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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 3
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Ex-worker goes on
rampage
at Rohrmoser geriatrics hospital By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A disgruntled ex-employee broke into the public geriatrics hospital early Sunday and went on a rampage that included beating up patients and busting up electronic devices, including flat screen televisions. The Hospital Geriátrico is in Rohrmoser. The man fled before police arrived, but the Judicial Investigating Organization said they had a firm identification of the chief suspect. They said that the man had been fired recently from his job at the hospital. More than a dozen patients were beaten as well as some staff members. None was reported to be in serious condition. The intrusion happened about 5 a.m.  Partido Acción Ciudadana
photo
Luis Guillermo
Solís of Partido Acción Ciudadana spent theweekend going door to door. In this photo he is in Desamparados. Much-awaited
political debate
scheduled tonight at 7 o'clock By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The second of two presidential debates takes place tonight starting at 8 o'clock. This is the one that matches frontrunner Johnny Araya with José María Villalta Florez-Estrada, who may be the main opponent. The debate will be presented on Canal 13, the Sistema Nacional de Radio y Televisión. All 13 candidates have been invited, and six were invited for Sunday night. Only Otto Guevara of Movimiento Libertario and Luis Guillermo Solís of Partido Acción Ciudadana have any chance of winning, although all the candidates hope to attract enough votes to put members of their party in the legislature. The election is Feb. 2, and January is the month with most of the campaigning. The encounter tonight pits center left Partido Liberación Nacional candidate Araya against the man who is being called a Communist. Araya is the former San José mayor. Villalta is an opponent of privatization and the free trade treaty with the United States. Advertising for other parties claims he wants to turn Costa Rica into a Cuba or Venezuela. Another debate is scheduled closer to the election. INTERPOL will not seek arrest of former rebel Edén Pastora By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The International Police Agency no longer seeks the arrest of Edén Pastora, the man in charge of dredging a new mouth for the Río San Juan. The agency lifted its general request for Pastora's arrest. The Judicial Investigating Organization here reported the action. A Costa Rican prosecutor asked for the so-called red notice Oct. 25 because of Pastora's actions in the invasion of Costa Rica. A judge in the Juzgado Penal de Pococí issued the warrant. The investigation alleged the taking of public property, in this case a piece of the country. The Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Nicaragua said that Pastora was working as an employee of the government. Pastora's actions sparked a World Court case brought by Costa Rica. The former Contra rebel has been trying to put through a new mouth to the Río San Juan so that the area could be developed. Costa Rica claims the land where Pastora dug two canals, and claims the work had done massive environmental damage. The International Court of Justice, in a preliminary decision, ordered Nicaragua to fill in the ditches. Utah gun firm rejects deal to avoid harm to U.S. troops By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A U.S. gun manufacturer has turned down a multi-million dollar opportunity to sell arms to Pakistan, citing concerns the weapons would be used against American soldiers. Nick Young, founder of Desert Tech, said on his company's Facebook page that it had been approached to legally supply sniper systems to Pakistan. Young said the Utah-based company's greatest fear was that the equipment might be used against U.S. troops. He said he started the company to protect Americans, not endanger them. He also said that his company employs several military veterans. The contract was reported to be worth as much as $15 million. Sales manager Mike Davis told local media that with the unrest in Pakistan, the company just ended up not feeling right about selling to the South Asian nation. He told the Deseret News that "at the end of the day, we felt our ethics are worth more than the bottom line." The rifles Desert Tech would have sold to Pakistan have the ability to change caliber within minutes and the capacity to shoot as far as 2,700 meters. Weapon sales to allies such as Pakistan are nothing new, but they can be complicated, especially in a country with an al-Qaida presence. The U.S. often targets al-Qaida, Taliban members and their Pakistani supporters in Pakistan's tribal regions. Desert Tech said on its Web site that the company was created "to protect the freedom of the United States of America, our allies and people by providing the most compact, accurate and reliable precision weapons systems in the world." Quake estimated at 4.3 By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
An early afternoon quake rattled the Golfito area Sunday. The epicenter was estimated to be just 6.6 kilometers south southwest of the community on the eastern edge of the Gulfo Dulce. The 4.3 magnitude quake was not felt strongly in the area, according to estimates by the Laboratorio de Ingenieria Sismica at the Universidad de Costa Rica. The time was 1:06 p.m.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 3 | |
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 Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Pública photo
The
Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas maintained patrols during vacation at
many popular beaches.
