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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 209
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on Infinito's legal situation By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Sala IV constitutional court has rejected an appeal by Industrias Infinito S.A. to mediate the differences among decisions by the court itself, the Sala I and the Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo. The Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo annulled the company's concession to develop an open pit gold mine in northern San José after the Sala IV had validated the concession. The Sala I upheld the Tribunal's decision even though it conflicted with that of the Sala IV. The constitutional court appears to have ducked considering the issues of the case. A summary from the Poder Judicial said that the case was rejected because it did not have the basic requirements of admissibility as contained in the Law. Infinito is a subsidiary of Infinito Gold Ltd. of Canada. The firm is expected to begin international arbitration now that it has exhausted its remedies in Costa Rica. The mine site is known as Crucitas. Last April 4 the company president, John Morgan, issued a statement noting that the company has served notice that it considers Costa Rica to be in breach of the trade treaty because a series of conflicting court rulings ended with the annulment of the concession to mine gold. The six-month period stipulated for conciliation in a trade treaty between Canada and Costa Rica expired earlier this month The case was the subject of lengthy protests by students and environmental activists. The company was accused of cutting protected trees to create a spot for its pit mine, but the concession predates the decision to protect the trees. Morgan's statement outlined the conflicting views of Costa Rica politicians and the courts. For example, then-president Óscar Arias Sánchez issued a decree saying that the open pit gold mining project was in the national interest. And the Sala IV constitutional court ruled in April 2010 that all the objections raised against the company were without merit. But the following November, a lower court, the Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo, voted to annul the concession, and this was upheld by the Sala I of the same Corte Suprema de Justicia. When it goes to the World Court's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, the company has told government officials that it will seek slightly more than $1 billion. .
Lawmakers appeal on raid rejected by Sala IV court By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Sala IV has rejected an appeal placed by Justo Orozco, the legislative deputy. The lawmaker filed an appeal against the nation's chief prosecutor, the Judicial Investigating Organization, the Sala III of the Corte Suprema de Justicia and the president of the Asamblea Legislativa, for letting investigators enter and search his office. The lawmaker based his appeal on the separation of powers. He had been accused of conducting his notary business of marriages and divorces in his legislative office. That is something that is not legal. Investigators took personal items, his computer and his notary book. He is the sole representative of the political party Renovación Costarricense in the legislature. He is an evangelical pastor. Orozco has gained notoriety because of his opposition to homosexuality. That situation sparked protest when he became head of the legislative human rights committee. His outspoken position earned him the title of a national shame from the Spanish language daily La Nación. The court said that the investigation has not finished and that there was no restriction on the lawmaker's liberty that required habeas corpus. Amnesty International cites threats against protesters Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
Colombian paramilitary group threatens native protesters with social cleansing. Amnesty International said Monday. There are serious ongoing concerns for the safety of indigenous protesters in Colombia amid escalating violence against them by the security forces and after their leaders received a death threat from a right-wing paramilitary group, Amnesty International said. Dozens of indigenous protesters, including many children, have already been injured when Colombian security forces appear to have used excessive force against the demonstrations, which started Oct. 12 and continue in several regions of the country, the organization said. Fears of further violence have been compounded in the past week after the Rastrojos paramilitary group called for social cleansing of native leaders and groups involved in the protests, said Amnesty. “Most of the evidence gathered by Amnesty International in several parts of Colombia points to a deeply worrying and largely disproportionate use of force against the indigenous protesters by the police and the armed forces,” said Marcelo Pollack, Amnesty International researcher on Colombia. “The Colombian authorities must ensure the violence against the protesters is stopped and death threats by paramilitary groups, as well as the allegations of excessive use of force, are promptly and thoroughly investigated. Those responsible must be brought to justice in civilian – not military – courts. Failure to do so could pave the way for more casualties as the protests continue.” Since Oct. 12, thousands of native people have been demonstrating in several Colombian regions. They are demanding respect for their rights which are increasingly threatened as mining, oil and other economic interests encroach on their traditional lands, Amnesty said. This wave of protests has prompted a violent response by the Colombian security forces, with some of the most serious incidents taking place in the south-western Colombian regions of Cauca and Valle del Cauca. In one confrontation 60 persons suffered injuries, Amnesty said. U.S. nears 2013 ceiling in resettling 69,930 refugees Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
