bipartisanship.

“There have been a number of different surveys that have shown that Americans perceive that Obama is extending a hand of cooperation, a hand that the Republican leadership is not reciprocating—that’s very striking in the data,” said Mark Blumenthal, the editor of Pollster.com, who also noted that Obama has managed to remain popular even with some Republicans.

“Everyone’s talking about spending, spending ,spending and—20-30 percent of Republicans approve of his performance,” said Blumenthal. “How is that bad?”

Republican leaders make the case that the reassertion of partisan reality will, in time, take the sheen off the new president.

“What’s regrettable is that Republicans are being cast as the partisans as a way to deflect attention away from Congressional Democrats’ failure to craft an effective—and bipartisan—economic stimulus bill,” said a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader John Boehner. “But we don’t control anything in Washington, so using us as a political whipping boy is laughable. At some point, the American people will expect the results and action rather than blame and deflection. Only time will tell when their patience will run thin.”

There’s another possibility, however: That In opposing en masse a stimulus bill that means instant, massive national spending, the GOP is cast as the Grinch to Obama’s Santa Claus. And outside Washington, Obama’s aides anticipate, the spending will drown out the chatter about recent White House stumbles.

““Let’s be honest: Will the economic recovery or Judd Gregg be a bigger discussion point a week from now?” Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, asked reporters Thursday.

Pollsters almost universally agreed with Emanuel.

“I don’t think he’s lost anything in terms of overall job approval or favorability,” said Andy Smith, a pollster at the University of New Hampshire. “That’s just the a perception inside the Beltway that everybody outside Washington pays attention to politics and eats and lives politics the way you guys do down there.”

As he builds up a record in office, pollsters agree that the value of Obama’s brand will have more to do with his results, and less with his atmospherics.

“Over time, the kind of disputes showed themselves in the final vote on the stimulus package—that kind of partisanship will become apparent to voters around the country,” said Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown. “But whether that will be good or bad for Obama will mostly be a factor of whether people think their lives are getting better.”

Jonathan Martin contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

The recovery plan: A national jolt to economy

2009-02-14T22:44:00.001-06:00

By NANCY BENAC and CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writers Nancy Benac And Calvin Woodward, Associated Press Writers Sat Feb 14, 6:05 pm ET

WASHINGTON – America is bringing shock and awe to the home front, using dollars instead of bombs.

It's the military doctrine of lightning force — fast and brute, or as brute as the shaken country can manage — applied to the campaign for economic recovery.

With a record-busting stimulus plan, the U.S. is marshaling resources against economic catastrophe in ways not seen since Franklin Roosevelt put the New Deal in motion.

President Barack Obama is going with the best deal he could get. The stimulus bill is a landmark legislative achievement for a new president who inherited economic spoilage along with the spoils of power. Now the nation anxiously waits to see if it works.

Undermining federal balance sheets that were already deeply in the red, Obama and Congress settled on a nearly $800 billion plan that aims to spend more on the crisis at hand than the government has spent waging the Iraq war for six years.

The idea: fast cash, and lots of it, but with a strategic view to the future.

Some dollars will flow quickly into wallets — and right out again.

The stimulus plan will mean thousands of dollars in tax breaks for first-time home buyers and people buying new cars. Lower- and middle-income taxpayers will get an extra $13 a week in their paychecks this year, and about $8 a week next year. Unemployment checks will go up $25 a week, and keep coming longer. Food stamp benefits for 30 million Americans will rise. Short-term health insurance will become more affordable for many losing their jobs.

The success of the stimulus package may be measured less by visible achievements than by what does not happen — the home that is not foreclosed, the family that doesn't slip into poverty, the disease that does not go undiagnosed.

"The one thing we'll never know is what would have happened if we didn't do it," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight.

It's not FDR's deal and these aren't his times.

No federally subsidized artists will paint murals glorifying the muscle of American workers or the progress belching from smokestacks, as they did in Roosevelt's day.

No grand compact is to be formed between generations like the one that promised everyone a federal pension. No institutions will rise to try something brand new.

"We're not reinventing government," said historian Kenneth C. Davis, author of the best-selling "Don't Know Much About" series. "We're modifying things that exist."

Yet as the share of the economy taken up by federal spending rises to an anticipated 30 percent, the nation is grappling again with big questions about Washington's place in people's lives.

"The stakes are so high now, this is such a big bill, average Americans are following it," says Princeton historian Julian Zelizer. "It's become a bill that is an argument about what government can or can't do.

"If there is no effect and in six months we are talking about the same economy or a worse economy, I think it would be a devastating blow to the president, Democrats, and to liberal claims about what government can do."

To critics such as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the package is the "Europeanization of America." Others call it "Rooseveltian" or "generational theft" in reference to the debt passed on to the future.

They might envision murals glorifying little more than filled potholes, insulated windows, depreciated computers.

Obama said it's about more than that, and drew parallels with FDR in speaking Friday to the Business Council, formed by corporate leaders in the 1930s to advise Roosevelt's administration.

"We adapted, we changed," he said about those days — and these. "President Roosevelt understood the new role of government in this new world, that while extraordinary actions on its part might be the source of recovery, no action on the part of government, no matter how extraordinary, would alone be the source of our prosperity."

In his radio address Saturday, Obama said he believed the country "will turn this crisis into opportunity and emerge from our painful present into a brighter future."

Democrats and just enough Republicans in Congress — three — saw the package as the best chance to tamp down the economic wildfires breaking out across the landscape.

Obama came into office saying he wished to be judged on his first 1,000 days instead of the usual benchmark of 100. In some ways he will be judged on his first 10 or 20.

Not even Roosevelt, fast off the mark to deal with a bank crisis, was as fast as this in achieving something so sweeping, so early.

The enormity of the package left politicians grasping for concrete ways to convey its size.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., spoke of a stack of hundred-dollar bills 689 miles high, and of bills wrapped side-by-side that would encircle the Earth nearly 39 times. House Republicans predicted that the package's costs — with interest on the necessary borrowing — could total more than a trillion dollars, enough money to buy about 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies for every American.

It was enough to prompt comic Jon Stewart to riff that if you sewed the $100 bills together, "you would make a blanket for Jupiter."

The stimulus wasn't just about throwing cash at the economy, though.

The package is filled with billions for some of the same goals that Obama preached about on the presidential campaign trail — renewable energy and green jobs, computerized medical records, broadband Internet service for underserved areas.

"There are seeds in this bill for long-term change," says Zelizer. "There are things that can develop out of the research that can change our lives."

Obama sounded a drumbeat of warnings about the consequences of failing to act. But Americans didn't need their president to tell them how grim the economic situation was — and could become.

Forty percent of Americans already have been affected by some sort of job problem in the past year, be it unemployment, underemployment, layoffs, reductions in pay or hours, or job losses by members of their households, according to a poll released Friday by the Pew Research Center. Fifty-six percent expect things to be worse or about the same a year from now — and they've got solid grounds for their pessimism.

The country could well suffer a net loss of 2 million to 3 million or more jobs this year, economists believe. And the unemployment rate, now 7.6 percent, could top 9 percent by spring of 2010.

The stimulus pull-together was a colossal game of winners and losers shaped and reshaped by the latest set of hands on the package. The fortunes of people, schools, towns and other varied interests rose and fell in blinks of time.

Ready to buy another home?

Poof — you just lost $15,000 that legislators had considered providing.

Buying a first home? You're still in luck — the government plans to give you an $8,000 credit if you buy by the end of November.

A new car? You'll be able to deduct the thousands in sales taxes from your income tax but not — as was initially proposed — your loan interest as well.

One day, the government proposed to pay 65 percent of the cost of health coverage for a year for jobless people who lose their workplace insurance. Days later, it was down to half. Ultimately, the subsidy zigzagged back up to 65 percent, but it expires before the end of the year.

Obama declared an end to pork-barrel politics, but legislators still managed to look out for favorite projects.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was quick to point out that a big chunk of the $8 billion set aside to construct high-speed rail lines could go to a proposed Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas route. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., helped make sure $10 billion was set aside for the National Institutes of Health, a priority of his.

Long after the dust has settled from the horse trading, the government will be seen to have moved with unaccustomed speed on policies normally subjected to years of deliberation and gridlock.

Deficit hawks found their wings clipped as both parties reached for the treasury. Democrats mainly wished to spend; Republicans, mainly to cut taxes.

After last November, guess who got their way?

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said flatly: "We won the election; we wrote the bill."

The debate was both large and small. Negotiators considered the proper role of government — and how fast a business can depreciate its equipment.

Entering the 1930s, Americans mainly saw the national government as the entity that fought wars, ran post offices and enforced a ban on liquor. Federal spending was only 3.4 percent of the economy.

That more than tripled during the New Deal, topping 10 percent, because of the explosion of public works and other labor programs, rural modernization, bank support, and farm and industrial aid.

"It was a transformation of society in a way that hadn't been done since the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery," Davis said.

The government became the entity that guaranteed a minimum wage, controlled farm production, supported artists, set workplace standards, insured deposits in regulated banks and cast the first national safety net for the elderly and handicapped under Social Security.

"The whole scope of what Roosevelt was trying to do is different but the intent is clearly the same: relief and recovery during a time of economic stress," said John Halpin, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

The package won by Obama offers "very important but more subterranean changes in the way the economy works," he said.

Federal spending as a share of the economy shot above 40 percent during World War II and has hovered around 20 percent most of the years since. That share was already projected to approach 25 percent before Obama's stimulus plan.

To be sure, there's still considerable disagreement about how much the New Deal helped to end a depression finally crushed by the humming factories of World War II.

Even FDR's transformation of the federal government was not universally recognized at the time for what it was. It may be years before the full measure of Obama's efforts are taken, too.

In 1936, The Economist magazine pronounced the New Deal a "striking success" in improving conditions that existed when FDR took office three years earlier.

But what of the legacy?

What legacy?

"If the criterion be Utopian, the achievements of the New Deal appear to be small," the editors sniffed. "The great problems of the country are hardly touched."

___

Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

How the economic stimulus plan could affect you

2009-02-14T22:38:00.000-06:00

An examination of how the economic stimulus plan will affect Americans.

By The Associated Press The Associated Press Sat Feb 14, 6:14 pm ET

___

Taxes:

The recovery package has tax breaks for families that send a child to college, purchase a new car, buy a first home or make the ones they own more energy efficient.

Millions of workers can expect to see about $13 extra in their weekly paychecks, starting around June, from a new $400 tax credit to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples would get up to $800. In 2010, the credit would be about $7.70 a week, if it is spread over the entire year.

The $1,000 child tax credit would be extended to more low-income families that don't make enough money to pay income taxes, and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.

Middle-income and wealthy taxpayers will be spared from paying the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was designed 40 years ago to make sure wealthy taxpayers pay at least some tax, but was never indexed for inflation. Congress fixes it each year, usually in the fall.

First-time homebuyers who purchase their homes before Dec. 1 would be eligible for an $8,000 tax credit, and people who buy new cars before the end of the year can write off the sales taxes.

Homeowners who add energy-efficient windows, furnaces and air conditioners can get a tax credit to cover 30 percent of the costs, up to a total of $1,500. College students — or their parents — are eligible for tax credits of up to $2,500 to help pay tuition and related expenses in 2009 and 2010.

Those receiving unemployment benefits this year wouldn't pay any federal income taxes on the first $2,400 they receive.

___

Health insurance:

Many workers who lose their health insurance when they lose their jobs will find it cheaper to keep that coverage while they look for work.

Right now, most people working for medium and large employers can continue their coverage for 18 months under the COBRA program when they lose their job. It's expensive, often over $1,000 a month, because they pay the share of premiums once covered by their employer as well as their own share from the old group plan.

