Thursday, December 31, 2009
Scientists See Numbers Inside Peoples Heads
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By carefully analyzing brain activity, scientists can tell what number a person has just seen, research now reveals.
They can similarly tell how many dots a person was presented with.
Past investigations had uncovered brain cells in monkeys that were linked with numbers. Although scientists had found brain regions linked with numerical tasks in humans - the frontal and parietal lobes, to be exact - until now patterns of brain activity linked with specific numbers had proven elusive.
Scientists had 10 volunteers watch either numerals or dots on a screen while a part of their brain known as the intraparietal cortex was scanned - it's a region of the parietal lobe especially linked with numbers. They next rigorously analyzed brain activity to decipher which patterns might be linked with the numbers the volunteers had observed.
When it came to small numbers of dots, the researchers found that brain activity patterns changed gradually in a way that reflected the ordered nature of the numbers. For example, one might be able to conclude that the pattern for six is between that for five and seven.
In the case of the numerals, the researchers could not detect this same gradual change. This suggests their methods simply might not be sensitive enough to detect this progression yet, or that these symbols are in fact coded as more precise, discrete entities in the brain.
"Activation patterns for numbers of dots seem to be stronger - are more easily discriminated - than those for digits, suggesting that maybe still more neurons encode specifically numbers of objects - the evolutionary older representation - than abstract symbolic numbers," said researcher Evelyn Eger at the University of Paris-Sud in Orsay, France.
Given that numbers "are in principle infinite, it is very unlikely that the brain can have, or we can detect, a signature for each number," Eger noted. "There is some hint in our data that smaller numbers have a clearer signature, which may be related to their frequency of occurrence in daily life, but further work would be needed to say something more definite about this and about how the brain deals with larger numbers."
The methods employed in this research could ultimately help unlock how the brain makes sophisticated calculations and how the brain changes as people learn math, the researchers said.
"We are only beginning to access the most basic building blocks that symbolic math probably relies on," Eger said. "We still have no clear idea of how these number representations interact and are combined in mathematical operations, but the fact that we can resolve them in humans gives hope that at some point we can come up with paradigms that let us address this."
The scientists detailed their findings online September 24 in the journal Current Biology.
Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
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Labels: become debt free, debt free, trends newsletter
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Seasonal Cold or Swine Flu? Moms Face Tough Calls
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I sent my 11-year-old son to school today with a stuffy nose and mild cough, as I've done countless times in the past. Now, though, I'm wondering whether I should have kept him home. How do I know it's really a garden-variety cold and not the swine flu?
"That's a great question," says Richard Wenzel, a swine flu expert and former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. "You really have no way of knowing if it's the flu or just a cold." Given that we're in the middle of an H1N1 epidemic, he estimates that my son's chances of having this flu are considerable, since some of his friends have had confirmed cases--maybe even as high as 50/50. Even though he doesn't have fever? I press. "At the beginning of the outbreak in Mexico, only 30 percent of patients hospitalized with the infection had fever initially," he tells me, "and 15 percent of patients never developed a fever at all." What usually sent them to the hospital was shortness of breath or chest pain. In Chile, he adds, about half of those with confirmed H1N1 had no fever; many just had a headache and runny nose.
To truly contain the spread of this virus, he says, it would have been smart for me to keep my son home from school. While I can work effectively from home, many working parents can't. I wonder if this is why the government isn't recommending that we keep ourselves or our kids home at the first sign of a sniffle. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says: "Those with flulike illness should stay home for at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever, or signs of a fever, without the use of fever-reducing medicines." That implies that hacking coughs and runny noses shouldn't keep us away from others.
"The CDC is stuck. They've defined flu as having a fever, which means they're going to miss a lot of cases," Wenzel says. To be fair, the CDC does list the following as symptoms of H1N1: cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue, and, in some people, diarrhea and vomiting. But fever seems to be the determining factor in whether we should isolate ourselves.
Since most doctors aren't testing for H1N1, we must use our own judgment to decide if that mild cold warrants taking sick days and keeping our kids home from school for up to a week. We might be helping prevent the spread of a potentially deadly virus. Then again, it might be pointless if others are going about their usual day coughing and sneezing around others. (Hopefully, they're washing their hands frequently and coughing into their elbows.) After speaking with Wenzel, I might keep my son home tomorrow--especially if his symptoms get worse.
"This flu seems to spread more easily than a cold virus or seasonal flu," says Wenzel, "most likely because so few people have been exposed to it in the past." Kids are slated to be among the first to get the H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available in early October--a nasal spray vaccine called FluMist will the first on the market. But many will probably already have been infected before they can get immunized; Wenzel predicts the outbreak will last another four to eight weeks before tapering off. Unfortunately, that's just around the time when the vaccine will be available in large quantities. It seems that despite the government's best efforts to get the vaccine out quickly, it missed the boat on this one.
Yes, the CDC will still stick with its recommendation to get any children over the age of 6 months vaccinated--and pregnant women too--unless a previous infection was confirmed via a lab test. But Wenzel says parents may decide on their own to pass up the immunization if their child recently had a respiratory infection that appeared to be swine flu. "These kids probably don't need the vaccine," he adds, "but there's a level of uncertainty, and parents may still be wise to choose immunization just to be on the safe side."
While most cases of H1N1 are mild, this virus has the potential to cause severe complications, including death. The CDC says warning signs in children that warrant immediate medical attention include fast breathing or trouble breathing; bluish or gray skin color; not drinking enough fluids; severe or persistent vomiting; not waking up or interacting; a child so irritable that he does not want to be held; and flulike symptoms that improve but then return with fever and a worse cough. Warning signs in adults include difficulty breathing or chest pain, purple or blue discoloration of the lips, vomiting and inability to keep liquids down, and signs of dehydration, such as feeling dizzy when standing or being unable to urinate.
By Deborah Kotz Deborah Kotz, U.S. News & World Report
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Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saudi aims for the moon with new hi-tech research oasis
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THUWAL, Saudi Arabia (AFP) - – Saudi Arabia launched a new hi-tech, co-ed university on the Red Sea coast on Wednesday, aiming to catapult into vanguard global technological research and break through religious barriers to women's opportunities.
King Abdullah inaugurated the multi-billion dollar King Abdullah University for Science of and Technology (KAUST), saying it was a dream he had had for 25 years.
The ceremony was attended by numerous foreign leaders, including Britain's Prince Andrew, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Syrian President Bashir al-Assad, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
King Abdullah, whose deeply conservative country is the site of Islam's two holiest sites, said "faith and science are not incompatible" and that universities should be "in the front line in the war against extremists."
He expressed hope that the university would be a "house of knowledge and a place of tolerance."
Earlier, university chairman and oil minister Ali al-Naimi said "this represents a pivotal point for the future of Saudi Arabia. It is incumbent on us to work on diversifying our economy for the future."
Jammed with 1.5 billion dollars of state-of-the-art equipment and sporting one of the world's fastest supercomputers, KAUST is a keystone of the 85-year-old monarch's effort to modernise the oil-dependent kingdom, underscored by its launch on the Saudi national day.
Riyadh has poured billions of its plentiful oil dollars into the project, including huge sums to recruit an international staff of top-flight professors and a student body for the all-English, all-post graduate institution.
While Saudi officials are loathe to talk about it, KAUST is also the first public education institution in the kingdom to mix men and women, challenging hardline Islamic clerics' rule on keeping the sexes separated.
Built in just two years out of the barren desert coast 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Jeddah, experts say KAUST is probably the first research university in the world built from the ground up.