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| For many it is back to the old grind
after Christmas vacation |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Life returns to normal today in the Central Valley as vacationers return to work, and traffic jams reappear. The festival at Zapote concluded Sunday, and the bulls are headed back to pasture. License restrictions resume today with owners of vehicles with plates ending in 1 or 2 subject to fines if they venture downtown. There is a heavy police presence because officers are seeking those who have not paid their marchamo or road tax. They have been active since the first of the year snagging hundreds with 47,000-colons traffic tickets. That's about $96. The death toll continued to climb over the weekend. There have been at least 10 murders since New Year's Eve, and there were additional traffic deaths to add to those announced Thursday. At that time the Judicial Investigating Organization said there were 17 dead from all causes. A pedestrian died near Nicoya, and a motorcyclist died in Heredia late Saturday night, said judicial agents. |
The Costa Rican bull fights at
Zapote resulted in more than 100 injured, and some were hospitalized.
This is the spectacle where dozens of young men and women enter the
ring with a fighting bull. The televised events had been aired since
Christmas day. The twice-a-day bull fights draw many people who pay admission to enter the grandstands at the rondel or ring at the fairgrounds, and the television rights are sold internationally. Promoters continue to search for ways to please the crowd. Last week an adult midget played bullfighter to a 100-kilo young bull. The man was knocked silly several times, and the crowd cheered. The attraction Sunday appeared to approach suicide. A dozen young men were asked to stand in a ring inscribed on the rondel dirt. The diameter was about 20 feet. Those who could remain in the ring for seven minutes collected 300,000 colons each, more than $600. There were five successful finishers. Some left the ring to avoid being impaled on the horns of a bull. In one case, a bull forcibly removed one contestant, although the man was able to limp from the ring. For much of the day Channel 7 Teletica showed clips of individuals being battered, thrown or stomped by bulls. |
| Concert Sunday
will raise money for Canadian club's charity |
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By
Joan Ritchie Dewar*
Special to A.M. Costa Rica There is a well-known saying: “It takes a village to raise a child…” It takes more than a village to provide education and inspiration to a child, but here’s a musical connection that brings great ideas together. First, there was the charitable arm of the Canadian Club, the Asociación Caritativa Canadiense and its founders Lyn Statten and Fred Boden, who have since the year 2000 championed the need for improved infrastructure in Costa Rican schools. The association’s vision is: “that every Costa Rican child has access to a clean, secure, well-maintained and healthy school environment in which to learn and grow.” The fund-raising has contributed over $300,000 to help schools in 95 needy communities. The money went to repairing badly deteriorating roofs, bathrooms, septic tanks, providing classroom materials, erecting security walls, playgrounds, and more. Then, along came Ms. Statten's Canadian cousin, Cynthia Johnston Turner, who is director of the famed Wind Ensembles at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Professor Johnston’s leadership integrates the theories of her master's thesis on the musical and personal transformations for students that occur on tours. Before joining Cornell, Ms. Johnson Turner received her doctorate in musical arts at the Eastman School of Music, NY where she was the recipient of the Eastman Graduate Teaching Award in conducting. Since January 2006, as director of the Cornell Wind Ensemble, Ms. Johnson Turner has led her students to acclaim on biennial tours to Costa Rica. CUWinds tours include community performances across the country, master classes with Costa Rican teachers, instrument master classes for Costa Rican children, and the donation of over 250 instruments to music schools. Here’s where the Sistema Nacional de Educación Musica connects the dots between CUWinds and the musical school network, arranging for CUWinds’ master classes and community performances. The Sistema Nacional Educación Musical was established in 2007 by the Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud. |
 Cornell University photo
Cynthia Johnston Turner and the