Under the stimulus package, the government will pick up 65 percent of the total cost of that premium for the first nine months.

Lawmakers initially proposed to help workers from small companies, too, who don't generally qualify for COBRA coverage. But that fell through. The idea was to have Washington pay to extend Medicaid to them.

COBRA applies to group plans at companies employing at least 20 people. The subsidies will be offered to those who lost their jobs from Sept. 1 to the end of this year.

Those who were put out of work after September but didn't elect to have COBRA coverage at the time will have 60 days to sign up.

The plan offers $87 billion to help states administer Medicaid. That could slow or reverse some of the steps states have taken to cut the program.

___

Infrastructure:

Highways repaved for the first time in decades. Century-old waterlines dug up and replaced with new pipes. Aging bridges, stressed under the weight of today's SUVs, reinforced with fresh steel and concrete.

But the $90 billion is a mere down payment on what's needed to repair and improve the country's physical backbone. And not all economists agree it's an effective way to add jobs in the long term, or stimulate the economy.

___

Energy:

Homeowners looking to save energy, makers of solar panels and wind turbines and companies hoping to bring the electric grid into the computer age all stand to reap major benefits.

The package contains more than $42 billion in energy-related investments from tax credits to homeowners to loan guarantees for renewable energy projects and direct government grants for makers of wind turbines and next-generation batteries.

There's a 30 percent tax credit of up to $1,500 for the purchase of a highly efficient residential air conditioners, heat pumps or furnaces. The credit also can be used by homeowners to replace leaky windows or put more insulation into the attic. About $300 million would go for rebates to get people to buy efficient appliances.

The package includes $20 billion aimed at "green" jobs to make wind turbines, solar panels and improve energy efficiency in schools and federal buildings. It includes $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects as well as tax breaks or direct grants covering 30 percent of wind and solar energy investments. Another $5 billion is marked to help low-income homeowners make energy improvements.

About $11 billion goes to modernize and expand the nation's electric power grid and $2 billion to spur research into batteries for future electric cars.

___

Schools:

A main goal of education spending in the stimulus bill is to help keep teachers on the job.

Nearly 600,000 jobs in elementary and secondary schools could be eliminated by state budget cuts over the next three years, according to a study released this past week by the University of Washington. Fewer teachers means higher class sizes, something that districts are scrambling to prevent.

The stimulus sets up a $54 billion fund to help prevent or restore state budget cuts, of which $39 billion must go toward kindergarten through 12th grade and higher education. In addition, about $8 billion of the fund could be used for other priorities, including modernization and renovation of schools and colleges, though how much is unclear, because Congress decided not to specify a dollar figure.

The Education Department will distribute the money as quickly as it can over the next couple of years.

And it adds $25 billion extra to No Child Left Behind and special education programs, which help pay teacher salaries, among other things.

This money may go out much more slowly; states have five years to spend the dollars, and they have a history of spending them slowly. In fact, states don't spend all the money; they return nearly $100 million to the federal treasury every year.

The stimulus bill also includes more than $4 billion for the Head Start and Early Head Start early education programs and for child care programs.

___

National debt:

One thing about the president's $790 billion stimulus package is certain: It will jack up the federal debt.

Whether or not it succeeds in producing jobs and taming the recession, tomorrow's taxpayers will end up footing the bill.

Forecasters expect the 2009 deficit — for the budget year that began last Oct 1 — to hit $1.6 trillion including new stimulus and bank-bailout spending. That's about three times last year's shortfall.

The torrents of red ink are being fed by rising federal spending and falling tax revenues from hard-hit businesses and individuals.

The national debt — the sum of all annual budget deficits — stands at $10.7 trillion. Or about $36,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.

Interest payments alone on the national debt will near $500 billion this year. It's already the fourth-largest federal expenditure, after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense.

This will affect us all directly for years, as well as our children and possibly grandchildren, in higher taxes and probably reduced government services. It will also force continued government borrowing, increasingly from China, Japan, Britain, Saudi Arabia and other foreign creditors.

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Environment:

The package includes $9.2 billion for environmental projects at the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. The money would be used to shutter abandoned mines on public lands, to help local governments protect drinking water supplies, and to erect energy-efficient visitor centers at wildlife refuges and national parks.

The Interior Department estimates that its portion of the work would generate about 100,000 jobs over the next two years.

Yet the plan will only make a dent in the backlog of cleanups facing the EPA and the long list of chores at the country's national parks, refuges and other public lands. It would be more like a down payment.

When it comes to national parks, the plan sets aside $735 million for road repairs and maintenance. But that's a fraction of the $9 billion worth of work waiting for funding.

At EPA, the payout is $7.2 billion. The bulk of the money will help local communities and states repair and improve drinking water systems and fund projects that protect bays, rivers and other waterways used as sources of drinking water.

The rest of EPA's cut — $800 million — will be used to clean up leaky gasoline storage tanks and the nation's hazardous waste sites.

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Police:

The stimulus bill includes plenty of green for those wearing blue.

The compromise bill doles out more than $3.7 billion for police programs, much of which is set aside for hiring new officers.

The law allocates $2 billion for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, a program that has funded drug task forces and things such as prisoner rehabilitation and after-school programs.

An additional $1 billion is set aside to hire local police under the Community Oriented Policing Services program. The program, known as COPS grants, paid the salaries of many local police officers and was a "modest contributor" to the decline in crime in the 1990s, according to a 2005 government oversight report.

Both programs had all been eliminated during the Bush administration.

The bill also includes $225 million for general criminal justice grants for things such as youth mentoring programs, $225 million for Indian tribe law enforcement, $125 million for police in rural areas, $100 million for victims of crimes, $50 million to fight Internet crimes against children and $40 million in grants for law enforcement along the Mexican border.

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Higher Education:

The maximum Pell Grant, which helps the lowest-income students attend college, would increase from $4,731 currently to $5,350 starting July 1 and $5,550 in 2010-2011. That would cover three-quarters of the average cost of a four-year college. An extra 800,000 students, or about 7 million, would now get Pell funding.

The stimulus also increases the tuition tax credit to $2,500 and makes it 40 percent refundable, so families who don't earn enough to pay income tax could still get up to $1,000 in extra tuition help.

Computer expenses will now be an allowable expense for 529 college savings plans.

The final package cut $6 billion the House wanted to spend to kick-start building projects on college campuses. But parts of the $54 billion state stabilization fund — with $39 billion set aside for education — can be used for modernizing facilities.

There's also an estimated $15 billion for scientific research, much of which will go to universities. Funding for the National Institutes of Health includes $1.5 billion set aside for university research facilities.

Altogether, the package spends an estimated $32 billion on higher education.

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The Poor:

More than 37 million Americans live in poverty, and the vast majority of them are in line for extra help under the giant stimulus package. Millions more could be kept from slipping into poverty by the economic lifeline.

People who get food stamps — 30 million and growing — will get more. People drawing unemployment checks — nearly 5 million and growing — would get an extra $25, and keep those checks coming longer. People who get Supplemental Security Income — 7 million poor Americans who are elderly, blind or disabled — would get one-time extra payments of $250.

Many low-income Americans also are likely to benefit from a trifecta of tax credits: expansions to the existing Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, and a new refundable tax credit for workers. Taken together, the three credits are expected to keep more than 2 million Americans from falling into poverty, including more than 800,000 children, according to the private Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The package also includes a $3 billion emergency fund to provide temporary assistance to needy families. In addition, cash-strapped states will get an infusion of $87 billion for Medicaid, the government health program for poor people, and that should help them avoid cutting off benefits to the needy.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Burris confirms request for Blagojevich donation

2009-02-14T21:37:00.002-06:00

By JOHN O'CONNOR, Associated Press Writer John O'connor, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 8 mins ago

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Raising fresh questions about his appointment to Congress, Sen. Roland Burris admitted in a document released Saturday that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother asked him for campaign fundraising help before the governor named Burris as Illinois' junior senator.

The disclosure reflects a major omission from Burris' testimony in January when an Illinois House impeachment committee specifically asked if he had ever spoken to Robert Blagojevich or other aides to the now-deposed governor about the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.

State Rep. Jim Durkin, the impeachment committee's ranking Republican, told The Associated Press that he and House Republican Leader Tom Cross will ask Sunday for an outside investigation into whether Burris perjured himself.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada also said he was reviewing the disclosure, the latest twist for Senate Democrats in Washington who only consented to seat Burris on the condition that there were no "pay to play" promises exchanged in the appointment.

Burris said he voluntarily gave the committee a Feb. 4 affidavit disclosing the contact with Robert Blagojevich because "there were several facts that I was not given the opportunity to make during my testimony to the impeachment committee."

The affidavit, released by Burris' office after it was first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, said Robert Blagojevich called him three times — once in October and twice after the November election — to seek his fundraising assistance.

Robert Blagojevich's attorney said his client believes one of the conversations was recorded by the FBI.

Burris, a Democrat like the former governor, said he told Robert Blagojevich he would not raise money because it would look like he was trying to win favor from the governor for his appointment. But he said he did ask the governor's brother "what was going on with the selection of a successor" to Obama in the Senate and "he said he had heard my name mentioned in the discussions."

It's the second time Burris has changed his story. In an unsolicited affidavit to the impeachment committee on Jan. 6, Burris said he had only one limited conversation with the governor before accepting the Senate appointment.

Then, appearing before the committee Jan. 8, he said he told former Blagojevich aide-turned-lobbyist Lon Monk last summer that he was interested in the post.

The governor appointed Burris, a former state attorney general, to the Senate seat on Dec. 30, three weeks after federal agents arrested Blagojevich on a complaint alleging he had tried to trade the appointment for campaign cash or a high-paying job. The state House impeached Blagojevich and the state Senate removed him from office on Jan. 29.

Reid and Dick Durbin of Illinois, among other Senate Democrats, initially said they would not seat anyone appointed by Blagojevich but eventually relented after accepting Burris' impeachment committee testimony under oath that there were no promises exchanged for his appointment.

A spokesman for Durbin said the senator was overseas and had not seen the affidavit or compared it to the testimony. The White House had no comment.

State House impeachment committee chairwoman Barbara Flynn Currie, a Democrat, said she saw the affidavit earlier this week but did not have time to share it with all committee members until now. She said she was planning committee action but that seeking an outside investigation was premature at this point.

The affidavit discloses for the first time that Burris believes he likely told former Blagojevich advisers Doug Scofield and John Wyma of his interest in the post at a fundraiser in June and later asked about it when he spoke to Blagojevich chief of staff John Harris, who was arrested with Blagojevich on Dec. 9.

Scofield, Wyma and Harris were among the Blagojevich associates Burris was asked about in his Jan. 8 testimony by Durkin.

In response, Burris said he had spoken only to Monk.

"This wasn't a couple of questions that I can understand someone may forget, it goes way beyond that," Durkin said Saturday. "To say that he wasn't given the opportunity to explain himself is a load of B.S."

Durkin said he doesn't trust majority Democrats in the General Assembly to conduct a fair investigation into whether Burris perjured himself. But he said he doesn't know yet who should conduct the inquiry.

A log of Harris' calls released to the AP by the governor's office indicates Burris called Harris four times in November — the last time on Nov. 26, when the log indicates the two spoke. Burris' affidavit says he had called Harris to recommend his nephew for a state job and during the conversation asked about the Senate seat.

A spokeswoman for Burris said he would not make himself available for interviews Saturday.

Robert Blagojevich's lawyer, Michael Ettinger, said his client contacted Burris in October to ask him to host a fundraiser for his brother because Burris had contributed in the past, but Burris said he didn't want to commit before the election. Ettinger said the subject of the Senate seat wasn't raised.

Ettinger said Robert Blagojevich remembers only one other conversation in November from the governor's campaign office, which the FBI had wiretapped at the time. He said his client confirmed Burris' account that he declined the fundraiser because of the potential conflict.

