LONDON: Is addiction a brain disease? The answer is yes if researchers are to be believed, because it changes the way the brain functions.
A team of international researchers has carried out a study and found that alcoholics and drug addicts are naturally more impulsive when compared to other normal people, The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday. According to lead researcher Charlotte Boettiger of the University of North Carolina, "Their (the addicts') brains may not fully process the long-term consequences of their choices."
Really?
The researchers came to the conclusion after carrying out brain scans on nine sober recovering alcoholics. The participants were given financial decision tasks that allowed them to choose "less money now" or "more money later". The addicts chose the "now" reward almost three times as often.
In fact, the team found that they had less activity in the orbital frontal cortex -- the part of the brain that helps people make wise long-term decisions -- than volunteers with no history of addiction. The researchers also found a genetic link with the brain chemical dopamine. They believe that raising dopamine levels may be a treatment for addiction.
The results of their study have been published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 12:39 ||
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You mean they *just now* found a link between low dopamine levels and addiction?
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - An Afghan woman is in hospital after her nose and an ear were cut off, allegedly by her husband, police and a doctor said on Tuesday. The woman was brought to hospital in the southern province of Zabul last week by her brother, a doctor at the main hospital in the town of Qalat said. We received a patient with a cut nose and ear, Mohammad Salem told AFP.
Zabul provincial police chief General Mohammad Yaqub Khan said he did not know what led to the attack. We dont know much about their fight but the husband did cut the nose and one ear of his wife. Shes in the hospital now and were searching for her husband, who has escaped, he said.
Afghan media said the woman, reportedly aged about 17, was also beaten, her head shaved and her teeth broken by the same man.
Don't worry, Muslims for Progressive Values is on the case ...
This article starring:
Muslims for Progressive Values
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/26/2007 00:00 ||
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CAIRO - In a potential blow to themed resorts from Vegas to Tokyo, Egypt is to pass a law requiring payment of royalties whenever its ancient monuments, from the pyramids to the sphinx, are reproduced.
Zahi Hawass, the charismatic and controversial head of Egypts Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AFP on Tuesday that the move was necessary to pay for the upkeep of the countrys thousands of pharaonic sites. The new law will completely prohibit the duplication of historic Egyptian monuments which the Supreme Council of Antiquities considers 100-percent copies, he said. If the law is passed then it will be applied in all countries of the world so that we can protect our interests, Hawass said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/26/2007 00:00 ||
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There's a book waiting to be written about Mr. Zahi Hawass. I see his oily smile on all the many, many Egypt/pyramid/archaeology shows on Discovery/TLC et al.
He is also apparently the sole gatekeeper for all work and analysis of this generation of Egyptologists.
I'd like to know who his patrons are. He must have many friends in very high places.
#6
Perhaps this can trigger a return to the original intent of IP
"The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
NOT for life... NOT for heirs and descendants throughout the ages...
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 7:32 Comments ||
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#7
NOT for life... NOT for heirs and descendants throughout the ages...
But for as long as Hollyweird, the MPAA and RIAA can keep bribing your Congresscritters. At which, they have been very successful.
#11
Gonna be hard collecting from the Aztecs, Incas, Mississippians, Poverty Point culture, and Hopewell/Adena. Independent development is, AFAICR, an absolute defense.
Now, if you want real justice, the Copts would sue the various mosques for damages.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/26/2007 12:20 Comments ||
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#12
And we give them how many billion per year in aid? Ingrate(s)...
#13
However, the law does not forbid local or international artists from profiting from drawings and other reproductions of pharaonic and Egyptian monuments from all erasas long as they dont make exact copies.
Hmmm... I must've missed that when I read the Book of Exodus.
#14
Gruse the Slender8869, the angle is different, Zahi does not have da beef. You can't put an intellectual property clause on a basic geometrical shape. Period. Make a knotted pyramid and that would be a different story. But then, what woul be the use for it?
But Hawas apparently wants to shoot the golden goose. Greedy idiot.
Copts should sue, not for IP rights, but for a willful destruction of their heritage (dismantled casing of GP was used for building Cairo mosques).
At least 34 people have been burned to death after a petrol pipeline exploded in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, officials say.
Local people had been trying to collect fuel from the pipeline, which had been deliberately breached, when something caused the petrol to ignite.
"Hey guys, I'm going to use this blowtorch to put another hole in the pipeline. You know, so's we can collect more fuel."
Most of the victims were women and children, who had arrived with fuel containers, witnesses said.
The men being too busy with bidness to deign to carry the fuel jugs ...
