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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 209
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Go to Page 5 HERE! Go to Page 6 HERE! Sports is HERE! Opinion is HERE! Classifieds are HERE! Plus useful links |
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Genetic study zeroes in on making teeth By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Humans, all mammals really, definitely got the short end of the evolutionary stick when it comes to teeth. Humans only have two sets, and if they lose those, well, that's why dentists will always have work. In fact, by age 65, according to the World Health Organization, 30 percent of all people worldwide have lost all their teeth. Now if humans were bony fish, they could just regrow lost teeth. A research team at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta is taking a closer look at the process and finds that fish and mammals may have some common genetics that could someday allow just that. Cichlids are popular tropical fish that a biology professor, Todd Streelman, studies in Atlanta. “Our approach is to find things that are hard to study otherwise and then target them in these animals. So in this case, Lake Malawi cichlid fishes and many other fishes regenerate their dentition throughout their entire life,” said Streelman. In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Streelman and his team analyzed embryotic fish cell tissue that develops into either teeth or taste buds. Streelman says they found similarities between teeth and taste buds at their earliest stages of development. Last year, the same researchers sequenced the cichlid genome. This year, they crossed closely-related cichlids and then compared genetic differences among the second-generation hybrids. Streelman says they discovered what appeared to be genetic switches that would tell the embryonic cells to become either teeth or taste buds. “We could identify this because the genes that are typically positive markers of taste buds and the genes that are typically positive markers of teeth were co-expressed," he said. "They were expressed in the same places.” The team then followed the cells through their development until they found the point in development when these cells decided to become either a tooth, or a taste bud. Teeth and taste buds begin in the same kind of tissue in the developing jaws of fish in their earliest stages. The scientists mapped the regions of the developing jaw specific to each. Then they manipulated the undifferentiated tissue in fish to boost tooth development over taste buds at an early stage, when the fish had eyes and a brain but were still growing jaws. Armed with that knowledge, the genes that become teeth, and the area of the jaw where it happens, they went looking for similar genes in mammals. It turns out that cichlids aren't the only animals that express these genes. Streelman says collaborators at Kings College London demonstrated that a few poorly studied genes in mice were also involved in the development of teeth and taste buds. “These genes that we had identified in fishes are in fact also active in the earliest development of teeth on the jaw margin and taste buds on the tongue of mice,” he said. Streelman says the studies in fish and mice suggest that with the right signals, the tissue in humans might also be able to develop new teeth. "The direction our research is taking, at least in human health," he said, "is to figure out how to coax the tissue to form one type of structure or the other." Debtor's prison for ¢21 million By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Debtor's prison may be a Middle Age concept, but not if the money owed is for family support. The Fuerza Pública said they detained a man in Santa Ana who owes 21 million colons in what is called pensión alimenticia. He is supposed to pay his wife support of 3 million colons a month, but he has been involved in a court fight, he said. He also said he does not have the money. Police were following the instructions of a judge's order.
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 209 | |
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| Christmas Gordo lottery top prize is $2.6 million tax free
here |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Some may call it a voluntary tax on stupidity, but for others the Christmas lottery is a lot of fun for an investment less than a dinner out. The Junta de Protección Social gave details of the so-called Gordo Wednesday, and the prizes and costs are the same as last year. Legal government lotteries in the modern era of the United States date from the 1960s, but the Junta has been running lotteries for 170 years. They are traditional in Latin and Spanish culture. This year once again four persons have the chance to take home 1.4 billion colons tax free, although lawmakers would like to do something about that. That amounts to about $2.6 million. To win, someone just has to have a full sheet of 40 lottery tickets with the correct three-digit series and two-digit ticket numbers. Full sheets or enteros are 70,000 colons (about $130) just like last year. A single ticket torn from the 40-ticket sheet goes for 1,750 colons ($3.24). Alas, the holder of a single ticket only wins 35 million colons or about $65,000. Typically family members or even residents of the same community will share one or more lottery tickets. In addition to the major prize, there are Second prizes of 120 million colons ($222,222) and 60 million ($111,111) for third. The lottery consists of what is called four emissions or four identical tickets for each number possibility. The Junta is quick to point out that the estimated 4 billion-colon profit from the lottery is shared among 430 public and private social programs. The drawing for the Gordo will be Dec. 13 at 7 p.m., so ticket holders have plenty of time until then to dream of how they will allocate their winnings. The Junta plans to award 17.7 billion in prizes altogether. That's nearly $33 million. Just 5 percent of the tickets went unsold last year, so interest |