But he also told Ettinger no one on his brother's staff had ever mentioned Burris as being interested in the seat.

A publicist for the former governor released a statement saying Blagojevich "acted ethically and honestly and believes Sen. Burris did too."

In explaining his incomplete testimony, Burris said in the affidavit he recalled mentioning Monk "but was then asked another question and did not mention anyone else."

His lawyer, Timothy Wright III, said in a cover letter Burris answered "truthfully and to the best of his recollection," but that the "fluid nature" of the questioning and a review of the transcript showed Burris that he "was unable to fully respond to several matters."

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Associated Press writers Mike Robinson and Carla K. Johnson in Chicago, and Philip Elliott in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

The Handicap That Had No Name

2009-02-12T18:59:00.000-06:00

By Dale S. Brown

My first memory of school is sitting on a hard seat, holding my muscles rigid, trying to concentrate on the teacher's words. "Is this all school is," I think, "just sitting?" I raise my hand.

The teacher calls on me and I stand up. "I'm tired of just sitting
here," I tell her.

"Well, Dale, we're big girls now. We sit and we listen."

I sit. I squirm. Soon my seat is slick with sweat and my dress clings damply. The elastic of my underpants cuts. I struggle but I cannot stay still; my body kicks and rocks.

"Dale, please pay attention!" says the teacher.

"You pay money, not attention!" I reply.

The class bursts out laughing.

"You weren't listening," the teacher says. "Now open that book on your desk to page one and mark all the triangles."

I complete the assignment easily.

"Recess time!" calls out our teacher. "Row one may leave."

I jump up happily and follow other children to the cloakroom. It is dark in there. I cannot remember which is my coat. I wait until everyone goes out and take the coat that is left.

The playground is a blacktop area. All the other children talk to each other, play jump rope, chase one another, and swing, but I do not know what to do or how to fit in.

I cannot do anything during gym either. I try and try to bounce a ball but I drop it each time and it takes off halfway across the room. I stare at the other children, effortlessly bouncing their balls. Up and down. Up and down. How do they do it?
"Can't you even try?" the gym teacher yells.

We practice tumbling. I squat but cannot figure out what to do with my hands to make my body roll. The gym teacher grabs my leg and throws me over. It hurts and I do not like the way the world whirls afterwards. The next time he reaches for my leg I kick him. Both he and my teacher are furious. They make me stand in a corner for the rest of the class. I am happier there.

In my recollections, school was a constant struggle that started upon awakening: to find my clothes, to straighten out the dress I tangled, to get my socks on properly, to identify the right shoe for each foot, and to tie the laces. Even managing my body was a struggle. It was hard for me to use my right arm and leg. My head felt heavy and hung down. I shuffled rather than walked and I leaned forward slightly. To move in a straight line, I often walked with one foot on the sidewalk and the other on the grass, or I kept one hand on a wall. When people told me to pick up my feet, I kicked each one up and then stepped down; I could not understand the difference between their way of walking and mine. I always spoke at the top of my lungs because I could not hear myself and "loud" and "soft" had no meaning. Sometimes I smiled with only one side of my mouth. I never blinked and my eyes were often crossed. They wandered randomly, which made it difficult for me to see.

I saw double until the second grade, when I had surgery. Afterwards, my eyes did not work well as a team, causing figure-ground and depth-perception problems. My eyes tracked improperly and it took me a long time to learn to discriminate visually and to focus.

My peers would snap their fingers in front of my eyes and laugh when I did not blink. They held fingers before me and asked, "How many?" I would guess the right answer and think they were trying to help me to learn better. They said I had more "cooties" (germs that could be passed by touching) than everyone combined. One child would touch me and then quickly touch someone else, yelling, "Dale's cooties! I quit!" That child would try to pass along my cooties, too. When we waited at the bus stop, they stood in a circle and I had to stand outside. One boy threw stones at me every day on the way home from the bus.

Luckily, I had one friend, Carol. We played together constantly. Through watching my peers imitate my movements, I learned what I was doing wrong. I started trying to stand up straight with my shoulders back and my head up. I learned to lift my knees when I walked. I liked holding my head up because I could see the world; before, all I had seen was the sidewalk and my feet.

In the fourth grade, Mrs. Johnson was my teacher. She had art class every day and she tacked my pictures on the bulletin board. She also taught creative writing and loved everything I wrote. She helped me to put my poems in a beautiful book bound with red construction paper. Because she let me walk out of class when I became especially restless, I learned to sit still. She gave us very little homework, so I had time to play. I used to practice throwing a ball against the side of the house and catching it. At first, I spent most of the time chasing the ball but soon I was catching it after one bounce.

In the fifth grade, our teacher was Ms. Rhiner. She had red hair and she liked me. But the homework started again. It took me an hour to write a paragraph; often I worked from the time I came home until it was time for bed. I wrote my work letter by letter. I got up from my chair only to get drinks of water. One night, I took a walk instead of doing homework. How I loved the cool evening air! But I felt guilty about that walk for weeks.

I strove to learn. I understood mathematical concepts, but my answers were often wrong. "Careless errors," I was told. Yet no matter how carefully I checked my work, my papers earned C's and D's. I could spell, but I wrote too slowly to keep up with the teacher's dictation during tests. "Try harder," I was told. My blackboard work was sloppy so I asked my parents to buy me a chalkboard. I practiced writing on it and found I had to use my arms differently than when I wrote on paper. One day, Ms. Rhiner told me that she would help me with my handwriting in a few weeks. The promise excited me. I practiced harder and harder. I drew lines, big circles, then large letters that covered the entire board. Often I wrote an "a" backwards; I knew that my right side was towards the storage room door but that did not seem to stop me from reversing letters. Sometimes, when I tried to correct an error I would continue to write the letter wrong again and again and again. I had to wait until my chalk broke before I could stop. (Later, I learned to call these incidents "closed circuits of failure.") When I mastered drawing large letters, I practiced making them small.

Then came the day when Ms. Rhiner offered to help me with my handwriting during recess. She told me to write my name on the blackboard. I held the chalk carefully in order not to break it and I drew each letter meticulously. Even the "e," the hardest letter in "Dale," was perfect. I stepped back proudly.

"Why Dale," Ms. Rhiner said, "That's very good! Maybe your basic problem is carelessness."

I was so furious I could not reply. I glared at her and ran outside.

"Dale," she called after me, "I'm sorry."

"Carelessness"! I knew that was not my problem. I had worked hard to write well. My handwriting had improved; Ms. Rhiner tore up fewer of my papers. Then what was the problem? Why did I always wiggle in my chair? Why did my muscles have a mind of their own? And why did I write so slowly?

I thought of the story in one of our readers of Glenn Cunningham, the first American to run the four-minute mile. As a child, his legs had been burned in a fire and everyone told him he would never walk again. But he struggled and one day he took his first step. Everyone was amazed. His mother hugged him and the doctor congratulated him. Everyone was happy. He practiced walking and then running. He practiced and practiced until he ran the four-minute mile.

The story inspired me but it also upset me. Suppose when he had risen from his bed and walked, everyone had said, "Well, now you see what you can do if you try." Suppose nobody had hugged him. Would he have been able to achieve his record-breaking feat?

I studied my hands and legs. There was nothing wrong with them but they just did not do what I told them to. I had to practice and practice like Glenn Cunningham but my efforts received no recognition. As an adult, I have words for my confused feelings then: I was jealous of Glenn Cunningham's handicap. It had a name: burned legs. Everyone admired him when he walked. My handicap had no name.

"It helps," I thought, "to pretend I am Glenn Cunningham. When I work hard, I improve. If everyone says I'm not trying, I must not be trying; and because I really am not trying, no one helps me. Nobody ever says, "Good girl" to me. So I'll tell it to myself: "I am a good girl. I am a good girl."

Fifth grade, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Time went slowly then. Each second clicked by individually. I hated myself but I never gave up trying. During the summers, I learned how to swim. The Red Cross taught swimming in four two-week classes. Beginner, Intermediate, Junior, and Swimmer. It took me a full summer to complete each class.

I still had trouble in gym. In team games, I had to choose between doing nothing and infuriating my teachers or trying to participate and infuriating my peers. In gymnastics, I had to walk along a balance beam; I often fell off. My peers changed their methods of teasing me: They greeted me in an exaggerated manner or laughed at me behind my back. In eighth grade, my picture was crossed out of many yearbooks.

My grades were poor. I worked hard but my efforts were not recognized or rewarded; most of my grades were C's. One teacher flunked me, explaining, "You're getting an E for effort."

A particular incident stands out in my mind. I was practicing throwing a ball against the wall and catching it. A student teacher came over and said, "Dale, can I help you with that? Let's play catch."

"You'd better not work with me," I said.

"Why not?"

"I'm a very unrewarding child to work with."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm unrewarding." After a silence I explained. "Look, a lot of teachers have given up on me. You'll have more fun with the other kids. I'll just frustrate you." We stared at each other and then she turned away. I went back to throwing and catching the ball. I had caught it 10 out of 10 times. I took a step backwards to see how well I did.

In retrospect, I know that this young teacher thought she was being helpful. She already had firmly set in her mind the kind of help she wanted to offer but she had no intention of finding out what I needed. I was acting in a determined, disciplined manner, throwing the ball against the wall over and over and catching it, which is rare for a 13-year-old child; she gave me no positive reinforcement for my self-discipline but, instead, interrupted my activity. When she offered to "help" me by playing, her voice was condescending. I knew from past experience with teachers that her patience would not last long. Most teachers had short attention spans, at least when it came to me.

I am also interested, in retrospect, in how I knew that I was an "unrewarding" child. I must have overheard more than one person so describing me - why, otherwise, would the word have come so quickly to my lips?

In French class that year we had to memorize dialogues and recite them. I used to wait in dread for my turn because when I stood up all I could do was stutter. I was given a D in the course and the counselor called me in to discuss the grade.

"I can't memorize the dialogues," I explained. "I practiced every night; I read them over and over, but it does no good. The words fly out of my mind. It must be a mental block."

We spent an hour together and got nowhere. Finally, she said, "Dale, can't you just pretend the dialogues are words to a song?"

"I can't memorize songs either. Every Christmas I try to learn the carols again. I listen. I look at the words, I have friends say the words and I repeat them, but it doesn't help."

We sat silently. How close we were to the core of my problems! However, at that time, the theory that would have explained me to myself did not exist. Although the counselor could offer me nothing, I thanked her and left.

My high school years also went slowly. The teachers were less alert and less caring, perhaps because there were so many of us in each class and they had troubles of their own. For example, one English teacher was assigned to teach geography. Our math teacher, who had never learned the new math, was told to teach it; every day, before class, the department head tutored her for the next day's lesson. Everything in my life was such a struggle for me at that time that I just stopped struggling to do well in school.

My vision was a problem. Things seemed to melt together so that it was hard for me to find the lock on my locker or a book on a shelf. I had no social skills. In group projects, such as cooking or putting up a tent, I did not know how to help. And the flow of conversation was difficult for me to master. It took months of watching before I understood how people interrupted each other. Even so, I could not learn how to use the signals with ease.

When I was admitted to Pitzer College (Los Angeles), I was excited by the prospect of a new beginning. I determined to study hard. I hoped to make new friends; certainly my high school reputation could not follow me. Yet other students still shied away from me. I often ate alone in the large noisy cafeteria because it was difficult for me to recognize familiar faces at a distance while I balanced my tray. People said I ignored them when they called to me. I made a disciplined effort to make friends. I kept a notebook of people's names, classes, and other information and I reviewed the lists each night. I learned to tell whether I was speaking loudly or softly by holding a hand to my throat. Finally, I found some friends. We always sat at the same table in the cafeteria and frequently we were joined by other students. My group interaction skills improved but most students thought of me as a "weirdo." I could not understand why.