Such disasters are not unusual in oil-rich Nigeria. A year ago, at least 260 people died in one pipeline explosion in Lagos.
"The incident occurred in the early hours of Christmas Day... by the time our team located the place they found about 34 charred bodies," said Frank Mbah, a Lagos police spokesman.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 12:57 ||
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These folks need to learn about hot taps, like we use to put water services on watermains without shutting them down. Maybe we could get an NGO to show them how it is done safely. After all, this is part of the culture, so we have to be sennnnnnnsitive to their cultural ways, as pyrokinetic as they are to western eyes.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/26/2007 13:45 Comments ||
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Hey AP, most of the oil pipeline 'explosions' in Iraq are from local idiots trying their versions of a 'hot tap' (which our Marine tells us involves a cutting torch or metal file) in order to divert the product to the black market. Very few 'explosions' over the last couple of years were actually 'planned'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/26/2007 14:13 Comments ||
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#3
That's right, Mullah Richard. We need to teach the petrothieves how to do things safely. Ya see, they are people too, and they have feelings, especially when they are covered with burning petroleum products. Sort of a living Ronson ad.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/26/2007 19:12 Comments ||
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Hunting is undergoing a revival with increasing numbers of women and children taking part as a direct result of the ban imposed by the Hunting Act.
As 314 hunts were preparing to meet organisers report that in the two years since the ban, young people have attracted to the sport, reversing the situation of more than a decade ago where hunt memberships were ageing and in decline. Once again affirming the ancient law: "If you ban it, they will come."
The Masters of Foxhounds Association reports a plentiful supply of people willing to run hunts - though it had been feared they would be deterred from taking charge by the prospect of legal action if hunts ventured beyond the ill-defined area of "exempt hunting" under the Act.
Of the 563 masters and joint masters of foxhounds this season, 215 have become masters since the Hunting Act came into force in spring 2005. There will always be an England ...
Many are not from traditional backgrounds. Claire Bellamy, 32, has been master and huntsman of the Spooners and West Dartmoor hunt since May 1, one of only two women to occupy that role. At a meet of the farmers' hunt on Christmas Eve at Brickham House, Roborough, Plymouth, she was accompanied by a field of around 40 riders, 20 of them children, with more children following the hunt on foot.
She said: "An awful lot of people have been coming out, I think because they've had enough of the Government and would like to see the sport keep going rather than see it all fold. They seem to be staying.
"This is my first season here - I was at the Dartmoor before. There were definitely more people who would previously have just hacked around the lanes coming out with the hunt."
Helen Silcock, chairman of the hunt, said: "The fields are larger than they have been for some time. Today it's 50 per cent children, which is lovely to see, some very little. There is lots of support. People want to see a tradition continue. The number of our subscribers has increased in the past 18 months.
Karl Creamer, 44, joint master of the Ludlow, is a former professional ice-hockey player who had not sat on a horse until 1994. He said: "Everything that gets banned seems to become popular. Mr Creamer said that the average hunt follower was now 26 years old and female with a full time job who likes doing dressage as well.
"I make no bones about it, that's why I got into it," he said. What's next? A pack of Marlboros in every shirt pocket?
Tim Bonner of the Countryside Alliance, said the changes had come after the campaign against the Hunting Act. "They [hunts] started to understand that they had to be open and accessible rather than being considered exclusive and remote."
But hunts are insistent that the lack of clarity in the Act as to what constitutes "exempt hunting" puts too much pressure on the professional huntsmen, who are already under a duty to provide sport. They want the Act repealed.
Exempt hunting includes hunting a trail, flushing foxes or deer to guns with two hounds, flushing foxes to a bird of prey or hound exercise. But the boundaries of exempt hunting have yet to be fully settled by the courts.
Barry Hugill of the League Against Cruel Sports said: "If it is the case that membership is going up - and I am sceptical - could it not be that people are happy to go trail hunting without killing animals?" Well, anything's possible, Bunny Boy.
MOSCOW - A Russian submarine in the Barents Sea successfully test-fired a new ballistic missile on Tuesday, hitting a target on the Kamchatka peninsula on Russias Pacific coast minutes later, the Ministry of Defence said. The launch was carried out from the submarine platform in line with military training. The rocket warhead arrived down range at the designated time, the ministry said in a statement.
The RSM-54, or Sineva, is a hybrid ballistic missile that in its final stages becomes a modified cruise missile. In this guise, the warhead cannot be targeted by anti-missile systems that rely on a ballistic trajectory for their calculations.
Until we upgrade the software on the ABM system.
