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Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for more details |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 7, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 89
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Stricken bus
driver dies
shortly after accident By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The driver of a Tica Bus appears to have suffered some form of fatal attack at the wheel Tuesday, and the vehicle ran off the Interamericana highway near Grecia and rolled on its side. The Judicial Investigating Organization identified the driver by the last name of Zúñiga, There were more than 40 passengers on the bus, and most suffered bumps and bruises. Some were hospitalized. The bus was headed from San José to Nicaragua, said judicial investigators. Paramedics took the driver to the Hospital de Grecia where he died shortly after arriving. Agents said he was 52. An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death. Cruz Roja plans bike hike through Puriscal countryside By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Cruz Roja is calling upon passionate bike riders to join a scenic 20-kilometer ride through the mountain paths of Naranjal de Puriscal. With the first ever Ciclista Recreativa Ambiental, the organization also known as the Red Cross, wants to make biking a more popular form of travel and also raise the level of environmental consciousness within the local area. The tranquil ride will allow riders a perfect opportunity to enjoy a beautiful part of the country, said Freddy Roman Navarro from the Cruz Roja communications office. He also said the organization leaders don't know how many bikers will sign up for the premier ride, but they hope over the years it can grow into an event where the community can rally around the sport and nature preservation. "The first priorities are to promote exercise and a positive relationship with nature," Roman said. The ride is set for 8:30 a.m. on Sunday and will start at Restaurante Cubillon in Naranjal de Puriscal. Registration cost is 5,000 colons and includes a drink and snack. All proceeds taken from the race will benefit the local Cruz Roja office in La Gloria de Puriscal, Roman said. He added that the profits will help with their efforts in protecting and providing services for the community.  Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía
This is the homemade weapony Seguridad Pública photo Police
confiscate firearm
found in bag at Golfito By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The man with the golden gun isn't just character limited to the fictional world of James Bond anymore. Fuerza Pública officers in Golfito confiscated a homemade golden gun from a man after receiving a confidential tip about the illegal weapon. Officers found the man, identified by the last name of Montero, next to a fish market carrying a black bag. His gold pistol was confiscated by the Fiscalía de Golfito, according to a Fuerza Pública press official. New president to inherit many unhappy teachers By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The new president, Luis Guillermo Solís will inherit unhappy teachers when he takes office Thursday. There is no end in sight for the administrative goofs that have kept hundreds of teachers from being paid. That is why their colleagues have gone out on strike. However, the Ministerio de Educación Pública says that the payroll problem will not be solved anytime soon. Officials blamed the software that handles the payroll. Today is the third day of strikes by teachers, and the effort seems to be about 70 percent effective. At most schools, the students know better than to attend. At the legislature, all political parties joined in a resolution Tuesday urging the minister of education to fix the problem as soon as possible. The resolution also expressed sympathy for the teachers. The lawmakers noted that paying salaries was a constitutional duty. There have been continual salary problems at the education ministry, but nothing of this scale. The Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y Privados said that given today's state of technology, that the government could not pay many teachers was incomprehensible. More services planned for insured at Católica By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The state insurance company has assigned workers to Hospital Hotel La Católica to handle paperwork for those who are covered by the firm's medical plan. The insurer, the Instituto Nacional de Seguros, said that that a desk has been set up in the hospital's annex on the first floor, and that this will allow those seeking medical care to complete all their requirements without having to go to one of the company's offices. The desk will be staffed from 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays to Fridays and from 8 p.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. The hours are similar to what the insurance company offers at Hospital Clinica Biblica, it said. Some expats have purchased the INS Medical plan so that they are covered at private hospitals. Depending on the plan, coverage might be international, said the insurance institute. Animal adoption fair planned By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Escazú residents will get their chance to adopt a dog or cat Sunday at the Walmart facility Asociación Animales de Asís will be offering the animals from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Each of the animals has been neutered and vaccinated, the association said. A donation of 10,000 colons is requested