Academically, the college was difficult. In some of my classes I could not seem to hold the necessary facts in my head. By the end of the first semester, I had dropped one course, and had two incompletes and one B. The next semester I not only had to carry on my normal course work but, also, to complete the incompletes. I consulted with upperclassmen and chose easier classes. I gave up my attempts to socialize and worked day and night. By the end of the year, I had A's and one B.

I applied to Antioch College because of their work-study program and their nontraditional approach to education. When I was accepted, I hoped once again to make a new start. The first night there, my roommate Sandy and I talked until morning. On the way to breakfast, we were joined by Betty, who lived across the hall, and several other dorm residents. While we were eating, Sandy said, "You know Dale, it's funny, but it was easier talking to you last night. Your staring bugs me!"

"Me, too!" said Betty. "I really like you, though. Is something wrong with your eyes?"

"I think so," I replied, "But I don't know what."

"Lots of people stare," said Allen. "It doesn't bother me at all."

"You're not sitting across from her," said Sandy. "I feel as if she's looking right through me."

After breakfast, I went to my Principles of Education class. There were six of us. The professor began an exciting discussion and I had a lot to say, but I could not seem to get my words in. In the middle of the class, the professor said, "Dale, what's happening? You start to talk and then stop yourself."

"I don't want to interrupt anyone," I told him.

He said, "This sounds like a group problem."

The other five members of the class explained that they expected me to interrupt them and they were interested in my views. "How can we help?" the professor asked.

"Well, will you call on me when you want me to speak?"

"Okay. I'll try to remember. Anyone else can call on you, too. Now, how did you react to Tom's comments on free education?"

Antioch College enabled me to socialize. Many students had been through encounter and sensitivity groups and they gave and received feedback freely. Group projects were common. I learned the things about myself that bother people and I corrected them. I constantly reminded myself to blink and to move my eyes from person to person as each spoke. The movements confused me visually but they made other people more comfortable. I stopped jumping at the slightest sound and turned my eyes and head towards what I wanted to see. In fact, I became tense because of the constant awareness of my body. It was worth it because peers avoided me less.

We went to school all year in four alternating quarters of work and study. Jobs could be taken anywhere in the world. Thus, every three months, my peer group changed. As I improved, my reputation did not drag me back into old behaviors. I mastered conversational signals, after several years, and could speak without interrupting other people. Yet, I always had to strain to understand and keep up. I had to think about what came naturally to others. And my handicap still had no name. There was no apparent reason for the effort I had to make.

Things came to a head when I was employed as a factory worker at an electronics assembly company. I knew that I would be working on tasks requiring excellent coordination but I felt ready; my vision and motor abilities had improved. I was optimistic that the job would help me to overcome my handicap.

On my first day, Marie, my supervisor, led me into a small rectangular room where two long tables stood in the middle, workbenches were placed against three walls, and floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the fourth wall. Large machines sat on one of the center tables and an oven stood near the door. Marie sat me down at one of the workbenches and started instructing me. When I pulled out a pad to make notes, she objected and I put the pad away. She gave me a razor blade and showed me my task.

I was supposed to strip the encasing rubber and insulation from three wires and then to twist the copper strands slightly. No matter how hard I tried, and despite Marie's efforts to help me, I could not find the right amount of pressure to put on the blade. I cut my fingers again and again.

After four hours, Marie said, "Dale, you've caused too much scrap. You can try again tomorrow. Right now, I'm giving you another job - putting together probes." She took me to a winch. Once again, I took out my notebook and again she objected because "it will take forever if you do." She picked up a metal rod from the table. "Now you put this bar on the winch"-she turned the knob on the side of the winch-"then you screw this top on." The "top" was a large silver ball.

"How did you get the rod to fit in the winch?" I asked.

"I just explained that!"

"Well, I probably wasn't listening while you turned that knob because I needed to see how you did it."

Her face grew grim. She went through the procedure again with a running commentary. When the probe was assembled she stood aside and said, "Now you do it."

I had no idea where to begin. I had forgotten the first thing she said. She prompted me, "You put the rod in the winch."

My eyes, however, could not find the metal rods on the silvery table. When I asked where they were, she retorted, "Right in front of your nose!" She lifted one from the pile in front of me.

I put the rod in the winch and turned the knob. "You're loosening it!" I nodded and switched directions. After 30 minutes of my errors, she let me take notes. Then it took another half hour while I drew my diagrams. When we finished, she exclaimed, "It took me an hour to teach you what should have taken 10 minutes." I used my diagrams to remember how to put 20 probes together. Marie informed me that it took the average worker half the time.

I was determined not to become an outcast. I sat straight and proud. I ignored putdowns. I not only avoided verbal replies but made sure my body language remained unaffected. When Marie taught me, I kept my voice matter-of-fact, although I knew my questions were unreasonable. I apologized calmly and took responsibility for my mistakes. I was proud as I improved, yet I remained significantly slower and less accurate than the other workers.

Huge metal racks to heat the probes were on many work tables. One day, Marie said, "Go to the second shelf from the top of the third set from the left side. On the right of the shelf, there are some plastic drawers and on the right compartment of the bottom drawer, you'll find about 100 bolts. Sit next to Barbara and help her. She'll tell you what she's doing."

I walked towards the shelves, trying to hold the instructions in my mind.

"Dale!" Marie said.

I was so startled I banged into a rack. It was hot.

I looked at my arm. A patch of skin turned red, then white. Then the pain hit.

"Which set of plastic drawers?" I asked Marie.

"Dale, what happened to your arm?" asked one of the women.

"It got burned when I banged into that rack."

"Let me see it," said Marie. "That may be serious. Better go to the nurse." As I left, she said, "You didn't even say "Ouch"!" She sounded puzzled.

On the way to the nurse, I thought about it. "If you are a klutz, pain is just part of life. You learn not to say anything and hope people will ignore your clumsiness. What hurts you makes others laugh." As a child, I had fallen on floors and banged into walls; I had learned not to react so no one would make fun of me. Then I thought, "Whatever my problem is, it can't be psychological. I don't hate myself this much."

The nurse put oil and bandages on the burn. She said, "It looks like you'll have a scar for about three years. Maybe longer."

When I returned to my unit, Barbara showed me how to put the bolts on the ceramics. It was easy and I could think as I worked. Something was seriously wrong and everyone sensed it. Something besides my vision and lack of coordination was causing problems. I decided to list my mistakes. I wrote them on the pad I used for job numbers and Marie's instructions. Strangely enough, this activity earned me respect from some coworkers. I resolved not to look at my list until my time was up.

On my last day of work, Marie said, "I guess you got mad at us sometimes and we got mad at you. But I really hope it wasn't too bad."

"I hope it wasn't too bad for you," I replied. "Thank you for your patience."

I left feeling relieved, upset, and guilty.

In my apartment, I studied the error list. Over half my mistakes involved hearing. Hearing! I knew that my vision and touch were off. I knew I was clumsy and had no sense of direction. But I had assumed that my hearing was safe. I knew then that I could trust none of my senses. I was depressed for days. When my depression did not lift, I made an appointment at the college counseling center.

"I had some problems on my last job," I explained to the counselor, "and I hoped talking to an adult might help." I told her everything that had happened, and showed her my list of errors. "My boss always yelled at me. She said it took me too long to learn things. I was so clumsy I cut my fingers with the razor blades and burned myself severely." I showed her the scar. "Anyway, I'm here because I don't know what's going on. My unconscious mind can't hate me this much! I feel upset, but I don't feel crazy."

She asked me many questions. Finally, she said, "It sounds to me as if you might have perceptual problems. Your hearing difficulties sound like auditory sequencing problems."

"Auditory sequencing problems?" I questioned.

"Problems in hearing sounds in the right order. That's why you always have to write down what you hear. Our staff can give you the Wepman test of auditory discrimination." (I scored in the lowest five percent in my ability to hear sounds over background noise.)

The counselor continued, "Your visual and auditory problems and inability to tell right from left sound like perceptual problems, trouble taking in information through your senses. You really fit the constellation well. Why don't you read a textbook on learning disabilities? Most of them have a section on perception. I wish there was more I could suggest, but there are really no tests for people your age."

At the library the next day, I found that there was no catalogue category for learning disabilities, so I went to the special education stacks. I found plenty of material on physical and mental handicaps but nothing I could identify as my area of concern. After several hours of browsing, I came upon Psychology of Exceptional Children and Youth (Cruickshank, 1963). One chapter was called "Psychological Characteristics of Brain-Injured Children" by Cruickshank & Paul. I had to read it several times before I could fully absorb the contents.

The characteristics described by the authors appeared to be a problem-by-problem profile of myself. Hyperactivity ("always in motion and - always double time"). Hyperdistractibility ("inability to focus attention selectively on one major aspect of a situation - overresponse to external stimuli and "overresponse to internal stimuli"). I thought, "So that was why they always said I wasn't paying attention!" I looked at the wall in front of me. I had learned always to study in isolated places where I was not distracted by the passage of people and the rustling of pages.
Perseveration ("the lack of impulse control of a motor act of some kind"). I remembered writing the wrong letter on the blackboard over and over and over again - "closed failure circuits."

Lability of affect (emotional instability; overreaction). The chapter described a 10-year-old girl who burst into tears "accompanied by loud sobs" when she accomplished a task upon which she had been engaged for several days. I was not surprised. "Maybe she had been working on it for months which the researcher didn't know about," I thought. "Even the researcher didn't understand that it was normal for her to cry; these handicaps can be hard and frustrating."

Motor dysfunction ("difficulties in gross and fine motor movements - the inability to move one's body in a synchronized and integrated fashion"). No wonder I was such a klutz!

Later, the chapter explained the perceptual distortions that afflict the brain-injured child: "figure ground disturbances"the brain-injured child is unable to attend to the figure. The background becomes highly distractible to the child and he is forced to respond to it." I wondered if that explained why my vision seemed to melt things together and why I had trouble seeing a dish on a shelf or a knob on a piece of equipment.

Auditory problems ("sounds run together and are not integrated into a meaningful sequence or pattern").

All my problems had been described in the 20 pages of the chapter. I was not crazy. I had an identifiable medical syndrome. I was not alone any more. Looking back, I could identify the attitudes which had helped my development and those which had hindered it. I had not been diagnosed as a child. It is quite likely at that time that school personnel and doctors did not know about my minimal brain dysfunction. This fact, perhaps, helps to explain the swiftness and harshness of people's judgments. My low performance was always seen in terms of "carelessness" and "not trying," an attitude that led to a workload which was heavy almost to the point of cruelty. Because I was funny-looking and not socially adept, my peers had teased me a great deal. The same elements that made me the butt of my peers created problems for me with some teachers. As I grew older, the overt teasing stopped but people avoided me.

People with a visible disability are given positive reinforcement for what they can do. We admire the person in a wheelchair who travels around the country in a motorized van or the blind television talk-show host; the blind person who learns cane mobility receives positive reinforcement from the teacher. On the other hand, people with invisible handicaps are expected to attain the norm without effort. They rarely receive credit for their attempts; they are criticized for having trouble in the first place.

I recommend that parents and teachers of learning disabled/minimal brain damaged children talk frankly about the handicap and its manifestations and express confidence that the children can handle it. It is important to recognize and reinforce the discipline it takes a person to overcome this handicap. Ironically, a direct challenge (i.e., "You will never learn to drive a car") can be more motivating than the serene belief that one can achieve something easily (i.e., "You could read that if only you tried a little harder"). A helpful approach when an LD student is having difficulty with a task like math might be to say "I know you're having trouble with that math. I like the way you're working hard at it. Do you think you can finish seven problems by the end of the period? That way, you would do even better than yesterday!" Sincere approval is very motivating.

