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José, Costa Rica, Monday, July 27, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 146
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Skepticism
of
research is frequent here
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A problem with scientific research on controversial themes is that those who do the research are suspected of being paid mouthpieces of whatever special interest group is involved. Sometimes this is true. Stanford University historian Robert N. Proctor said this about cigarettes and cancer: "Cigarette manufacturers disputed this evidence, as part of an orchestrated conspiracy to salvage cigarette sales. Propagandizing the public proved successful, judging from secret tobacco industry measurements of the impact of denialist propaganda. As late as 1960 only one-third of all U.S. doctors believed that the case against cigarettes had been established." A.M. Costa Rica, itself, has been critical of the scientific lockstep involving reports of the impact of global warming. Today distrust in government and institutions is widespread, and perhaps justified in some cases. North American expats in Costa Rica frequently are highly skeptical due to life experiences. No more is this true than in the case of Monsanto Co. and genetically modified plants. There are a group of expats who react every time an article is published in A.M. Costa Rica about genetic modifications or the impact of Roundup, the company's weed killer. The evidence shows that there has never been a single case of documented injury from Roundup and its principal ingredient, glyphosate. Yet Monsanto remains a dirty word, to some extend based on its history with Agent Orange in Vietnam and the popular prejudice against chemistry and science. The opponents quickly reject anything related to Monsanto, even though the company is the one institution that has the deepest interest in researching the chemicals. Such was the case Friday when A.M. Costa Rica published the report of a breast milk study at Washington State University. Some readers noticed that a Monsanto laboratories in St. Louis, Missouri, had done some of the work. The study found that glyphosate, the main ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, does not accumulate in mother's breast milk. That was contrary to a disputed report by the advocacy group, Moms Across America, said the university Michelle McGuire, an associate professor in the university's School of Biological Sciences, is the lead researcher of the study, the first to have its results independently verified by an accredited, outside organization. Professor McGuire is well aware of these type of controversies. "As you probably are well aware, academia-industry collaborations are so often scrutinized to a level of nastiness . . . ," she said in an email interview She said that the sampling of mother's milk was free of cost because she and her colleagues "piggy-backed the collection of the samples and surveys on a National Science Foundation-funded project focused on better understanding microbes and carbohydrates in milk. Thus, the collection of the samples cost us nothing and wasn't funded by anyone other than (indirectly) the National Science Foundation." She said that Monsanto's role was to develop and validate very, very sensitive and specific assays for milk and urine glyphosate and a certain nervous system chemical, As such, Monsanto internally funded that part, she added. Monsanto also paid for the independent analyses by the Wisconsin-based Covance Laboratories, she said. "However, please understand that we shipped the milk samples directly to Covance, and the folks at this independent laboratory communicated only with us in terms of the results," said the professor. "Thus, they provided us (not Monsanto) with the data. We also did the statistical analyses in house and did not involved Monsanto in this phase as well. The conclusions were ours alone, not Monsanto's." Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas
photo
Coast guardsman displays
confiscated nets.Fishermen
confront coast guard over nets
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Despite a ban on fishing in the Gulf of Nicoya for environmental reasons, some 60 fishermen in 32 small boats were spotted doing just that. The Servicio Nacional de Guardacostas and workers from the Instituto Costarricense de Pesca y Acuicultura were surrounded by the boats and the occupants wearing ski mashes, they reported. They called the action intimidation. The confrontation took place last week near the Isla Chira in the gulf. The coast guard officers managed to confiscate some 2,000 meters of nets that had openings smaller than those specified by law. The unidentified fishermen attempted to impede the confiscation of the nets, said the coast guard. The case has been referred to prosecutors in Puntarenas. While the seasonal ban is imposed in the gulf, the fishermen and their families receive subsidies from the Instituto Mixto de Ayuda Social, the coast guard noted., Price cuts announced for motor fuel By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Diesel users will get the biggest break in a system of rebates announced Friday by the Autoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos. Each liter of diesel will be reduce 21 colons. Each liter of super gasoline will be reduced 4 colons, and each liter of plus will see a 3-colon cut, said the agency. The cuts establish a price that is less than what normally would be the case based on the world price of petroleum and the dollar exchange rate. State workers on the march again By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Employees of the state telecom company, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, are marching today to the legislature because they have two complaints. They are unhappy with regulators who are approving the private generation of electricity and they are unhappy with what they see as attacks on their salaries. The company known as ICE ha been among those state organization that have been subjected to news reports by newspapers and television relating to salaries that are significantly higher than the same jobs in the private sector. The government has not yet decided what to do about that fact, although there is public and legislative pressure to take some action. The ICE workers want to apply some of their own pressure. Expat motorists probably should seek to avoid the San José downtown all morning and into the early hours of the afternoon.
