Smart Economy

Is Russia wagging the Liberal political tail in Ottawa?

Is Russia wagging the Liberal political tail in Ottawa? –Walter Derzko

CONCLUSION:

If USA/ Canada is training YPG soldiers and Canadian volunteers are fighting together with Kurdish YPG troops, who  appear to be allied with Assad, ISIS and Russia, then there is a problem!!  By Walter Derzko, SFi (CONNECTING THE DOTS)

 N.B. Hat tip to Bohdan C for spotting the Hammond quote below-WD

FACT: In January 2014, before Moscow invaded and annexed Crimea, Mr. Putin awarded the former Liberal prime minister- Jean Chretien,  Russia’s Order of Friendship for “his substantial contribution to the strengthening and development of friendship and co-operation with the Russian Federation.”  [1]

FACT: Former Canadian Liberal PM Jean Chretien (1993-2003) visited Moscow in April 2015 and had  a secret meeting with Putin. Publically, details are unknown, however, the InterAction Council said Mr. Chrétien, who is the co-chair of their organization, will “report back to the group on his discussions with the Russian President.” Former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma is also on the Interaction Council  [1]

FACT: The Liberal Party in Canada has withdrawn CF-18 Hornet air support and has promised instead that it would send trainers to train Kurdish troops on the ground. [2] “Western nations have seen them as reliable allies in the war and have provided them with air support, training, equipment and cash. As a result, the YPG, the Kurdish force that is battling ISIL, has been able to carve out its own mini-state in northeastern Syria.”  [14]  N.B. It’s not clear from recent news reports that Canada is now directly training YPG troops, but if they are,  there could be a problem. The Canadian press seems to use Pershmerga and YPG interchangeably (see below)

FACT: Canadian volunteers are fighting with a Kurdish faction called YPG says National Post [3], [15]

FACT:  “Britain has seen "disturbing evidence" that Kurdish YPG forces are coordinating with the Syrian regime and the Russian air force, the Foreign Secretary- Philip Hammond has said.” [4]

FACT:  “The Kurdish YPG, which has become the West’s main ground force against Isil, has taken advantage of a massive regime offensive in north Syria to seize territory of its own from US-backed rebels, effectively leaving Washington in a proxy war with itself. "What we have seen over the last weeks is very disturbing evidence of coordination between Syrian Kurdish forces, the Syrian regime and the Russian air force which are making us distinctly uneasy about the Kurds' role in all of this," Philip Hammond told Parliament on Tuesday. After years of marginalization at the hands of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Syria’s Kurds have emerged as one of the war’s key power brokers, enjoying the support of both Washington and Moscow, even as the two powers square off on opposing sides of the conflict.  [4]

FACT: Russia and FSB /formerly KGB is funding and funneling  arms to terrorists in the Middle East;  “BEIRUT — Lebanese Hezbollah field commanders with troops fighting in Syria tell The Daily Beast they are receiving heavy weapons directly from Russia with no strings attached. The commanders say there is a relationship of complete coordination between the Assad regime in Damascus, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. At the same time they say the direct interdependence between Russia and Hezbollah is increasing.”  [5]

FACT: Russians have been fighting for ISIS at least since 2011 [6]

FACT: The KGB/ Kremlin  trained most  of Saddam Hussein’s top Baathist army leaders, who then went on to form ISIS [7], [9] “The KGB, the East German Stasi and Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat intelligence agency are the direct progenitors of the Islamic State security apparatus [7]

FACT: Islam is a political movement masquerading as  a religion  (3:15 of audio) Admiral (Ret) James Lyons on Islam as a threat doctrine. [8]

FACT: RUSSIA IS ISIS or ISIS = Russia ; Both ISIS and the Assad regime are led by military and intelligence officers trained in the KGB and both rely on propaganda as a means of internal control, not only of controlling their international image, which is why both so virulently repress independent media that contradicts their officially sanctioned version. [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]  N.B. Why did the world know about Osama bin Laden, 10 minutes after 9/11. But I bet you can’t rhyme off who the leaders of ISIS are !!!  

FACT: Russia has historic and current ties to the PKK/ PYD Party  [11]

FACT: “Turkey considers YPG a terrorist group because of its affiliation to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. The party’s armed wing, the PKK, has been waging a war against Turkey (a NATO member) since 1984 as it fights for greater rights for Kurds in Turkey. In December, Turkish fighter jets attacked PKK supply camps in northern Iraq. Over the last several weeks, new fighting has erupted between Turkish troops and the PKK in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir”  [14]

References:

[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/former-pm-jean-chretien-to-meet-with-vladimir-putin-in-moscow/article24124208/

[2]  http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/02/08/canada-to-end-bombing-mission-against-isis-triple-size-of-training-troops.html

[3] Kurds seek Canadian military, financial support in fight against ISIL: ‘Time to see something concrete’  http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/kurds-seek-canadian-military-financial-support-in-fight-against-isil-in-syria-its-time-to-see-something-concrete

[4] Hammond: 'Disturbing evidence' that Kurds are coordinating with Syrian regime and Russia  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/12170962/Hammond-Disturbing-evidence-that-Kurds-are-coordinating-with-Syrian-regime-and-Russia.html

[5] BEIRUT — Lebanese Hezbollah field commanders with troops fighting in Syria tell The Daily Beast they are receiving heavy weapons directly from Russia with no strings attached. The commanders say there is a relationship of complete coordination between the Assad regime in Damascus, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. At the same time they say the direct interdependence between Russia and Hezbollah is increasing.