Specific feedback, whether negative or positive, helped me. For example, at Antioch, for the first time, people stopped and analyzed what it was about me that bothered them. Sandy, who told me not to stare, and my factory supervisor, who let me know exactly how I compared with other workers, gave me useful information. Lenora Johnson, my fourth-grade teacher, was the person who started my career as a writer. It helped me when my professor in Principles of Education stopped the class to find out why I was starting to speak and then stopping myself. What was happening was that as soon as I got the words ready to say, someone else was talking. The behavior had occurred in many groups, but
that professor was the first person to encourage me to participate. He also encouraged everyone in the class to help me, setting the stage for acceptance rather than rejection.

The counselor who tried to understand why I got a D in French gave me sympathetic attention which was helpful. It is too bad neither of us were able to generalize that I had trouble remembering what I heard.

My parents never lost faith in me and gave me a tremendous amount of support. My mother taught me how to read. Despite my many hair-raising escapades, she guided me with a firm hand but never overprotected me. My father helped to teach me how to drive. He helped me to develop social skills by role-playing critical incidents.

Perhaps the counselor who told me that she thought I had perceptual problems was the most helpful character in my story. Learning about my problem changed me from a person who hated herself to someone who likes herself and knows that she is struggling with a real handicap. My problems have not changed but my attitude has.

Reference
Cruickshank, W. (Ed.). Psychology of exceptional children and youth (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963.

This article was first published in Reflections on Growing Up Disabled, Edited by Reginald L. Jones. The book was published in 1983, A product of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Handicapped and Gifted Children and Council for Exceptional Children.

Learning Disabilities Association of America
4156 Library Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15234-1349
Phone (412) 341-1515 Fax (412) 344-0224
www.LDAAmerica.org

© 2004 LDA of America

Why the Catholic church can't ignore science

2009-02-12T12:59:00.002-06:00

Piazza San Pietro and St Peter's Basilica Rome, Italy (Image: Johannes Simon / WestEnd61 / Rex)

IN DECEMBER, with great fanfare, the Vatican released Dignitas Personae, its latest report on bioethics. Sad to say, the document demonstrates once more that a morality rooted in outdated, pre-scientific understanding is not appropriate to modern realities.

I refer not to the hot-button issues of abortion or stem cell research but to the Catholic church's continued opposition to a decidedly pro-life medical intervention: in vitro fertilisation. The moral basis of the Vatican's opposition seems to be twofold: that only conception achieved through the sexual union of a man and a woman is sacred, and that the fertilised cell that results from such a union has a soul and therefore the dignity of a person.

Even before IVF was attempted, the Catholic church opposed it with the suggestion, as I understand it, that a baby conceived by this method would not have a soul. This objection was dropped after the first IVF babies were born and found to be like all other babies, growing up to be normal human beings indistinguishable from their non-IVF counterparts.

But while empirical evidence is the basis of science, faith has different foundations. The pope remains opposed to IVF on the grounds that sexual union is sacred, and therefore only conception achieved through sexual union accords sufficient dignity to the end product. I have to wonder, though, whose dignity is enhanced by withholding medically viable methods that have allowed infertile couples, now numbering in the millions, to conceive and give birth to children they will love.

Several years ago I was invited to the Vatican for a meeting on the future of the universe and life within it, where scientists and theologians tried to communicate with each other, presumably to allow both sides to enhance their understanding of fundamental issues related to our place in the cosmos.

I began my lecture with the somewhat glib remark that it was important for the theologians to listen to me, but not as important for me, as a scientist, to listen to them. I am not sure the theologians were happy to hear this, but I think discussions during our meeting reinforced the notion that the science-religion interface is, at best, a one-way street. I say that because, as a human being, my understanding of moral issues may or may not be improved by such discussions, but as a scientist my efforts to use empirical data to understand the workings of nature would be largely unaffected by them. Theologians, on the other hand, seem to me to have an obligation to attempt to understand the knowledge about the world that has been gained through science, because only through such knowledge can their theology possibly be consistent.
I thought it was more important for the theologians to listen to me than for me to listen to them

The Catholic church has understood this in other contexts. Official Catholic doctrine, as outlined in the 2004 document Communion and Stewardship, accepts the reality of biological evolution, and that the theory of evolution is compatible with the Bible. It has had to recognise that it would be fruitless to claim that evolution is inconsistent with a belief in God, because evolution did occur and is the source of the diversity of life on Earth. A similar argument earlier led the Catholic church to accept the reality of a heliocentric solar system and the existence of other stars and galaxies.

Failure to accept modern biomedical understanding of human conception will keep the church as mired in the past as it was when it opposed Galileo's understanding of the nature of our solar system. And as long as it allows the foundations of its morality to be fixed in the past, ignoring advances based on changing knowledge, its moral authority will remain questionable.

Lawrence Krauss is director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University in Phoenix

The credit crunch could be a boon for irrational belief

2009-02-12T11:02:00.000-06:00

SCIENCE has allowed us to smooth over many of the natural ups and downs of human existence. We have predictable harvests, food on supermarket shelves, savings and pensions that will help us get through difficult times, and economies that provide most people with what they need to survive. Alongside these developments a rational, scientific world view has become the dominant mode of thought.

Take the comforts away, however, and the rationality often evaporates too. When human beings lose control over their lives, they become more prone to superstition, spiritual searchings and conspiracy theories.

Some of these losses of control are self-inflicted: studies show that people in risky professions - deep-sea fishermen and sky-divers, for example - perform a greater number of superstitious rituals than those with safe desk jobs. Others, though, are a response to circumstances. For example, people living in high-risk areas of the Middle East, such as Tel Aviv, are much more likely to carry a lucky charm or avoid walking under ladders. A 2007 study showed that the growth rate of evangelical churches in the US jumps 50 per cent with the downturn of each economic cycle. The global downturn is no different: church leaders (and psychics) are now reporting brisk business.

Uncertain times cause us to cast about more widely for explanations of our circumstances - and rational reasoning, alas, does not always come naturally when we are desperate for answers. It is ironic that science is revealing our modern, sophisticated, scientific world view to have a fragile hold on our minds (see "Natural born believers"). But there are also lessons to be learned. First, we ought to be more understanding of seemingly irrational world views. Many psychologists now see irrationality as the default state of the human mind. No wonder the idea that life arose spontaneously has such a hard time trumping creationism: overcoming that "natural" perspective takes a lot of cognitive effort. Research into irrationality may also provide insights to help guide the treatment of those suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder and related mental illnesses.
It is ironic that science is revealing our sophisticated, scientific world view to have a fragile hold

The other lesson is more direct: be careful. In a recession, or any other time of uncertainty, you are more likely to make bad decisions. By all means play the lottery if it provides a momentary diversion from the gloom. But keep your head. However seductive and comforting the idea of a win, and however tricky your circumstances, playing the lottery is not a rational path to riches. Even if God did tell you this week's numbers.

Born believers: How your brain creates God

2009-02-12T10:37:00.005-06:00

Michelangelo's painting The Creation of the First Man is in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. Human beings have a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times (Image: Alinari/Rex)

Read our related editorial: The credit crunch could be a boon for irrational belief

WHILE many institutions collapsed during the Great Depression that began in 1929, one kind did rather well. During this leanest of times, the strictest, most authoritarian churches saw a surge in attendance.

This anomaly was documented in the early 1970s, but only now is science beginning to tell us why. It turns out that human beings have a natural inclination for religious belief, especially during hard times. Our brains effortlessly conjure up an imaginary world of spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world. It seems that our minds are finely tuned to believe in gods.

Religious ideas are common to all cultures: like language and music, they seem to be part of what it is to be human. Until recently, science has largely shied away from asking why. "It's not that religion is not important," says Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University, "it's that the taboo nature of the topic has meant there has been little progress."

The origin of religious belief is something of a mystery, but in recent years scientists have started to make suggestions. One leading idea is that religion is an evolutionary adaptation that makes people more likely to survive and pass their genes onto the next generation. In this view, shared religious belief helped our ancestors form tightly knit groups that cooperated in hunting, foraging and childcare, enabling these groups to outcompete others. In this way, the theory goes, religion was selected for by evolution, and eventually permeated every human society (New Scientist, 28 January 2006, p 30)

The religion-as-an-adaptation theory doesn't wash with everybody, however. As anthropologist Scott Atran of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor points out, the benefits of holding such unfounded beliefs are questionable, in terms of evolutionary fitness. "I don't think the idea makes much sense, given the kinds of things you find in religion," he says. A belief in life after death, for example, is hardly compatible with surviving in the here-and-now and propagating your genes. Moreover, if there are adaptive advantages of religion, they do not explain its origin, but simply how it spread.

An alternative being put forward by Atran and others is that religion emerges as a natural by-product of the way the human mind works.

That's not to say that the human brain has a "god module" in the same way that it has a language module that evolved specifically for acquiring language. Rather, some of the unique cognitive capacities that have made us so successful as a species also work together to create a tendency for supernatural thinking. "There's now a lot of evidence that some of the foundations for our religious beliefs are hard-wired," says Bloom.

Much of that evidence comes from experiments carried out on children, who are seen as revealing a "default state" of the mind that persists, albeit in modified form, into adulthood. "Children the world over have a strong natural receptivity to believing in gods because of the way their minds work, and this early developing receptivity continues to anchor our intuitive thinking throughout life," says anthropologist Justin Barrett of the University of Oxford.

So how does the brain conjure up gods? One of the key factors, says Bloom, is the fact that our brains have separate cognitive systems for dealing with living things - things with minds, or at least volition - and inanimate objects.

This separation happens very early in life. Bloom and colleagues have shown that babies as young as five months make a distinction between inanimate objects and people. Shown a box moving in a stop-start way, babies show surprise. But a person moving in the same way elicits no surprise. To babies, objects ought to obey the laws of physics and move in a predictable way. People, on the other hand, have their own intentions and goals, and move however they choose.
Mind and matter

Bloom says the two systems are autonomous, leaving us with two viewpoints on the world: one that deals with minds, and one that handles physical aspects of the world. He calls this innate assumption that mind and matter are distinct "common-sense dualism". The body is for physical processes, like eating and moving, while the mind carries our consciousness in a separate - and separable - package. "We very naturally accept you can leave your body in a dream, or in astral projection or some sort of magic," Bloom says. "These are universal views."

There is plenty of evidence that thinking about disembodied minds comes naturally. People readily form relationships with non-existent others: roughly half of all 4-year-olds have had an imaginary friend, and adults often form and maintain relationships with dead relatives, fictional characters and fantasy partners. As Barrett points out, this is an evolutionarily useful skill. Without it we would be unable to maintain large social hierarchies and alliances or anticipate what an unseen enemy might be planning. "Requiring a body around to think about its mind would be a great liability," he says.

Useful as it is, common-sense dualism also appears to prime the brain for supernatural concepts such as life after death. In 2004, Jesse Bering of Queen's University Belfast, UK, put on a puppet show for a group of pre-school children. During the show, an alligator ate a mouse. The researchers then asked the children questions about the physical existence of the mouse, such as: "Can the mouse still be sick? Does it need to eat or drink?" The children said no. But when asked more "spiritual" questions, such as "does the mouse think and know things?", the children answered yes.
Default to god

Based on these and other experiments, Bering considers a belief in some form of life apart from that experienced in the body to be the default setting of the human brain. Education and experience teach us to override it, but it never truly leaves us, he says. From there it is only a short step to conceptualising spirits, dead ancestors and, of course, gods, says Pascal Boyer, a psychologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. Boyer points out that people expect their gods' minds to work very much like human minds, suggesting they spring from the same brain system that enables us to think about absent or non-existent people.