Cornell Wind Ensemble.The system's mandate seeks to give children outside the metropolitan area of San José and in at-risk urban areas opportunity for high quality musical training and education, along with academic studies. Nine music schools and 20 children and youth orchestras are established throughout the country, each in turn performing outreach for further musical education in their communities. CUWinds’ students benefit equally from this partnership, past participants quoted as saying that the tour is “probably the most significant thing I’ll do in my life,” “is an incredible experience,” and “taught me the true meaning of service.” The Cornell Winds 2014 tour includes 45 of the university’s best wind and percussion players. It kicks off Sunday at 4 p.m. with a concert at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in the North American Cultural Center, Los Yoses. The concert will raise funds for the school projects of the Asociación Caritativa Canadiense in many needy communities. Tickets for the concert and a reception afterward are 12,000 colons for adults and 3,000 colons for students. Children under 12 will be admitted free. Tickets can be reserved by contacting Ms. Statten at 2282-1146 or by email to lynstatten@gmail.com. Next on the tour will be performances and master classes plus instrument donations in San Isidro de El General Jan, 13, Buenos Aires de Puntarenas Jan 15 and San Vito Jan. 16. For the first time the tour includes Panama with concerts in David Jan. 17 and in Panama City Jan. 18 and 19. *Ms. Dewar is a member of the Canadian Club of Costa Rica. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 3 | |||||
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| Monkeys determined to be immigrants to the Americas long ago |
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By
the Duke University news service
When monkeys landed in South America 37 or more million years ago, the long-isolated continent already teemed with a menagerie of 30-foot snakes, giant armadillos and strange, hoofed mammals. Over time, the monkeys forged their own niches across the New World, evolved new forms and spread as far north as the Caribbean and as far south as Patagonia. Duke University evolutionary anthropologist Richard Kay applied decades' worth of data on geology, ancient climates and evolutionary relationships to uncover several patterns in primate migration and evolution in the Americas. The analysis appears online in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. Today, more than 150 species of monkeys inhabit the New World, ranging in size from the pygmy marmoset, which weighs little more than a bar of soap, to the muriqui, a long-limbed monkey that tips the scales at 25 pounds. "We know from molecular studies that the monkeys have their closest relatives in Africa and Asia -- but that doesn't explain how they got to South America, just that they did," said Kay. South America split from Africa long before monkeys evolved, and the scarcity of monkey ancestors in the North American fossil record makes a southward migration highly unlikely. That's led scientists to speculate that the animals made the ambitious transatlantic crossing on a vegetation raft, perhaps hurled seaward by a powerful storm. Or, they could have hopped more gradually, using islands that now lie at the bottom of the ocean. About 11 million years passed between their arrival and the first fossil evidence of monkeys in the Americas, leaving the details of their early evolution unknown. The humid, heavily forested environment of what is now the Amazon Basin has made both fossil formation and modern-day discovery difficult, but understanding what happened there is the key to New World monkey evolution. "However they got to South America, they were evolving in the Amazon Basin, and from time to time they managed to get out of the basin," Kay said. "So if you want to learn about what was going on in the Amazon, you have to look at its periphery." Luckily, Kay said, scientists can do that in places like Chile and Patagonian Argentina, where he has worked collaboratively for the past quarter century. "We know the Amazon has been warm and wet for a very long time, and that from time to time we got expansions and contractions of these climatic conditions, like an accordion." The Amazon Basin functioned as a reservoir of primate biodiversity. When climate and sea level were just right, the animals spread and new species emerged in peripheral regions -- Patagonia, the Caribbean islands, Central America -- where the geology was more conducive to fossil preservation. Kay has uncovered and meticulously studied the monkey fossils from these areas to piece together their evolutionary relationships. "The gold standard is molecular evidence," he said. By sequencing the DNA of living monkeys, scientists have come to a clear consensus of how the different species and genera are related. But genetic material |
 A.M. Costa Rica file photo by Carol Phillips
This howler monkey had distant
ancestors who somehow came here.deteriorates, so researchers
studying extinct species must rely on a
proxy: the minute differences in shape, size and structure in
fossilized bones. "It's the only tool we have," said Kay, but "it does
a pretty good job."