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What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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copyrighted by Consultantes Ro Colorado S.A 2015 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, Monday, July 27, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 146 |
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Bombero
birthday The color guard of the Cuerpo de Bomberos, the nation's fire fighters, renders a salute at the start of festivities Sunday. The event was the 150th birthday of the organization. Officials and the public filled the Teatro Nacional for a ceremony. Later there was an 800-kilo (1,760-pound) birthday cake that included the image of the 1910 fire truck. The real one was parked nearby outside the theater. |
Cuerpo de Bomberos photo
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Government agencies told to certify their carbon neutrality
status |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A mandate that government agencies must obtain certification of carbon neutrality was one of the actions the central government took in Nicoya Saturday. Casa Presidencial said that the adverse impact of climate change is each time more obvious and tangible in the country. While the Caribbean presents excess precipitation, the province of Guanacaste is in the worst drought in the last 78 years, it said. Scientists attribute these problems to El Niño in the Pacific, but Luis Guillermo Solís is not the first president to see causation in the weather. Former president Laura Chinchilla attributed massive storm damage in Central America to climate change creating hurricanes. She joined with other presidents in the region in seeking compensation from First World countries. |
The earth's
average temperature has increased 1.4 degrees F or 0.8
degree C since 1880, according to the U.S. National Aeronautics and
Space Administration. The decree issued Saturday defines an action plan for a climate change national strategy. Government agencies are told to immediately seek certification of their carbon emissions. There is believed to be only one private company that can perform these carbon audits. The president also declared July 25 to be the national day of the marimba Saturday. The decree replaced one issued in 2004 that declared the day to be the national day of the marimba musician. The xylophone-type instrument is generally identified with Guanacaste. |
New heat index rules are designed to fight workers' kidney
problems |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Consejo de Seguridad Ocupacional has approved rules that cover employees who work outdoors in hot conditions. The new rules are linked to an effort to reduce the cases of kidney failure in Guanacaste, but they cover the entire country. The new regulations were signed in Nicoya Saturday by President Luis Guillermo Solís and the minsters of Trabajo and Salud, Víctor Morales Mora and Fernando Llorca Castro. The regulations create an index based on temperature, wind velocity, physical activity and the type of clothing workers wear. The Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social conducted a study of kidney failure in 2014. Since it was first identified that high rates of kidney failure exist in the young, male, working populations along the Pacific coast of Central America, many theories have surfaced as to the root of the problem. Although prolonged dehydration is agreed upon in the scientific community as a likely candidate, many others have been proposed. |
Some of the
others include: exposure to pesticides from the sugar cane
work many of the afflicted participate in, consumption of a homemade
liquor that is popular in the rural regions where the problem is most
prevalent and chronic consumption of pain medications possibly linked
to the aches and pains of a manual labor workforce. Genetics could also
play a part, but researchers seem to agree that environmental factors
are most likely to blame. The Caja agrees that dehydration is a problem. The thermal index is determined by a formula that is spelled out in an appendix to the regulations. There are five stages of increasing impact of the heat. Employers can provide remedies ranging from hydration to rest to shade for the workers. Regional ministry offices will be providing additional information, mainly in areas where the sun's heat will crete conditions that generate a high thermal index. Employers are encouraged to send workers for a renal checkup at Caja clinics. |
You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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San José, Costa Rica, Monday, July 27, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 146 |
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Portable computer system gives needed protection to
activists, reporters |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Chris Doten knows how hazardous it can be for democracy activists and journalists working under hostile regimes. As manager for digital technology programs at the National Democratic Institute, the nonpartisan non-profit supporting transparency and openness in government, Doten’s job is to help journalists and pro-democracy advocates protect their privacy from government snoops while online. “We do work in relatively closed societies,” Doten said. “There are a lot of dangers, and we always try to take a thoughtful look at the risks that we’re incurring for the people we’re working with.” Those risks often include government raids, computer seizure, data theft through malware, and the exposure of sources, supporters and private email communications. Such breaches can lead to arrest, expulsion or worse. But Doten said there’s a digital solution that’s helping growing numbers journalists and others around the world safeguard their online activities. It’s called TAILS, and it gives even the most technologically challenged individuals the ability to shield their Internet communications and activity from just about any government in the world. TAILS is an acronym that stands for The Amnesic Incognito Live System. In computer jargon, a