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| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 7, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 89 | |
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| Valley's neo-Gothic heritage will be focus of historical
presentation |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Central Valley's neo-Gothic churches will be the topic when Alianza Francesa hosts another discussion on architecture. Historian Andrés Fernández will be featured. What once was slur, Gothic architecture dominated construction in the Middle Ages and began a comeback in the late 18th century. In Costa Rica, the style mainly is found in churches. Typically, the pointed arch is a giveaway. Fernández also is expected to discuss the relationship of the national government and the Roman Catholic Church in constructing these landmarks. A case in point is the Iglesia de la Merced in San José, which in this decade underwent a $1 million restoration. Some of the funds for the job came from the Cervercería Costa Rica, the beer company, but |
the municipality
and the central government also put in money. Also being featured are churches in San Isidro de Coronado and San Rafael de Heredia. In the Middle Ages craftsmen spent centuries building one of the famous churches. With modern technology and machines, the Costa Rican churches went up much quicker, mainly in the the late 19th and early 20th century. The discussion will be at the central offices of Alianza Francesa on Avenida 7 at Calle 5 in San Jose's Barrio Amón. The session starts at 6:30 p.m., and there is a 3,000 colons ($6) admission. The sponsorship by the French cultural organization is appropriate because in the Middle Ages, the Gothic style was identified with France. Alianza plans similar discussions with one on the architecture of Guanacaste July 15, on the Colegio Superior de Señoritas Sept. 16 and on the Plaza de la Cultura Nov. 18. |
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| Boat yard with dry dock inaugurated on Pacific coast in
Puntarenas |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Vice President Luis Liberman participated Tuesday in the inauguration of the first development stage of Sunset Eco Boat Yard S.A. in Puntarenas. The firm provides services to mariners, including a dry dock that is capable of handling craft of up to 50 tons. Casa Presidencial said the firm eventually will build dry dock facilities capable of handling 2,000 tons. An announcement said that the maritime operation was well placed |
being close to Los
Sueños, Costa Rica Yacht Club, Puerto Azul, Marina
Pez Vela in Quepos, Marina Papagayo in Guanacaste and Bahía
Escondida
in Golfito. The operation is also close to the Panama Canal, Casa Presidencial noted. The firm's Web site said the founder was Georges Dherlin, who has 30 years in the business. He has been associated with Apex Inflatables in Maryland. The Casa Presidencial report said that the firm will employ students from the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje in the various boat trades. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 7, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 89 | |||||
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| Turtles are more related to birds and crocs than snakes,
study says |
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By
the Dartmouth College news staff
Turtles are more closely related to birds and crocodilians than to lizards and snakes, according to a study from Dartmouth, Yale and other institutions that examines one of the most contentious questions in evolutionary biology. The findings appear in the journal Evolution & Development. The research team looked at how the major groups of living reptiles, which number more than 20,000 species, are interrelated. The relationships of some reptile groups are well understood -- birds are most closely related to crocodilians among living reptiles, while snakes, lizards and New Zealand's tuatara form a natural group. But the question of how turtles fit into this evolutionary picture has remained unclear. Are turtles more closely related to archosaurs (birds and crocodilians) or to lepidosaurs (lizards, snakes and tuatara)? Or are these other reptiles more closely related to each other than to turtles? A growing number of studies examining DNA sequences have suggested a close evolutionary kinship between turtles and archosaurs, but those results were contradicted by anatomical studies and a recent study of small biomolecules called microRNAs. Because microRNAs are viewed by some as excellent evolutionary markers, the conflict between the microRNA and DNA results meant the turtle-archosaur link was viewed skeptically by many. But the Dartmouth-led team's research suggests the earlier microRNA conclusions were erroneous, and instead indicates that microRNAs and DNA sequences yield a common signal -- that |
 Dartmouth College/Daniel Field
This
painted turtle does not look much like its bird relateives.
