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Culture minister
says she will stay on job
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The culture minister, Elizabeth Fonseca, said Wednesday that she has no plans to resign even as much of the country expects her to do so in the wake of the arts festival debacle. The Festival International de las Artes was the topic of a scathing editorial Wednesday in La Nación, the nation's most influential newspaper. One television station was running a telephone poll of readers asking them if the minister should resign. Even some of her own members of the Partido Acción Ciudadana were calling for her resignation. She is a former president of that party and a close associate of President Luis Guillermo Solís. However, the festival seems to be having successful events. The Centro Nacional de las Artes, the minister building on Avenida 7, hosted a youthful and loud crowd for a series of band presentations Wednesday afternoon. The ministry also seems to have come to terms with the popular band from Chile, La Ley, which was squeezed out of a performance. The new one will be June 20 in the Antigua Aduana, and 3,500 free tickets will be made available for residents of Aserrí, Acosta, Alajuelita and Desamparados. These were the cantons that missed out on many performances because the ministry was unable to issue a contract to a sound and light company. There also will be concerts for other groups there June 18 and 19, the ministry said. The ministry also noted Wednesday that it has spent 587,217,400 colons or about $1.1 million on national and international artists. Some of them played to nearly empty houses due to schedule mixups and confusion. The problems with the festival are being investigated by lawmakers and the nation's budget watchdog. Heavy seas forecast for Pacific By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A bathing and small boat warnings have been issued to the Pacific coast because strong waves are expected to arrive there Saturday and Sunday. The biggest waves will be in the south Pacific, but even in the central and north Pacific waves of 2.4 meters are expected, the forecast said. The Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología warned of rip tides that threaten bathers and dangers for small boats. The University of Costa Rica agency also said that there might be coastal erosion. The waves come from an intense storm in the distant South Pacific, the agency said. The biggest threat is supposed to be between 2 and 5 p.m. into the early days of next week.  Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
County
photo
Jorge Velez-Juarbe with
fossil skull found in Panamá.Discovery in
Panamá clarifies whale trait
By the Natural History Museum of Los
Angeles County news staff
Almost since the time of Melville’s epic hunt, scientists have been fascinated by the remarkable attributes of the sperm whale and its kin, the smaller pigmy and dwarf whales. Capable of diving to great depths and gifted with an acute sense of echolocation, these animals have remained inseparable to seamen lore. An international team of scientists, led by Jorge Velez-Juarbe has discovered a new species of an extinct pigmy sperm whale from Panamá that clarifies key aspects of the evolution of these magnificent animals. He is the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s curator of marine mammals. The report published in the journal PLOS ONE reveals an unexpected level of complexity in the evolution of the spermaceti organ of these whales, an organ located within the head that plays a key role in the generation of sound and in the whale’s capacity for echolocation. Whales, dolphins, and porpoises have a long fossil record, which documents the evolutionary journey from terrestrial ancestors to the fully marine organisms of today. Such a record has enabled scientists to better understand how changes in climate and continental distribution have transformed the marine ecosystems and the diversity life forms that they host. Yet, the poor fossil of the smaller relatives of the well-known sperm whale, the 8- to 12-foot-long pigmy and dwarf sperm whales, has limited understanding of the evolution of these mysterious animals. Discovered and studied by a team of scientists including those from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the new Panamanian fossil whale affords fresh evidence to this old problem. “The new discovery gives us a better understanding of the ancient distribution of these poorly known relatives of the sperm whale,” said Velez-Juarbe. “Previously we knew of similarly-aged pigmy and dwarf whales from Baja California and Perú, but this new fossil fills in an important geographic gap in the group’s ancient distribution.” The new whale species, named Nanokogia isthmia after the Isthmus of Panama, is known from the well-preserved skulls of two individuals, which remains were unearthed at a sea cliff along the Caribbean coast of Panamá and from rock layers dated to about 7 million years ago. “Our study is part of a larger scientific effort aimed at understanding the changes in the marine habitats that resulted from the complete closure of the Isthmus of Panama,” said Velez-Juarbe, referring to the separation between the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that took place sometime within the last 10 million years. These rare fossils are among a handful of other fossil whales known from Panamá, where fossil hunting is often difficult due to the dense vegetation and thick soils that often cover the surface. Resurrected from their million-year-old entombment, the new fossils say that the evolution of characteristics related to sound emission and echolocation was far more complex than previously envisioned. The new study shows that at one time, these small sperm whales had a much larger spermaceti organ, which got downsized at least twice during the evolutionary history of these animals (including the evolutionary event that gave origin to the living pygmy and dwarf sperm whales). The reasons of this size reduction remain unclear. Scientists would have to find more complete skeletons of Nanokogia and other closely related species to untangle the question. For now, Velez-Juarbe continues to explore the prehistoric seas of Central America. Captain Ahab, Herman Melville's obsessed whaling captain in "Moby Dick," would have been proud. Executive history seems to protect brain By the American Academy of Neurology news