But no one is certain whether the huge leap into global-class research, with the best equipment, talent and research projects money can buy, can revolutionise the country's backward and often heavily religion-focused education sector.
"Our research facilities are unsurpassed," says KAUST president Choon Fong Shih, who helped build the national university in Singapore into a respected research institution.
"I stood here two years ago, there was nothing but sand and sea. Today, there is one of the best infrastructures for research," he told AFP.
The 374 masters and doctorate degree students in the inaugural class represent more than 60 countries, with some 15 percent from Saudi Arabia itself.
With about 15 percent of the incoming student body women, all having studied at universities outside the kingdom, mixing is absolutely necessary for successful research, experts say.
"We are not putting a quota for men and women. What KAUST is after is the best minds of the world," said Naimi, who had the primary responsibility of getting Kaust built and started up.
Scientists said a key factor in making KAUST successful would be whether the operating environment would be more open, dynamic and efficient than other institutions.
Some such challenges were evident on inauguration day.
Professors said much basic research equipment was not in place despite already being several weeks into the first term; the university computer system was still subject to the official Saudi internet censor, which blocks unfavorable media and political websites; and students said they were ordered not to talk to the media.
Security was high for the opening ceremony after Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch issued a new threat against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, nearly four weeks after a suicide bomber blew himself up in an attempt to kill Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.
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Friday, December 25, 2009
Census: Recession had sweeping impact on US life
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WASHINGTON - The recession is profoundly disrupting American life: More people are delaying marriage and home-buying, turning to carpools yet getting stuck in ever-worse traffic, staying put rather than moving to new cities.
A broad array of U.S. census data, for release on Tuesday, also shows a dip in the foreign-born population last year, to under 38 million after it reached an all-time high in 2007. This was due to declines in low-skilled workers from Mexico searching for jobs in Arizona, Florida and California.
Health coverage swung widely by region, based partly on levels of unemployment.
Massachusetts, with its universal coverage law, had fewer than one in 20 uninsured residents - the lowest in the nation. Texas had the highest share, at one in four, largely because of illegal Hispanic immigrants excluded from government-sponsored and employer-provided plans.
Demographers said the latest figures were striking confirmation of the social impact of the economic decline as it hit home in 2008. Findings come from the annual American Community Survey, a sweeping look at life built on information from 3 million households.
Preliminary data earlier this year found that many Americans were not moving, staying put in big cities rather than migrating to the Sunbelt because of frozen lines of credit. Mobility is at a 60-year low, upending population trends ahead of the 2010 census that will be used to apportion House seats.
"The recession has affected everybody in one way or another as families use lots of different strategies to cope with a new economic reality," said Mark Mather, associate vice president of the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau. "Job loss - or the potential for job loss - also leads to feelings of economic insecurity and can create social tension."
"It's just the tip of the iceberg," he said, noting that unemployment is still rising.
The percentage of people who drove alone to work dropped last year to 75.5 percent, the lowest in a decade, as commuters grew weary of paying close to $4 a gallon for gasoline and opted to carpool or take public transportation.
Twenty-two states had declines in solo drivers compared with the year before, with the rest statistically unchanged. The decreases were particularly evident in states with higher traffic congestion, such as Maryland, Texas and Washington.
Average commute times edged up to 25.5 minutes, erasing years of decreases to stand at the level of 2000, as people had to leave home earlier in the morning to pick up friends for their ride to work or to catch a bus or subway train.
Palmdale, Calif., a suburb in the high desert north of Los Angeles, posted the longest commute at 41.5 minutes. It barely edged out New York City, with its congestion and sprawling subway system, at 39.4 minutes. Shortest commute time: Bloomington, Ill., at 14.1 minutes.
Nationwide, more than one in eight workers, or 17.5 million, were out the door by 6 a.m.
Marital bliss also suffered. Nearly one in three Americans 15 and over, or 31.2 percent, reported they had never been married, the highest level in a decade. The share had previously hovered for years around 27 percent, before beginning to climb during the housing downturn in 2006.
The never-married included three-quarters of men in their 20s and two-thirds of women in that age range. Sociologists say younger people are taking longer to reach economic independence and consider marriage, because they are struggling to find work or focusing on an advanced education.
The Northeast had the most people who were delaying marriage, led by states such as New York and Massachusetts. People in the South were more likely to give marriage a try, including those in Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas.
The dip in foreign-born residents comes as the government considers immigration changes, including stepped-up border enforcement and a path toward U.S. citizenship. At nearly 38 million, immigrants made up 12.5 percent of the population in 2008; an estimated 11.9 million are here illegally.
In three large metro area, Miami, San Jose, Calif., and Los Angeles, more than one-third of all residents are foreign-born.
Roughly half the states showed declines in the number of immigrants from 2007 to 2008. Major metro areas also posted decreases, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Detroit and Tampa, Fla. An influx of workers from India, who came looking for specialized jobs in telecommunications, manufacturing, computers and software, partially offset the national immigration decrease.
About one in five U.S. residents spoke a language other than English at home, mostly clustered in California, New Mexico and Texas.
The number of foreign-born and minority residents often tracked closely with how a state ranked in the levels of uninsured.
The highest numbers were in agricultural communities with large Hispanic populations in California's San Joaquin Valley, South Texas and South Florida. Regions in New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, Oklahoma and Georgia also fared poorly.
The numbers help explain why the debate over illegal immigration and health insurance is so heated.
"The fact that many election 'swing states,' with large and growing Hispanic populations, rank low on health insurance for children and young adults points to the significance of this issue for both parties in future national elections," said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution, a think tank.
Democratic proposals to overhaul health insurance would exclude illegal immigrants from benefits, but Republicans contend the prohibition is meaningless because of lax enforcement. President Barack Obama has now proposed broader and tougher restrictions; opponents say the steps are still not enough.
Other findings:
• The homeownership rate fell to 66.6 percent last year, the lowest in six years, after hitting a peak of 67.3 percent in 2006. Residents in crowded housing jumped to 1.1 percent, the highest since 2004, a sign people were "doubling up" with relatives or friends to save money.
• The share of people who carpooled to work rose to 10.7 percent, up from 10.4 percent in the previous year. Commuters who took public transportation increased to 5 percent, the highest in six years, with Washington, D.C., at the top.
• Women's average pay still lagged men's, but the gap has been narrowing. Women with full-time jobs made 77.9 percent of men's pay, up from 77.5 percent in 2007 and about 64 percent in 2000.
• More people have high school diplomas. Only two states, Texas and Mississippi, had at least one in five adults without high school diplomas. This is down from 17 states in 2000 and 37 in 1990.
. More older people are working. About 15.5 percent of Americans 65 and over, or 6.1 million, were in the labor force. That's up from 15 percent in 2007.
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
One Key Found for Living to 100
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Scientists have zeroed in on one apparent key to long life: an inherited cellular repair mechanism that thwarts aging and perhaps helps prevent disease. Researches say the finding could lead to anti-aging drugs.
The study involves telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that have been likened to the plastic tips that prevent shoelaces from unraveling. Telomeres were already known to play a key role in aging, and their discovery led to this year's Nobel Prize in medicine.
The new study, which focused on Ashkenazi Jews, finds those who lived the longest had inherited a hyperactive version of an enzyme called telomerase that rebuilds telomeres.
In effect, centenarians tend to have a top-notch body mechanic at work 24/7 repairing the hardware that runs the body, versus a normal person whose body's cellular control center is left to wear out with time.
