This week, marking what would have been Ray Charles 83rd birthday, the U.S. Postal Service honors the singer with a new postage stamp. And, there’s also a new CD and DVD collection featuring great Ray Charles performances.

“Ray Charles Forever” opens with a newly remastered version of fellow piano man Leon Russell’s “A Song For You.”  It's one of a dozen tunes on the CD in the collection.

The president of the Ray Charles Foundation, Valerie Ervin, said that while fans of the singer and pianist may already have most of this music, there are extras that make this set special. 

“We released some DVD footage, some of that has never been seen or put out in many, many years," she said. "Some of it was shot over in Europe. It was a live show, so we are releasing that to DVD. That will be bonus footage for everyone to enjoy. And a lot of the tracks were remastered, so the sound comes up to today’s quality of sound, if you will.”

But there is one never-before-released recording on “Ray Charles Forever.”

“They Can’t Take That Away From Me” is a song that Ray always performed in his live shows, but it’s never been put out on record," Ms. Ervin said. "So, a lot of people are going to get this track for the very first time and hear it for the very first time.”

We often think of Charles as a great rhythm and blues singer, so hearing a swinging version of a George and Ira Gershwin classic — or his country songs — is a good reminder that he sang all kinds of American popular music.

Valerie Ervin explains that Charles believed singing was another form of storytelling.

“It heals people, it helps people, no matter what genre you’re singing," she said. "So, for him to take an old gospel song and sing it and bring it to life, everyone gravitates to it. You go ‘I never heard that song before.’ But when he puts his stamp on it, you thought that it really happened to him. And that’s what music is all about.” 

The 20-minute DVD portion of the package includes songs recorded during some mid-1990s festivals and interviews from the 1980s. A music-only version of “Ray Charles Forever” is available for download, as well.


Bilinguals with head injuries
have advantage, study reports


In the era of globalization, bilingualism is becoming more and more frequent, and it is considered a plus. However, can this skill turn into a disadvantage when someone acquires aphasia?

If a bilingual person suffers brain damage, a stroke, head trauma, dementia, and this results in a language impairment called aphasia, then the two languages can be disrupted, thus increasing the challenge of language rehabilitation.

According to Ana Inés Ansaldo, researcher at the research centre of the Montreal Geriatrics Institute,  and a professor at the University of Montreal, research evidence suggests that bilingualism can be a lever — and not an obstacle — to aphasia recovery. A recent critical literature review conducted by Ms. Ansaldo and Ladan Ghazi Saidi, a doctoral student, points to three interventional avenues to promote cross-linguistic effects of language therapy, the natural transfer effects that relearning one language has on the other language.

It is important for speech-language pathologists to clearly identify a patient's mastery of either language before and after aphasia onset in order to decide which language to stimulate to achieve better results, according to the research. Overall, the studies reviewed show that training the less proficient language before or after aphasia onset — and not the dominant language — results in bigger transfer effects on the untreated language.

Moreover, similarities between the two languages, at the levels of syntax, phonology, vocabulary, and meaning, will also facilitate language transfer. Specifically, working on cognates or similar words in both languages facilitates cross-linguistic transfer of therapy effects. For example, stimulating the word “table” in French will also help the retrieval of  the word “table” in English, as these words have the same meaning and similar sounds in French and English. However, training non-cognates, words that sound alike  but do not share the same meanings, can be confusing for the bilingual person with aphasia.


U.S. shutdown approaches
with no compromise in sight


The U.S. government is one day away from a partial shutdown, with no signs of compromise among lawmakers on a formula to extend federal spending authority. Absent a last-minute deal, non-essential government services will halt and hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be idled at midnight Monday.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic-controlled Senate remain at odds over a government funding extension.

Last week, the House passed a spending bill that cut funds for President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.  Friday, the Senate restored funding for the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, and sent the measure back to the House.

Just after midnight Saturday, the House passed another spending bill seeking a one-year delay in the implementation of a core component of Obamacare. That bill is now before the Senate once again. Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin predicted the next move on the CBS "Face the Nation" television program.

"We know what is going to happen," he said Sunday. "Tomorrow the Senate will come in session. The House position is going to be rejected again, and we are going to face the prospect of the government shutting down.”

Appearing on Fox News also Sunday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, predicted yet another round of legislative ping pong once the Senate acts.