staff
Professionals whose jobs require more speaking, developing strategies, conflict resolution and managerial tasks may experience better protection against memory and thinking decline in old age than their co-workers, according to a new study published in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our study is important because it suggests that the type of work you do throughout your career may have even more significance on your brain health than your education does,” said study author Francisca S. Then with the University of Leipzig in Germany. “Education is a well-known factor that influences dementia risk.” For the study, 1,054 people over the age of 75 were given tests that measured their memory and thinking abilities every one-and-a-half years for eight years. The researchers also asked the participants about their work history and categorized the tasks they completed into three groups: executive, verbal and fluid. Examples of executive tasks are scheduling work and activities, developing strategies and resolving conflicts. Examples of verbal tasks are evaluating and interpreting information, and fluid tasks were considered to be those which included selective attention and analyzing data. Memory and thinking abilities were examined through a clinical test, the Mini-Mental State Examination. In this clinical test, a small decline in points can indicate a clinically relevant deficit. The study found that people whose careers included the highest level of all three types of tasks scored highest on the thinking and memory tests by two test points over people with the lowest level. People with the highest level of all three types of tasks also had the slowest rate of cognitive decline. Over eight years, their rate of decline was half the rate of participants with a low level of mentally demanding work tasks. Among the three types of work tasks, high levels of executive and verbal tasks were distinctively associated with slower rates of memory and thinking decline. Participants with a high level of executive tasks scored two test points higher on memory and thinking tests at the beginning of the study and five test points higher after eight years in the study compared to participants with a low level of these tasks. Participants with a high level of verbal tasks declined an average two points less than those with a low level.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, April 30, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 84 | |
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The sanatorium Durán is considered part of the country's cultural and architectural heritage. |
 Centro
de Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultura
photo
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| Finding a use for restored TB sanitorium will be part of
planning |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Centro de Patrimonio is taking steps to close up the Sanatorio Carlos Durán Cartín while plans are made to restore the complex. This is the former tuberculosis clinic on the skirt of the Volcán Irazú. The structure is approaching 100 years of age, and now it lacks doors and windows. So the building is exposed to the elements. The location is Potrero Cerrado, Oreamuno, Cartago. When restored, the facility might become a tourist attraction, but those who visit should bring a sweater or jacket because the 2080-meter altitude was picked for the chilly temperatures. The elevation is more than 6,800 feet. That was the way to treat tuberculosis before antibiotics. The Centro de Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultura, expects to spend much of this year drawing up restoration plans, officials there said. The chore is a big one, even though much of the timber used in construction is of the long-lasting variety, such as cedar and pochote. However, the acidic emissions from the nearby volcano have taken their toll. There is another consideration. Ileana Vives, director of Patrimonio, said that a use must be found for the restored structure. She did not say it, but the restoration projects around the country have come under criticism because some of the structures remain empty, particularly if they are government sites. The Centro de Patrimonio itself has a headquarters in the old Banco Anglo on the Avenida Central peatonal in downtown San José. Although there sometimes are exhibitions in the front lobby, there still is enough unused room for a full-court basketball game. Among the first parts of the complex to be restored will be the chapel, said the Centro. Right now the main concern is to protect the site from vandals, officials said. The tuberculosis situation that faced Costa Rican physicians and one-time acting president Carlos Durán Cartín was complicated because his daughter also suffered from the disease. This bacterial infection of the lungs was widespread, particularly in areas of poverty where malnourished individuals lived in close quarters. The treatment then was prolonged rest in clean air. So after spending time at famous sanatoriums elsewhere, the doctor founded in 1915 the first such facility in Central |
 Centro de Investigación y
Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural photo
Undated photo shows elaborate gardens at
the sanitarium.