The United States announced Monday it brought 69,930 refugees to safety and new lives in the United States in fiscal year 2013. That number is closer to the authorized ceiling of 70,000 in 2013 than in any year since 1980. Reaching this threshold is a demonstration of the administration’s efforts to create a refugee admissions program which meets the important security screening standards required by the American people and the growing humanitarian need, said the U.S. State Department. The top five nationalities resettled to the United States in 2013 were Iraqi, Burmese, Bhutanese, Somali, and Cuban, the department said. The Barack Obama Administration is committed to maintaining a strong refugee admissions program as an integral component of our effort to offer protection to some of the world’s most vulnerable people, the department said. Their presence makes the country more diverse, the culture richer, and the national character stronger, it added For fiscal year 2014, the President authorized the admission of up to 70,000 refugees from around the world. The department said it expects to admit more than 60 nationalities with continued strong arrivals from Iraq, Burma, and Bhutan. The department also is working to increase Congolese and Syrian arrivals given the numbers in need of protection through resettlement, it said. As the country enters fiscal year 2014, the department said it remains committed to doing everything in its power to live up to our values and to meet the needs of the world’s most vulnerable people. The commitment to Iraqi refugees and those who worked with U.S. troops and the U.S. government continues, as evidenced by admitting over 19,000 Iraqis, the highest annual level since the program began in 2007, said the department. Through use of transit centers hosted by the governments of Romania and Slovakia, the United States has been able to resettle Iraqi refugees trapped by the war in Syria as well as at-risk Afghan women who were formerly in Iran, it said. Refugees were resettled in 186 communities in 49 states, said the department. Education ministry conducts forum on sexuality program By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The education ministry hosted 200 persons in San Antonio de Belén Monday to talk about sexuality and programs in the schools. The Ministerio de Educación Pública had invited foreign experts including Juan Luis Álvarez Gayou, director del Instituto Mexicano de Sexología. The ministry is trying to put together what it calls an integral program that combines sexuality, spirituality and the promotion of mature emotions, it said. Teaching about sex in the public schools has been controversial.
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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 Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 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 Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 209 | |
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| Contractor picked for $6.3 million
Circunvalación bridge job |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The nation's road agency has picked a contractor to provide a final solution to the collapse of the Circunvalación between Pavas and Hatillo. The 3.2 billion-colon job is expected to be done in six months. That is about $6.3 million. Preliminary plans call for two concrete bridges, each of three lanes. The contractor is Codocsa/Productos de Concreto, and much of the material for the bridges will be built of concrete offsite, said the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes. The company will spend about 15 weeks designing and installing the underpinnings of the structures. Meanwhile, motorists will be using the reinstalled bailey bridges. That phase is expected to begin Nov. 16. The contractor is expected to replace one temporary bridge and than another with traffic routed two ways on the first completed bridge. The bridges are supposed to be 75 meters each, some 246 feet. Each bridge will contain traffic lanes 36 feet wide. |
The contractor was one of five
bidders on the job, the ministry said, adding that it was the only one
that complied with all the requirements. The washout site is between Hatillo 8 and the Pavas turnoff. The Río María Aguilar has eroded the soil below the highway. The Circunvalación is a bypass route south of the San José city center. The road agency, the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad, closed down westbound lanes of the Circunvalación Aug. 27 when it became obvious that the river was undermining the road. Workers hurried to erect four temporary bailey bridges to handle traffic. But the bridges also became undermined. The central government closed the highway in mid-September because of the failure of the temporary bridges. Workmen then began erecting steel walls and pouring more concrete to host the temporary bridges, which are not yet in place. Closing the major four-lane highway was an economic blow to the country with traffic snarled during much of the day, lost deliveries and employees tied up for hours in bumper-to-bumper jams. |
María Amalia Pendones founded the Danzay company in 2000. The dancers have performed internationally, including in the United States, Spain, Denmark and Venezuela, among others. |
 Danzay
photo
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| Teatro Nacional features ballet and
contemporary dance today |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Today's Teatro al Mediodía at the Teatro Nacional features 23 dancers from the Danzay company. The program includes a section of the ballet “La historia de los colores,” choreographed by María Amalia Pendones, company director. Other works also will be performed, said the Teatro Nacional. Three are scheduled to be from classical ballet and two are |
contemporary, said an announcement.