“I think the House will get back together in enough time, send another provision not to shut the government down, but to fund it, and it will have a few other options for the Senate to look at again,” he said.

What Does a U.S. Government Shutdown Mean?

- Large parts of the federal government need to be funded each year to operate

- If Congress cannot agree on how to fund them, those parts of the government shut down

- During a shutdown, federal workers are separated into excepted and non-excepted employees

- Excepted must continue to work, and will be paid when Congress funds the government again

- Non-excepted are furloughed and not guaranteed to receive back-pay

- Parts of the government dealing with national security and public safety and those with independent funding like the Postal Service continue to operate

- Other parts shut down, including National Parks, the Environmental Protection Agency and the processing of visa and passport applications

The last government shutdown lasted 21 days and ended on Jan. 6, 1996.

But Senate Democrats and the president have pledged to oppose all Republican attempts to tie their legislative agenda to what would normally be a routine bill to keep the government running.  Durbin says Democrats would welcome talks with Republicans on Obamacare, or any other facet of government operations once a shutdown is averted.

“Let us sit down in a bipartisan and calm way," he said. "Not with the prospect of shutting down the government or shutting down the economy.”

But Republicans say it is Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress who are being unreasonable.

“The president is the one who is saying, ‘I will shut down government if you do not give me everything I want on Obamacare.’ That to me is the president being intransigent,” said Sen. Rand Paul, a possible Republican presidential candidate who also spoke on "Face the Nation."

Democrats point out that the Affordable Care Act already is law, and that Obama won reelection last year while defending Obamacare. Democrats also note that they are not demanding any of their legislative priorities in return for agreeing to fund the government, such as immigration reform or gun control, and are urging Republicans to show similar restraint.

Polls show Americans have deep concerns about Obamacare, but that the public does not favor a government shutdown. A temporary halt in non-essential government services will begin unless a spending bill passes both houses of Congress and is signed into law by Obama by midnight Monday.

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Cygnus spacecraft is attached to an arm of the International Space Station.



A privately-owned spacecraft named Cygnus successfully docked with the International Space Station Sunday, becoming the second such private craft to do so.  The docking came a week later than planned in part due to a software issue and traffic at the orbiting station.
 
The unmanned Cygnus spacecraft was drifting near the International Space Station, as planned, when Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency used the space station's robotic Canada-arm to grab the cargo capsule. Astronauts then used the Canada-arm to connect the capsule to the orbiting lab.  And with that, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences became the second U.S. company to show it can resupply the space station.

It's a feat that had only been accomplished by a handful of governments until just last year, when the California-based company SpaceX made history by docking its Dragon spacecraft.  Orbital now joins SpaceX as a private provider of cargo resupply services.

"Today we delivered more cargo on a commercial basis than has ever been delivered to the space station, 700 kilograms," said a former NASA astronaut and executive vice president of Orbital Sciences, Frank Culbertson, who spoke at a NASA briefing later Sunday.  "And I know the crew is going to be very happy when they get the hatch open and get a chance to see all the things that are in there and obviously the things that will keep their mission going."   

Cargo included food, clothing and science experiments.

It wasn't always smooth sailing for this mission, even though the Cygnus spacecraft launched atop Orbital's Antares rocket with a picture perfect liftoff from the mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia Sept. 18.  The rendezvous with the space station had to be postponed when a data formatting issue between the Cygnus and the space station emerged and required a software patch.  The delay was extended due to traffic congestion because a Russian spacecraft carrying astronauts was set to reach the station on Sept. 25.    

The United States is relying on private industry to ferry cargo to the station while NASA focuses on developing the next generation of spacecraft that can go to an asteroid or Mars.  The U.S. space agency acted as a lead investor in Orbital Sciences and SpaceX as they developed their crafts.    

NASA's Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of the commercial crew and cargo program, praised the public-private partnership.  He said the goals were to use NASA investments to kickstart the commercial space industry, and also to spur reliable, cost-effective access to low-Earth orbit and the space station.    

"And the third was to become a customer for these services once they emerged," he said. "I think we can say today conclusively that we've added another partner to the list that helped us achieve these goals 100 percent." 

NASA has awarded Orbital a $1.9 billion contract for resupply missions, the first of which is planned for December.  SpaceX already has started fulfilling its $1.6 billion contract.   