 Centro de
Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural photo
Efraín
González Buitrago wrote on his Facebook page that the girl is
his aunt and the boy is his uncle. The girl died there, but the boy
survived, he said, said the culture ministry.America. There were 300 beds, and it was completed the following year. Modern medicine caught up with the facility in the early 1970s, and it was closed. That there are claims of a ghostly presence certainly will not hurt tourism. Roman Catholic medical sisters made up much of the facility's staff, and the local myths say that one still is there, patrolling the third floor. There even was a Costa Rican movie, similar to the "Blair Witch Project," called "El Sanatorio." Actors played the parts of student filmmakers doing a documentary on the complex with predictable paranormal activity. |
| Jade museum offers exhibition of landscapes by Costa Rican
artists |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Museo del Jade y de la Cultura Precolombina has inaugurated an exhibition of 70 landscape works by 20 noted Costa Rican artists. Among the artists are Fausto Pacheco Hernández, Francisco Amighetti, Enrique Echandi Montero, Thomas Povedano, Fausto Pacheco Jiménez, Hugo Díaz, Margarita Bertheau, |
Teodorico
Quirós and Rafael Ángel “Felo” García. The techniques range from oils to pencil. As part of the exhibition, the museum is offering painting workshops for students from May 9 to 14. The exhibition will remain available until July 24, said the museum. The new facility is on Avenida Central at Calle 11 in what is becoming a center for the country's museums. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, April 30, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 84 | |||||
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| Innovative glue joining scapel and sutures as part of
surgeon's tool kit |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The first biodegradable surgical glue for internal use has won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While medical sealants and liquid bandages are becoming more common, none had been approved for use inside the body until now. The product is called TissuGlu and came about by accident, said a University of Pittsburgh engineering professor, Eric Beckman. Fifteen years ago, he and Michael Buckley, then an oral surgeon at the university’s School of Dental Medicine, set out to design a tissue regeneration membrane. In the process, they produced a sticky, gluelike substance. “The substance at the time in the lab was just a science project,” Beckman said. “It was a laboratory material. TissuGlu is orders of magnitude more sophisticated.” TissuGlu is a nontoxic version of urethane, a chemical compound used in the manufacture of plastic. Surgeons can use the adhesive to reconnect skin and tissue inside the body. Beckman said they saw the opportunity to develop and market it. “Step one was to find a business team that could actually help us turn essentially what was a technology into a real product and then get it through the regulatory pathway,” he said. In 2006, Beckman took an entrepreneurial year leave of absence from the university and co-founded Cohera Medical Inc. One of the first employees was Dottie Clower, a scientist who worked in the Office of Enterprise Development at the University of Pittsburgh and had advised Beckman about spinning off his technology. Now she is working with him as Cohera's chief scientific officer charged with product development. Ms. Clower said that what made TissuGlu an attractive business opportunity was the simplicity of the idea. |
“This was
glue that you could use inside the body, and everyone
understood that," she said. "This was something that nobody had in
their tool kit.” That simple idea raised $75 million from investors. The team went on to refine TissuGlu and take it through clinical trials, where it was proven strong, safe and effective. Surgeons work with a three-pronged, preloaded, hand-held device that steadily administers uniform drops of the adhesive. This year, Cohera won approval from the FDA to use TissuGlu to attach large tissue and skin flaps after excess fat and skin have been removed from the abdomen. About 175,000 such abdominoplasty surgeries are done each year in the United States, and the number is growing. Beckman said the adhesive also helps reduce fluid buildup after the procedure by holding tissues close together. “If you can eliminate dead space between tissue planes by using TissuGlu, we’ve shown in our clinical trials that there is a strong potential to send patients home without having surgical drains,” he said. The new glue also means fewer complications and a more rapid postoperative recovery. In Europe, it has been approved for use in breast cancer and lymph node dissection surgeries. Cohera is working on another sealant for bowel surgery. Ms. Clower said this is an exciting time for the company. “Now we have the opportunity to engage with the market, to talk with the doctors, to begin to really launch our sales and marketing effort for this great new product,” she said. Looking back on his journey from academia to entrepreneur, Beckman said he learned to target an idea, run with it and never let obstacles stand in his way |
Here's reasonable medical care
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
news page
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, April 30, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 84 | |||||||