Kay studied 399 different features
of teeth, skulls and skeletons from
16 living and 20 extinct monkey species from South America and Africa.
Then, using software that reconstructs evolutionary relationships, he
built a family tree. He compared that to a second tree, built strictly
from the molecular studies of living species, to see if the two types
of studies affirmed or contradicted one another. Except for a few
cases, the trees looked remarkably similar, validating conclusions
based on the anatomy of fossils.
Kay also looked at how long-term changes in South America's ancient climate, mountain-building and fluctuating sea levels might make sense of the evolutionary pattern revealed by the monkey fossils. His research zeroes in on when and how monkeys extended their ranges to the Caribbean islands and the far southern end of South America, which is thousands of miles south of where they now live and only 600 miles from Antarctica. The analysis further explains why the lineages that evolved outside the Amazon Basin were evolutionary dead ends. When the climate in Patagonia, for instance, turned cool and arid, the primates there went extinct, leaving no living descendants. Within the past 6,000 years, monkeys of the Caribbean islands also went extinct as a result of the appearance of humans and/or sea level rise. The paper suggests these monkeys came from South America rather than Central America, floating there by chance, the same way their ancestors crossed the Atlantic. |
Here's reasonable medical care
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 3 | |||||
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| Reading seems to make change in the hookups within the brain By
the Emory University news service
Many people can recall reading at least one cherished story that they say changed their life. Now researchers at Emory University have detected what may be biological traces related to this feeling: Actual changes in the brain that linger, at least for a few days, after reading a novel. Their findings, that reading a novel may cause changes in resting-state connectivity of the brain that persist, were published by the journal Brain Connectivity. “Stories shape our lives and in some cases help define a person,” says neuroscientist Gregory Berns, lead author of the study and the director of Emory’s Center for Neuropolicy. “We want to understand how stories get into your brain, and what they do to it.” His co-authors included Kristina Blaine and Brandon Pye from the Center for Neuropolicy, and Michael Prietula, professor of information systems and operations management at Emory’s Goizueta Business School. Neurobiological research using functional magnetic resonance imaging has begun to identify brain networks associated with reading stories. Most previous studies have focused on the cognitive processes involved in short stories, while subjects are actually reading them as they are in the imaging scanner. The Emory study focused on the lingering neural effects of reading a narrative. Twenty-one Emory undergraduates participated in the experiment, which was conducted over 19 consecutive days. The researchers chose the novel "Pompeii" for the experiment, due to its strong narrative and page-turning plot. All of the study subjects read the same novel, “Pompeii,” a 2003 thriller by Robert Harris that is based on the real-life eruption of Mount Vesuvius in ancient Italy. “The story follows a protagonist, who is outside the city of Pompeii and notices steam and strange things happening around the volcano,” Berns says. “He tries to get back to Pompeii in time to save the woman he loves. Meanwhile, the volcano continues to bubble and nobody in the city recognizes the signs.” The researchers chose the book due to its page-turning plot. “It depicts true events in a fictional and dramatic way,” Berns says. “It was important to us that the book had a strong narrative line.” For the first five days, the participants came in each morning for a base-line scan of their brains in a resting state. Then they were given nine sections of the novel, about 30 pages each, over a nine-day period. They were asked to read the assigned section in the evening, and come in the following morning. After taking a quiz to ensure they had finished the assigned reading, the participants underwent an imaging scan of their brain in a non-reading, resting state. After completing all nine sections of the novel, the participants returned for five more mornings to undergo additional scans in a resting state. The results showed heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language, on the mornings following the reading assignments. “Even though the participants were not actually reading the novel while they were in the scanner, they retained this heightened connectivity,” Berns says. “We call that a shadow activity, almost like a muscle memory.” “The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist,” Berns says. “We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else’s shoes in a figurative sense. Now we’re seeing that something may also be happening biologically.” The neural changes were not just immediate reactions, Berns says, since they persisted the morning after the readings, and for the five days after the participants completed the novel. “It remains an open question how long these neural changes might last,” Berns says. “But the fact that we’re detecting them over a few days for a randomly assigned novel suggests that your favorite novels could certainly have a bigger and longer-lasting effect on the biology of your brain.”  Lyndon Johnson Presidential library photo
Johnson
delivers 1964 State of the Union Address.