"Humans of exceptional longevity are better able to maintain the length of their telomeres," said Yousin Suh, associate professor of medicine and of genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University. "And we found that they owe their longevity, at least in part, to advantageous variants of genes involved in telomere maintenance."
The results are detailed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Telomeres are short bits of specialized DNA that cap the chromosomes, which tell a cell what to do. Over time, cells divide over and over to keep the body alive. But with each cell division, telomeres get shorter. When they become too short, the cell stops dividing and lapses into a state called cell senescence. Vital tissues are no longer produced, and organs start to fail.
All this was known, and telomeres have been a focus of anti-aging research for years. However, no silver bullets have been discovered to increase the average lifespan.
In the new study, Suh and colleagues studied Ashkenazi Jews, a homogeneous population whose genetics are well-studied. Three groups were part of the research: A very old (average age 97) but healthy group of 86 people; 175 of their offspring; and a control group of 93 offspring of parents who lived a normal lifespan.
"Our research was meant to answer two questions," explained said Einstein researcher Gil Atzmon in a statement. "Do people who live long lives tend to have long telomeres? And if so, could variations in their genes that code for telomerase account for their long telomeres?"
"Yes" on both accounts, the scientists conclude.
The old crowd had "inherited mutant genes that make their telomerase-making system extra active and able to maintain telomere length more effectively," the researchers write. "For the most part, these people were spared age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which cause most deaths among elderly people."
"Our findings suggest that telomere length and variants of telomerase genes combine to help people live very long lives, perhaps by protecting them from the diseases of old age," Suh said. "We're now trying to understand the mechanism by which these genetic variants of telomerase maintain telomere length in centenarians. Ultimately, it may be possible to develop drugs that mimic the telomerase that our centenarians have been blessed with."
The study involves telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that have been likened to the plastic tips that prevent shoelaces from unraveling. Telomeres were already known to play a key role in aging, and their discovery led to this year's Nobel Prize in medicine.
The new study, which focused on Ashkenazi Jews, finds those who lived the longest had inherited a hyperactive version of an enzyme called telomerase that rebuilds telomeres.
In effect, centenarians tend to have a top-notch body mechanic at work 24/7 repairing the hardware that runs the body, versus a normal person whose body's cellular control center is left to wear out with time.
"Humans of exceptional longevity are better able to maintain the length of their telomeres," said Yousin Suh, associate professor of medicine and of genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University. "And we found that they owe their longevity, at least in part, to advantageous variants of genes involved in telomere maintenance."
The results are detailed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Telomeres are short bits of specialized DNA that cap the chromosomes, which tell a cell what to do. Over time, cells divide over and over to keep the body alive. But with each cell division, telomeres get shorter. When they become too short, the cell stops dividing and lapses into a state called cell senescence. Vital tissues are no longer produced, and organs start to fail.
All this was known, and telomeres have been a focus of anti-aging research for years. However, no silver bullets have been discovered to increase the average lifespan.
In the new study, Suh and colleagues studied Ashkenazi Jews, a homogeneous population whose genetics are well-studied. Three groups were part of the research: A very old (average age 97) but healthy group of 86 people; 175 of their offspring; and a control group of 93 offspring of parents who lived a normal lifespan.
"Our research was meant to answer two questions," explained said Einstein researcher Gil Atzmon in a statement. "Do people who live long lives tend to have long telomeres? And if so, could variations in their genes that code for telomerase account for their long telomeres?"
"Yes" on both accounts, the scientists conclude.
The old crowd had "inherited mutant genes that make their telomerase-making system extra active and able to maintain telomere length more effectively," the researchers write. "For the most part, these people were spared age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which cause most deaths among elderly people."
"Our findings suggest that telomere length and variants of telomerase genes combine to help people live very long lives, perhaps by protecting them from the diseases of old age," Suh said. "We're now trying to understand the mechanism by which these genetic variants of telomerase maintain telomere length in centenarians. Ultimately, it may be possible to develop drugs that mimic the telomerase that our centenarians have been blessed with."
Robert Roy Britt, Editorial Director, LiveScience.com
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Monday, December 21, 2009
Tsunamis uproot centuries-old Samoan cultures
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LEONE, American Samoa - The village of Leone is a picturesque enclave that has been a mainstay of the Samoas for centuries, a place where residents gather under beach meeting houses for rituals that are sacred to the local culture.
Today, much of the village is a bleak landscape of rubble.
An overturned van is sticking into the roof of one of the beach houses. Four elderly villagers were killed while gathered on the shore to weave Samoan mats and crafts. A 6-year-old boy and two sisters were swept away on their way to school. The post office is gone, so is the grocery store.
The carnage in hard-hit Leone offers a glimpse into how this week's deadly earthquake and tsunami in Samoa and American Samoa decimated centuries of culture on two islands that are steeped in tradition.
Samoans have been forced to forgo burial rituals because their villages are gone. Other families have had to speed up the burial process because their loved ones' bodies were discovered in such decomposed states. The beach gathering spots, known as fale, were overrun by the tsunami.
"We need these guesthouses to be put back. This is our meeting house," territorial Rep. Vaiausia Yandall said.
The death toll from Tuesday's disaster rose to 170, including 129 in Samoa, 32 in American Samoa and nine in Tonga, as the relief effort entered its fourth day Friday. Medical teams gave tetanus shots and antibiotics to survivors with infected wounds and survivors wore face masks to reduce the growing stench of rot.
Some frightened residents who fled to the hills after the disaster vowed never to return to their decimated seaside villages. More headed to the hills after an aftershock shook the region.
"It's a scary feeling, and a lot of them said they are not coming to the coastal area," Red Cross health coordinator Goretti Wulf said near the flattened village of Lalomanu on the devastated south coast of Samoa's main island. "The lesson they learned has made them stay away."
Workers at Lalomanu's makeshift emergency supply base began carting water, food, tarps and clothes to 3,000 people in the hills. Wulf said drinking water was the most pressing problem. It is the end of Samoa's dry season, when rain is scarce, and the water pipes that supply the villages were destroyed.
Villagers gathered under a traditional meetinghouse to hear a Samoan government minister discuss a plan for a mass funeral and burial next week. Samoans traditionally bury their loved ones near their homes, but that could be impractical because many of their villages have been wiped out.
The reaction to the proposal was mixed, with some relatives wanting to take the bodies and have their own burials, while others wanted a mass funeral delayed for a week to allow relatives to return to the islands from overseas.
Families who were able to carry out proper burials did so under duress.
One family in Lalomanu buried nine family members from four different generations this week, from ages 2 to 97.
Seven relatives were placed in a single, hastily dug grave. One body had been retrieved from the ocean only hours earlier. A young mother, Sina Edmund Taufua, kissed the cheeks of her dead son and daughter, ages 6 and 5, at the edge of the grave as her bandaged arm was supported by a relative.
The family dead were buried without coffins, their bodies covered with a woven mat, during a service that blended traditional Samoan culture with a Christian church ceremony.
"I'm not sure the word 'shock' fully describes our sense of loss," relative Ben Taufua said. "Nothing makes sense at all. ... The beach where all of this happened, all those lives were lost, it was paradise on Earth."
In Leone, about two dozen soldiers and airmen from the Hawaii National Guard on Friday had the heart-wrenching task of searching through muddy debris and rubble for the 6-year-old boy who vanished on his way to school.
Bill Hopkinson, a Leone village chief, said Columbus Sulivai was on his way to school with his 8-and 10-year old sisters when the quake struck. "When the earthquake hit, instead of seeking higher ground, they came running back home," Hopkinson said.