live system is a stand-alone operating system that runs directly off a DVD or, increasingly, a USB memory stick. Because a live system runs solely on a computer’s RAM, none of the operating system files are saved anywhere. Once downloaded to a USB, users just plug it in to any computer and run it. When ejected, the TAILS live system leaves no trace of its existence as the computer has literally zero memory of TAILS ever having been used. TAILS also uses the Tor anonymizing network for all connections to the Internet, thus incognito. A developer, who requested to remain unnamed for security reasons, said that the goal was to create a tool that “combined very good security by default while being accessible to a large public.” Early on, TAILS developers realized that neither a live system nor Tor by itself was enough to fully hide user identities and online activities. However, when they were combined together, the developer said, they created a formidable shield. “All kind of identifying information can be leaked, even through Tor, like the fingerprint of your browser, the name of your machine or user, or metadata from your documents,” the developer said. “Live systems … leave no trace on the computer. “While Tor can protect you from an attacker on the network, it doesn't protect you from an attacker who can access your computer and analyze its content, such as a repressive government, your boss or someone harassing you at home,” the developer said. “As live systems run only from RAM, when you shut them down, any trace of your activity disappears automatically from the computer," the developer added. Both Doten and the developer point out that while TAILS provides fairly good privacy by itself, it also comes with a |
suite
of additional
security apps that users can easily access. “TAILS enables a lot of encryption – such as end-to-end encryption through PGP right out of the box – but that’s not automatic,” Doten said. “There’s also a multi-protocol chat client that can speak to Facebook, Google Chat, and others called Pidgin. So people can use TAILS, and then add on PGP or Pidgin with people using counterpart tools on the other end of the conversation," he added. These and other tools, such as GnuPG for encrypting email, the Electrum Bitcoin wallet, and KeePassX for storing strong passwords, allow users to custom-tailor their own levels of privacy protection and anonymization. “TAILS ends up providing your operating system; what happens after that is up to you,” Doten said. TAILS isn’t new. The first versions were launched a little more than five years ago. And because Tails is free and mostly used by individuals who want to remain anonymous, the developer said that it’s hard to know for sure exactly who, or how many, are using the system. What is known is that a growing number of journalists and advocacy organizations, such as the Doten's, are publicly championing the use of TAILS. “I’m pretty sure of the 100 or so people I’ve trained on PGP that a grand total of zero are using it regularly,” Doten said. “TAILS is much easier and more straightforward for most people. "Our partners think of TAILS like their work environment: it lets you do what you need to do for your job," he added. Reporters Without Borders, the nonprofit supporting freedom of the press, also recommends TAILS for journalists who need to protect their sources. Tibetan activists are using TAILS to securely document human-rights abuses there by the Chinese government. And groups working to fight domestic abuse, such as Transition House and Emerge, are now using TAILS to report abuse and shield victims' identities. “I especially make sure to keep it with me when traveling,” said Karachi-based investigative journalist Fahad Desmukh. “Pakistan really isn't the safest place for journalists.” Perhaps the highest-profile endorsement for TAILS came in 2013, when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden insisted on its use by journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras before he would reveal any of the documents about undisclosed NSA surveillance programs he had collected. As with any other encryption or anonymizing application, Tails can be used for ill as well as good. The same robust protections that help protect human-rights activists can be used by hackers, criminal gangs or even terrorists to hide their identity and activity online. While acknowledging that possibility, Doten said the real worry should be how often cyberactivists, journalists and others working to expand democracy are targeted online and then punished for their activities. “I’m frankly shocked at the state of digital security among U.S. journalists; people who have real dangers that they’ve seen externally and internally at times,” he said. “The fact that newsrooms around the country, even the big ones, are not investing more in this I think is a real crime," Doten said. |
Here's reasonable medical care
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What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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Colorado
S.A. 2015 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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Saving key digital knowledge is theme of 'Jonesbridge' By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Two hundred years into the future, descendants of a humanity struck by an unknown catastrophe