turtles share a more recent common ancestor with birds and crocodilians than with lizards and snakes. |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
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| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, May 6, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 88 | |||||
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 University of Michigan graphic
A mastodon skeleton from the
fossil Web siteModern
technology allows
digital scanning of fossils By
the University of Michigan news service
More than two decades ago, University of Michigan paleontologist Daniel Fisher and some of his students began the laborious task of digitally scanning the bones of mastodons, mammoths and other prehistoric creatures so the images could be displayed on computers. Fisher hoped to someday create a digital showcase where 3-D images of specimens from the university's Museum of Paleontology's vast collection could be shared with other researchers and with the general public. Sadly, the technology needed to make that dream a reality just didn't exist at the time. But several recent technical advances have enabled the museum to place hundreds of the scanned images on a new Web site called the University of Michigan Online Repository of Fossils. Initially intended as a tool to help field paleontologists identify fossils, the powerful new resource is expected to have wide appeal to students and the general public, as well, said Fisher, the museum's director. "None of what we're doing now was possible when this all began," said Fisher, who gave a presentation about the project in Greece at the VIth International Conference on Mammoths and their Relatives. The number of 3-D bone models on the new Web site is expected to grow into the thousands as additional specimens are added. All of the Museum of Paleontology's scientists and staff members contributed to the project. "On this Web site we'll be providing 3-D models that allow you to manipulate these objects onscreen and to do very much what we would do if we had the real specimen in our own hands — zoom in on it, rotate it this way and that, and even make measurements of it," Fisher said. The new Web site is not the first online paleontology collection, but it has features unmatched by any previous effort. The resolution of the images is higher, and viewers have the ability to use a BonePicker tool to pull individual bones from a skeleton and examine photorealistic 3-D versions of those bones up close. 3-D bones from elephant-like mammoths and mastodons are available on the site, along with photo galleries of early whales and other vertebrates. Three-dimensional digital models of various ancient marine invertebrates — brachiopods, trilobites, clams, crinoids, snails and others — will be added soon. "In many cases, especially for smaller specimens, you can see a lot more detail on the screen than you could if you were holding it in your hand," said Dan Miller, invertebrate paleontology collections manager at the museum. On the computer monitor in front of him is a large, crisp color image of a clam-like brachiopod that lived on the sea bottom some 390 million years ago. "Keep in mind that this specimen, which is maybe 7 or 8 inches on the screen, is really only an inch and a half in size," Miller said. "If I had it in my hand right now, I wouldn't be able to see half of the detail that I see here on this screen." Sharing the museum's collections virtually also has practical benefits. Research museums often loan specimens to other scientists, raising the possibility that one-of-a-kind objects could be damaged or lost. It's also expensive to ship large, heavy bones. "This new Web site makes doing science more efficient, increasing access to the collections while protecting invaluable specimens," Miller said. Hagel tells U.S. to reject the path of isolationism By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says it would be a mistake for the United States to turn to isolationism to avoid involvement in the world's conflicts. After 13 years of U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hagel told a foreign affairs forum Tuesday in Chicago that Americans are increasingly skeptical of foreign military engagements. But he said it would be "a mistake to view our global responsibilities as a burden or charity." He said failure to engage in world affairs would prove costly. "Turning inward, history teaches us, does not insulate us from the world's troubles. It only forces us to be more engaged later -- at a higher cost, at a higher cost in blood and treasure, and often on the terms of others," said Hagel. He said terrorists and insurgents are not fading into oblivion, and that is one reason the United States is increasing its spending on special operations forces. U.S. releases massive report on disruption due to climate By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new U.S. report identifies a reason for the country's hotter temperatures, rising sea level and increase in droughts, floods and other extreme weather: climate change. The 2014 National Climate Assessment, released Tuesday, says the impacts of climate change "are expected to become increasingly disruptive across the nation throughout this century and beyond." The federal study reports multiple lines of evidence "confirm that human activities are the primary cause of the global warming of the past 50 years." The report says there is still time to act, however, and that the amount of future climate change "will still largely be determined by the choices society makes about emissions." But the report says efforts to limit human-induced emissions — which come mainly from burning coal, oil and gas — are "insufficient to avoid increasingly negative social, environmental and economic consequences." The Obama administration is using the report to call for urgent action on climate change, an issue which has been stalled in Congress. The study was produced by a team of more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee established by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The study looks at the effects of climate change on seven sectors; human health, water, energy, transportation, agriculture, forests and ecosystems. Food security challenges, diminishing water quality and increasing disease risks are just a few of the climate-change related problems it identifies. The full report can be viewed at the Global Change Web site. Monica Lewinsky recounts her affair with Bill Clinton By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern whose affair with President Bill Clinton led to his impeachment, is speaking out. Ms. Lewinsky, now 40, was in her early 20s when she and Clinton had what she describes as a consensual relationship during his presidency. The former intern writes about the affair in the June issue of Vanity Fair magazine, out this month, calling it something she deeply regrets. Referring to Clinton as her boss, Lewinsky writes that he took advantage of her, but that any abuse came in the aftermath of the affair, when she says she was "made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position." The House of Representatives impeached Clinton for lying under oath about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, but the Senate acquitted him of all charges. Since then, the Democrat has remained a popular political figure. In excerpts released from Vanity Fair, Ms. Lewinsky says the public humiliation she suffered as a result of the scandal made her suicidal. Thanks to news and gossip Web site Drudge Report, she says might be "the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet," and that she now has a goal of getting involved with "efforts on behalf of victims of online humiliation and harassment." Ms. Lewinsky says she decided to open up now to take back her narrative and give a purpose to her past. Her decision comes as the former president's wife, former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, mulls her own run for president in 2016. Taking notes by hand said to increase comprehension By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Many college students have long abandoned taking class notes by hand in favor of typing on laptop or tablet computers. But scientists from Princeton University and the University of California say that method is less effective. According to a study published in the journal Psychological Science, taking notes by hand is much better for long-term memory of conceptual information. Computers may be distracting because they offer opportunities for quick exchanges of messages, checking sports results, browsing or even shopping. Even without Internet access, though, scientists say computers may be harming academic performance. Students who type notes tend to take down what the professor says verbatim, without thinking about what they are writing. Although these electronic notes contained more words, scientists say it leads to mindless transcription. Those taking notes long-hand need to process the information they hear so they can summarize it in fewer words. In the study, students listened to a lecture, then took a test. Those taking notes by typing were as good at recalling facts as students taking notes by hand, but they did significantly worse when they were asked conceptual questions. Scientists acknowledge that students probably will not abandon their laptops and tablets in class, but suggest some of the available technologies for writing notes by hand on computer screens might be an efficient compromise. Some teens make difference with help from the Internet By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
While most teenagers in the United States spend their time juggling school, home and friends, there are a few who are choosing a different life. They are charting their own path to make a difference in the world. They recently gathered in Los Angeles to discuss their work and what makes each of them unique. Fifteen-year-old Winter Vinecki has accomplished more than most people have in a lifetime. “I recently completed a marathon on all seven continents and became the youngest person in the world to do so. I really was doing this for my dad,” she said. Miss Vinecki’s father was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of prostate cancer when she was 9. He died 10 months later. ”When he was first diagnosed, I immediately knew I had to do something to help him. That’s when I formed Team Winter for prostate cancer research and awareness," said Miss Vinecki. Through Team Winter and social media, Miss Vinecki has raised close to $500,000. From Kenya to Mongolia, she has taken prostate cancer awareness worldwide through her marathons on seven continents. In the U.S., she travels constantly to give talks about prostate cancer and inspire others. At the recent Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, Miss Vinecki was one of several teenagers who addressed a panel about youth who are living extraordinary lives. Another panelist was Jack Andraka, who invented an inexpensive sensor for pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancers when he was 15. “Without Google, Wikipedia, I would have never been able to learn all this stuff I needed for this project. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was before developing my test for pancreatic cancer,” said Andraka. He currently is filing patents for his latest inventions: inexpensive water-quality devices that help detect and filter out heavy metals and pesticides. “I hope to see them employed in developing nations such as Bangladesh and parts of China and India, especially as well in parts of Africa where these heavy metal and pesticides and other industrial effluents are a major problem,” he said. Sixteen-year-old youth activist Mary-Pat Hector saw a problem in her own community. She said too many youth die from gun violence. “It was seeing my friends hurt; it was seeing it on the television constantly. It kind of made me feel like I had to do something about it,” said Hector. She became the national youth director of one of the largest civil rights organizations in the United States, the National Action Network. Miss Hector also started a campaign which educates youth on the issue of gun violence. “My 8-year-old brother drives me, I think, about how innocent he is. I just want the world to be a better place for him and my children,” she said. Miss Hector, Andraka, and Miss Vinecki say a combination of supportive parents, the Internet and social media have helped them succeed; but, what’s most important comes from within. “I think the biggest thing for kids and adults is to never let age and gender be a barrier and to not just dream but dream big,” said Miss Vinecki. “Never let anyone else tell you no," said Andraka. "Always keep going for your dream, and think if a 15-year-old could do it, just think what you could do.” Rules changes will help skilled immigrants in U.S. By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced two proposed regulations designed to attract and retain highly-skilled immigrants. One rule would extend employment authorization to spouses of H-1B visa holders being sponsored for a green card by their employers. U.S. businesses use the H-1B visa program to employ foreign workers in jobs requiring expertise in science, engineering, computer programming and other specialized fields. The other proposal involves removing obstacles to staying in the United States for certain groups of highly-skilled workers, including those from Chile, Singapore and Australia. The Homeland Security department says together, these two actions "will help attract new businesses and new investment to the U.S. and ensure that the U.S. has the most skilled workforce in the world." Immigration remains a divisive political issue in the United States. It has now been more than 10 months since the Senate passed bipartisan legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration system and create a path to citizenship for the estimated 11.5 million people in the U.S. illegally. But immigration reform has stalled in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Advocates have now turned to pushing U.S. President Barack Obama to take executive action Dinosaurs shrunk to birds in order to survive change By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Not all dinosaurs went extinct. Some are alive today in the form of birds. A new study finds that shrinking helped these birds continue to thrive and evolve. “If we really want to know how birds came about, then we need to study the line leading to birds, which includes this big diversity of animals like triceratops and stegosaurus and T. Rex,” said Roger Benson, associate professor of paleontology at Oxford University and lead author of the study reported PLOS Biology. His team followed the evolution more than 400 dinosaurs, noting their size and what they weighed. “The largest dinosaur in our study we believed weighed 90 tons, and the smallest dinosaur was a bird called Qiliania and that weighed 15 grams," Benson said. "So you could fit Qiliania six million times inside Argentinosaurus, the largest dinosaur.” Since these species are extinct, Benson's team calculated that weight with an analysis of fossil limbs which, like pillars, would hold up the weight of the dinosaur. “And there’s a welcome strained relationship between the robustness of those pillars and the mass of the animal that is observed among modern mammals and reptiles, and so it’s fairly reliable for knowing the masses of extinct animals,” he said. The study examined how fast body size changed on the entire family tree of dinosaurs, based on the thickness of their thigh bones. It found dinosaurs quickly evolved big bodies, soon after their origins about 220 million years ago. Then the rates of growth slowed and these giants went extinct after 20 million years. Benson says the one exception was the line leading to birds, which kept evolving a range of body mass, including radically smaller body sizes. “We find that fast rates of evolution are maintained for the whole study period, so for nearly 200 million years," Benson said. "So this is a very evolvable lineage. There’s a long ancient background to the modern radiation of birds through which their ancestors were constantly finding new ecological opportunities and inventing new ways of being an organism.” He says the long journey evident in the fossil record that connects the 10,000 bird species alive today underscores a bigger evolutionary question. “We're no longer asking how the radiation of living birds proceeded over, let's say, 100 million years," he said. "Instead, we're asking where does biological diversity come from over very long time scales and ultimately those time scales might be relevant in establishing how life evolved in general, not just birds or just even vertebrates, but just organisms or animals in general?” Benson says what is clear from this study is that evolving different sizes was important to the success of the feathered dinosaur lineage. His next step is to look at other patterns in dinosaur evolution to see how other features changed over time. Internet users will reach 3 billion, U.N. estimates By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The number of Internet users worldwide continues to rise, according to the United Nations' telecommunications agency, which says there will be almost three billion users by the end of this year. Two-thirds of those users will be in developing countries. In a statement released Monday, the International Telecommunication Union also says the number of mobile-cellular subscriptions will be even higher, reaching almost seven billion by the end of 2014. At the same time, the number of fixed-telephone subscribers continues to fall, with the union predicting there will be 100 million fewer landlines this year than in 2009. The developing world is pushing up the number of mobile-cellular subscriptions, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region; but, the union says the global growth rate of 2.6 percent indicates