The Teatro al Mediodía at 12:10 p.m. is the popular weekly
cultural presentation of the national theater. Admission is just 1,500 colons, about $3. Students and seniors get in for half price. The full ballet by Ms. Pendones recently debuted after a year's work, she noted. |
| Glitch in Honduras gets the blame for
15-minute power outage |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The national power company said that an outage in most of the country Monday was due to a problem in Honduras. The company, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, said power went off for about 15 minutes at 11:04 a.m. The company has frequent local power outages, but this one included nearly the entire country. |
The electrical problem made its way
to Costa Rica through Nicaragua and the Central American power network,
said the company. Some 165,000 customers were affected, it added. The company said it was waiting for a fuller explanation of what happened from the administration of the network based in El Salvador. Many firms and tourism operations such as hotels have backup generators that kick in as soon as grid power is lost. |
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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 |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 209 | |||||
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| Here is a sure way to confirm that Christmas is just around
the corner |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Another sure sign that the holidays are coming is police confiscation of fireworks coming from other countries. Officers in Golfito did so Sunday when they searched the luggage compartment of a San José-bound bus from Paso Canoas. They said they found 31 boxes containing 77,500 individual fireworks. The explosives were worth about 700,000 colons or about $1,400. The rule in Costa Rica is if it explodes it is illegal. Fireworks vendor stands pop up around Christmas ostensibly to sell legal fireworks. But they have been known to have products under the table. Each year the Hospital Nacional de los Niños and police agencies embark on a campaign to reduce or eliminate the number of children who are injured by exploding fireworks. Nevertheless, the sky all over the country is lighted by serious rockets at the stroke of midnight New Year's. |
 Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Pública
Here are the confiscated
fireworks. |
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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 Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 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, Oct. 22, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 209 | |||||
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| Scientists think they know how to grow human hair By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center may have come with something that many have been in search of for years, the ability to actually grow new hair on a balding head. The researchers, writing in a study that was published online Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say they have come up with a method that can actually generate new hair growth, not just redistribute hair from one particular part of the head to another. Most people normally shed between 50 and 100 strands of hair each day. Losing that much hair, believe it or not, shouldn’t cause noticeable thinning of scalp hair says the Mayo Clinic. But for many, especially as they get older, their hair gradually thins out, some to the point where the hair loss or alopecia can affect a person’s overall appearance. Since, to many, a full healthy head of hair symbolizes youth and vitality, a balding head could represent the opposite, getting old and not being as vibrant. As a result, the hair restoration industry has become a $1.88 billion a year business. Hair loss in women can prove to be a much more serious problem than in men, since the psychological effects and the impact to self-esteem due to hair loss can be increased. Many of today’s modern restoration techniques may not be as effective since women tend to have insufficient donor hair. "About 90 percent of women with hair loss are not strong candidates for hair transplantation surgery because of insufficient donor hair," said co-study leader Angela M. Christiano, a professor of dermatology and professor of genetics and development. "This method offers the possibility of inducing large numbers of hair follicles or rejuvenating existing hair follicles, starting with cells grown from just a few hundred donor hairs. It could make hair transplantation available to individuals with a limited number of follicles, including those with female-pattern hair loss, scarring alopecia, and hair loss due to burns." Patients suffering from such hair loss, according to Ms. Christiano, gain very little benefit from the already existing hair-loss treatments and medications. While the treatments may slow down the rate of hair loss, they usually do not stimulate robust new hair growth. The researchers said that dermal papilla cells – protrusions from inner skin tissue – can produce hair follicles. They also said the idea of using the cells to clone hair follicles has been around for the last 40 or so years. In past experiments, the researchers said that they had some problems in actually producing human hair follicles. They found that once they put dermal papilla cells into a conventional, two-dimensional tissue culture instead of producing hair follicles as they had hoped, the cells simply reverted into basic skin cells that weren’t able to produce hair follicles. “So we were faced with a Catch-22: how to expand a sufficiently large number of cells for hair regeneration while retaining their inductive properties,” said Colin Jahoda, from Durham University, England, and co-director of North East England Stem Cell Institute. To get beyond this paradox the researchers studied rodent hair. With a method developed by Jahoda, scientists were able to gather papillae cells from rodents, grow hair and successfully transplant the cells back into rodent skin. The researchers said that they suspected that the chief reason why rodent hair can be so easily transplanted is that, unlike human