Both girls died.
Leone residents estimate the tsunami destroyed about one-third of the coastal village, population 3,000. The victims were mostly elderly or toddlers; the adults and schoolchildren were already out on their way to work or school when the tsunami hit.
Villager Charissa Siu witnessed the tsunami and managed to save her young nieces who were sleeping. But she was unable to save another relative, Michelle Eneliko, who was sick in bed and was unable to move. The body was found 50 yards away. A Korean man who operated a store next to her house was also killed.
"It was very bad, a very horrifying experience for me when I saw the high waves heading to our village," said
Leone is one of the largest villages in the territory and was once the main harbor for the main island of Tutuila.
In 1830, the Rev. John Williams, a British missionary, chose the village to be his landing place. The area eventually became the center of Christianity on the island, with a monument to Williams still standing.
The fale have long been the center of the villages. Extended families gather in the guesthouse every Sunday to eat brunch or lunch and trade stories.
The meeting houses are also used for traditional Samoan ceremonies featuring awa, a drink made from a plant root that's popular in many Pacific island nations. The buildings all have barren floors, no walls and pillars. In the old days, everyone sat on woven mats, but today people sit in chairs.
Save L.A. Tuitele said the tsunami has had the unexpected consequence of bringing villagers together. The 62-year-old Tuitele was among about 10 men who sat in a circle next to the foundation of a destroyed house, sharing stories with old friends.
"It's sad that it happened," Tuitele said. "But this brings most of the people back here, it brings back the pride that most of the people have here in Leone."
By AUDREY McAVOY and ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press Writers
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Sunday, December 20, 2009
White Americans' majority to end by mid-century
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WASHINGTON - The estimated time when whites will no longer make up the majority of Americans has been pushed back eight years - to 2050 - because the recession and stricter immigration policies have slowed the flow of foreigners into the U.S.
Census Bureau figures released Wednesday update last year's prediction that white children would become a minority in 2023 and the overall white population would follow in 2042. The earlier estimate did not take into account a drop in the number of people moving into the U.S. because of the economic crisis and the immigration policies imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The 2050 estimate is one of four projections released that is based on rates for births and deaths and a scenario in which immigration continues its more recent, slower pace of adding nearly 1 million new foreigners each year. Demographers said that scenario offers the best look for now at the future demographic makeup based on current conditions, rather than other models which assume higher rates of immigration.
The United States has 308 million people today; two-thirds are non-Hispanic whites.
The total population should climb to 399 million by 2050, under the new projection, with whites making up 49.9 percent of the population. Blacks will make up 12.2 percent, virtually unchanged from today. Hispanics, currently 15 percent of the population, will rise to 28 percent in 2050.
Asians are expected to increase from 4.4 percent of the population to 6 percent.
The point when minority children become the majority is expected to have a similar delay of roughly eight years, moving from 2023 to 2031.
The population 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050, to 18.6 million.
The actual shift in demographics will be influenced by a host of factors that can't be accurately forecast - the pace of the economic recovery, cultural changes, natural or manmade disasters, as well as an overhaul of immigration law, which may be debated in Congress as early as next year.
As a result, the Census Bureau said the projections should be used mostly as a guide.
The agency also released numbers showing projections based on "high" rates of immigration - more likely if more-flexible government policies and a booming U.S. economy attract large numbers of foreigners - as well as "low" immigration, a possible scenario if U.S. policies don't change much while the economy substantially improves.
- With high immigration, the minority "tipping point" is moved up to 2040, two years earlier than the previous estimate. At that time, Asians would have a much larger share, at 8 percent, since their population growth is more dependent on immigration than birth rates.
- With low immigration, the "tipping point" arrives by 2045.
Under a purely theoretical "zero immigration" scenario in which the U.S. effectively does not take in any immigrants, whites would remain the majority in 2050, making up a solid 58 percent of the U.S. population. In such a case, the share of Hispanics would increase to 21 percent because of high fertility rates and a younger population.
Under a "zero immigration" model, the 65 and older population also grows substantially faster, comprising nearly 1 in 4 Americans.
"These projections show that immigration will serve to replenish our labor force as baby boomers age into retirement and make our population younger without overburdening our schools and other community resources," said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution.
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
Labels: Census Bureau figures, demographics, immigration policies, trends newsletter
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Friday, December 18, 2009
Study explains bacteria's resistance to antibiotics
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WASHINGTON (AFP) - - A small molecule composed of one atom of oxygen and one of nitrogen plays an important role in helping pathogens resist antibiotics, a new study has found.
The study, led by Evgeny Nudler, professor of biochemistry at New York University Langone Medical Center, and published in Science magazine, provides evidence that nitric oxide (NO) is able to alleviate stress in bacteria caused by many antibiotics and helps it neutralize many antibacterial compounds.
"Developing new medications to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria ... is a huge hurdle, associated with great cost and countless safety issues," Nudler said in a statement.
"Here, we have a short cut, where we don't have to invent new antibiotics. Instead, we can enhance the activity of well established ones, making them more effective at lower doses."
Nitric oxide was initially known as a toxic gas and air pollutant until 1987 when a study that won a Nobel Prize showed that it played a physiological role in mammals.
Nitric oxide has since been found to take part in a range of activities, including learning and memory, blood pressure regulation, penile erection, digestion and the fighting of infection and cancer.
A few years ago, Nudler and his associates demonstrated that harmful bacteria mobilize nitric oxide to defend against the oxidative stress.
The new study from this same group supports the idea that many antibiotics cause the oxidative stress in bacteria, often resulting in their death, whereas nitric oxide counters this effect.
This work suggests scientists could use commercially available inhibitors of nitric oxide-synthase, an enzyme producing nitric oxide in bacteria and humans, to make antibiotic resistant bacteria more sensitive to available drugs.
"We are very excited about the potential impact of this research in terms of continuing to push the boundaries of research in the area of infectious diseases," said Vivian Lee, senior vice president of NYU Langone Medical Center.
"With the emergence of drug resistant bacteria, it's imperative that researchers strive to find conceptually new approaches to fight these pathogens."
Labels: antibiotics, resistance, trends newsletter
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Thursday, December 17, 2009
Europe's Secret Nuclear Weapons: What Should NATO Do?
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Is Italy capable of delivering a thermonuclear strike? Could the Belgians and the Dutch drop hydrogen bombs on enemy targets? And what about Germany - a country where fear of atomkraft is so great that the last government opposed all civilian nuclear power? Germany's air force couldn't possibly be training to deliver bombs 13 times more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, could it?
It is Europe's dirty secret that the list of nuclear-capable countries extends beyond those - Britain and France - who have built their own weapons. Nuclear bombs are stored on air-force bases in Italy, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands - and planes from each of those countries are capable of delivering them. The Federation of American Scientists believes that there are some 200 B61 thermonuclear gravity bombs scattered across these four countries. Under a NATO agreement struck during the Cold War, the bombs, which are technically owned by the U.S., can be transferred to the control of a host nation's air force in times of conflict. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dutch, Belgian, Italian and German pilots remain ready to engage in nuclear war.
These weapons are more than an anachronism or historical oddity. They are a violation of the spirit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - the 1968 agreement governing nuclear weapons that acts as one of the linchpins of global security by providing a legal restraint on the nuclear ambitions of rogue states. Because "nuclear burden-sharing," as the dispersion of B61s in Europe is called, was set up before the NPT came into force, it is technically legal. But as signatories to the NPT, the four European countries and the U.S. have pledged "not to receive the transfer ... of nuclear weapons or control over such weapons directly, or indirectly." That, of course, is precisely what the long-standing NATO arrangement entails.