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| Vietnam war reporters visit country as invited guests By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A few days ago, George Lewis sat on a hotel rooftop overlooking bustling Ho Chi Minh City. Forty years ago, he spent evenings at the Caravelle hotel just down the street. With other foreign correspondents in the 1970s, Lewis watched as soldiers battled in the distance, their weapons sending explosions of light through the air. As a journalist for NBC News, he relayed to the American public what was happening in the Vietnam War. “TV became a prime source for people,” Lewis said, “because they could see with their own eyes what was going on.” Lewis has joined dozens of retired journalists now back in Vietnam for a reunion 40 years after the war here ended. The country is usually associated with press restrictions, yet Vietnam has rolled out the red carpet for these former war reporters. The Communist government has a generally favorable view of foreigners who covered the Vietnam War. Their coverage helped to weaken U.S. public and political support for the war half a century ago. Today, the same foreigners could help Vietnam again, if their reunion shows that the Vietnamese are friendly hosts who embrace outsiders. To that end, the Vietnamese government organized and paid for much of the event to mark the end of the war. “They don’t want to be seen as some kind of pariah state,” said Stewart Dalby, who is from Britain and reported for the Financial Times in Vietnam from 1971 to 1975. “Like anyone else, they care about PR.” Lewis agreed that Vietnam wants good relationships with the former correspondents. “They want us to go back and portray a positive image of Vietnam,” said Lewis, who is from Los Angeles. Vietnam was a formative war for these foreign correspondents, many of whom made a name for themselves in what was then a little known Southeast Asian country to many westerners. Peter Arnett picked up a Pulitzer for his reporting, Nick Ut for his photography. Tim Page left a mark in Ho Chi Minh City by helping to create an exhibit of war photographs still housed at the War Remnants Museum. All were on hand for this week’s reunion of self-described old hacks. Officials in Ho Chi Minh City planned much of the foreign journalists’ reunion, introducing them to Vietnamese war veterans and busing them out to the Cu Chi tunnels once used by Communist soldiers. While catching up over drinks Wednesday night, some former reporters said they came to Vietnam already believing the United States shouldn’t have gone there to fight a war. Their reporting in those days marked a turning point for journalism. Media reports defied the U.S. military’s narrative that it was winning the war. The improved technology at the time allowed journalists to show the conflict to audiences back home in graphic detail. “I think the fact that they were watching a color war - they weren’t watching a black and white movie - it’s more real,” said Barry Fox, who came from Ireland and worked for ABC News. Many returnees recalled witnessing the U.S. evacuation on April 29, 1975, as well as the Communist takeover of Saigon the next day. Dalby described scenes of South Vietnamese soldiers discarding their uniforms to avoid capture as defeat looked imminent. Children were hauling off looted goods in wheelbarrows, and foreign reporters were wondering if they should go to work. American photographer Matthew Naythons arrived just in time to see the war end. Naythons, who went on to document conflicts from Central America to South Asia, said he opposed the Vietnam War but admitted it was an adventure for him. “It’s a dirty secret of being a war correspondent,” he said. “It’s exhilarating. If you survive.”  Voice of America/R. Kalden
A family searches for any
valuables they can find in their destroyed home.Death toll
in Nepal rises
as aid sought from West By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The death toll from Saturday's earthquake in Nepal has risen to nearly 5,500 people, officials said Thursday, as teams continued digging through rubble and aid groups worked to get much needed supplies to survivors. U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos was due to arrive in Nepal for a three-day visit to assess relief operations. The U.N. launched an urgent appeal Wednesday for $415 million dollars to provide shelter for 500,000 people who are sleeping out in the open, as well as medicine, water and food for millions affected by the earthquake. It said the disaster destroyed 70,000 houses and damaged more than half a million others. Also Wednesday, President Barack Obama discussed aid efforts in a telephone call with Nepal's Prime Minister Sushil Koirala. The U.S. is providing more than $10 million for both immediate efforts such as clean water and search and rescue operations, and for long term recovery efforts. Meanwhile, people in Nepal's capital city of Kathmandu continued leaving Thursday by bus to reach their families in remote areas that were hardest hit by the magnitude-7.8 earthquake. Many in Nepal have been frustrated by what they say is a slow response by the government. Several hundred people protested Wednesday by blocking traffic in Kathmandu. The International Committee of the Red Cross created a website for friends and family to report missing loved ones, or search for those who have checked in. Post editor defends staffer who is in Iranian prison By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The executive editor of The Washington Post says espionage and other charges against a correspondent of the paper imprisoned in Iran are ludicrous and preposterous. In an interview Wednesday, the Post's Martin Baron said correspondent Jason Rezaian is an "innocent and good man who deserves