Survivors find much information to help them burn coal for electricity, for example. But the amount of lost digital knowledge, particularly the more sophisticated or closely-guarded proprietary technology, sets them back to a dark age. Whatever information they find on crumbling, obsolete hardware or software leftovers is inaccessible or possibly alien to them, making it more of a challenge to reassemble the digital puzzles of the past. “A language, for example, like the Rosetta Stone – we were able to kind of piece together you know, Greek, Egyptian and in-between, based on the Rosetta Stone and some of the linguistic abilities that we had,” said Parker, “But without the software and technology aspect of it, we wouldn’t be able to do that with technology.” But he acknowledged that it is unlikely that humanity might one day come to face such an event. “The incredible amount of redundancy that we do have in our online infrastructure currently makes it unlikely that there would be a civilization-altering loss of data, unless … of course for a catastrophic, you know – nuclear war, solar event even that kills a large part of the population with it,” he said. So in that case, it’s sort of a perfect storm.” It is a speculative scenario. But in the unlikely event that a global catastrophe disrupts humanity’s ability to produce and maintain technology and technological infrastructure for more than 150 years, “much or most information that is now available only in digital form will likely be lost,” said Micah Altman, director of research and head/scientist, Program on Information Science for the MIT Libraries, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There are several reasons that would account for this loss. One of them is the life span of digital storage media. “Most media used for digital storage are intended for storage for approximately a five-year period,” he said in an email interview. “The information on this media would be unrecoverable after 100 years, even in ideal conditions.” While some specialized archival digital media are theoretically designed for 100-year storage under controlled conditions, he said “150 years exceeds the expected lifetime of most of these archival digital materials; and the storage conditions induced by a catastrophe would induce rapid degradation.” Ironically, some analog information might survive. That could include “books and journals printed on acid-free paper, information preserved on Rosetta disks, nickel disks designed for 10,000-year storage, as long as the storage conditions were conducive.” Even if some of the recovered archives are intact, hardware availability or lack of would present another challenge. So a surviving optical disk, even if intact, would require specialized hardware to read it. An ordinary DVD, for example, requires lasers, VLSI or Very Large Scale Integration, the process of creating an integrated circuit by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip, and precisely engineered motors, a sophisticated technology that generally requires considerable supporting infrastructure to manufacture,” Altman explained. Then there is the issue of digital obsolescence. Digital information formats, said Altman, are complex, not human-readable or self-documenting. “Without documentation of the formats, software to implement them, and computers to execute the software, the bits retrieved … would be uninterpretable,” he explained. So if humanity’s technology infrastructure disappears for a 100 years, he said “a whole lot of scientific knowledge, culture, and historical/government record disappears.” But digital information is easy to replicate, he noted, meaning that a country that escapes the catastrophe and “manages to maintain technical manufacturing infrastructure at small scale” can potentially save “much of the publicly available information.” The recovery of lost digital knowledge would depend on who survives, what they know, where they are, and on the scale of the catastrophe. But "Jonesbridge" is “more a story of humanity … understanding that it … has a capacity to overcome more than it has a capacity to avoid calamity,” said Parker. He suggested that there might be a way to create a repository to protect accumulated digital knowledge similar to an underground seed vault in Norway that houses millions of species of seeds for crops, trees and plants. “It would be possible to create some sort of technology vault … that could maintain at least a road map of how to retrieve information from certain basic systems,” he said. “The problem that we face is that the encryption and decryption technology and compression technology are in many cases proprietary to whoever makes it, and they’re protective of it.” Mrs. Clinton denies using her server for classified data By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Saturday that she never used her personal email account to receive or send classified information as secretary of State. "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received," Mrs. Clinton said during a campaign appearance in Iowa, the north-central U.S. state that will hold the first caucuses of the 2016 campaign. The email controversy has dogged Clinton's bid for the presidency, fueling worries that the front-runner for the Democratic nomination has tried to sidestep transparency and record-keeping laws. An Iowa Republican Party official said voters do not trust Mrs. Clinton. He accused her of being less than truthful about what he called her "cavalier handling of sensitive information." The U.S. Justice Department is considering an investigation into a possible compromise of sensitive information in Mrs. Clinton's emails but said it would not be a criminal probe. In a letter to Congress, two federal inspectors general wrote that a review of a limited sampling of Mrs. Clinton's emails found at least four contained classified information that should not have appeared in a private email. Mrs. Clinton said Saturday that she had no idea what was in the emails mentioned in the letter. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said some of the emails did not need to be classified at the time they were sent, but have since been re-examined and upgraded as classified. Mrs. Clinton has authorized the State Department to make 55,000 pages of emails in her private account public. She denies doing anything wrong and has said it was more convenient to use one email account and one device when she was secretary of State. "Looking back, it would have been better if I had simply used a second email account and carried a second phone," Mrs. Clinton said in March. "But at the time, it didn't seem like an issue." Mrs. Critics have accused her of trying to hide controversial communications in her private account, including those surrounding the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. Officials with the Clinton campaign are negotiating with congressional Republicans on terms of her possible testimony before a House committee investigating Benghazi. Colombia's Santos orders halt to bombing of rebels By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Colombia's president ordered a halt Saturday to air raids on the rebel Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. "This will mean fewer deaths, less suffering and fewer victims," Juan Manuel Santos said. The rebels initiated a cease-fire last Monday. Colombia and the Marxist-inspired rebels are engaged in peace talks in Havana after a more than 50-year internal armed conflict. Latin America's oldest insurgency has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions. In March, Colombia suspended bombings against the rebels but resumed them after the rebels broke the ceasefire in April, killing 10 soldiers. Judge says U.S. violated detention pact for children By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that the Obama administration's detention of illegal immigrant children and their mothers violates an 18-year-old court settlement. In a ruling that upheld a tentative decision she issued in April, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the Department of Homeland Security to free the families from three holding facilities as soon as possible. In her ruling, handed down late Friday, Judge Gee wrote that the children and their mothers were being held in widespread deplorable conditions and that authorities had failed to place the youngsters in safe and sanitary facilities, as required by the 1997 settlement. Judge Gee strongly criticized the government for not complying with what she said are the unambiguous terms of the 1997 settlement, and ruled that the settlement applies to both unaccompanied children and those who arrived with their mothers. The judge has given Homeland Security until Aug. 3 to come up a with a plan for the detainees. She also gave the Justice Department 90 days to show cause why it should not have to abide by her ruling. A Homeland Security spokeswoman said the department was disappointed. The Justice Department has not yet responded. Under the 1997 court settlement, immigrant children who arrive in the U.S. illegally and without a parent must be held in a place that looks like and is operated like a licensed, clean and comfortable child-care center. Immigrant-rights lawyers sued the government, arguing that two immigrant detention facilities in Texas and one in Pennsylvania were secured like prisons. All three are operated by private companies under contract to the federal government. Together, they have recently held more than 2,000 women and children. Those people were among tens of thousands of people who had come to the United States from Central America, most of them mothers with children. Many claimed they were fleeing gang and domestic violence back home. The legal action contends that mothers held in the detention facilities are sick and depressed, and that their children also are becoming depressed. Peter Schey, one of the attorneys who brought the suit, said federal officials "know they’re in violation of the law." "They are holding children in unsafe facilities. It's that simple,'' said Schey, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, in an email. "It's intolerable, it's inhumane, and it needs to end, and end sooner rather than later.'' Judge Gee rejected the Justice Department's contention that it had to alter terms of the 1997 settlement to deter the massive wave of illegal immigrant children from Central America who poured across the U.S. border last year. Pacific Partnership talks are coming to the final wire By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Talks on the complex and controversial Trans Pacific Partnership are said to be nearing completion as top negotiators from 12 nations gathered Friday in Hawaii. Trade ministers will join the talks Tuesday in an effort to resolve remaining issues. If completed, the treaty would cut tariffs and trade barriers among participants, something supporters say would boost economic growth. The nations involved are Japan, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, and the United States, which together make up about 40 percent of the global economy. In the United States, critics of the treaty include environmentalists, and unions who say the deal would do too little to protect human rights, the environment and U.S. jobs. Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO union said the treaty "is full of stuff that is bad for working people, bad for the environment, bad for food safety." Previous trade deals cut tariffs on imports with the idea that making trade cheaper would spark more exchanges and boost economic growth. This new deal cuts conflicting rules and laws that make it difficult for goods from one nation to be sold in another. U.S. critics say harmonizing labor standards and environmental laws might weaken hard-won worker protections in the United States or other nations. Unions worry that weak labor rights protections in some U.S. trading partners would keep production costs low and encourage companies to move more jobs out of the United States to low-wage nations. An expert in Asian economic issues, Charles Morrison, said the treaty is a very complicated negotiation and the outcome is far from certain. But Morrison, who is president of the East-West Center in Hawaii, said there is a lot of political will on the part of many nations pushing for a deal. In an interview, Morrison cautioned that even if a deal is made by negotiators, each nation will still put it through an approval process, including the Senate in the United States. He said the results of negotiated give and take are likely to disappoint some business groups, environmental activists or others who wish officials had driven a harder bargain. He said without some give, however, there will be no take in any negotiation. Morrison said failing to make a deal would deny consumers in many countries the benefits of lower cost, more efficient trade. He said many of these nations already do considerable trading, and some have bilateral trade agreements, so reaching a deal may not mean huge changes. News accounts say many issues remain to be worked out, including disputes between Washington and Tokyo over auto parts and rice imports, and other squabbles over access to Canadian markets for agriculture products from other nations. Trade ministers are scheduled to hold a concluding press conference Friday to announce the results of what is likely to be a week of hard bargaining behind closed doors. Brain differences discovered in low-income youngsters By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