While burden-sharing was generally tolerated during the Cold War, it has become an irritant at recent NPT review conferences, where the nonaligned countries have used it as an example of the U.S.'s failure to take serious steps toward nuclear disarmament - part of its obligation under the treaty. The issue re-entered the public discourse in Europe last year, when a U.S. Air Force report found that the European air-force bases storing the weapons were failing to meet basic security requirements to safeguard the weapons. These revelations cemented the unpopularity of the agreement. Belgium's Parliament had already unanimously requested that NATO withdraw the weapons, while a 2006 poll found that almost 70% of people in the four countries want the U.S. nukes withdrawn. In October, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle declared that "Germany has to set a good example when it comes to disarmament by getting the atomic weapons stationed in this country removed." Westerwelle added that President Barack Obama's speech in Prague in April, in which the President called for countries to renew the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, had "opened the door" to a nuclear-weapons-free Europe.
But the U.S. and NATO military leaderships remain protective of the weapons. As recently as December 2008, the Secretary of Defense Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Management, chaired by former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, said the weapons were an important guarantee of NATO security and also supported nonproliferation efforts by preventing allied states from developing their own weapons programs. The report concluded that the presence of B61s in Europe "remains an essential political and military link between European and North American members of the alliance."
These justifications infuriated arms-control experts, who pointed out that NATO countries continue to be protected by the hundreds of land- and submarine-based long-range nuclear-tipped missiles. "The nuclear umbrella can be continued by long-range forces just like it was in the Pacific after [nuclear] weapons were withdrawn from South Korea in 1991," says Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, who closely monitors nuclear weapons in Europe. As for the concern that allied countries might be driven to develop their own nuclear-weapons programs, Kristensen was scathing in a recent blog post: "How many [European] countries would seriously consider acquiring their own weapons if things changed? Denmark? Iceland? Lithuania? Luxembourg? Portugal? Seriously!" (Read "Reducing Nuclear Weapons: How Much Is Possible?")
Obama's ongoing "nuclear posture review" and NATO's review of its strategic concept may call for an end to the burden-sharing arrangement. But if Obama fails to address the issue - and if NATO doesn't come to an agreement - countries may choose to take their own steps to get rid of the weapons. In 2001, when the Greek air force ordered a new fighter jet, it chose a model that could not carry the B61, forcing the U.S. to withdraw its weapons there. Germany may soon retire its own Tornado fighter jet, opting instead for the Eurofighter, which can't carry B61s. "NATO countries are currently answering the question backward. We are allowing aircraft selection to determine our posture," says Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Given that Europe's nuclear arsenal is so unpopular, potentially unsafe and a hindrance to global nonproliferation efforts, it's time for it to go.
By EBEN HARRELL
Labels: Europe, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, nuclear weapons, trends newsletter
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Real Tsunami May Have Inspired Legend of Atlantis
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The volcanic explosion that obliterated much of the island that might have inspired the legend of Atlantis apparently triggered a tsunami that traveled hundreds of miles to reach as far as present-day Israel, scientists now suggest.
The new findings about this past tsunami could shed light on the destructive potential of future disasters, researchers added.
The islands that make up the small circular archipelago of Santorini, roughly 120 miles (200 km) southeast of Greece, are what remain of what once was a single island, before one of the largest volcanic eruptions in human antiquity shattered it in the Bronze Age some time between 1630 B.C. to 1550 B.C.
Speculation has abounded as to whether the Santorini eruption inspired the legend of Atlantis, which Plato said drowned in the ocean. Although the isle is often regarded as just an invention, the explosion might have given rise to the story of a lost empire by helping to wipe out the real-life Minoan civilization that once dominated the Mediterranean, from which the myth of the bull-headed 'minotaur' comes.
The primary means by which the eruption potentially wreaked havoc on the Minoan civilization is by the giant tsunami it would have triggered. However, the precise effects of this eruption and killer wave have been a mystery for decades.
Now scientists find the tsunami may have been powerful enough to race some 600 miles (1,000 km) from Santorini to reach the farthest eastern shores of the Mediterranean, leaving behind a layer of debris more than a foot thick by the coast of Israel.
Researchers dove as far as 65 feet deep (20 meters) off the coast of Caesarea in Israel to collect tubes of sediment, or cores, more than 6 feet long (2 meters) from the seabed.
"The work resembles a construction site with pneumatic hammers, heavy weights, floats to counter-weight equipment, hoses - Each time we took the system down it took hours of surface preparation, planning, and discussion," said researcher Beverly Goodman, a marine geoarchaeologist at Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences at Eilat, Israel.
Within the cores, they found evidence of up to nearly 16 inches of sediment deposited roughly about the date of the Santorini eruption. The range of sizes of the particles making up this deposit is the kind one might find laid down by a tsunami - storms, in comparison, cannot kick up the seafloor as much, and as such the range of particle sizes they generate is more limited.
The discovery was very much an accident, Goodman noted. They were actually researching the demise of the harbor of ancient Caesarea, the cause of which remains hotly debated, with culprits including earthquakes and tsunamis.
"I was testing how two later Roman and Byzantine tsunami deposits could be characterized by studying the different grain sizes - various sand, pebbles, rocks, ceramic pieces - in the deposit. Based on determining this 'signature,' I then noticed that there were more than the expected number of tsunami deposits," she explained. "I had no expectation that remnants of the Santorini event would be present in the cores."
These findings support the idea that the Santorini eruption and the side effects from it, such as the tsunami, were massive.
"In the case of the eastern Mediterranean, there seems to be a surprising dearth of archaeological sites along the coastline following the Santorini eruption event," Goodman said. Either archaeologists have failed to concentrate on this time span, "which isn't the case," she said, or the tsunami had a very real impact on coastal settlements.
The dramatic changes in life triggered by the tsunami "might have been part of the fabric of the Atlantis story," Goodman added. "The network of sea-based trade was rather sophisticated in that period, and colonies that were nearly solely dependent on those trade routes existed. It is hard to imagine that such a far-reaching disaster didn't cause them severe shortages in supplies, wealth and power."
Although Atlantis itself "is a myth and legend, it is informative about the experiences of the ancients," Goodman said. "It may very well be the case that those passing the story on had heard of or witnessed events in which coastal buildings went underwater because of earthquakes; beachfront towns were flooded during tsunamis; islands were created by underwater volcanic activity. There may be that grain of truth that lent legitimacy and a certain reality to the legend of Atlantis."
To better reconstruct the Santorini tsunami, the scientists plan to analyze deposits closer to the eruption, such as on Crete and in western parts of Turkey. Knowing the potential effect of tsunamis could be critical for the coastal planning and management, Goodman said, adding that the eastern Mediterranean is very highly populated and possesses considerable sensitive infrastructure such as power stations.
"I suppose there is always the question of whether I think another tsunami will occur in the eastern Med," Goodman said. "The answer is yes. I actually checked the elevation of the house I am moving to near Caesarea before agreeing to move there."
Goodman and her colleagues detailed their findings in the October issue of the journal Geology.
Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
Labels: atlantis, santorini, trends newsletter
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
U.S. approves first "ethical" human stem cell lines
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government approved the first 13 batches of human embryonic stem cells on Wednesday, enabling researchers using them to get millions of dollars in federal funding as promised by President Barack Obama in March.