to have his freedom as any other human being." Rezaian had been working for the Post in Iran since 2012 before he was arrested nine months ago with his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, and two other people. Ms. Salehi, also a journalist, has since been released, but Rezaian, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, has remained in jail for nine months. "He's just a reporter, and he never had any access to classified information," Baron said. "All of his communications were through regular email channels, which we all know the Iranian government is likely to monitor regularly. They're likely to monitor his movements regularly, and yet, he was functioning in Iran for a long period of time as a reporter. "He never took any efforts as far as anybody knows to circumvent the Iranians in any way, to do anything, and he never had any access to classified information. So these are ludicrous charges, preposterous, and his imprisonment in Iran is a gross injustice." Baron said the Post had no advance word that Rezaian would be arrested in July 2014 and to this day does not know why he was detained. He said Rezaian focused on covering the life and culture of Iran, noting that Iranian authorities have not accused him of producing stories that were slanted. "They said he was engaged in propaganda but haven't said it was his stories that were involved in propaganda," Baron said. "I'm not quite sure what they meant when they say he engaged in propaganda. "In fact, the president of Iran, Rouhani, and his foreign minister, Zarif, have said in the past that he's a good reporter, and they said that not too long ago — shortly after he was arrested and many months later as well. So they think he was a good reporter, a fair reporter, and we felt he was a good reporter also." Rezaian's lawyer, Leilah Ahsan, recently told the Post that the journalist faces charges of conducting propaganda against the establishment and collaborating with hostile governments. Ahsan said his client is also accused of gathering information about internal and foreign policy and disseminating it to those with malicious intent. Interception of cargo ship is called a legal matter by Iran By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Iran's foreign minister said the interception of a cargo ship Tuesday in Iranian waters was a commercial legal matter, not a security or political issue. Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking Wednesday in New York, said the MV Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands-flagged ship, was involved in a long-standing Iranian court case, recently concluded, over monetary claims. Representatives for Maersk, the Danish international conglomerate that had chartered the ship, said they had received no written notification about the case. Iranian naval ships intercepted the Tigris as it was crossing the Strait of Hormuz, then ordered it farther into Iranian waters. When the ship's master ignored the warning, the Iranians fired shots across the Tigris' bow and boarded the vessel. U.S. officials Tuesday called the firing of shots inappropriate and noted that although the Tigris was in Iranian waters, it was on an internationally recognized maritime route at the time of the incident. The U.S. military directed a guided-missile destroyer and aircraft to observe the interaction between the ship and Iranian forces. The developments briefly raised concerns that the incident, coming during international talks on Iran's nuclear program and increased tensions over the conflict in Yemen, might escalate. Zarif said that for Iran, "the Persian Gulf is our lifeline and nothing is more important than freedom of navigation in those waters." Tehran in the past had occasionally threatened to block the strait to advance its opposition to sanctions related to its nuclear program. The channel is a narrow strip of water separating Oman and Iran. It connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. World Health issues warning over growing drug resistance By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The World Health Organization says an increasing number of infections are no longer treatable because of growing antimicrobial resistance, putting the lives of millions of people at risk. The study finds no region in the world is prepared to combat this serious global threat. Only one-quarter of the 133 countries has a comprehensive plan to fight resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines, it said. The survey also finds public awareness of the issue remains generally low and many people believe antibiotics are effective against viral infections. It says this leads to antibiotics being used when they are not required or effective, which can lead to resistance. Charles Penn, coordinator for antimicrobial resistance at World Health, says the survey also shows the sale of antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines without a prescription is widespread throughout the world. He says this increases the potential for overuse, “Without urgent action, the world is heading for what is being termed a post-antibiotic era in which common infections and minor injuries that have been treatable for decades may once again kill, and we will lose the ability to treat a range of serious conditions such as bloodstream infections, pneumonia, tuberculosis, malaria, HIV. And, the benefits of advanced medical treatment such as cancer chemotherapy and major surgery will also become much riskier and may well be lost," said Penn. Penn makes clear this is not a future problem. He said there are diseases and infections today that no longer are treatable