that the cellular phone market may be reaching its peak. The International Telecommunication Union predicts that by the end of this year, 44 percent of households worldwide will have Internet access. It says nearly one-third of households in developing nations will have an Internet connection, compared with 78 percent in the developed world. The agency's statistics are considered to be the most reliable and impartial and are used by many government agencies and private companies. Childbirth deaths of mothers cut in half, World Health says By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new World Health Organization study finds maternal deaths due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth have been cut nearly in half over the past 24 years. But the agency says most countries will not meet the 2015 Millennium Development goal of reducing maternal deaths by two-thirds. New U.N. data show 45 percent more mothers are surviving childbirth today than in 1990. Last year, 289,000 women died from complications compared to 523,000 in 1990, the study found. A second related World Health Organization study noted the causes of maternal deaths have changed. In 1990, women were dying of bleeding, infections and high blood pressure in pregnancy. The study found that now, more than one in four maternal deaths are due to pre-existing medical conditions, such as diabetes, HIV, malaria and obesity. Marleen Temmerman, the agency's director of reproductive health and research co-authored the study. She said the incidence of non-communicable diseases is increasing throughout the world, and that conditions such as obesity and diabetes get worse during pregnancy and can be life threatening. Ms. Temmerman said Sub-Saharan Africa is still the riskiest region for dying of complications in pregnancy and childbirth. “If you look at what is the lifetime risk for a woman, for a girl to die during pregnancy and childbirth, then it is one in 40 in Sub-Saharan Africa as compared to one in 3,500 approximately, in, for example Europe or the Western world,” she said. The World Health Organization says although steady progress is being made in reducing maternal deaths, there has been too little progress in preventing adolescent pregnancies, abortions, maternal deaths, sexually-transmitted infections and HIV in the last 20 years. The lack of availability to quality comprehensive sexual education and services for young people, especially in poor countries is partially to blame, according to the study. It noted that more than 15 million girls aged 15 to 19 give birth every year and that many of these pregnancies result from non-consensual sex. According to the report, 10 countries account for about 60 percent of global maternal deaths. They include India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Kenya, China, and Uganda. The study said the highest lifetime risk of maternal death is in Somalia and Chad. Eleven countries are on track to achieve the millennium target of cutting maternal deaths by 75 percent. Famous faces in odd places seem to originate in the brain By
the University of Toronto news service
People who claim to see Jesus in toast may no longer be mocked in the future thanks to a new study by researchers at the University of Toronto and partner institutions in China. Researchers have found that the phenomenon of face pareidolia — where onlookers report seeing images of Jesus, Virgin Mary, or Elvis in objects such as toasts, shrouds, and clouds — is normal and based on physical causes. “Most people think you have to be mentally abnormal to see these types of images, so individuals reporting this phenomenon are often ridiculed”, says lead researcher Kang Lee of the University of Toronto’s Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study. “But our findings suggest that it’s common for people to see non-existent features because human brains are uniquely wired to recognize faces, so that even when there’s only a slight suggestion of facial features the brain automatically interprets it as a face,” said Lee. Although this phenomenon has been known for centuries, little is understood about the underlying neural mechanisms that cause it. In the first study of its kind, researchers studied brain scans and behavioral responses to individuals seeing faces and letters in different patterns. They discovered face paredilia isn’t due to a brain anomaly or imagination but is caused by the combined work of the frontal cortex which helps generate expectations and sends signals to the posterior visual cortex to enhance the interpretation stimuli from the outside world. Researchers also found that people can be led to see different images — such as faces or words or letters — depending on what they expect to see, which in turn activates specific parts of the brain that process such images. Seeing Jesus in toast reflects the brain’s normal functioning and the active role that the frontal cortex plays in visual perception. Instead of the phrase “seeing is believing,” the results suggest that “believing is seeing.”  Nationwide Children’s Hospital photo
This is typical gate involved in
the study.Baby gate
injuries rise
first broad study shows By
the Nationwide Children’s Hospital news staff