The batches, known as lines, were made by two researchers at Harvard University and Rockefeller University using private funds, said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
"Today we are announcing the approval of the first 13 stem cell lines," Collins told reporters in a telephone briefing.
In March, Obama lifted restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research imposed by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
He could not lift a restriction set by Congress, called the Dickey-Wicker amendment, that forbids the use of federal money to make the stem cells, which require destruction of a human embryo. But the decision made it possible for researchers to use federal funds to work with cells that others have made.
The NIH set up a panel to decide which stem cell lines met strict ethical restrictions. The cells, for instance, have to have been made using an embryo donated from leftovers at fertility clinics, and parents must have signed detailed consent forms.
Stem cells are the body's ultimate master cells. They make up days-old embryos and have the power to give rise to all the cells and tissues in the body.
Scientists hope to use them to transform medicine by growing new tissue and repairing damage. Opponents say it is wrong to destroy human embryos for any reason.
ETHICALLY ACCEPTABLE
But Collins said the NIH-approved lines represent an acceptable compromise. "I think the broad consensus among most of the public ... is that stem cell research of this ethically acceptable kind should go forward," he said.
"These were derived from embryos derived under ethically sound consent processes."
The first 13 lines were "open and shut" cases, he said. Another 96 lines are under consideration and more approvals can be expected in the coming days, Collins said.
"I think people are champing at the bit," he said. "This is the first down payment in what is going to be a much longer list of such lines."
Eleven of the lines were made by Dr. George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Massachusetts. He said his lab started making the stem cells in 2006 using private donations and is looking forward to getting federal money.
"It is a huge boost. It is a stimulus to my research," said Daley, who said he has hired three technicians in the past two weeks.
"I can point to people and say 'Thank God for Obama -- you're here'," Daley said in a telephone interview.
"We have been very fortunate at Harvard to have been the beneficiaries of philanthropy but it has dried up in past years, in part because of the economy and in part because of the perception that the government was about to step in and clear everything up."
The NIH says it has funded 30 proposals totaling more than $20 million that would use human embryonic stem cells. Now the researchers can get the cells and get going, it said.
"This group of grants includes research using human embryonic stem cells for the therapeutic regeneration of diseased or damaged heart muscle cells, developing systems for the production of neural stem cells" among others, it said.
Collins said these cells are still needed for research even though scientists have found ways to turn ordinary cells into what resemble embryonic stem cells.
"I think one could make a very strong case that we need both," he said.
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
Labels: embryonic stem cells, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, therapeutic regeneration, trends newsletter
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Monday, December 14, 2009
Obama's Iran disclosure likely part of clever chess game
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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama always said he'd be willing to meet with rogue nations such as Iran without preconditions, but he never said he wouldn't try to set the stage.
The revelation Friday that Iran has a secret nuclear facility capped a calculated effort by Obama to build pressure against Iran days before a multinational confrontation over its nuclear plans on Thursday in Switzerland .
For weeks, Obama played a form of international chess to build a unified multi-national front against Iran while preserving the option to talk and negotiate. He abandoned plans for a ballistic missile defense in Europe , apparently in part to win Russian cooperation, slapped tariffs on Chinese tires, arguably to prod them along, then huddled with their leaders and finally rolled out the news that he'd held close to the vest for months - that Iran has a secret uranium enrichment plant.
"This is a very clever way of doing it," said Fariborz Ghadar , a professor at Penn State University and Iran scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies .
"We've been taking baby steps. Now we have the Oct. 1 meeting coming up and we have an ace in the hole, knowing that these guys have been cheating again. He played the cheating card. They're making Iran look really bad."
How long Obama will keep negotiating, and whether there's some point at which he'd stop talking and take military action against Iran's nuclear facilities, however, is unknown.
Rather than cancelling the Oct. 1 meeting between officials of Iran and Britain , China , France , Germany , Russia and the U.S., as some neoconservatives argued he should, Obama incorporated the meeting into his negotiating strategy.
All along, he appears to have been working to assemble a unified international response to Iran , including not just close allies such as Britain and France but those major powers, such as China and Russia , which in the past have been reluctant to support tough sanctions against Iran .
Whether Obama chose to release the information this week or was forced to do it wasn't clear. Iran , apparently aware that U.S., British and French intelligence had discovered its secret plant, sent a letter Monday to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency reporting what it called a "pilot" plant.
Regardless, the world didn't learn of the plant until Obama announced it in a joint appearance in Pittsburgh Friday with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy .
Presenting several voices was an important step, said former Sen. Sam Nunn , a Georgia Democrat and a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee .
"The United States doesn't have to say everything every time," he said. "We need to let other countries come forward and express their outrage."
Those allies aren't enough, however, he added. " China and Russia have to be on board, being united here is absolutely imperative," Nunn said. "The fact that Russia has issued a strong statement . . . we are in far better position now than we were four or five months ago."
The effort to get Russia on board may have included Obama's decision this month to abandon a U.S. missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland . The system was aimed at protecting Europe from Iran but was seen as a threat by Russia .
Although Obama administration officials said the decision was never part of a bargain with Russia and was merely a move to a more efficient Navy-based missile defense, analysts think it was aimed at least in part at winning Russian support against Iran .
Then, Obama raised the ante by telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev about the discovery during a half-hour meeting Wednesday in New York .
Meeting with students in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Medvedev joked when asked about Iran that it felt like he was still in his meeting with Obama. The Russian leader said that he'd told Obama that Iran "has a right to its own peaceful nuclear program" and that he didn't think sanctions were the best response.
He said the international community would consider sanctions or other punitive measures, but only after trying "positive incentives" to get Iran to drop the weapons program.
On Friday morning, the Kremlin issued a terse statement calling on Iran to provide proof that the plant is being used only for peaceful purposes by Thursday, when Iran is scheduled to meet with the U.S., Russia and four other countries in Geneva, Switzerland .
"There has been a softening in the Russian position as result of the move the administration made on ballistic missile defense," said Mark Dubowitz , the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies , a Republican-affiliated policy organization. "The Russians, if the deal is good for them, will throw the Iranians under the bus."
Dubowitz also said that Obama likely imposed tariffs on Chinese tires earlier this month to pressure China to go along with international efforts against nuclear weapons development both Iran and North Korea .
"The leverage we have over the Chinese is access to our market," he said. "That was a shot across the bow to the Chinese."
Obama discussed Iran in depth with Chinese President Hu Jintao when they met for an hour on Tuesday in New York - White House aides said that Obama stressed that Iran is a "vital" issue to the U.S. He didn't, however, mention the news about the secret Iranian nuclear plant.
Instead, Obama pulled Hu aside at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh Friday morning, engaging in a four-minute talk that was described as very serious.
"China is just now fully absorbing these latest revelations," said a senior Obama administration official, who requested anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity. "I think we should stay tuned for the Chinese position in the coming days."
By Steven Thomma, McClatchy Newspapers
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Friday, December 11, 2009
Number of Americans going hungry increases
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WASHINGTON - More than one in seven American households struggled to put enough food on the table in 2008, the highest rate since the Agriculture Department began tracking food security levels in 1995.
That's about 49 million people, or 14.6 percent of U.S. households. The numbers are a significant increase from 2007, when 11.1 percent of U.S. households suffered from what USDA classifies as "food insecurity" - not having enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle.
Researchers blamed the increase in hunger on a lack of money and other resources.
President Barack Obama called the USDA's findings "unsettling." He noted that other indicators of hunger have gone up, such as the number of food stamp applications and the use of food banks. And he said his administration is committed to reversing the trend.