papillae, their dermal papillae must have an ability to create a special environment outside of the cells, which would allow the papillae to reprogram the skin of the recipient to grow new follicles. "This suggested that if we cultured human papillae in such a way as to encourage them to aggregate the way rodent cells do spontaneously, it could create the conditions needed to induce hair growth in human skin," said the study’s first author Claire A. Higgins, associate research scientist. In order to see if their theory could be proven, the scientists gathered dermal papillae from seven human donors and cloned the cells in a tissue culture, adding no additional growth factors into the mix. A few days later, they transplanted the cultured papillae between the dermis and epidermis of human skin and then grafted the skin onto the backs of mice. The researchers found that in five out of seven tests performed not only did the transplants produce new hair growth, but the hair itself also lasted for at least six weeks. Using a DNA analysis, the researchers confirmed that the new hair follicles that grew on the mice’s backs were indeed human and that they genetically matched the donors. "This approach has the potential to transform the medical treatment of hair loss," said Ms. Christiano. "Current hair-loss medications tend to slow the loss of hair follicles or potentially stimulate the growth of existing hairs, but they do not create new hair follicles. Neither do conventional hair transplants, which relocate a set number of hairs from the back of the scalp to the front. Our method, in contrast, has the potential to actually grow new follicles using a patient's own cells. This could greatly expand the utility of hair restoration surgery to women and to younger patients — now it is largely restricted to the treatment of male-pattern baldness in patients with stable disease." The scientists did point out that more research and study will need to be done before they can actually test the method on humans. The research team said they are optimistic that clinical trials could begin in the near future. "We also think that this study is an important step toward the goal of creating a replacement skin that contains hair follicles for use with, for example, burn patients," said Jahoda. Obama on defensive in call to French president over spying By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. President Barack Obama called France's President Francois Hollande Monday to discuss French outrage about claims that a U.S. spy agency eavesdropped on millions of phone calls of French citizens. Obama told the French president the U.S. is reviewing its intelligence gathering to ensure a balance between security and privacy. This move for damage control came as the White House complained that some allegations of U.S. activities carried in the French press were distorted. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called in the U.S. ambassador to ask about an article in Le Monde newspaper about large-scale spying on French citizens by the U.S. National Security Agency. The article alleged that the NSA gathered tens of millions of French phone records over a one-month period. Fabius called the claims shocking. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was questioned on the matter when he arrived Monday in Paris for talks on the Middle East. He declined to talk about the specific allegations, but said the United States will discuss the matter privately with French officials and other concerned allies. He said protecting the security of people in today's world is very complicated and challenging. "Now I am not going to comment on the specifics. As a matter of policy we don't discuss intelligence matters, and lots of countries are engaged in the activity of trying to protect their citizens and the world," Kerry said. "As the president, as President Obama said very clearly in a recent speech that he gave at the United Nations General Assembly just a few weeks ago, he said 'we in the United States are currently reviewing the way that we gather intelligence.' And I think that is appropriate, and our goal is always to try to find the right balance between protecting the security and the privacy of our citizens.'' Mexico reacted angrily Monday to an article published in the German weekly Der Spiegel, in which Edward Snowden accused the NSA of accessing the e-mail of former Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Mexico's foreign ministry called the practice "unacceptable, illegal and against Mexican and international law." State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf would not confirm or deny the recent reports of U.S. spying. She told reporters Monday that all countries understand the value of gathering intelligence and said the United States is willing to discuss concerns that any country has about U.S. practices. The spokeswoman said there always is a balance between security and privacy, and said the United States is trying to figure out where that balance lies. "We're trying to find the right balance here about what we gather and how we gather it. The president has spoken to this at length now," Ms. Harf said. "And it's worth keeping in mind as we have a discussion, keep in mind the entire intelligence picture." Snowden, who has taken refuge in Russia, is wanted in the U.S. for espionage and other charges, after leaking details of the NSA's worldwide spying activities. Pre-teen kills one, wounds two in Nevada school shooting By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A 12-year-old student armed with a handgun shot and killed a teacher and wounded two classmates before killing himself at his middle school in Nevada shortly before classes began on Monday, law enforcement officials said. Both of the wounded students from Sparks Middle School were rushed to Renown Regional Medical Center in nearby Reno, where one of them underwent emergency surgery, said Tom Miller, acting Sparks police chief. The Reno Gazette-Journal newspaper identified the slain school staff member as 45-year-old math teacher Michael Landsberry, quoting the man's sister-in-law. Authorities did not immediately name the teacher. Witnesses described a chaotic scene at the school in the northwestern