Tuesdays launch is the second such test-firing of the Sineva in less than a week. The submarine-based test missile was fired from the Tula, one of seven Russian Dolphin-class vessels capable of carrying 16 intercontinental rockets and torpedoes, according to data published on the Russian Defence Ministry web site.
Officials also announced the successful test-firing of a land-launched RS-24 missile with multiple warheads from the Plesetsk range in northern Russia. A spokesman for Russians Strategic Missile forces said the missile, first tested in May of this year, had hit its target in Kamchatka.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/26/2007 00:00 ||
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WND > Russia has also reportedly test-fired an RS24 MIRV ICBM, similar to the TOPOL-M design.
WAFF.com > ALTERNET.org > WHAT IF AMERICA WAS INVADED AND OCCUPIED? Also from WAFF.com > Poster thread - THE WONDERFUL NEW H-6K STRATEGIC BOMBER - TO TOUCH OKINAWA, AND GUAM WHERE AMERICA'S TRIDENT AND F22 BASE ARE LOCATED. Okinawa = most of JAPAN now at high risk of PLAAF ALCM nuke-conventional strike vv KH-55/KH-555 series derivatives; + WAFF > ITAR-TASS - [RUSSIAN] AIR FORCE OFFERS TU22M3 AND TU95 STRATEGIC BOMBERS TO CHINA. Russ AF to get upgraded TU160's in lieu.
D *** NG IT, 1960's-70's Guam Taotamonas = Ancestral Ghosts/NOSTRADAMUS' "GHOSTS OF THE [Past/Future]DEAD" + OLIVER STONE, etc. aren't gonna like this since they've long ago already forecasted the USAF to give China old B52 parts.
#2
Compare wid NOSI > US NAVY - THE F35B ROLLS OUT. Few iff any doubt the F35's outstanding capabilities given its exorbitant cost = will kick any competitor's butt. Despite its merits, questionne' has to be asked WHAT IS THE F35 FOR?
#3
STRATEGYPAGE > NAVAL FORCES:US MANDATES NUCLEAR BATTLESHIPS, + STRATEGIC WEAPONS: UNBREAKABLE. Super successful US TRIDENT testing, versus highly problematic RUSSIAN BULAVA = navalized TOPOL testing. IOW, waiting for a Russ BULAVA FBM Sub to blow up in nuke glory like the sun???
#4
FREEREPUBLIC Poster on RUSSIA TEST-FIRES NEW INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSLE artikle > NO WORRIES, BECUZ WHY WOULD RUSSIA ATTACK A SOCIALIST AMERICA? Poster claims to look forward to the day when any and all Amer citizens are truly equal, and Govt is in charge of providing all base necessities.
The first midnight Mass at ground zero was celebrated as workers were still clearing debris from the World Trade Center and recovering bodies after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The last was held Monday night, giving police, firefighters, recovery workers and victims' families a final chance to pray on Christmas Eve at the site, where intensifying construction is increasingly taking up open space.
"A lot of us felt sad this was the last official midnight Mass on-site, but at the same time, there was a sense of relief. This brought closure for us," the Rev. Brian Jordan said early Tuesday after the service ended. A chaplain who spent 10 months at ground zero after Sept. 11, he has since presided over every midnight Mass there.
About 75 people attended the Mass, he said. One police officer was there for the first time; he had recently returned from military service in Afghanistan and before that Iraq, Jordan said. A sanitation worker who was involved in the ground zero cleanup and has sung at each year's service rendered "God Bless America" and "O Holy Night."
At one point in the prayers, those gathered were asked to say the names of loved ones who died in the 2001 attacks. As many as 150 names were mentioned, said Jordan, who carried a chalice dedicated to the memory of the Rev. Mychal Judge, a fire chaplain killed while performing last rites on other victims' bodies outside the trade center. "It was poignant, it was moving, it was uplifting," Jordan said.
More than 150 people attended the first Mass in 2001, while thousands of workers were still removing the debris from the fallen twin towers and searching for bodies. Over the years, the service became a spiritual salve for those who participated.
"I see the healing that it does," construction worker Frank Silecchia said. "It's like a pilgrimage."
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, has moved the service at times from one part of the property to another, depending on construction. Officials hope to open five office towers, a transit hub and a Sept. 11 memorial there within the next five years.
Jordan said he decided to make this service the last after Port Authority officials told him that heavier construction would make it impossible to continue the tradition in 2008. Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman disputed that claim, saying Monday a spot would be found if Jordan wanted to hold future services at the site.