War on Poverty reaches 50, but there still are many poor By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In January 1964, President Johnson was aware that almost one in every five Americans lived in poverty. In his first State of the Union address, just weeks after taking office, he proposed a solution. "And this administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America," he said, issuing his first salvo in the war that would take the form of new programs to improve nutrition, health care, education and job training. "Our chief weapons in a more pinpointed attack will be better schools, and better health, and better homes, and better training, and better job opportunities," he said. According to James Jones, who later became Johnson's chief of staff, the president wanted to complete the unfinished domestic agenda of previous Democratic Party presidents. "Things such as Medicare, which Harry Truman first proposed in around 1946-47, and nothing had been done on that," said Jones. "Things such as fair housing, which, again, went back to the Truman administration, and nothing had happened in 20 years." When President Johnson and his wife toured impoverished areas in 1964, 19 percent of Americans lived in poverty. Today's figure is 15 percent, not good enough according to Michael Tanner, senior fellow at Washington's Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "That's not a great deal when you consider how much money we've spent," he said. "If you want to reach back to 1964, we've spent maybe $15 trillion, and yet poverty seems to be pretty flat." Critics in Congress say spending on poverty reduction programs is out of control, and the Republican-led House of Representatives recently voted to cut funding for the Food Stamp assistance program by about $4 billion a year. Tanner also says the wide availability of welfare benefits reduces the incentive to work. "Look, poor people are not lazy, but they're also not stupid," he said. "If you pay people more not to work than they could make by working, then chances are many of them are going to consider — think twice, at least — about working." Still, Johnson's initiatives, despite their flaws, have lifted millions out of poverty, says Ron Haskins, a former White House and congressional advisor on welfare issues and co-director of the Center on Children and Families at The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based non-profit research organization. "The general direction and the focus on poverty and some of the specific programs have been enormously successful," said Haskins. "The country is better off because Johnson did it." Former aide Jones says the programs that arose from the War on Poverty were among Lyndon Johnson's top achievements. "I think, now that history has had a 50-year look at his time, I think they're beginning to appreciate that he really was an outstanding president," he said. Pope will visit Holy Land and meet Orthodox leader By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Pope Francis is to visit biblical sites in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories in May, his first trip to the Christian Holy Land as pontiff and only the fourth by a pope since biblical times. The May 24 to 26 trip to Amman, Jerusalem and Bethlehem will mark the 50th anniversary of a historic trip to the region by Pope Paul VI. Pope John Paul II visited in 2000 and Benedict XVI went in 2009. Apart from its significance for Roman Catholic relations with Jews and Muslims, Francis' trip will hold major importance for relations among Christians because it will include a meeting in Jerusalem with the spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians, as well as Anglican and Protestant leaders. Francis, who has made many appeals for peace in the Middle East since his election in March, announced the trip to thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square for his Sunday address. He had been invited to visit by both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres. Many key biblical sites are in Israel's Galilee region but Bethlehem, revered as the birthplace of Jesus, is in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in the Palestinian Territories. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built over the spot where Jesus is said to have been buried, is in Arab East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators resumed direct peace negotiations in late July after three years of stalemate. The Vatican has urged both sides to make courageous and determined decisions to move closer to peace, with the help of the international community. Francis, who defined his trip as a pilgrimage of prayer, said he would hold an inter-faith meeting in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre together with Bartholomew I, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. Bartholomew is the spiritual leader of the some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. Francis made the announcement on the exact 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's meeting in Jerusalem with Bartholomew's predecessor, Athenagoras, the first meeting of the leaders of the Western and Eastern Christianity since they were divided by the Great Schism of 1054. The meeting between Bartholomew and Francis could also pave the way for an historic encounter between Francis and Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest and most influential in world Orthodoxy. There have been signs of a general