 Little lottery guy
is high even though there is a lottery with lesser prizes each Sunday. Even though there is no tax on the winnings, the central government gets $1.4 million on the sale of tickets. Some 1,600 lottery vendors also benefit, and those selling the winning tickets get an extra bonus. After the Gordo drawing, the Junta also stages two consolation drawings for those holding tickets that did not win. The Junta will be staging promotions around the country where enteros will be awarded to participants in order to sell even more tickets. Picking the winners is antagonizingly slow for those munching popcorn in front of the television that Sunday night. Three separate roulette-style metal baskets are spun over and over. One produces the series number. The second determines the ticket number, and the third determines the prize. So even if a lottery player has the correct series and ticket numbers, the breath is held until the prize is established. That continues until all the 49,000 prizes are awarded. The Junta said that four sets of 100,000 tickets will be distributed throughout the country. And the odds of winning the grand prize will be one in 100,000. |
| Solís responds to crime wave concerns with more
police on the streets |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
President Luis Guillermo Solís announced immediate actions Wednesday to counter the crime problem that has been growing for years. The president held a meeting with Judicial and legislative leaders, and later said he was pushing for approval of a handful of bills that would improve security. The president also said that 500 more officers would be sent into areas where drug transactions are high. Officials were shaken by a weekend this month that saw at least eight murders. And there appears to be at least one a day since. The security minister, Gustavo Mata Vega, said that as of Oct. 9 there had been 426 murders this year. At least 150 of these may have been the result of drug crimes. There was another murder in Parrita Monday night, and that also appears to have been drug related. A murder about 5 a.m. Wednesday morning might shed some light on conditions that have encouraged criminality. Dead was a 34-year-old man with the last name of Villalta. He was shot in the head. He was an armed robber who received a four-year and six-month prison term, but after he had served a third of his term he was evaluated by the Instituto Nacional de Criminología, according to the Ministerio de Justicia y Paz that runs the prisons. |
As a result
of the evaluation, the man was allowed to enter a
program where he had to sleep one night a week at a location run by the
prisons. That was as of Sept. 28. The idea was to reintegrate the man into the community, the ministry said in a press statement. It added that there were 4,450 persons in the same type of program, which officials called semi-institutional. In just San José there are 1,327, they said. The killing happened as Villalta was leaving the center where he overnighted in Guadalupe de Goicoechea. The problem faced by officials is complex because drug activities are made up of many small groups. Sometimes these are family members. Officials designate these activities as organized crime, but there does not seem to be one or a few leaders who might be detained. The local drug distribution which prompts many of the killings is separate from the international smuggling activities handled by the well-known cartels. The Paritta murder is an example. The suspects are four residents of Parrita who were detained not long after the victim's body was found buried in Playa Palo Seco. The same day, Tuesday, judicial agents detained seven other persons who are linked to two other murders. One is in Cartago and the other was in Pavas. The cases do not seem to be related. The additional problem for administration officials is that the murder and crime situation has become a political issue with opposition party members blaming Solís. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 209 | |||||
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| Women slowly taking their place in competitive online gaming |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Studies show that nearly half of all digital game players are women, but most play casual games on their smartphones or tablets. Although competitive online gaming is still a male-dominated sport, that's slowly changing. A team of female gamers called CLG Red, part of the Counter Logic Gaming eSports organization, found some competition recently at an Intel developer's conference in San Francisco. “We have come so far with gaming and women and the female scene, and it is growing bigger and bigger each day,” said team member Diane Tran of Houston. Members of Tran's team play online from different cities and have traveled internationally to win world championships. Digital gaming is a $20 billion industry in the United States, and it's like any other sport for the players involved, said CLG Red's leader, Stephanie Harvey of Montreal. “I practice. I have a team. I have coaches. I have a staff. I have sponsors. I have leagues. I have official matches, I have |
tournaments,