[6] The Islamic State speaks Russian – a new market for ISIS propaganda; 01/02/2016 | by Fainberg, Alisa (Dr.)    http://www.ict.org.il/Article/1598/The-Islamic-State-speaks-Russian

[7] “The KGB, the East German Stasi and Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat intelligence agency are the direct progenitors of the Islamic State security apparatus. The proof lies in a cache of documents uncovered after a shootout last year between Syrian rebels and an Iraqi intelligence officer now believed to be the strategic mastermind behind the Islamic State takeover of northern Syria”. Source: BEN MACINTYRE ; THE TIMES APRIL 25, 2015 12:00AM Islamic State owes more to Kremlin than Koran

[8] http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=51fe948515b4

[9] How Saddam Hussein Gave Us ISIS By KYLE W. ORTON DEC. 23, 2015. New York Times  

[10] http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-activists-of-raqqa-is-being-slaughtered-silently-pay-with-their-lives-to-expose-isis-the-least-a6777601.html

[11] Turkish paper: Russia, Syria maintain ties with outlawed group since Cold War BBC Monitoring European [London] 30 Oct 2015.

Text of report by Turkish newspaper Milliyet website on 27 October [Commentary by Nihat Ali Ozcan: "Russia and the PKK at the Crossroads of Syria"] Russia's increased presence in Syria has not only changed political and military balances but also reopened the "covert operation" files of intelligence organizations. Russia's increased presence in Syria has not only changed political and military balances but also reopened the "covert operation" files of intelligence organizations. This being Syria, the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] - a terrorist organization that was the "guest" of Damascus for 36 years - could of course not be ignored. Al-Asad and Russia did exactly that. They never forgot their old friend, the PKK, which they inherited from the Cold War. They remained in contact [with the PKK] throughout the [Syrian] civil war. Now, the PKK/PYD [Democratic Union Party] has become a prized commodity in the war market and is growing impatient about claiming its own rewards.4

[12] Chechen separatist leader says Russia controls Islamic State leaders BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union [London] 23 Nov 2015.

Abstract/The associate of [former Chechen separatist leader] Dzhokhar Dudayev and the former field commander claims that the Kremlin was involved in the creation of Islamic State and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is controlling it.

Full Text

Excerpt from report by private Ukrainian ICTV television on 22 November

[Presenter] It has become known this week that Chechens are fighting on the side of Islamic State [IS]. [Pro-Moscow Chechen leader] Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed that almost 500 of his fighters had joined the terrorists. He naturally considers them traitors. However, another well-known Chechen, Akhmed Zakayev, told an absolutely different version to Fakty Tyzhnya [this news programme].  The associate of [former Chechen separatist leader] Dzhokhar Dudayev and the former field commander claims that the Kremlin was involved in the creation of Islamic State and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is controlling it. Let us hear an excerpt from the interview that we recorded in London. [Zakayev] I have an absolute, 100 per cent, evidence base that IS is controlled by Russian special services today. Those are Iraqi military men who worked under Saddam's rule [former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein]. You know they were Putin's and KGB's allies. Another group comes from the Northern Caucasus which was sent there as soon as it, the so-called IS, started to be formed. These particular secret agents exert their influence and are controlled by the Russian special services. I am more than confident that Putin expected something to happen in Paris or some other place. This action brought political results or political dividends only to one person in the world, Putin, and Putin's regime. Of course, it would be naive to think that everything happened by accident there or was a coincidence. In any case, I am sure that it happened under a planned scenario.