The ability to conceive of gods, however, is not sufficient to give rise to religion. The mind has another essential attribute: an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even where there is none. "You see bushes rustle, you assume there's somebody or something there," Bloom says.

This over-attribution of cause and effect probably evolved for survival. If there are predators around, it is no good spotting them 9 times out of 10. Running away when you don't have to is a small price to pay for avoiding danger when the threat is real.

Again, experiments on young children reveal this default state of the mind. Children as young as three readily attribute design and purpose to inanimate objects. When Deborah Kelemen of the University of Arizona in Tucson asked 7 and 8-year-old children questions about inanimate objects and animals, she found that most believed they were created for a specific purpose. Pointy rocks are there for animals to scratch themselves on. Birds exist "to make nice music", while rivers exist so boats have something to float on. "It was extraordinary to hear children saying that things like mountains and clouds were 'for' a purpose and appearing highly resistant to any counter-suggestion," says Kelemen.

In similar experiments, Olivera Petrovich of the University of Oxford asked pre-school children about the origins of natural things such as plants and animals. She found they were seven times as likely to answer that they were made by god than made by people.

These cognitive biases are so strong, says Petrovich, that children tend to spontaneously invent the concept of god without adult intervention: "They rely on their everyday experience of the physical world and construct the concept of god on the basis of this experience." Because of this, when children hear the claims of religion they seem to make perfect sense.

Our predisposition to believe in a supernatural world stays with us as we get older. Kelemen has found that adults are just as inclined to see design and intention where there is none. Put under pressure to explain natural phenomena, adults often fall back on teleological arguments, such as "trees produce oxygen so that animals can breathe" or "the sun is hot because warmth nurtures life". Though she doesn't yet have evidence that this tendency is linked to belief in god, Kelemen does have results showing that most adults tacitly believe they have souls.

Boyer is keen to point out that religious adults are not childish or weak-minded. Studies reveal that religious adults have very different mindsets from children, concentrating more on the moral dimensions of their faith and less on its supernatural attributes.

Even so, religion is an inescapable artefact of the wiring in our brain, says Bloom. "All humans possess the brain circuitry and that never goes away." Petrovich adds that even adults who describe themselves as atheists and agnostics are prone to supernatural thinking. Bering has seen this too. When one of his students carried out interviews with atheists, it became clear that they often tacitly attribute purpose to significant or traumatic moments in their lives, as if some agency were intervening to make it happen. "They don't completely exorcise the ghost of god - they just muzzle it," Bering says.

The fact that trauma is so often responsible for these slips gives a clue as to why adults find it so difficult to jettison their innate belief in gods, Atran says. The problem is something he calls "the tragedy of cognition". Humans can anticipate future events, remember the past and conceive of how things could go wrong - including their own death, which is hard to deal with. "You've got to figure out a solution, otherwise you're overwhelmed," Atran says. When natural brain processes give us a get-out-of-jail card, we take it.

That view is backed up by an experiment published late last year (Science, vol 322, p 115). Jennifer Whitson of the University of Texas in Austin and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, asked people what patterns they could see in arrangements of dots or stock market information. Before asking, Whitson and Galinsky made half their participants feel a lack of control, either by giving them feedback unrelated to their performance or by having them recall experiences where they had lost control of a situation.

The results were striking. The subjects who sensed a loss of control were much more likely to see patterns where there were none. "We were surprised that the phenomenon is as widespread as it is," Whitson says. What's going on, she suggests, is that when we feel a lack of control we fall back on superstitious ways of thinking. That would explain why religions enjoy a revival during hard times.

So if religion is a natural consequence of how our brains work, where does that leave god? All the researchers involved stress that none of this says anything about the existence or otherwise of gods: as Barratt points out, whether or not a belief is true is independent of why people believe it.

It does, however, suggests that god isn't going away, and that atheism will always be a hard sell. Religious belief is the "path of least resistance", says Boyer, while disbelief requires effort.

These findings also challenge the idea that religion is an adaptation. "Yes, religion helps create large societies - and once you have large societies you can outcompete groups that don't," Atran says. "But it arises as an artefact of the ability to build fictive worlds. I don't think there's an adaptation for religion any more than there's an adaptation to make airplanes."
I don't think there's an adaptation for religion any more than there's an adaptation to make airplanes

Supporters of the adaptation hypothesis, however, say that the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. As David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton University in New York state points out, elements of religious belief could have arisen as a by-product of brain evolution, but religion per se was selected for because it promotes group survival. "Most adaptations are built from previous structures," he says. "Boyer's basic thesis and my basic thesis could both be correct."

Robin Dunbar of the University of Oxford - the researcher most strongly identified with the religion-as-adaptation argument - also has no problem with the idea that religion co-opts brain circuits that evolved for something else. Richard Dawkins, too, sees the two camps as compatible. "Why shouldn't both be correct?" he says. "I actually think they are."

Ultimately, discovering the true origins of something as complex as religion will be difficult. There is one experiment, however, that could go a long way to proving whether Boyer, Bloom and the rest are onto something profound. Ethical issues mean it won't be done any time soon, but that hasn't stopped people speculating about the outcome.

It goes something like this. Left to their own devices, children create their own "creole" languages using hard-wired linguistic brain circuits. A similar experiment would provide our best test of the innate religious inclinations of humans. Would a group of children raised in isolation spontaneously create their own religious beliefs? "I think the answer is yes," says Bloom.

Read our related editorial: The credit crunch could be a boon for irrational belief
God of the gullibile

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues that religion is propagated through indoctrination, especially of children. Evolution predisposes children to swallow whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them, he argues, as trusting obedience is valuable for survival. This also leads to what Dawkins calls "slavish gullibility" in the face of religious claims.

If children have an innate belief in god, however, where does that leave the indoctrination hypothesis? "I am thoroughly happy with believing that children are predisposed to believe in invisible gods - I always was," says Dawkins. "But I also find the indoctrination hypothesis plausible. The two influences could, and I suspect do, reinforce one another." He suggests that evolved gullibility converts a child's general predisposition to believe in god into a specific belief in the god (or gods) their parents worship.

Michael Brooks is a writer based in Lewes, UK. He is the author of 13 Things That Don't Make Sense.

Body Language Reveals Wealth

2009-02-10T19:34:00.001-06:00

Jeanna Bryner
Senior Writer
LiveScience.com jeanna Bryner
senior Writer
livescience.com Tue Feb 10, 1:05 pm ET

A flashy handbag or Armani suit can signal a person's wealth, but so can their body language, according to a new study. People of higher socioeconomic status are more rude when conversing with others.

Psychologists Michael Kraus and Dacher Keltner of the University of California, Berkeley, videotaped pairs of undergraduate students who were strangers to one another, during one-on-one interviews. In total, 100 undergraduate students participated.

The researchers then looked for certain gestures that indicate level of interest in the other person during one-minute slices of each conversation.

They found that students whose parents were from higher socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds engaged in more of what he called "impolite" behaviors, such as grooming, doodling and fidgeting. Lower SES students showed more "I'm interested" gestures, including laughter and raising of the eyebrows

The higher SES students fidgeted with nearby objects for an average of two seconds, while those from lower SES backgrounds almost never fidgeted during the 60-second clips. Upper SES students also groomed themselves for short stints while lower SES students didn't. Rather, the lower SES students nodded their heads, laughed and raised their eyebrows an average of one to two seconds more than their upper SES counterparts.

"We're talking seconds here, but that is a pretty big difference when you consider that we coded one minute of interaction time," Kraus told LiveScience. "So how many times a day are you nodding if you're lower socioeconomic status?"

It comes down to our animalistic tendencies, Kraus explained. Like a peacock's tail, the seemingly snooty gestures of higher SES students indicates modern society's version of "I'm fit," and "I don't need you."

"In the animal world, conflict arises when you're battling for status. So it's adaptive for us to avoid those conflicts and tell us we know 'I'm higher status than you, so don't bother having a conflict with me,'" Kraus figures.

Lower SES individuals can't afford to brush off others. "Lower SES people have fewer resources, and by definition should be more dependent on others," Kraus said.

The research is detailed in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science.

* 10 Things You Didn't Know About You
* Mere Thought of Money Makes People Selfish
* Simple Gesturing Helps Students Learn

* Original Story: Body Language Reveals Wealth

LiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

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Study Finds No Benefit From Daily Multivitamin

2009-02-10T18:14:00.000-06:00

February 9, 2009, 4:42 pm

Multivitamins are the most commonly used diet supplement, but new research shows that daily multivitamin use doesn’t ward off cancer or heart disease.

In a study of 161,808 women who were part of the government-funded Women’s Health Initiative research effort, doctors from 40 centers around the country collected data on multivitamin use. While research shows that people who eat nutrient-rich diets filled with fruits and vegetables have lower rates of heart disease and cancer, it hasn’t been clear whether taking a daily supplement results in a similar benefit.

After following the women for about eight years, they looked at rates of various cancers and heart problems among the 42 percent of women who were regular multivitamin users, and compared them to those who didn’t take vitamins. The researchers found no evidence of any benefit from multivitamin use in any of 10 categories studied, including no differences in the rate of breast or colon cancer, heart attack, stroke, blood clots or mortality. The findings were published in the current issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The finding that multivitamins produced no benefit in such a large, well-regarded study is disappointing, given that some earlier research has produced mixed results. While some earlier studies failed to show a benefit of daily multivitamin use, other research has suggested a possible benefit for colon and breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. However, those data were collected from less rigorous studies, and researchers say the lack of a benefit measured in the Women’s Health Initiative is a “robust finding.” In the tightly controlled W.H.I. trials, data from women were copiously collected, and participants actually brought vitamin bottles to W.H.I. centers so supplement use could be confirmed by researchers.

“We have very detailed information on what people were taking measured over a period of many years,” said Marian Neuhouser, the lead author and associate member in cancer prevention at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “We thought there could be a modestly reduced risk, but there is nothing. There is no helpful benefit, but they’re not hurting either.”

About half of all Americans use some form of vitamin or dietary supplement, spending $20 billion annually on the products. In a statement, the vitamin industry trade group, the Council for Responsible Nutrition, said the study shouldn’t dissuade consumers from using multivitamins, since many of them aren’t getting essential nutrients in their diets.

“From a practical standpoint, this study does not change the fact that the majority of consumers could benefit from taking an affordable multivitamin,” said Andrew Shao, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs with the council. “It is better to meet these recommendations than not, and consistently taking a multivitamin over the long term could help fill these nutrient gaps and may help consumers lead healthier lives.”

Dr. Neuhouser said she realizes that many people who are devoted vitamin users will be skeptical of the finding that they are receiving no benefit from a daily multivitamin.

“I don’t want to disparage people who take multivitamins — it’s their choice as a consumer,” Dr. Neuhouser said. “What we’re presenting is the science showing it’s neither beneficial nor harmful. If they want to choose to spend their dollars elsewhere this might be a good place to do so. Perhaps they can buy more fruits and vegetables.”

Stem cell, cloning expert Jerry Yang dead at 49

2009-02-09T01:11:00.002-06:00

Fri Feb 6, 7:17 pm ET

HARTFORD, Conn. – Xiangzhong "Jerry" Yang, a stem cell scientist who successfully cloned the first farm animal in the United States, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 49.

Yang, director of the Center for Regenerative Biology at the University of Connecticut, died Thursday at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, school spokesman David Bauman said Friday.

In 1999, Yang put UConn on the world's scientific map when a Holstein named Amy was born in Storrs. She was the first cloned farm animal in the United States. The world's first cloned animal was Dolly the sheep, created in 1996 in Scotland.

But Yang died before achieving one of his dreams: the cloning of a human embryo for potentially lifesaving stem cells.

Escaping starvation in rural China as a baby in a village about 300 miles south of Beijing, Yang was placed in the prestigious Beijing Agricultural University, where his high test scores earned him a coveted opportunity to pursue a graduate education in the United States.