Chances are that most parents have used or will use a baby gate at some point. Baby gates are designed to help protect young children from stairs and other dangers around the home. A new study from researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital has found gates can lead to injury if used incorrectly. The study, published in the May-June print issue of Academic Pediatrics, is the first nationally representative study to examine injuries associated with these gates. From 1990 through 2010, emergency departments in the United States treated an estimated 37,673 children younger than 7 years of age for baby gate-related injuries. That is an average of 1,794 per year, or about five injured children per day. More than 60 percent of the children injured were younger than 2, and they were most often injured by falls down stairs after a gate collapsed or when it was left open, leading to soft tissue injuries like sprains and strains and traumatic brain injuries. Children aged 2 to 6 were most often injured by contact with the gate itself after climbing on it, which can lead to cuts. “Baby gates are essential safety devices for parents and caregivers, and they should continue to be used,” said Lara McKenzie, the study’s co-author and a principal investigator in the center. “It is important, however, to make sure you are using a gate that meets the voluntary safety standards and is right type of gate for where you are planning to use it.” Dr. McKenzie recommends parents think of pressure-mounted gates as products that should only be used as room dividers or at the bottom of stairs because those kinds of gates are not designed to withstand much force and will not prevent a fall down stairs. For the top of the stairs, only gates that have hardware, which needs to be screwed into the wall or railing, will be strong enough to prevent a child from falling down the stairs. The fact that the rate of injury associated with this safety product nearly quadrupled during the time period covered by the study, going from 3.9 per 100,000 children in 1990 to 12.5 per 100,000 children in 2010, shows more can be done to prevent these types of injuries. Study researchers recommended a combination of efforts to educate families on correct ways to use gates and changes in gate design to reduce these types of injuries. Parents and caregivers can also follow these tips to help reduce injury: • Use hardware-mounted baby gates at the top of stairways. Gates that only press against walls, called pressure-mounted gates, are not secure enough to prevent falls. • Install gates in homes with children between 6 months and 2 years of age. • If possible, remove the gates when the child turns 2, or when the child has learned to open the gate or climb over it. • If removing a gate is not possible because of other children in the home, use a gate without notches or gaps that could be used for climbing. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 7, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 89 | |||||||||
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 Truthy at Indiana University graphic
BotOrNot can give a score to any
tweet.Twitter analyzer
can show
if message is automatic By
the Indiana University Newsroom
Complex networks researchers at Indiana University have developed a tool that helps anyone determine whether a Twitter account is operated by a human or an automated software application known as a social bot. The new analysis tool stems from research at the university's Bloomington School of Informatics and Computing funded by the U.S. Department of Defense to counter technology-based misinformation and deception campaigns. BotOrNot analyzes over 1,000 features from a user's friendship network, their Twitter content and temporal information, all in real time. It then calculates the likelihood that the account may or may not be a bot. The National Science Foundation and the U.S. military is funding the research after recognizing that increased information flow -- blogs, social networking sites, media-sharing technology -- along with an accelerated proliferation of mobile technology is changing the way communication and possibly misinformation campaigns are conducted. As network science is applied to the task of uncovering deception, it leverages the structure of social and information diffusion networks, along with linguistic cues, temporal patterns and sentiment data mined from content spreading through social media. Each of these feature classes is analyzed with BotOrNot. “We have applied a statistical learning framework to analyze Twitter data, but the secret sauce is in the set of more than one thousand predictive features able to discriminate between human users and social bots, based on content and timing of their tweets, and the structure of their networks,” said Alessandro Flammini, an associate professor of informatics and principal investigator on the project. “The demo that we’ve made available illustrates some of these features and how they contribute to the overall bot or not score of a Twitter account.” Through use of these features, the researchers are able to train statistical models to discriminate between social bots and humans. According to Flammini, the system is quite accurate. Using an evaluation measure, BotOrNot is scoring 0.95 with 1.0 being perfect accuracy. Flammini and Menczer said it’s their belief that these kinds of social bots could be dangerous for democracy, cause panic during an emergency, affect the stock market, facilitate cybercrime and hinder advancement of public policy. The goal is to support human efforts to counter misinformation with truthful information. |
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| From Page 7: Global growth rate prediction reduced By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is reducing its predicted global growth rate for this year, but expects growth to improve in many nations next year. The organization's experts say the global economy will expand 3.4 percent this year, slightly less than the previous projection. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is made up of 34 mostly wealthy nations with market-based economies. The group's experts say China's growth will slow, though it still will reach a strong 7.4 percent. The study says the 18 nations that use the euro will expand a bit faster than first thought, with growth of 1.2 percent. U. S. expansion will slow three tenths of a percent to 2.6 percent for the year. TheOrganization for Economic Cooperation and Development says the U.S. central bank is on the right track, keeping interest rates very low while gradually cutting back on other efforts to stimulate the economy. The head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, is scheduled to give an updated assessment of the U.S. economy today at a congressional hearing. |