and fans, just like a pro sport,” she said. The team plays a combat game called Counter Strike and has thousands of fans who watch on the Web site Twitch and see recaps on YouTube. Charges of sexism have rocked the industry, but despite prejudice, women hold their own in this male-dominated sport, said Bonnie Ruberg, a game researcher at the University of Southern California. “When they hit a moment where there is discrimination, somebody says something about them or about women, they know how to stick up for themselves in that environment,” Ruberg said. CLG Red's Benita Novshadian, who studies computers at a California college when she is not competing on them, said that "right now, I am majoring in information systems, which is basically IT, and I really hope to stick within the gaming industry and maybe my degree can back that up.” In the meantime, she and her teammates are enjoying online fame and the fun of professional gaming. |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 209 | |||||||
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| Biden decides not to run and cites mourning for son By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Stepping into the White House Rose Garden on a mild, sunny day, Vice President Joe Biden announced that he would not join the 2016 presidential race because he had simply run out of time. Flanked by President Barack Obama and Jill Biden, his wife, the vice president explained that since May 30, when his 46-year-old son, Beau, died of brain cancer, he and his family have been working through their grief. “I’ve said all along it may very well be that that process, by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for president,” Biden said Wednesday. “Unfortunately, I believe we’re out of time, the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination.” While he will not be a presidential candidate, Biden said, he will not be silent on important national and political issues: "I intend to speak out clearly and forcefully to influence, as much as I can, where we stand as a party and where we need to go as a nation.” Biden has run twice before for president. He has a national and international reputation for political and governmental expertise. He vowed to continue to press for support for President Obama’s policies, to urge divided factions in the U.S. Congress to unite, and to return to one America, a national consensus on key issues. The 72-year-old former senator from Delaware joked about some reporters' informal references to him as middle-class Joe, a label he wears proudly. He defended President Obama’s efforts to improve life for America’s middle class and declared the current economic inequality between rich and poor Americans unsustainable. Turning to international affairs, the vice president said the U.S. has learned much about “large-scale, open-ended military invasions,” and must accept that it cannot solve the world’s problems alone. Biden's announcement ended months of speculation about whether he would return to electoral politics for one last campaign. By abandoning a presidential campaign before he even entered it, Biden clarified the status of his fellow Democrats' candidacies. Former secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the current frontrunner, with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders well behind her in second place. The vice president urged them and other Democratic hopefuls to defend the Obama administration in their political campaigns and to run on the president's record, promising to continue and expand his policies. Material from CIA director is published by WikiLeaks By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Information from the private email account of CIA Director John Brennan is being made public, just days after hackers bragged they had broken in. WikiLeaks Thursday posted several documents from the account, including what appear to be drafts of papers about the challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community and recommendations for how the U.S. should deal with Iran. The anti-secrecy Web site also posted a draft of Brennan’s security clearance application, which contained personal information, such as a Social Security number. WikiLeaks defended its actions, saying Brennan “used the account occasionally for several intelligence-related projects,” adding that it planned to release additional documents in the coming days. A CIA spokesman rejected the Web site’s claims. “There is no indication that any of the documents released thus far are classified,” the spokesman said, describing them instead as “documents that a private citizen with national security interests and expertise would be expected to possess.” The spokesman also called the hacking a crime. “The Brennan family is the victim,” the spokesman said. “The private electronic holdings of the Brennan family were plundered with malicious intent and are now being distributed across the Web.” The documents posted on WikiLeaks appear to have come from a high school student who told the New York Post earlier this week that he'd hijacked the CIA director’s personal email account to protest American foreign policy. The documents posted by WikiLeaks Thursday all date to a time before Brennan joined the administration of President Barack Obama. One paper from 2007, titled “The Conundrum of Iran,” warns that Tehran’s ongoing use of terrorism is particularly alarming and insidious, but also bemoans “the gratuitous labeling of Iran as part of an axis of evil by President Bush” following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S. The draft paper recommends the next president of the United States tone down the rhetoric. Government tops U.S. fears, university survey reports By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Americans are more afraid of U.S. government corruption than they are of potential terrorist attacks. According to a Chapman University survey, 58 percent of people say they were either afraid or very afraid of corruption on the part