Yang proved that early reports that clones would age prematurely were false. The Food and Drug Administration relied heavily on Yang's work when it found meat and dairy products from cloned farm animals were safe to eat and drink.

"Jerry was one of the greatest scientists and cloning pioneers of our time," Dr. Robert Lanza, chief science officer at Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, a biotech company which has pursued creating stem cells through cloning, told The Hartford Courant. "He was a really great man who struggled to his last hours to better the world and to advance the scientific cause."

___

Information from: The Hartford Courant, http://www.courant.com

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Common Chemicals Linked to Infertility

2009-02-09T01:08:00.000-06:00

New Study Reveals Possible Link; Experts Say Findings Still Too Preliminary
By CYNTHIA HERRICK, M.D.
ABC News Medical Unit

Jan. 29, 2009—

Could your cookware and cleaning supplies make it harder for you to have a baby?

In the current issue of Human Reproduction, researchers suggest that chemicals called perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs for short, might be linked to delays in getting pregnant. But study authors and experts in the field caution that the findings are preliminary and mainly highlight an area that needs more research.

"The finding is interesting," says one of the study's authors, Joseph K. McLaughlin, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn. "We need to know more about these chemicals because they are long lasting and have had effects in animals."

And until more is known, the researchers say, changes in health policy are unlikely.

"This is the first study in the world that has looked at this particular association," says lead study author Dr. Jorn Olsen, chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health. "Normally we don't base our conclusions on public health information on one study. We need to wait for other studies to make policy recommendations."

PFCs Abound in Everyday Environment

PFCs are everywhere. They're found in Teflon cookware, the original Scotchgard, some shampoos, floor wax, food wrapping, carpet treatments and other cleaning products. PFCs are also present in air and water in the form of industrial waste from chemical plants.

"The whole issue of things in our environment affecting reproduction is important, and any studies that bring attention to it are of value," says Dr. Howard Zacur, professor and director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore.

There have already been animal studies demonstrating the toxic effects of PFCs. "In the laboratory, we've seen negative effects in animals," says Dr. Philip Landrigan, professor and chairman of Community and Preventive Medicine at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. "We're now starting to see studies looking at the impact they [PFCs] have in humans."

The study released Wednesday looked at 1,240 women in the Danish Birth Cohort when they were six to 12 weeks pregnant. If they reported that it took them longer than 12 months to get pregnant or if they used drugs designed to increase their chances of conceiving, they were considered to have infertility. This is a generally accepted definition of infertility by experts in the field.

An Apparent Increase in Risk

Researchers found that for higher levels of PFCs in the blood, the odds of infertility increased from 70 to 134 percent for one kind of PFC called PFOS, while another PFC called PFOA was linked to a 60 to 154 percent increase in the chance of infertility. This apparent increase in risk existed even after researchers took other factors into account, such as age of the parents and economic and social factors.

"The most potent aspect of the study ... is that [the researchers] see a 'dose-response relationship,'" Landrigan says, referring to the idea that as the level of exposure goes up, so does the apparent effect on the individual exposed. "When you see that kind of parallel trend, especially for the two PFC compounds they looked at, this is very powerful evidence."

Not So Fast, Researchers Say

But McLaughlin is cautious not to over-interpret the findings. "The major strength of the study is that it is a world-class nationwide longitudinal study of pregnant women. Do I believe that PFCs really affect time to pregnancy? It remains to be seen."

Dr. Richard Paulson, chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the University of Southern California, agrees.

"The study can only show an association and not causation," he says. "The time to pregnancy is dependent on so many different factors that it would be impossible to control for all of them."

In the paper, the authors admit that they did not have information on some other important factors that affect fertility, including the frequency and timing of intercourse and sperm quality.

"Nevertheless, it is provocative to have an association between these chemicals and time to pregnancy," Paulson says. "We should be anxiously awaiting further confirmation of these preliminary results in future, larger, hopefully prospective, studies."

Limiting Your Exposure

The jury is still out on what impact, if any, PFCs have on fertility. Even so, several years ago the U.S. Environmental and Protection Agency negotiated with 3M, the sole manufacturer of PFOS, to stop producing the chemical. Since that time, however, PFOA continues to be used and the EPA does not have enough information to recommend that consumers stop using products that contain it. But they have created a voluntary program for companies to reduce and ultimately eliminate PFOA emissions and product content by 2015.

'Stop Using Teflon'

Landrigan, however, says a more aggressive approach is needed.

"PFCs aren't banned but there are a couple of common sense things people can do to reduce their exposure," he says. "There's a lot we don't know about toxicity but we can use common sense.

"So stop using Teflon frying pans, don't use scotch guard that contains these compounds and, whenever possible, families should think twice about using plastic to store food and should go back to glass."

Michelle Schlief contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

Exposing the Myth of Clean Coal Power

2009-02-09T01:04:00.000-06:00

Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009
By Bryan Walsh

If you paid any attention to last year's Presidential campaign, you'll remember ads touting the benefits of "clean coal" power, sponsored by the industry group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. (The ads featured lumps of coal plugged into an electrical cord.) Designed in part to respond to the growing green campaign against coal power — which accounts for about 30% of U.S. carbon emissions — the ads promised high-tech and eventually carbon-free power, emphasizing coal's low cost compared to alternatives, its abundance in America and its cleanliness.

The "clean coal" campaign was always more PR than reality — currently there's no economical way to capture and sequester carbon emissions from coal, and many experts doubt there ever will be. But now the idea of clean coal might be truly dead, buried beneath the 1.1 billion gallons of water mixed with toxic coal ash that on Dec. 22 burst through a dike next to the Kingston coal plant in the Tennessee Valley and blanketed several hundred acres of land, destroying nearby houses. The accident — which released 100 times more waste than the Exxon Valdez disaster — has polluted the waterways of Harriman, Tenn., with potentially dangerous levels of toxic metals like arsenic and mercury, and left much of the town uninhabitable. (See TIME's special report on the environment.)

More than two weeks after the spill, workers and machines are still trying to clear the estimated 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash from around the plant. The breach "is an environmental catastrophe that reveals not only the dangers of burning coal and mismanaging coal combustion waste, but also the need for federal regulation," said Steven Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, at a Senate hearing on the spill on Jan. 8. After Kingston, coal may be considered many things — but it's hard to see how "clean" could be one of them.

That's because, even putting aside climate change–accelerating carbon dioxide, coal remains a highly polluting source of electricity that has serious impacts on human health, especially among those who live near major plants. Take coal ash, a solid byproduct of burned coal. A draft report last year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the ash contains significant levels of carcinogens, and that the concentration of arsenic in ash, should it contaminate drinking water, could increase cancer risks by several hundred times. A 2006 report by the National Research Council had similar findings. "This is hazardous waste, and it should be classified as such," says Thomas Burke, an environmental risk expert at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the health effects of coal ash.

But the ash isn't currently classified as hazardous waste. Though the EPA in the past has come close to imposing stricter rules on the treatment of coal ash, the agency has repeatedly backed down in the face of opposition from utilities and the coal industry. As a result, hundreds of coal plants around the U.S. are allowed to dump their leftover sludge in unlined wet ponds like the one used by the Kingston facility. Not only does that raise the risk of accidents like the Kingston spill, but the toxins in the ash could seep into the soil or groundwater, contaminating drinking water supplies. Environmentalists would prefer federal regulations that require ash to be buried in lined landfills that would prevent leakage. "You can't talk about clean coal without dealing with this problem," says Eric Schaeffer, the director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which just came out with a new report finding that there are nearly 100 other largely unregulated wet dumps like the Kingston facility across the U.S.

In reality, we can't really talk about clean coal — it doesn't exist. Though the coal industry is right to point out that it has improved filters on coal plants, sending less traditional pollutants like sulfur dioxide and mercury into the air, the toxic waste that remains behind is only growing. The biggest advantage of coal power has been cost — in most cases, it remains much cheaper than cleaner alternatives like wind, solar or natural gas. But the cheapness of coal depends on the fact that external costs — climate change, or the health impacts of air and water pollution from coal — remain external, paid for not by utilities or coal companies but society as a whole. The coal industry itself estimates that taking better care of fly ash could cost as much as $5 billion a year — and if the government imposed a tax or cap on carbon dioxide, the price of coal would certainly rise. "For all the money the industry has spent to mislead the public, [Kingston] shows that there really is no such thing as clean and cheap coal in the U.S," says Bruce Nilles, the director of the Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign.

That's not entirely true. As we grapple with global warming, coal can be cheap or it can be (somewhat) clean. But the sea of ash in Tennessee shows it can't both, and that's a reality we need to face as we plot America's energy future.

Another Stealth Creationist Bill in Alabama

2009-02-09T01:02:00.001-06:00

Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 5:50:34 pm

Emboldened by the success of the stealth creationist bill signed into law by Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, creationists in Alabama are making another attempt to sneak their agenda into schools. This is only the latest in a series of bills masquerading under the language of “academic freedom,” that are really intended to undermine the teaching of the theory of evolution: Antievolution legislation in Alabama.

House Bill 300, introduced in the Alabama House of Representatives on February 3, 2009, by David Grimes (R-District 73) and referred to the House Education Policy Committee, is the latest in a string of “academic freedom” bills aimed at undermining the teaching of evolution. Previous such bills in Alabama — HB 923 (which Grimes also sponsored) in 2008; HB 106 and SB 45 in 2006; HB 352, SB 240, and HB 716 in 2005; HB 391 and SB 336 in 2004 — failed to win passage. In 2004, a cosponsor of SB 336 told the Montgomery Advertiser (February 18, 2004), “This bill will level the playing field because it allows a teacher to bring forward the biblical creation story of humankind.” The text of HB 300 as introduced follows:

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF ALABAMA:

Section 1. This law shall be known as the “Academic Freedom Act.”

Section 2. The Legislature finds that existing law does not expressly protect the right of teachers identified by the United States Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard to present scientific critiques of prevailing scientific theories. The Legislature further finds that existing law does not expressly protect the right of students to hold a position on views. It is the intent of the Legislature that this act expressly protects those rights.

Section 3. Every K-12 public school teacher or teacher or instructor in any two-year or four-year public institution of higher education, or in any graduate or adult program thereof, in the State of Alabama, shall have the affirmative right and freedom to present scientific information pertaining to the full range of scientific views in any curricula or course of learning.

Section 4. No K-12 public school teacher or teacher or instructor in any two-year or four-year public institution of higher education, or in any graduate or adult program thereof, in the State of Alabama, shall be terminated, disciplined, denied tenure, or otherwise discriminated against for presenting scientific information pertaining to the full range of scientific views in any curricula or course of learning, provided, with respect to K-12 teachers, the Alabama Course of Study for Science has been taught as appropriate to the grade and subject assignment.

Section 5. Students may be evaluated based upon their understanding of course materials, but no student in any public school or institution of higher education, shall be penalized in any way because he or she may subscribe to a particular position on any views.

Section 6. The rights and privileges contained in this act apply when topics are taught that may generate controversy, such as biological or chemical origins. Nothing in this act shall be construed as requiring or encouraging any change in the state curriculum standards in K-12 public schools, nor shall any provision of this act be construed as prescribing the curricular content of any course in any two-year or four-year public institution of higher education in the state.

Section 7. Nothing in this act shall be construed as protecting as scientific any view that lacks published empirical or observational support or that has been soundly refuted by empirical or observational science in published scientific debate. Likewise, the protection provided by this act shall not be restricted by any metaphysical or religious implications of a view, so long as the views are defensible from and justified by empirical science and observation of the natural world.

Section 8. Nothing in this act shall be construed as promoting any religious doctrine, promoting discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promoting discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.