warming between the western and eastern branches of Christianity, and Francis fueled hopes of further reconciliation in November when he met Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first Kremlin leader to publicly profess religious faith since the 1917 revolution. Representatives of Anglican and Protestant churches, which split from Rome in the 16th century, are also expected to attend the Jerusalem meeting in May. The Vatican did not release any more details of the trip. Nuns missed a surprise call from the Argentine pontiff By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A group of nuns in Spain got quite the New Year's surprise when they checked their answering machine and realized they had missed a call from the pope. Leaving a message for them in Spanish, Pope Francis asked jokingly, "What are the nuns doing that they can't answer the phone?" The recording was obtained by Spanish media. In it the pope goes on to say, "This is Pope Francis. I wanted to offer you greetings for the end of the year. Maybe I'll try to call again later. May God bless you." The community of five Carmelite nuns in the Spanish town of Lucena reportedly includes three from the pope's home country, Argentina. The prioress of the convent, Sister Adriana, told Spain's COPE radio, she literally wanted to die when she heard the pope's message. She said she and the other nuns were praying when the pope called around midday. News reports note Francis did call back and talked to the nuns that evening — New Year's Eve. Professors embark on a search for time travelers visiting today By
the Michigan Technological University news staff
Astrophysicist Robert Nemiroff and his students were playing cards last summer, chatting about Facebook. They wondered: If there were time travelers among us, would they be on social media? How would you find them? Could you Google them? “We had a whimsical little discussion about this,” said Nemiroff, a professor at Michigan Technological University. The result was a fun-but-serious effort to tease out travelers visiting from the future by sifting through the Internet. Unfortunately, they have uncovered no time machines, but that hasn’t made the search less interesting. You can’t just put out a cattle call for time travelers and expect good results. So Nemiroff’s team developed a search strategy based on what they call prescient knowledge. If they could find a mention of something or someone on the Internet before people should have known about it, that could indicate that whoever wrote it had traveled from the future. They selected search terms relating to two recent phenomena, Pope Francis and Comet ISON, and began looking for references to them before they were known to exist. Their work was exhaustive: they used a variety of search engines, such as Google and Bing, and combed through Facebook and Twitter. In the case of Comet ISON, there were no mentions before it burst on the scene in September 2012. They discovered only one blog post referencing a Pope Francis before Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected head of the Catholic Church on March 16, but it seemed more accidental that prescient. They also searched for prescient inquiries submitted to search engines and combed through the Astronomy Picture of the Day site, which Nemiroff co-edits. Still no luck. For their last and perhaps most ingenious effort, the researchers created a post in September 2013 asking readers to email or tweet one of two messages on or before August 2013: “#ICanChangeThePast2” or “#ICannotChangeThePast2.” Alas, their invitation went unanswered. And, they received no insights into the inherent contradictions of time travel. “In our limited search we turned up nothing,” Nemiroff said. “I didn’t really think we would. But I’m still not aware of anyone undertaking a search like this. The Internet is essentially a vast database, and I thought that if time travelers were here, their existence would have already come out in some other way, maybe by posting winning lottery numbers before they were selected. “ The team conducted their study on their own, without grant funding. A poster based on their paper, “Searching the Internet for Evidence of Time Travelers,” coauthored by Nemiroff and physics graduate student Teresa Wilson, will be presented today at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, DC. Nemiroff, who normally publishes on more arcane subjects, such as gravitational lensing and gamma-ray bursts, says this recent endeavor is not as big a stretch for him as some might think. “I’m always doing stuff on space and time,” he said, adding, “This has been a lot of fun.”  National University of Singapore photo
With this setup researchers can
simulate tasteComputer system can simulate various components of taste By
the National University of Singapore news staff