Nevada town of Sparks, located just east of Reno, after the gunfire erupted in an outdoor area as students were arriving for the school day. “A kid started getting mad and he pulled out a gun and shoots my friend, one of my friends at least,” a seventh-grade student identified as Andrew told local KOLO-TV. “And then he walked up to a teacher and says back up, the teacher started backing up and he pulled the trigger.” “The teacher was just lying there and he was limp, he didn't know what to do, he was just in a lot of pain,” he told KOLO. “And me and five other friends went to him and said come on we've got to get him to safety. We picked him up, carried him a little bit far and we left him because our vice principal came along and said go, go, go get to safety, get to safety. So we left the teacher there and we went to safety,” Andrew said. Family members of Landsberry described him as a hero who tried to persuade the young gunman to drop his weapon. Obama vows to cure ills of health insurance Web site By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
President Barack Obama has vowed to fix problems afflicting the rollout of the new health insurance law, including software glitches frustrating Americans trying to enroll in the program. Since enrollment for the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, as the health care law is known, formally started Oct. 1, the main federal Web site and some state exchanges have been plagued by software problems. Americans have until March of next year to sign up for insurance or face a penalty. As problems became more embarrassing, the White House blamed heavy demand straining on line systems. But amid increasing criticism, the administration now has sought help from the high-tech industry to fix what experts say are more than just glitches, but some serious system design flaws. In the White House Rose Garden, with a dozen people who successfully signed up for coverage or were already benefiting from the law, Obama said he is committed to fixing what he called kinks in the system. "There is no sugar coating it. The Web site has been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it is fair to say that nobody has been more frustrated by that than I am precisely because the product is good. I want the cash registers to work. I want the check out lines to be smooth. So, I want people to be able to get this great product," said the president. "There is no excuse" for the problems, said Obama, adding his administration is doing everything it can to boost capacity. He stressed that while health insurance under the exchanges does not formally begin until Jan. 1, Americans already are benefiting from key provisions, including coverage regardless of pre-existing medical conditions. Obama acknowledged the problems have provided more ammunition to opposition Republicans whose efforts to block funding for Obamacare led to a 16-day government shutdown. But he said the long and contentious battle over health care reform was not fought merely because of a Web site. "We waged this battle to make sure that millions of Americans in the wealthiest nation on Earth finally have the same chance to get the same security of affordable, quality health care as anybody else. That is what this is about," said Obama. Obama said "it's time for folks to stop rooting for the failure" of the health care law, "because hardworking middle-class families are rooting for its success." The administration has not released figures of the total number of people who have signed up successfully for coverage, but has pledged to provide that information in November. The Department of Health and Human Services said that nearly half a million people submitted applications through the federal Web site and online state insurance exchanges or marketplaces. A spokeswoman for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she intends to testify before Congress, but no date has been set. Republicans have called for Ms. Sebelius to resign, citing the problems with the health care Web sites. As twitter approaches IPO, survey shows many drop it By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Retired schoolteacher Donald Hovasse signed up for Twitter about a year ago at the urging of his daughter. He lost interest after trying the service a few times and finding lots of celebrities but few of his friends using the online social network. “I didn't really get the point of it at all,” said the Las Vegas, Nevada, resident. “Most of them were people I wasn't interested in hearing what they had to say anyway.” He said, however, that he does check Facebook every day to see what his friends are up to. Hovasse's experience highlights a risk for investors as Twitter, Inc., marches towards this year's most anticipated initial public offering in the United States, expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange in mid-November. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 36 percent of 1,067 people who have joined Twitter say they do not use it, and 7 percent say they have shut their account. The online survey, conducted Oct. 11 to 18, has a credibility interval, a measure of its accuracy, of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. In comparison, only 7 percent of 2,449 Facebook members report not using the online social network, and 5 percent say they have shut down their account. The results have a credibility interval of 2.3 percent. People who have given up on Twitter cite a variety of reasons, from lack of friends on the service to difficulty understanding how to use it. Twitter declined to comment for this story, saying it is in a quiet period ahead of its IPO. Twitter's attrition rate highlights a challenge that has dogged the online messaging site over the years: while it has managed to enlist many high-profile and avid users, from the Pope to President Barack Obama, Twitter has yet to go truly mainstream in the way Facebook has. Neanderthal animal kills provided unexpected salad By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Neanderthals may have saved time foraging for vegetation to eat, instead opting to eat the contents of herbivores’ stomachs, according to new research. Researchers at the National History Museum in England theorize that