Jordan said it was fitting for this year's Mass to be the final one, noting that the most recent Sept. 11 commemoration may have marked the last time victims' families were allowed to descend into the pit at ground zero to remember their relatives. "This was a holy night on sacred ground," he said. "As I told the people at the site, it's been an honor and a privilege to be able to say Mass here."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/26/2007 00:00 ||
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BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel - Forty Jewish immigrants from Iran secretly flew to Israel on Tuesday, the largest such influx from the Islamic Republic as a single group in recent years, an Israeli immigration official said. Precise details of how the immigrants travelled from Iran to Israel were barred for publication under Israels censorship rules for security matters.
The new arrivals were welcomed in a ceremony at Ben Gurion International Airport after arriving on a flight from a transit country which was not named due to censorship. Family members already in Israel gathered to welcome their relatives, who were offered $10,000 each by a Christian and Jewish fellowship to make the move, the official said.
The official from the Jewish Agency, one of Israels main organisations which helps bring Jews to the country, said the newcomers abandoned their property and possessions in Iran and left without announcing their intended final destination. The official said most of the new arrivals had come from Teheran.
Israel is home to tens of thousands of Iranian immigrants, many of whom maintain discreet ties with relatives in their native land despite almost three decades of cold war-style hostility between the Islamic republic and the Jewish state. More than 200 Iranians have moved to Israel in 2007, up from 65 in the previous year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/26/2007 00:00 ||
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While Muslims ethnically cleanse minorities in their homelands, they flock here in droves. Quid pro quo?
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - As an Army surgeon in the Middle East, Dr. Keith Rose watched a colleague bleed to death when a truck in his convoy was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade.
Rose could not get his comrade a tourniquet, which could have helped control the bleeding on his wounded leg, and sat along the mangled wreckage and talked with him as he took his last breath. "It really kind of frustrated me," Rose said.
Once he returned to the U.S., Rose approached BlackHawk, a provider of military and law enforcement gear, with an idea to create clothes with built-in tourniquets.
The system being tested for use in military uniforms, called Warrior Wear, has eight tourniquets - two in each sleeve and pant leg. A tourniquet fashioned from straps that look like those on backpacks are sewn into the clothing, and the straps are concealed beneath a fabric fastener.
"No matter how good the tourniquet is, if you can't get it on the person at the right time, it doesn't work," said Rose, who does tactical medicine consultation and medical work overseas. "It's something that is so basic, so cost effective and so overwhelmingly life changing," he said.
The Norfolk-based company said the clothing should be available for retail around the end of March. It is expected to retail for less than $200, but the cost to the military would depend on things like volume.
Military officials agree having readily accessible tourniquets is important. "Tourniquets have allowed many people with devastating injuries to come back that in another time and another place would have died," said Col. Patricia R. Hastings, director of the Army's Department of Combat Medic Training based at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. "If you can save a medic a few minutes of time so he can concentrate on saving your life ... it has great possibilities," Hastings said.
And with the concept of battlefields changing, Rose said the system is more vital than ever. "The way wars are fought now ... there's no defined lines of engagement," Rose said. "The average cook could be hit with a rocket attack while he's carrying potatoes to the mess hall."
Advances in body armor have made protecting the core of a body easier, but more than 60 percent of injuries in military and law enforcement conflicts today are to the extremities, said Terry Naughton, director of industrial security at BlackHawk. Naughton said 10 percent of deaths are from injuries where blood loss was uncontrollable.
"We are confident that the day that this hits the field, that lives will be saved," Naughton said. "And if we save one person, we've done our job."
BlackHawk was founded in 1993 by Mike Noell, a former Navy SEAL who fought in the first Gulf War. The company, which has developed more than 2,500 products for military, law enforcement and the outdoor sporting community, has grown to about 250 employees and is expected to add 100 more within the next year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/26/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I shudder to imagine the possibilities for horse-play among recruits.
#4
This doesn't smell right. First, AFAIK use of tourniquets have been dicouraged for decades. Second: It is possible to stop bleeding by pressing gard at the right plaace and a surgeon would find it in his sleep. He wouldn't have just stayed with the guy.
#5
Some bleeding wounds cannot be controlled with direct pressure, especially large vascular injuries. Fear of tourniquet use has 0ften hindered employment of this valuable technique. In fact, current research shows that tourniquets save lives and have a relatively limited downside...especially in the face of massive hemorrhagic shock. As such, tourniquet use has been re-introduced in many miltary circles.
With regards to Dr. Rose's inability to place a tourniquet on his wounded friend, he could have been under fire--which is common after IED attacks. It is also possible that the wound may have been so proximal (far up) on the injured limb that a tourniquet could not have been placed, except under the most ideal of circumstances--if at all.