Online viewing and listening are now staples of those who live the digital life. But online tasting? This may be happening sooner than one expects, with a simulator invented by an engineer with the National University of Singapore. The brainchild of Nimesha Ranasinghe, the researcher who led the project, the digital device can recreate the taste of virtual food and drinks by non-invasive electrical and thermal stimulation of the tongue. This generates signals transmitted through a silver electrode touching the tip of the tongue to produce salty, sweet, sour and bitter sensations. By combining different levels of electrical currents and varying the temperature of the electrode, simulation of the tastes can be reproduced. From experiments, sour, salty and bitter sensations were reported from electrical stimulation, while minty, spicy and sweet sensations were reported through thermal stimulation. The latter group represented minor sensations, requiring further work to intensify the tastes. The researchers qualified that the surveys were dependent on the responses of the subjects, which varied for different individuals. This work has three novel aspects, said Ranasinghe: the studying of the electronic simulation and control of taste sensations achievable through the Digital Taste Interface against the properties of current and change in temperature; the method of actuating taste sensations by electrical and thermal stimulation methods, either individually or in combination; and the aim of introducing a practical solution to implement virtual taste interactions in interactive computing systems. The research team has developed taste-over-Internet protocol for taste messaging, a data format that facilitates the delivery of information on recreating the different tastes via the electrode. Ranasinghe said that a new reward system based on taste sensations in a gaming environment could be an early adopter of the simulator. As an illustration, if a gamer completes a task or level successfully, a sweet or minty dose will be rewarded. However, failure is delivered with a bitter taste. The simulator could have healthcare applications. For instance, diabetics could use the device for a taste of sweetness without affecting their blood sugar levels. Cancer patients may be able to improve their dulled sense of taste during chemotherapy with the electrode. However, the four major tastes form only part of the flavor equation. Smell and texture play key roles, which the researchers want to add on for the full tasting experience. Better way to trick mosquitoes involves attacking smell sense By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In many regions of the world, mosquitoes carry serious diseases like malaria and dengue. The World Health Organization estimates that almost 630,000 people died of malaria-related causes in 2012, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Costa Rica thousands contract dengue each year and a few die. Now, a group of U.S.-based scientists is working to develop a more effective and less expensive mosquito repellent than currently in use. The research at the University of California Riverside is based on the fact that mosquitoes use the same receptor for detecting carbon dioxide in human breath as they do for the odor from skin when they come closer. The lead investigator, Anandasankar Ray, says scientists tested more than a million chemical compounds until they found a substance called ethyl pyruvate that shuts down the mosquitoes’ receptor. “When we apply ethyl pyruvate to a human arm and offer it to hungry mosquitoes in a cage, then very few of the mosquitoes are attracted to the human arm because only a few of them are able to smell it out," said Ray. Genevieve Tauxe, also on the team, says finding the mosquito neurons that detect both human breath and skin odor was not easy. “With this apparatus, we are able to insert a very small electrode into the part of the mosquito's nose, effectively, where its olfactory neurons are and where the smell is happening," said Ms. Tauxe. With these instruments, scientists were able to detect the signals that a mosquito’s neurons send to its brain when it senses attractive odors. Spikes on the computer screen show when the attraction is strong or weak. Ray says a repellent based on ethyl pyruvate may be cheaper to manufacture than DEET, the most effective chemical now in use. He says DEET is too expensive for most people in malaria-affected areas. "Perhaps by finding designer odors, better odors that can attack other target receptors, we will be able to improve upon DEET and finally have the next generation of insect behavior control product," he said. The University of California scientists say they believe they will soon be able to find a way to manufacture cheaper and more effective repellents for the fight against mosquitoes. Ban on demonstrations at Sochi eased in decree by Kremlin By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Russian President Vladimir Putin has eased a ban on demonstrations in and around the upcoming Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi. A decree published by the Kremlin Saturday allows demonstrations and marches in areas along routes that still must be approved by various Russian officials. The demonstrations do not have to be connected to the games. Putin last year ordered a ban from Jan. 7 to March 21 on any demonstrations in the Black Sea resort city not connected with the Games. The ruling was widely criticized by human rights organizations. Saturday's decree did not say how decisions will be made on which demonstrations will be allowed. Some world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama have announced they will not attend the opening ceremony. The announcements came amid security concerns ahead of the Winter Games. Russia has planned strict security measures during the event. Fears that Islamist militants could stage attacks during the Olympics were heightened by two recent suicide bombings in the southern city of Volgograd, nearly 700 kilometers from Sochi. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 3 | |||||||||
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Key crop yields