plant material found on Neanderthal teeth could be from the partially digested stomach contents (chyme) of hunted animals. “The practice of eating the stomach contents of prey could be a behavior that goes right back to the earliest humans,” said museum anthropologist Chris Stringer. “Having gone to the time and trouble of securing the carcass of a large herbivore, why would our ancestors have wasted such a source of nutrition?” Eating stomach contents is still practiced today by Australian Aborigines, who eat the chyme of kangaroo and Greenland Inuit who consume the stomachs of reindeer as a delicacy. In harsh conditions, such as desert or tundra, eating animal stomach contents allows people to gain nutrients from plants they could not easily obtain otherwise. Neanderthals have long been thought of as pure big game hunters, largely ignoring vegetables and small game, a factor which, it has been argued, could have led to their extinction. But new evidence from tooth plaque and other dietary analyses shows they did eat vegetation, including some that required complex preparation. “It shows a level of dietary complexity not always appreciated before,” said anthropologist Laura Buck. Stringer and Ms. Buck co-authored an article on their theory in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. |
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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 Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 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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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 209 | |||||||||
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New skills keep
mind sharp, study says of senior citizens By
the Association for Psychological Science news service
Older adults are often encouraged to stay active and engaged to keep their minds sharp, that they have to use it or lose it. But new research indicates that only certain activities — learning a mentally demanding skill like photography, for instance — are likely to improve cognitive functioning. These findings, forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that less demanding activities, such as listening to classical music or completing word puzzles, probably won’t bring noticeable benefits to an aging mind. “It seems it is not enough just to get out and do something — it is important to get out and do something that is unfamiliar and mentally challenging, and that provides broad stimulation mentally and socially,” says psychological scientist and lead researcher Denise Park of the University of Texas at Dallas. “When you are inside your comfort zone you may be outside of the enhancement zone.” The new findings provide much-needed insight into the components of everyday activities that contribute to cognitive vitality as we age. “We need, as a society, to learn how to maintain a healthy mind, just like we know how to maintain vascular health with diet and exercise,” says Park. “We know so little right now.” For their study, Park and colleagues randomly assigned 221 adults, ages 60 to 90, to engage in a particular type of activity for 15 hours a week over the course of three months. Some participants were assigned to learn a new skill — digital photography, quilting, or both — which required active engagement and tapped working memory, long-term memory and other high-level cognitive processes. Other participants were instructed to engage in more familiar activities at home, such as listening to classical music and completing word puzzles. And, to account for the possible influence of social contact, some participants were assigned to a social group that included social interactions, field trips, and entertainment. At the end of three months, Park and colleagues found that the adults who were productively engaged in learning new skills showed improvements in memory compared to those who engaged in social activities or non-demanding mental activities at home. “The findings suggest that engagement alone is not enough,” says Park. “The three learning groups were pushed very hard to keep learning more and mastering more tasks and skills. Only the groups that were confronted with continuous and prolonged mental challenge improved.” The study is particularly noteworthy given that the researchers were able to systematically intervene in people’s lives, putting them in new environments and providing them with skills and relationships: “Our participants essentially agreed to be assigned randomly to different lifestyles for three months so that we could compare how different social and learning environments affected the mind,” says Park. “People built relationships and learned new skills — we hope these are gifts that keep on giving, and continue to be a source of engagement and stimulation even after they finished the study.” Park and colleagues are planning on following up with the participants one year and five years down the road to see if the effects remain over the long term. They believe that the research has the potential to be profoundly important and relevant, especially as the number of seniors continues to rise: “This is speculation, but what if challenging mental activity slows the rate at which the brain ages?” asks Park. “Every year that you save could be an added year of high quality life and independence.” |
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| From Page 7: Tax treaties get initial approval By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmaker approved on first reading Monday seven tax agreements with as many foreign entities. The agreements provide for the exchange of financial information to and from Costa Rica. The countries are Iceland, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Denmark and Greenland, Sweden, and Norway. The agreements are part of the country's largest effort to prepare itself for membership in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the international agency that once had Costa Rica on its black list for tax evasion. The treaties also are consistent with Costa Rica's effort to reduce bank secrecy here so its tax collectors can monitor accounts. The tax treaties have to be voted on one more time, but there is no opposition |