It’s well-known that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to lag behind their better-off peers in academic readiness and school performance. Now, investigators may be homing in on a biological reason for that difference. Researchers linked to the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that children and adolescents who tested lower on standardized tests had a lower volume of gray matter in their brains than the norm, and their frontal and temporal lobes developed more slowly. Those are two critical brain areas, said Barbara Wolfe, an economics professor who co-authored the study published this week in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The brain areas are "critical in the sense that they keep developing until individuals are well into their adolescence or early 20s, and critical in the sense that they are important for executive function," Ms. Wolfe said. "They are important for cognitive function." Researchers looked at magnetic resonance images of the brains of nearly 400 children and young adults, ages 4 to 22, matching the scans with the participants' scores on cognitive and academic achievement tests and their socioeconomic status. In general, participants who were low on the economic scale tended to score between three and four points below what is expected for their age on standardized tests. Those who were significantly below the poverty line had a gap of between eight and 10 points below the developmental norm. Ms. Wolfe said factors in poorer students’ brain structure and lower test scores could include inadequate nutrition or stimulation, or "stress that parents face in trying to deal with poverty, putting food on the table." The authors concluded that up to 20 percent of the low-income children’s achievement deficits could be tied to poverty. Ms. Wolfe suggested early intervention may improve poor children’s brain development and, subsequently, their test scores and academic achievement. Once the source of the deficit is identified, "these areas of the brain can be developed," she said. ". . . It means that policies can be developed that overcome this deficit." At the same time, Ms. Wolfe said improved test scores might be a way to measure the effectiveness of programs designed to boost lower-income children’s academic achievement. |
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What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
The
contents of this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río
Colorado S.A. 2015 and may not be reproduced anywhere without
permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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What good are thorns? Okay, we know why they are on raspberries and blackberries and such, it’s to keep things from eating all the berries Then there are the other trees with spines. The cedro is one. The spines are thick and conical and very rough. Or the ceiba with warty spines. Then there is the palo verde and the white cedar (hura crepitans) and a bunch of other trees, large and small, that make an outing into the local patches of jungle such a treat. If you slip and start to fall, there are certain trees that you should not grab. Better to hit the ground than get some of these spines in your hand. So, trees have spines for protection too, but why? Most of these spines start at ground level and go up 3 to 5 meters (that would be 10 to 17 feet) and then peter out. Why do these trees need protection? For the answer, we have to look into the distant past. Until about 11,000 years ago there were megafauna roaming through what is now Costa Rica. How do we know? A bone from the extinct camelop (a camel-like animal) was found during digging of the new section of the Panama Canal. There are, of course, many other examples in the fossil record. So, suppose you are a ceiba tree and you don’t want a josephoartigasia chewing on you. Just a rodent? Think again; the josephoartigasia was the size of a cow. How do you protect yourself from an animal the size of a cow that wants to chew on your trunk? You grow spines, of course; nice big ones. Or you grow warty bark that discourages chewing. Well, the megafauna are gone but the spines and warts persist. Perhaps one day they will be gone as well. Until then, be careful what you reach for. Even trees can bite. A.M. Costa
Rica/Victoria
Torley
Cactus is from the La Garita
Central ViveroPlant for the Week
Here’s a prickly one for you. I think of this cactus as “The Sleeping Caterpillar” but I am sure it has another more appropriate name. As with all cacti, sandy soil and easy on the water, although many seem to thrive in our wet climate here by the lake. Oh, do I need to remind you to wear thick gloves? If you would like to suggest a topic for this column, simply send a letter to the editor. And, for more garden tips, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arenal-Gardeners/413220712106845 |
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From Page 7: New access plan OK'd for City Mall By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A government committee has approved an access plan for Alajuela's City Mall. The access will be into Ruta 153. The construction project has been controversial because the location is near the Hospital de Alajuela, and neighbors have been objecting over what they see will be high traffic. The action was by the little-known Comisión de Carreteras de Accesos Restringidos of the Minsterio de Obras Públicas y Transportes. Developers now have six months to construct the roadways that will make the connection. The road ministry said the job is about $8 million. |