with available antibiotics. “We often give the example of gonorrhea, where around the world there are examples of cases of this, which do not respond to any of the antibiotics available to us. Another example would be hundreds of thousands of new cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis each year. Again, these are infections that have already become very difficult to treat. And it is difficult to put a precise number on what will happen in the future, but if we do not act it can only get worse," he said. A draft Global Action Plan to combat antimicrobial resistance, including antibiotic resistance, will be discussed during next month’s World Health Assembly. The plan emphasizes the need for improved diagnostic tools so doctors have clear guidance as to when to prescribe antibiotics. Baltimore appears calm as life returns to normal By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
More than 1,000 demonstrators marched through downtown Baltimore Wednesday in what Police Commissioner Anthony Batts called an extremely peaceful protest demanding more justice for African-Americans. The crowd marched from the city's main train station to City Hall and back again. Police said they fully expected everyone to heed the city's overnight curfew. Other marches were held in Washington, Boston and New York City, where police arrested demonstrators who tried to disrupt downtown traffic. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan declared Baltimore safe Wednesday, following two nights of demonstrations sparked by the death of a young African-American man in police custody. Commuters packed buses and subways, and public schools reopened. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra played a free outdoor concert. But the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox played a baseball game in an empty stadium. Police said they needed to deploy elsewhere in the city and could not provide enough security at the game. Violence erupted Monday after the funeral for Freddie Gray, 25, who suffered a still-unexplained severe spinal injury while in police custody. He had been arrested and thrown into a police van; officers drove him to jail without securing him with a seat belt as required, and they allegedly ignored his pleas for medical attention. The six officers involved in the arrest are on paid administrative leave while the investigation proceeds. Police plan to turn the results of their investigation over to the state's attorney's office Friday, who will then decide whether to charge the officers with a crime. The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI also are conducting a civil rights investigation into Gray's death. After the funeral, rampaging crowds poured into the streets, with protesters burning stores and nearly 150 cars and looting a shopping mall. Police arrested 235 people; 20 officers were injured. But many protesters said the violence was not just about Gray, but about what they called the habitual poor treatment of blacks by police and the city's alleged unwillingness to do anything about it. They also said they were angered by what they saw as a lack of economic power, something they said has persisted for decades in black neighborhoods. The situation was calmer from Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, the first night of the seven-hour overnight curfew that will remain in effect all week. Police made 35 arrests. Officers and National Guard troops dispersed protesters, even as some of the protesters jeered and threw bottles at them. In a Wednesday interview with talk-show host Steve Harvey, President Barack Obama said the Baltimore rioting showed that police departments need to build more trust in black neighborhoods. He said his heart went out to Baltimore police who were injured in trying to quell Monday's unrest, in which police cars and neighborhood stores were set afire and businesses were looted. Obama praised Baltimore officers for showing appropriate restraint and said there was no excuse for the rioting. But the American leader also urged police departments throughout the U.S. to hold accountable people when they do something wrong. He said urban unrest and protests against police actions — often with white police officers dealing harshly with black suspects in street confrontations — would continue if the response was only to retrain police. He said national action was needed to confront underlying issues — poor education, limited job opportunities and drug use. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, April 30, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 84 | |||||||||
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University of Texas study says:
Brain functions different for coke addicts By the University of Texas Medical
Branch at Galveston news staff