Section 9. This act shall become effective on the first day of the third month following its passage and approval by the Governor, or its otherwise becoming law.

On a related subject, here’s an article in the Baptist Standard promoting the deceptive agenda of the Discovery Institute, with a statistic that might surprise you if you haven’t been following the latest creationist resurgence: Intelligent design renews debate between science and religion.

Seven states so far have adopted science standards requiring learning about scientific controversies related to evolution, and a textbook battle currently is raging in Texas.

Unnatural selection: How far will parents go?

2009-02-08T23:58:00.000-06:00

by Marlowe Hood Marlowe Hood Sat Feb 7, 11:02 pm ET

PARIS (AFP) – Picture this: prospective parents excitedly clicking through an online catalogue, ticking off the optimal mix of traits for their yet-to-be-conceived child.

Will they opt for blue eyes or brown. Perhaps green, for a touch of originality? What colour skin? And do they want a boy or a girl?

Are they aiming for an Olympian athlete, or will they stack the deck in favour of intellectual prowess? Why not both?

For some people, this would be a dream come true. For others, a nightmare of widening inequality touching on eugenics.

For biologists, it raises acute questions about evolution.

The principle of species change through natural selection was set down by Charles Darwin, who was born 200 years ago on February 12.

But what "natural selection" means when it comes to Homo sapiens is hard to define. It has already been challenged by medicine, habitat, diet and other factors that affect lifespan, reproduction and survivability.

Genetic selection means our species' evolutionary path would be even more radically changed.

We are not there yet -- but this vision clearly does not belong to the hazy future of science fiction.

Dozens of clinics in the United States, one of the least regulated markets for fertility services, already provide would-be parents in-depth profiles of potential sperm and egg donors.

Atlanta-based Xytex Corporation, for example, offers a long list of genetically-coded physical attributes, right down to the length of eyelashes, the presence of freckles and whether ear lobes are detached.

There is also a summary of the donor's medical history and -- for an additional fee -- personality and educational profiles, a personal essay and photos, as an adult and a baby.

Much of this information has no relation to genetic pedigree and even when it does, the result -- a human child -- may not come out as advertised. But that has not dampened enthusiasm for the tests.

Most heterosexual couples shop in this market to compensate for either male or female infertility.

But there is nothing -- in science or, in some countries, law -- to prevent matching a donor egg with donor sperm to create an embryo that can be purchased and implanted in the buyer's womb.

This option was offered by at least one "embryo bank" in Texas before it reluctantly withdrew the procedure under an ethical firestorm.

Even parents who don't need outside help to procreate may soon be clamouring for "preimplantation genetic diagnosis" of embryos to check not only for genetic defects and disease -- the original intent -- but also for sex and desirable traits as well, experts say.

"We need to look carefully at these selection technologies," said Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, California.

"It is not bad to have a desire for a girl or a boy," she said by phone. "But in chatrooms and on bulletin board you can find moms, for example, that don't just want a girl, but a particular kind of girl -- 'I want to go shopping with her, play Barbie Dolls, paint her toenails pink'."

"What are they going to do if they don't get that kind of kid -- take her back?" she said.

An even more problematic scenario for some is the leap from genetic selection to genetic engineering.

That can happen in two ways. Gene therapy alters genes, for example, in a diseased organ in order to effect a cure.

But changes wrought by so-called germ-line therapy alter the blueprint itself, the human genome, and would thus be passed on to offspring.

"The pressure to change genes will probably come from parents wanting to guarantee their child is a boy or a girl, or to endow them with beauty, intelligence, musical talent or a sweet nature," notes Peter Ward, a scientist at the University of Washington and author of "Future Evolution".

For now, germ-line therapy is out of reach. But were science to master the genome, the temptation to tweak it to increase smarts, looks and longevity would be overwhelming, Ward argued last month in Science.

"One day, we will have it in our power to bring a new human species into this world," he said.

Not all researchers agree. "I think that all of these worries are misplaced -- genetics is far too complex to allow for easy manipulation of human traits," said Steven Pinker, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.

Nearly all diseases and traits are determined not by one or two genes but the interaction of many, he pointed out.

There is no such thing, in other words, as a master gene for intelligence or musicality.

"I doubt that parents would take a risk greater than five percent that something would go wrong," he told AFP. "Testing is easy and safe. Manipulation is hard and risky."

Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.

US Army Reports big Rise in Suicides

2009-02-05T12:31:00.002-06:00

Army reports big rise in suicides last month
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press Writer 18 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The Army is reporting a stunning rise in suicides for last month — with the number likely to surpass combat deaths.

According to figures obtained by The Associated Press, there were 24 suspected suicides in January, compared with just four in January of 2008.

If all 24 are confirmed, that would be higher than the 16 combat deaths reported in all branches of the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan last month.

Officials said Army leaders are alarmed by the monthly figure, and they took the unusual step of briefing congressional leaders on the information Thursday morning.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

My Travels so far

2009-02-01T12:09:00.001-06:00

visited 30 states (13.3%)
Create your own visited map of The World or try another Douwe Osinga project

Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy

2009-01-02T17:40:00.000-06:00

Stunning Break with Last Eight Years

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.
Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.
But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.
According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.
"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."
The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate - we get it, stop showing off."
The President-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.

Reclusive Russian solves 100-year-old maths problem

2008-12-22T18:08:00.000-06:00

A reclusive Russian won the math world's highest honour yestesrday for solving a problem that has stumped some of the discipline's greatest minds for a century but he refused the award.

Grigory Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, won a Fields Medal often described as math's equivalent of the Nobel prize for a breakthrough in topology that experts say might help scientists figure out the shape of the universe.

Besides shunning the award, colleagues say he also seems uninterested in a separate US$1 million prize he is eligible for over his feat: apparently proving the Poincare conjecture, a theorem about the nature of multidimensional space that has been one of math's greatest puzzles for 100 years.

The award, given out only every four years, was announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians. Three other mathematicians Russian Andrei Okounkov, Frenchman Wendelin Werner and Australian Terence Tao also won Fields medals in other areas of mathematics.

They received their awards from King Juan Carlos to loud applause from delegates to the conference. But Perelman was not present.

"I regret that Dr. Perelman has declined to accept the medal," said John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, which is holding the convention.

Ball said later that he had met with Perelman in St. Petersburg in June, told him he had won a Fields medal and urged him to accept it. But Perelman said he felt isolated from the mathematics community and refused the medal because "he does not want to be seen as its figurehead," Ball said. He would not go into detail about why Perelman feels isolated.

Perelman's work is still under review, but no one has found any serious flaw in it, the math union said in a statement.

The Fields medals were founded in 1936 and named after Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields. They carry a stipend of 15,000 Canadian dollars (US$13,400).

The million dollar prize money in the specific Poincare case is separate, and will be announced in about two years by a private foundation called The Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

If his proof stands the test of time, Perelman will win all or part of the US$1 million prize money. In 2000, the institute announced bounties for seven unresolved, historic math problems, including the Poincare conjecture.

Academics have been studying Perelman's proof ever since he left the first of three papers on it on an Internet math archives in November 2002 itself an odd gesture, because normal procedure would have been to seek publication in a peer-approved journal.

Three separate teams have now presented papers or books explaining the details of Perelman's work, and two weeks ago the two-year countdown set by the Clay institute began. During it academics have a final chance to challenge the proof.

Perelman's work draws heavily from a technique developed by another mathematician, Richard Hamilton of Columbia University. The institute says they could conceivably share the money.

Ball said he asked Perelman if he would accept the money. Perelman said that if he won, he would talk to the Clay institute.

The Poincare conjecture, which essentially says that in three dimensions you cannot transform a donut shape into a sphere without ripping it, although any shape without a hole can be stretched or shrunk into a sphere.

Proving the Poincare conjecture an exercise in acrobatics with mindboggling imaginary doughnuts and balls is anything but trivial. Colleagues say Perelman's work gives mathematical descriptions of what the universe might look like and promises exciting applications in physics and other fields.

"It is very important indeed because it really gives us an insight into geometry and in particular the geometry of the space we live in," said Oxford University math professor Marcus du Sautoy. "It does not say what the shape (of the universe) is. It just says, 'look, these are the things it could be."'

Perelman is believed to live with his mother in St. Petersburg, but recent efforts to contact him proved fruitless.

Source: China Daily

AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs

2008-12-21T10:23:00.000-06:00

By FRANK BASS and RITA BEAMISH, Associated Press Writers
1 hr 5 mins ago

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.

"Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!"

The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help. Among the findings:

_The average paid to each of the banks' top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.

_Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company's top five executives received a total of $242 million.

This year, Goldman will forgo cash and stock bonuses for its seven top-paid executives. They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said. Facing increasing concern by its own shareholders on executive payments, the company described its pay plan last spring as essential to retain and motivate executives "whose efforts and judgments are vital to our continued success, by setting their compensation at appropriate and competitive levels." Goldman spokesman Ed Canaday declined to comment beyond that written report.

The New York-based company on Dec. 16 reported its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. It received $10 billion in taxpayer money on Oct. 28.

_Even where banks cut back on pay, some executives were left with seven- or eight-figure compensation that most people can only dream about. Richard D. Fairbank, the chairman of Capital One Financial Corp., took a $1 million hit in compensation after his company had a disappointing year, but still got $17 million in stock options. The McLean, Va.-based company received $3.56 billion in bailout money on Nov. 14.

_John A. Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses with $83 million in earnings last year. Thain, a former chief operating officer for Goldman Sachs, took the reins of the company in December 2007, avoiding the blame for a year in which Merrill lost $7.8 billion. Since he began work late in the year, he earned $57,692 in salary, a $15 million signing bonus and an additional $68 million in stock options.

Like Goldman, Merrill got $10 billion from taxpayers on Oct. 28.

The AP review comes amid sharp questions about the banks' commitment to the goals of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a law designed to buy bad mortgages and other troubled assets. Last month, the Bush administration changed the program's goals, instructing the Treasury Department to pump tax dollars directly into banks in a bid to prevent wholesale economic collapse.

The program set restrictions on some executive compensation for participating banks, but did not limit salaries and bonuses unless they had the effect of encouraging excessive risk to the institution. Banks were barred from giving golden parachutes to departing executives and deducting some executive pay for tax purposes.

Banks that got bailout funds also paid out millions for home security systems, private chauffeured cars, and club dues. Some banks even paid for financial advisers. Wells Fargo of San Francisco, which took $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, gave its top executives up to $20,000 each to pay personal financial planners.

At Bank of New York Mellon Corp., chief executive Robert P. Kelly's stipend for financial planning services came to $66,748, on top of his $975,000 salary and $7.5 million bonus. His car and driver cost $178,879. Kelly also received $846,000 in relocation expenses, including help selling his home in Pittsburgh and purchasing one in Manhattan, the company said.

Goldman Sachs' tab for leased cars and drivers ran as high as $233,000 per executive. The firm told its shareholders this year that financial counseling and chauffeurs are important in giving executives more time to focus on their jobs.

JPMorgan Chase chairman James Dimon ran up a $211,182 private jet travel tab last year when his family lived in Chicago and he was commuting to New York. The company got $25 billion in bailout funds.

Banks cite security to justify personal use of company aircraft for some executives. But Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., questioned that rationale, saying executives visit many locations more vulnerable than the nation's security-conscious commercial air terminals.

Sherman, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said pay excesses undermine development of good bank economic policies and promote an escalating pay spiral among competing financial institutions — something particularly hard to take when banks then ask for rescue money.

He wants them to come before Congress, like the automakers did, and spell out their spending plans for bailout funds.

"The tougher we are on the executives that come to Washington, the fewer will come for a bailout," he said.

___

On the Net:

SEC Filings & Forms: http://www.sec.gov

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act: http://www.treas.gov/initiatives/eesa/

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.