#6
Rose could not get his comrade a tourniquet....., and sat along the mangled wreckage and talked with him as he took his last breath.
Possibly the guy was trapped in the wreckage and the doctor could not access the wound or a good pressure point to stop the bleeding. Anyone know if they have anything like Jaws of Life to cut guys out of bombed vehicles?
Posted by: Steve ||
12/26/2007 13:00 Comments ||
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#7
Steve, having operated a Hurst Tool under emergency services conditions, I can't imagine trying to use it under fire. It does a great job, but it's heavy and noisy and needs its independent power source. And it takes up a decent amount of space.
But since I don't pretend to know what it's like to be hit by an IED, maybe my imagination isn't good enough....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/26/2007 16:04 Comments ||
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Thinking hard; what could the problem be? Aha! Allan is displeased with their lack of vigor in killing infidels. (I'd say 'sarcasm' but I am sure a lot of Muslims actually believe it.)
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rescuers dug for survivors Wednesday after landslides and floods triggered by days of torrential rain killed dozens of people in western Indonesia. At least 78 people were feared dead most of them killed in a single landslide in the Karanganyar district that buried a late-night dinner party, a rescue official said. The victims had just cleaned up a mud-covered home.
Hundreds of soldiers, police and volunteers struggled to get heavy-lifting equipment to villages on the main island of Java, but roads blocked by the mud and flooding were hampering the rescue efforts, Prayitno said.
A tsunami warning drill on Java was unaffected by Wednesday's landslides.
Seasonal rains and high tides in recent days have caused widespread flooding across much of Indonesia, the world's fourth most-populous nation. Millions of people live in mountainous regions and near fertile flood plains that are close to rivers. Global Warming! Global Warming!
The latest disasters occurred on the third anniversary of a massive earthquake off Sumatra in December 2004 that triggered a tsunami. That killed more than 230,000 people and left a half-million homeless in a dozen countries.
#1
The Pak Physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy was horrified to discover that his graduate Physics students believed the Kashmir earthquake to be punishment from Allah for lack of faith.
Exasperated, he asked them about plate tectonics. No them insisted, earthquakes come from Allah.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/26/2007 12:38 Comments ||
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#2
That is the consensus here at Rantburg, too, John.
#3
Java Jeology was there long before Allen's Boyz made the scene. This lesson is presented to them over and over, but they just don't get it. It is interesting, when you deal with FAS kids, depending upon the severity of syndrome, they do not learn basic things, despite being taught repeatedly. The Islamists do the same, but they do not have the excuse that FAS kids do.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/26/2007 13:55 Comments ||
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#5
Here's a hint: Millions of people live in mountainous regions and near fertile flood plains that are close to rivers. Flood plains are great for planting crops but bad for avoiding floods. Mountainous regions are great for hacking out a living in the middle of wasteland, but bad for avoiding landslides.
#6
Yeah, Zhang. But ask any local politician here in San Diego County and they'll tell you that it's OK to build in flood plains or on hillsides. Then they try to act like it's not their fault when there is a flood or a landslide. They'll let you build out in the middle of tinder dry brush and then they'll scream for federal help when there's a fire. It just goes to show you don't have to be a muzzy to be a tool for the developers. They're not doing it on the same scale as the Indonesians yet but give them time and they will.
Posted by: Abu Uluque6305 ||
12/26/2007 17:29 Comments ||
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#7
INDONESIAN-SUMATRAN "ODYSEUS"? > "The waves/sea will carry him" to a new land, to an ancient land(s) of his ancestors. GOD = HEAVENS will send a SHARK to help save and carry him, as well as a TORTOISE/TURTLE and BIRDS TO TEACH HIM as he floats and struggles to survive the angry seas.
MADONNA > "GO WITH THE FLOW".
D *** NG IT, OSAMA reportedly is a WHITNEY HUSTON FAN - what does WHITNEY say??? ION, CONDI RICE has great legs ala KOMMERSANT photo
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
CAIRO - In a potential blow to themed resorts from Vegas to Tokyo, Egypt is to pass a law requiring payment of royalties whenever its ancient monuments, from the pyramids to the sphinx, are reproduced.
At least 34 people have been burned to death after a petrol pipeline exploded in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, officials say.
Hunting is undergoing a revival with increasing numbers of women and children taking part as a direct result of the ban imposed by the Hunting Act.
BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel - Forty Jewish immigrants from Iran secretly flew to Israel on Tuesday, the largest such influx from the Islamic Republic as a single group in recent years, an Israeli immigration official said. Precise details of how the immigrants travelled from Iran to Israel were barred for publication under Israels censorship rules for security matters.