"The first task is to restore job growth, which will help relieve the economic pressures that make it difficult for parents to put a square meal on the table each day," Obama said in a statement.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the numbers could be higher in 2009 because of the global economic slowdown.
"This report suggests its time for America to get very serious about food security and hunger," Vilsack told reporters during a conference call.
The USDA said Monday that 5.7 percent of those who struggled for food experienced "very low food security," meaning household members reduced their food intake.
The numbers dovetail with dire economic conditions for many Americans. And they may not take the full measure of America's current struggles with hunger: Vilsack and the report's lead author, Mark Nord with USDA's economic research service, both emphasized that the numbers reflected the situation in 2008 and that the economy's continued troubles in 2009 would likely mean higher numbers next year.
The report also showed an increasing number of children in the United States are suffering. In 2008, 16.7 million children were classified as not having enough food, 4.3 million more than in 2007.
Hunger advocates said they were not surprised by the numbers, and said the problem among children, in particular, is lamentable.
"What should really shock us is that almost one in four children in our country lives on the brink of hunger," said David Beckmann, the President of Bread of the World, an advocacy organization.
Vilsack said that it would take a concerted effort to reduce the number of Americans who face a lack of food and said he hoped that the stark reality of Monday's report would inspire action. The numbers could have been much worse without adequately funded food aid programs, such as food stamps, he said.
"There's an opportunity here for the country to make a major commitment to focus on ways we can improve this process and make sure that food is safe and available for everyone," he said.
By HENRY C. JACKSON, Associated Press Writer
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Wednesday, December 9, 2009
IBM announces advances toward a computer that works like a human brain
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In an era when PCs perform like supercomputers, and supercomputers carry out inhuman feats of calculation, some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley say there are still crucial ways in which a computer can't match the problem-solving abilities of our own brains.
But today, at a supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore., a team of scientists from IBM's Almaden Research Lab and several other Bay Area institutions are planning to announce two developments that could one day lead to a new kind of computer - one that uses specially designed hardware and software to mimic what's inside our heads.
Researchers from IBM and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory say they have performed a computer simulation that matches the scale and complexity of a cat's brain, and project members from IBM and Stanford have developed an algorithm for mapping the human brain at new levels of detail. Eventually, scientists hope that detailed knowledge will help them build a computer that replicates the more complex working of a human brain.
The developments are early milestones on a long road that could one day yield applications for business, science or even the military. Still, veteran computing analyst Rick Doherty at the Envisioneering Group called the scale and significance of their progress "jaw-dropping."
The simulation, for example, did not exactly mimic what a real cat does in catching a mouse. But it surpassed earlier efforts that simulated the much simpler brain structure of a creature the size of a mouse.
Researchers used an IBM supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore Lab to model the movement of data through a structure with 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses, which allowed them to see how information "percolates" through a system that's comparable to a feline cerebral cortex.
The work is part of a federally funded effort to study what's known as cognitive computing, starting with what IBM project manager Dharmendra Modha calls "reverse-engineering the human brain," or designing a new computer by first getting a better understanding of how the brain works.
"The brain is amazing," said Modha, a computer scientist who can wax poetic about the capabilities of human gray matter. "The brain has awe-inspiring capabilities. It can react or interact with complex, real-world environments, in a context-dependent way. And yet it consumes less power than a light bulb and it occupies less space than a two-liter bottle of soda."
A key difference between human brains and traditional computers, Modha says, is that current computers are designed on a model that differentiates between processing and storing data, which can lead to a lag in updating information. The brain works on a more complex physical structure that can integrate and react to a constant stream of sights, sounds and other sensory information.
"The data can be very ambiguous. When we see a friend's face in a crowd," Modha said, "she could be wearing a red sweater or a blue dress, or her hair could be styled differently, but we're able to get to the fundamental essence of the pattern and recognize this is our friend."
Modha imagines a cognitive computer that could analyze a flood of constantly updated data from trading floors, banking institutions and even real estate markets around the world - sorting through the noise to identify key trends and their consequences. Or one that could evaluate pollution, weather and ocean data from real-time sensors around the world, to monitor global water supplies.
"As our digital and physical worlds collide, there is a tsunami of information," Modha said. "There is a need for a new kind of intelligence that can sort through, prioritize and extract the most important information, much like how the brain deals with sight, sounds, tastes, touch and smell."
A cognitive computer might also help soldiers analyze and react to chaotic events on a battlefield. The research is the result of a $5 million grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which also funded the forerunner of the Internet. But like that earlier work, scientists say the study of cognitive computing could lead in many unexpected directions.
Stanford psychology professor Brian Wandell, who studies neuroscience, was on the team that developed a new algorithm for interpreting data from a kind of noninvasive brain scan. Using supercomputers, the team has used that data to measure and map the structure of axons, or thin white threads that help carry brain signals.
Understanding these structures could lead to better knowledge of conditions such as multiple sclerosis or autism, Wandell said.
"When you see how something is laid out, you get insights about how something actually functions," he added. "So seeing the wiring diagram of the brain will be helpful for understanding how the brain functions."
By Brandon Bailey, bbailey@mercurynews.com
Labels: Almaden Research Lab, computer, IBM, trends newsletter
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Monday, December 7, 2009
2012 has worldwide box-office bang of $225M
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LOS ANGELES (AP) - Doom spelled dollars at the box office as the global-disaster tale "2012" opened at No. 1 domestically with $65 million and pulled in $225 million worldwide.
The Sony Pictures action saga tells the story of a scramble to save remnants of humanity aboard giant arks as the earth's crust shifts and flood waters pour over most of the planet.
With a cast led by John Cusack, Danny Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor, "2012" was directed by doomsday specialist Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day," "The Day After Tomorrow").
Proceed now to view the trailer at http://www.aredconsult.com/2012
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Friday, December 4, 2009
Divorce in America: Ind., Fla. counties are tops
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ISLAMORADA, Fla. - It's easy to see why bookkeeper Linda Mortimer moved to the Florida Keys 20 years ago: the impossibly blue water, the year-round sunshine, a lifestyle so laid-back that every day is like a Jimmy Buffett lyric.
What Mortimer didn't anticipate was falling in love - and then getting divorced less than two years after taking her wedding vows.
"I discovered after we got married that my husband had been divorced four times," said Mortimer, as she finished a noontime burger while sitting at the bar at the Ocean View, a local party spot and Mortimer's place of employment.
"I was his No. 5. He didn't understand why I got so upset."
Divorce is as common in the Florida Keys as fresh grouper and cold beer. Census statistics released this week show that Monroe County - which includes the cluster of 1,700 islands floating off South Florida - has the second-highest proportion of divorced residents. A little more than 18 percent of the people living in Monroe County are divorced, second only to Indiana's Wayne County, which had 19 percent. Nationwide, 10.7 percent of people over 15 are divorced.
Three of the top 10 counties the divorced call home are in Florida - rural Putnam County in Northeast Florida and urban Pinellas County on the Gulf Coast are the other two. Indiana had a total of three counties in the top 10 as well. Along with Wayne County, Floyd and Madison counties made the list.
Newly released census figures show that while the number of unmarried people continued its 10-year climb, the ranks of married people in the United States rose by nearly 6 million last year, bucking a decade-long decline. The number of divorced people rose, but only slightly.
Among the other marriage- and divorce-related findings from the census data:
• The number of unmarried people climbed to about one-third of all Americans over 15.
• Oklahoma has the highest rate of people who have been married three times or more.