It's crucial for the U.S. to be able to reach the space station, says Orbital's Culbertson, something it has not been able to do since NASA retired its aging space shuttle fleet in 2011.  

"We know and understand and accept the responsibility this is critical to the continuation of the station and the continuation of U.S. leadership in space, as well as an international partnership that I think is a shining example of how nations can work together when they have the ability to let their engineers, their scientists, their operators and their professionals work together and get politics out of the way," he said.

Orbital's Cygnus spacecraft is designed to be filled with the station's trash and to burn up upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere.  Its planned undocking is set for Oct. 22.


Falcon rocket with new motors
blasts off in California test


An unmanned Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Sunday to test upgrades before commercial satellite launch services begin later this year.
 
The 22-story rocket, built and flown by Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, soared off a newly refurbished, leased launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Station.
 
The Falcon 9 blazed through clear blue skies out over the Pacific Ocean, its water vapor trail visible even as the rocket left the atmosphere.
 
“It went better than expected. It was incredibly smooth,” SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk said after the launch.
 
Nestled inside the rocket's new 17-foot (5-meter) diameter nose cone was a small Canadian science satellite called Cassiope. Cassiope had initially been scheduled to fly on SpaceX's now-discontinued Falcon 1 launcher in 2008.
 
“It's certainly a huge relief to have successfully delivered Cassiope to orbit. It's been weighing on me quite heavily,” Musk said.
 
Cassiope, which is designed to monitor the space environment around Earth and serve as a communications satellite, and five secondary payloads were delivered into their intended orbits, Musk told reporters on a conference call.
 
As an experiment, both of the rocket's two stages were restarted during flight.
 
Musk is particularly interested in developing the technology to fly the Falcon's first stage back to the launch site or have it gently splash down in the water so its motors can be recovered, refurbished and flown again. Currently, after delivering their payloads into orbit, the boosters tumble back toward Earth and essentially explode mid-air before crashing into the sea.
 
“The most revolutionary thing about the new Falcon 9 is the potential ability to recover the boost phase, which is almost three-quarters of the cost of the rocket,” Musk said.
 
Neither engine restart test went perfectly, but engineers were able to get enough data to plan on a demonstration flight next year.
 
“The most important thing is we now believe we have all the pieces of the puzzle,” Musk said.
 
The upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 has engines that are 60 percent more powerful than previous versions, longer fuel tanks, new avionics and software and other features intended to boost lift capacity and simplify operations for commercial service.
 
Privately-owned SpaceX has contracts for more than 50 launches of its new Falcon 9 and planned Falcon Heavy rockets.
 
Ten of those missions are to fly cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. The other customers are non-U.S. government agencies and commercial satellite operators.
 
SpaceX also has two contracts for small U.S. Air Force satellites but is looking to break the monopoly that United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, has on flying big military satellites as well.
 
SpaceX has already flown three Dragon capsules to the station and made two other successful test flights with older versions of the Falcon.
 
Falcon 9's next mission is to put a communications satellite into orbit for SES World Skies. The launch is targeted for next month and will take place at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
 
“We accomplished a lot today,” Musk said. “We have a little bit of work to do obviously, but all-in-all I think it's been a great day.”


Brazil's president is gaining
in public opinion, polls show


President Dilma Rousseff continues to recover popularity lost after the massive protests that shook Brazil in June, bolstering her chances of re-election next year, two polls published Friday showed.
 
The polls confirm the results of other recent public opinion surveys showing Ms. Rousseff has overcome the dramatic drop in support she suffered after the protests, which targeted all of Brazil's political elite, including her ruling Workers' Party.
 
The number of Brazilians who consider Ms. Rousseff's government excellent or good rose to 37 percent in late September from 31 percent in July, according to an Ibope opinion poll commissioned by the National Industry Confederation.
 
That is still below the 55 percent level she polled in June before hundreds of thousands of angry Brazilians took to the streets to protest against corruption and poor public services. Ms. Rousseff responded with pledges to improve health and education and reform proposals to make politicians more accountable.
 
Ms. Rousseff's personal approval rating has risen to 54 percent from 45 percent since July, the poll said, while the number of Brazilians who trust her stewardship of the nation climbed to 52 percent from 45 percent.