of government officials, while 44.4 percent report fearing man-made disasters such as a terrorist attack. Almost half of Americans say they fear cyber terrorism and having their online information tracked by the government and corporations. The survey broke fear down into 10 major domains, including categories such as crime, personal anxieties and technology, as well as man-made and natural disasters. The other top 10 fears include corporate tracking of personal information, terror attacks, bio-warfare, identity theft, running out of money and credit card fraud. Ultimately people seem to be more afraid of disasters created by man than those nature dishes out. The most-feared natural disasters are pandemics, rather than hurricanes or earthquakes, and when it comes to personal anxieties, fear of reptiles tops the list. Global warming is the main environmental concern and when it comes to daily life, death is what people fear the most. Other fears include war, heights, insects, loneliness and the dark. Obama seeks crackdown on prescription drug abuse By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Drug overdoses kill more Americans annually than motor vehicle accidents. President Barack Obama cited the jarring statistic Wednesday as he announced new efforts to highlight the toll the United States faces from prescription drug abuse and heroin use. “In 2013 alone, overdoses from prescription pain medications killed more than 16,000 Americans. One year. I don’t have to tell you, this is a terrible toll,” Obama said. The president traveled to Charleston, West Virginia, Wednesday to join families and health care providers in a community discussion about addressing the epidemic of excessive drug use. The state has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the U.S. The White House announced new government and private sector efforts Wednesday to reduce the excessive prescription of pain medications and other legal drugs, which often can lead to abuse. The government also is trying to control the number of fatal overdoses of heroin, while improving access to treatment for users. President Obama issued a memorandum to federal agencies and departments to ensure that health professionals receive adequate training when it comes to prescribing pain medication. He is calling for more than 540,000 health care providers to complete opioid prescriber training in the next two years. The U.S. leader said that while addiction is not new, the sale of prescription pain medications has increased by 300 percent since 1999. “In 2012, 259 million prescriptions were written for these drugs, which is more than enough to give every American adult their own bottle of pills,” Obama told an audience of 250 at the East End Family Resource Center in Charleston. Opioids include hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine and methadone. Heroin belongs to the same class of drugs, and Obama said four in five new heroin users started out by misusing prescription drugs. Paul Ryan might become next speaker of U.S. House By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan appears to be closer to becoming the next speaker of the House of Representatives after receiving the support of several hardline conservative Republicans. The 40-member House Freedom Caucus announced late Wednesday that a two-thirds majority of its members will support the influential Wisconsin lawmaker, who was Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate in 2012. "Paul is a policy entrepreneur who has developed conservative reforms dealing with a wide variety of subjects," the group said in a written statement announcing the decision, "and he has promised to be an ideas-focused speaker who will advance limited government principles and devolve power to the membership." "I'm grateful for the support of a supermajority of the House Freedom Caucus," Ryan said in a statement, calling it "a positive step toward a unified Republican team." Although not an official endorsement, the decision by most of the Freedom Caucus to back Ryan suggests House Republicans are ready to move past the turmoil caused when outgoing Speaker John Boehner resigned earlier this month under pressure from hardline conservatives, who accused him of being too willing to compromise with Democrats. Boehner had faced drama, showdowns and clashes with hardline members many times over the past five years since Republicans took control of the House, just barely averting a default on the national debt in 2011 and triggering a government shutdown in 2013. Just recently, some conservatives had threatened to not vote for a federal spending bill unless funding is cut to the women's reproductive health group Planned Parenthood, which also performs abortions. The leadership crisis deepened when Boehner's second-in-command, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, withdrew his candidacy for the post after it was obvious he would not have the support of the Freedom Caucus. Boehner and other Republican leaders then turned to Ryan, who currently chairs the House's tax-writing panel, the Ways and Means Committee, believing he would gain support of the entire Republican membership. After initially rejecting their overtures, he said Tuesday that he had changed his mind, but only if he has the support of all the House Republican factions. Ryan laid out a list of demands to the membership before he would agree to run for speaker, including doing away with the procedure for vacating the chair, a technical maneuver that can be used by other members of Congress to oust a sitting House speaker. The procedure has become a powerful way for the Freedom Caucus to enforce its agenda, but in Ryan's view it has also become a destabilizing influence for the Republican Party. Boehner has set next Wednesday