• Utah and Idaho tied for the youngest median bride age, at 23.5 years old.
Residents of Wayne County, Ind., don't see why their home should be the divorce capital of America. The water tower in Richmond, Ind., the county's largest city, welcomes visitors to "A Great All-American City."
"It just doesn't make all that much sense," said Michael Jackson, an associate professor of psychology at Earlham College, a private university in Richmond. "We find it really questionable. It just sounds funny."
Indiana is one of a handful of states that don't track divorce statistics. So it's hard to tell if the percentage is caused by a large number of divorces or a large number of young single people moving out of the county to attend college, or if it's just a statistical anomaly.
Divorce counselors say the economy could be partly to blame for adding more stress to marriages. Indiana has been hit hard by the collapse of the auto and manufacturing industries. Wayne County had an average annual unemployment rate of 6.8 percent in 2008 - when the census data was collected - a rate above the state average at the time but still below many other areas of the state and country.
Tom Amyx, who owns a deli along Richmond's main street, said bad financial times shouldn't be a reason for married couples to split. He just celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary with his wife, Sherry, and says couples should tough out hard times. He said attitudes have changed about marriage, with some younger people considering it a less-than-permanent relationship that they can escape if they aren't happy.
"It's not ever about the other person anymore; it's about me, me, me," he said. "People need to make a commitment and stick to the commitment. It's not just a promise - it's a covenant. That's a very serious thing."
Amyx, who has lived in several other states, sees no reason Wayne County would top the list.
"We don't have that many people in the county," he said, "but evidently they get around."
Some folks in the Florida Keys are quick to say that it's not that people are actually divorcing in droves there - it's that divorced people come to the area to start new lives.
"The Keys are a great place to hide," said Mortimer, who is 60. When asked from what, she said: "Child support. Alimony."
A guy sitting next to Mortimer at the Ocean View bar finished his martini in a plastic cup. His chuckle nearly drowned out the Creedence Clearwater Revival song playing on the radio.
"The IRS. The CIA. Family," he said.
Others say that the party lifestyle - and a high cost of living - stresses families to the breaking point.
"This is a place of escape. A place of hedonistic abandon," said Dr. Fred Covan, a Key West therapist. "We have a condition here, we say people get Key Wasted. People come down here and do really, really stupid stuff."
Alcohol was named as a frequent culprit. People in Nevada, which at 14 percent had the highest divorce rate of any state, gave similar reasons.
Frank Lin, a divorce attorney whose firm, Lin & Associates, uses the phone number 702-DIVORCE, said Nevada laws, a 24/7 Sin City environment rich in temptation and other marriage hurdles probably combine to lead to more divorces.
"One of our clients was a bartender at the Palms and he started seeing a cocktail waitress at the Playboy Club. When I go to work, I don't have cocktail waitresses in high heels showing cleavage," Lin said. "He does - that's part of sort of his daily environment."
The most popular ad campaign in recent years promoting Las Vegas to tourists is "What happens here, stays here," and several party planners sell special divorce parties, offering the recently unmarried a guys' or girls' night out on the town.
But casino and nightclub employees aren't the only ones feeling marriage pressures, Lin said, because the rest of Las Vegas works a 24-hour cycle, too. Affairs aren't the only reason people get divorced here, he said.
"If both parties work 9-to-5 jobs, you see each other. But if one party works 9-to-5 and the other party works swing or graveyard, it's not an environment conducive to a marriage," Lin said.
Nevada's laws make it easier to get divorced compared with other states. Couples need only live in the Silver State six weeks before their marriage can be dissolved, while other states require longer residency and a cooling-off period.
Key West divorce lawyer Jiulio Margalli has noticed another trend among couples who are divorcing on the island paradise.
"What we have now is people getting divorced and fighting over who is going to take over the debt. Who's going to be saddled with the $800K mortgage that neither one could pay?" he said. "It used to be that we saw people get divorced and fight over the home. Now it's, 'Oh, my God, not only are we getting divorced, our credit is going down the tubes and we're going into foreclosure.'"
Regardless of the cause, having nearly 20 percent of the population divorced is cause for concern, said Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.
"It's basically a social and environmental toxin," Wilcox said of divorce.
By TAMARA LUSH and DEANNA MARTIN, Associated Press Writers
Labels: divorce, florida, indiana, trends newsletter, usa
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Children Who Get Spanked Have Lower IQs
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Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others.
"All parents want smart children," said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. "This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen."
One might ask, however, whether children who are spanked tend to come from backgrounds in which education opportunities are less or inherited intelligence lower.
But while the results only show an association between spanking and intelligence, Straus says his methodology and the fact that he took into account other factors that could be at play (such as parents' socioeconomic status) make a good case for a causal link.
"You can't say it proves it, but I think it rules out so many other alternatives; I am convinced that spanking does cause a slowdown in a child's development of mental abilities," Straus told LiveScience.
Intelligence quotients
Straus and his colleague Mallie Paschall of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Maryland studied nationally representative samples of two age groups: 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9. The researchers tested the kids' IQs initially and then four years later.
Both groups of kids got smarter after four years. But the 2- to 4-year-olds who were spanked scored 5 points lower on the IQ test than those not spanked. For children ages 5 to 9, the spanked ones scored on average 2.8 points lower than their unspanked counterparts.
The results, he said, were statistically significant. And they held even after accounting for parental education, income, cognitive stimulation by parents and other factors that could affect children's mental abilities.
Straus will present the study results, along with research on the relationship between average national IQ and prevalence of spanking around the world, Friday at the 14th International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in San Diego, Calif.
Spanking science
Whether or not spanking equates with dumber kids is not known, and may never be known. That's because the only way to truly show cause and effect would be to follow over time two groups of kids, one randomly assigned to get spanked and another who would not get spanked. Barring that method, which is unfeasible, Straus considers his study the next best thing, as he looked back at a nationally representative set of kids who were followed over time.
Jennifer Lansford of Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy and Social Science Research Institute called the study "interesting," and agrees the method is a strong one. Lansford, who was not involved with the study, said following kids over time as this study did rules out the possibility that children with lower IQs somehow elicit more physical discipline.
However, unlike research showing the link between spanking and a kid's aggressive behavior, in which kids model parents' actions, this link is less clear to her. She added that a question still left unanswered is "what are some of the other mechanisms that could be responsible for this link between physical discipline and lower IQ?"
How spanking harms
If spanking does send IQ scores down, Straus and others offer some explanations for what might be going on.
"Contrary to what everyone believes, being hit by parents is a traumatic experience," Straus said. "We know from lots of research that traumatic stresses affect the brain adversely." Also, the trauma could cause kids to have more stressful responses in difficult situations, and so may not perform as well cognitively.
By using hitting rather than words or other means of discipline, parents could be depriving kids of learning opportunities. "With spanking, a parent is delivering a punishment to get the child's attention and to get them to behave in a certain way," said Elizabeth Gershoff who studies childhood development at the University of Texas, Austin. "It's not fostering children's independent thinking."
So when a child gets in a bind, he or she might do the right thing to keep from a spanking rather than figuring out the best decision independently, added Gershoff, who was not involved in Straus's current study.
And then there are genes, as some kids are just born smarter than others.
Even though spanking has been shown to cause negative consequences, Gershoff said many parents still fall back on the behavior-shaping tool. As for why, she says it's a quick fix, though its seeming success is short-lived and the negative consequences often outweigh the positives. Parents also might have been spanked themselves and so continue the tradition.
Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer, LiveScience.com
Labels: iq, spanking, trends newsletter
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