The brain function of people addicted to cocaine is different from that of people who are not addicted and often linked to highly impulsive behavior, according to a new scientific study. The variation in the way that different regions of the brain connect, communicate and function in people addicted to cocaine is an observation uncovered for the first time by a collaborative research team led by The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Virginia Commonwealth University. These findings were recently published in NeuroImage: Clinical. Cocaine addiction, also called cocaine use disorder, afflicts an estimated 800,000 people in the U.S. alone, but despite decades of attempts, approved medications for cocaine use disorder remain to be discovered. People who are addicted to cocaine are often highly impulsive and are prone to acting quickly, without regard to negative consequences. Impulsivity is associated with increased relapse to cocaine abuse and, thus, impulsivity may serve as an important behavioral target for the development of relapse prevention medications. To measure impulsivity in humans, scientists often use the Go/NoGo task, which monitors a person’s ability to thwart an impulsive response. In this task, participants are instructed to make a certain response, or “Go” when presented with a particular image and withhold their responses or “NoGo” when presented with different images. The present study sought to determine whether people with cocaine use disorder display impaired task performance and altered patterns of brain activity compared to non-cocaine users. Researchers traditionally study differences in regional brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The researchers in this study took resonance analysis one step further to decipher the connections and direction of information flow between brain regions in both cocaine and non-cocaine users. The study enrolled 13 cocaine users and 10 non-cocaine users to evaluate brain connectivity during performance of the Go/NoGo task within a resonance imaging scanner. Both cocaine users and non-cocaine users performed the task equally well, suggesting that the average ability to inhibit a response was the same in the two groups. However, there were intriguing differences between the cocaine users and non-users in the strength of communication between key brain structures. The left brain structure known to control motor function was itself activated in both groups of subjects during NoGo response inhibition. However, the brain structures differed between cocaine users and non-cocaine users during harder questions of the Go/NoGo task. “These findings suggest that, while some cortical brain regions show altered activity in cocaine users, other regions may compensate for cocaine-associated deficits in function,” said lead author Kathryn A. Cunningham of the University of Texas “Targeting altered brain connections in cocaine use disorder for therapeutic development is a fresh idea, offering a whole new arena for research and the potential to promote abstinence and prevent relapse in these vulnerable individuals.” Jacó souvenir store operator held as dealer By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents said they arrested a Jacó souvenir store operator Tuesday because of the unusual number of customers who visited. The 48-year-old suspect was the subject of a several-months-long investigation. The Judicial Investigating Organization said that marijuana, cocaine, crack and LSD were confiscated. Agents added that the man also is accused of maintaining a drug delivery service. |
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| From Page 7: U.S. economy slows, federal report says By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the first three months of this year. Wednesday's report from the Commerce Department says the gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of just two-tenths of a percent. That is much slower than the 2.2 percent rate of the last quarter of 2014. The GDP is the sum of all goods and services produced in a nation and the broadest gauge of economic health. The U.S. economy is vital to Costa Rica because the country is the leading source of tourists and also exports. Economists blame the slowdown on unusually foul winter weather and a strike that stopped shipping in the usually busy U.S. West Coast ports. Before the latest report, the National Association for Business Economics, surveyed key economists at companies across the United States and found expectations for “solid economic growth” remain intact in spite of recent disappointing economic data. Spokesman Ken Simonson said growth will probably resume because weather and labor problems have been resolved. The relatively high value of the U.S. dollar also hurt the GDP because it weakened American exports and boosted imports. An expensive dollar means U.S.-made exports are more expensive on global markets, while imports are more attractive to American buyers. White House economic advisor Jason Furman says tepid foreign demand hurt U.S. exports and overall growth. He also said sharply falling oil prices have hurt investment in energy facilities, further crimping growth. Furman says U.S. consumers are saving rather than spending the money they are no longer spending on gasoline. He says savings from lower energy costs could be a source of consumer spending and growth in the future. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve said that its top officials have voted to keep the key interest rate steady at the record low level where it has been since the financial crisis in 2008. In a policy statement, Fed officials wrote that keeping the interest rate low will help the economy resume moderate growth. They said officials will watch for further improvements in the job market and slightly higher inflation before they raise rates. During the recession, the Fed cut interest rates nearly to zero in hopes of bolstering recovery. When record low interest rates failed to spark economic growth, the Fed developed tools that had never been used before in the U.S. economy by implementing several massive bond-buying programs to push rates down. Eight years after the financial crisis, unemployment has fallen from a recession high of 10 percent in 2009 to 5.5 percent now. The stock market recovered its losses and has been hitting new record highs. Inflation remains below the 2 percent rate that Fed experts say would be healthy for the economy. |