may have hit a plateau, researchers report By
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln news service
About 30 percent of the major global cereal crops, rice, wheat and corn, may have reached their maximum possible yields in farmers' fields, according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln research published in Nature Communications. These findings raise concerns about efforts to increase food production to meet growing global populations. Yields of these crops have recently decreased or plateaued. Future projections that would ensure global food security are typically based on a constant increase in yield, a trend that this research now suggests may not be possible. Estimates of future global food production and its ability to meet the dietary needs of a population expected to grow from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050 have been based largely on projections of historical trends. Past trends have, however, been dominated by the rapid adoption of new technologies, some of which were one-time innovations, which allowed for an increase in crop production. As a result, projections of future yields have been optimistic – perhaps too much so, indicates the findings of Kenneth Cassman and Patricio Grassini, of the agronomy and horticulture department at the university, and Kent Eskridge of the statistics department. They studied past yield trends in countries with greatest cereal production and provide evidence against a projected scenario of continued linear crop yield increase. Their data suggest that the rate of yield gain has recently decreased or stopped for one or more of the major cereals in many of the most intensively cropped areas of the world, including eastern Asia, Europe and the United States. The Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources scientists calculate that this decrease or stagnation in yield gain affects 33 percent of major rice-producing countries and 27 percent of major wheat-producing countries. In China, for example, the increase in crop yields in wheat has remained constant, and rate of corn yield increase has decreased by 64 percent for the period 2010 to 2011 relative to the years 2002 to 2003 despite a large increase in investment in agricultural research and development, education and infrastructure for both crops. This suggests that return on these investments is steadily declining in terms of impact on raising crop yields, researchers said. The authors report that sustaining further yield gain likely would require fine tuning of many different factors in the production of crops. But this is often difficult to achieve in farmers' fields and the associated marginal costs, labour requirements, risks and environmental impacts may outweigh the benefits. Sea Shepherd says it located Japanese whaling fleet By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Anti-whaling activists with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society announced that they have caught up with Japan's whaling fleet near Antarctica. Sea Shepherd said today it had found all five Japanese vessels in the Southern Ocean and had photographic evidence that showed three minke whales had been killed and were being cut up on the factory ship "Nisshin Maru." The group also claimed to have information about a fourth whale having been killed. The society alleged that the whales had been taken inside an internationally-recognized whale sanctuary. It is the first time the environmentalists and the whaling fleet have crossed paths this season. The U.S.-based group regularly sends small boats to harass the Japanese fleet during its annual whale hunt. It is known to use stink bombs, dye markers, laser beams and other objects to attempt to disrupt the Japanese whalers. Commercial whaling is banned under an international treaty, but Japan continues to hunt using a loophole that allows whaling in the name of science, a practice condemned by environmentalists and anti-whaling nations. Sea Shepherd Australia is criticizing the Australian government for backing away from pre-election promises to send a ship to monitor the Japanese whaling fleet. The government has instead said it will use a plane to observe Japanese actions in the area. Australia has been critical of Japanese whaling activities. The two countries are waiting for a ruling on an Australian challenge to the legality of the Japanese whale hunt, expected from the International Court of Justice later this year. |
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| From page 7: U.S. Senate to vote today on Yellen nomination By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Senate appears set to confirm Janet Yellen as the new chairwoman of the country's central bank, making her one of the most powerful figures in world economic circles. The Senate is scheduled to vote late today on her nomination to head the Federal Reserve, and analysts believe she has enough votes to win confirmation. She would become the first woman to head the 100-year-old agency and replace Ben Bernanke when his eight-year tenure expires at the end of January. The head of the U.S. Federal Reserve has often influenced world economic decisions. Economists are predicting that the 67-year-old Ms. Yellen, the Fed's current vice chairwoman, will continue many of Bernanke's policies. Both Ms. Yellen and Bernanke have called for a gradual end to the central bank's direct support of the U.S. economy and continued low interest rates. |