as the date for party members to select their nominee for his replacement. Boehner said that after House Republicans select their candidate, the full chamber will vote on his replacement a week from today. Under the U.S. Constitution, the speaker of the House of Representatives is second in the presidential line of succession behind the vice president. Four nations ask U.N action over Iran's missile launch By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The United States, Britain, France and Germany are calling on the U.N. Iran sanctions committee to take appropriate action regarding a missile test that they say constituted a serious violation of a U.N. resolution. Matthew Rycroft, Britain's U.N. ambassador, said that any action would depend on technical experts’ view of the launch. “It’s clear in our view that it is a violation of the relevant security council resolutions, which remain in force after the Iran deal," he said. "It’s very important that the sanctions committee looks at that carefully and reports back to us.” Resolution 1929 prohibits Iran from conducting launches of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Reuters quotes the letter from the four nations, all Security Council members, to the sanctions committee as saying the missile was inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon. Any sanctions against Iran would have to be approved by fellow Security Council members Russia and China. “I’ll let other council members speak for themselves,” said Rycroft. “But I think everyone recognizes the importance of the Iran deal. We want to see it implemented properly, fairly and fully by all parties.” The Iran nuclear deal, signed by Iran and six major powers, went into its first phase of implementation Sunday. Iran said this month that it had tested a new precision-guided ballistic missile. But it denied that the missile was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. "None of the Islamic Republic of Iran's missiles have been designed for nuclear capabilities," Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 209 | |||||||||
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 University
of Guelph photo
A
mangrove rivulus fish
Mangrove fish
jump to land to cool off
By the University of Guelph news staff
On hot, humid days, the tiny mangrove rivulus fish cools down by jumping out of water, according to a new study from the University of Guelph. In the study published in the journal Biology Letters, the researchers describe how these fish air-chill themselves on solid ground in order to drop their body temperatures. The researchers also found that fish exposed to higher temperatures for a week tolerated warmer water better. The fish jump out of the water to escape rising temperatures, said Pat Wright, senior author of the study. “If the fish are prevented from jumping out of the water, they would die,” she said. “The water evaporates off the fish and they cool down their body temperatures slightly. It only takes about a couple seconds for the fish to start to cool down.” The rivulus fish live in waters from Florida to Brazil, where water temperatures can reach 38 C. Normal human body temperature is 37 C. The researchers, led by undergraduate students Dan Gibson and Emma Sylvester, filmed the fish with a camera that measures body temperature. As the water warmed, the fish flung themselves out and onto damp filter paper, where they cooled down almost immediately. They found that after one minute, the body temperatures of the fish actually dropped below that of the filter paper. “Based on physics, we would expect evaporative cooling to happen, but this is the first time it was directly measured,” said Professor Wright. She said the fish wriggle to a chosen spot once on land and even find their way by barriers. “These fish will also jump out because of conflict with other rivulus fish or looking for food, but the primary reason is to cool their bodies down,” said Professor Wright. The research team also looked at plasticity, or the ability of the fish to adjust to higher temperatures. “Thermal flexibility in adult fish provides an advantage in a rapidly changing environment,” Professor Wright said “Plasticity would help them cope, allowing them to stay in higher temperatures longer.” The paper is titled “Out of the frying pan into the air: Emersion behaviour and evaporative heat loss in an amphibious mangrove fish.” |
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| From Page 7: Treasury chief concerned by budget bickering By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said he worries congressional bickering could cause a financial accident, seriously hurting markets and damaging the overall economy. Lew spoke Wednesday at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, saying Washington faces a very real Nov. 3 deadline to increase the legal authority to borrow money to pay debts incurred by the government. Without an increase in the debt limit, Lew said the treasury will be unable to fully pay many obligations, needlessly causing a loss of confidence in the government, discouraging investment, and leaving Washington without the means to cope with emergencies. Lew said the debt limit should not be used as a weapon in separate negotiations over the next budget. A group of hard-line conservatives in the Republican Party is demanding strict new controls on government spending that are opposed by President Barack Obama's Democratic Party allies in Congress. The tense negotiations were complicated by the abrupt resignation of House Speaker John Boehner, who announced plans to leave Congress at the end of October. There is no apparent agreement on who would replace him. That leaves the fractious House of Representatives without leadership for the time being. |