[Passage omitted: correspondent repeats these allegations] Credit: ICTV television, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1645 22 Nov 15 Word count: 277

ICTV television, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1645 22 Nov 15/BBC Monitoring/(c) BBC

[13]  Support of terrorism worldwide by the KGB and FSB   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko

Litvinenko stated that "all the bloodiest terrorists of the world" were connected to FSB-KGB, including Carlos "The Jackal" Ramírez, Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Abdullah Öcalan, Wadie Haddad of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Hawi who led the Communist Party of Lebanon, Ezekias Papaioannou from Cyprus, Sean Garland from Ireland and many others. He said that all of them were trained, funded, and provided with weapons, explosives and counterfeit documents in order to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide and that each act of terrorism made by these people was carried out according to the task and under the rigid control of the KGB of the USSR.[61] Litvinenko said that "the center of global terrorism is not in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or the Chechen Republic. The terrorism infection creeps away worldwide from the cabinets of the Lubyanka Square and the Kremlin".[62][63]

[14]  The 'ripple effect': Canada's support for the Kurds brings unintended consequences  http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/the-ripple-effect-canadas-support-for-the-kurds-brings-unintended-consequences

[15] http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/01/14/news/canadian-fighting-isis-shares-harsh-realities-war

[16]  Sajjan shrugs off concerns about Canadian-trained Kurdish soldiers in Iraq   http://bit.ly/1QZFC9J

The debate was sparked by a secret "Canadian Eyes Only" intelligence analysis by Transport Canada that looked at the Kurdish peshmerga, whom Canadian special forces operators have been instructing since late 2014. The report warns there are some factions of the militia group that are designated as terrorist entities under federal law. It focuses on the separate issue of Canadian volunteers who've gone to fight alongside the Kurds. "Any Canadians claiming to have links to organizations such as the People's Worker Party (PKK) are likely to become the subject of Canada's anti-terror legislation," says the report to the department, one of many federal agencies with a security assessment branch. The intelligence analysis, dated Nov. 28, 2014, and obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, parses the various branches and factions of the peshmerga, which make up almost 60 per cent of Kurdish security forces in the region. One of the factions is the People's Worker Party, or PKK, which is designated as a terrorist entity under Canadian law. Turkey, a NATO ally, takes a particularly hard line on the PKK, and recently threatened to boycott United Nations-backed peace talks on Syria if a political group associated with the PKK was at the table. It is unclear how many Canadians — if any — are fighting with the PKK, or another faction known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, but there have been several published reports of it happening since the war heated up in the summer of 2014. The YPG, which came to international attention during the siege of Kobani, has not been deemed a terrorist group.

Walter Derzko

 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

#PTSD PTSD is triggered by excess oxidative stress or free radicals which are neutralised by Carbon 60 hydrated fullerenes, the highest natural  antioxidant in the world https://www.academia.edu/11621073/Backgrounder_on_Carbon_60_Hydrated_Fullerenes_V6

PTSD and Oxidative Stress-Connect the DOTS

 

Reference (1)

Coll Antropol. 2011 Dec;35(4):1155-60.

Oxidative stress markers in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ceprnja M¹, Derek L, Unić A, Blazev M, Fistonić M, Kozarić-Kovacić D, Franić M, Romić Z.

Author information

• ¹University of Zagreb, Dubrava University Hospital, Clinical Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, Zagreb, Croatia. [email protected]

Abstract

Recent study data support the role of oxidative stress in diverse psychiatric disorders. Oxidative stress results from an oxidant/antioxidant imbalance, an excess of oxidants and/or a depletion of antioxidants. There are numerous studies that indicate that free radicals (FRs) damage neurons, and then play an important role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and depression. Active oxygen can cause considerable damage and disrupt the important physiological functions of proteins, lipids, enzymes and DNA. The aim of our study was to investigate the possible differences in the concentration of tromboxane B2, 8-OHdG and protein carbonyls, as significant markers of oxidative damage, and urate, albumin and total protein concentrations as antioxidative molecules in PTSD patients in comparison to the healthy control group. The study included 74 male participants who were active soldiers in the Croatian armed forces from 1991 to 1995. 46 subjects with chronic and current PTSD were recruited from the Department of Psychiatry of Dubrava University Hospital during 2010, 28 healthy subjects were recruited in the same period during the regular medical examination at the Dubrava University Hospital.

Reference (2)

Curr Neuropharmacol. Mar 2014; 12(2): 193–204.

Published online Mar 2014. doi:  10.2174/1570159X11666131120223530

PMCID: PMC3964749

Oxidative Imbalance and Anxiety Disorders

Krolow R,^* Arcego D. M, Noschang C, Weis S. N, and Dalmaz C^*

Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Ciências Básicas da Saúde, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

^* Address correspondence to these authors at the Departamento de Bioquímica, ICBS, UFRGS, Ramiro Barcelos, 2600 (Anexo) Lab. 37. 90035-003 Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil; Tel: 55 51- 3316-5570; Fax: 55 51- 3316-5535; E-mails: rb.moc.oohay@lehcarwolork, Email: rb.moc.oohay@zamladalrac

Abstract

The oxidative imbalance appears to have an important role in anxiety development. Studies in both humans and animals have shown a strong correlation between anxiety and oxidative stress. In humans, for example, the increased malondialdehyde levels and discrepancies in antioxidant enzymes in erythrocytes have been observed. In animals, several studies also show that anxiety-like behavior is related to the oxidative imbalance. Moreover, anxiety-like behavior can be caused by pharmacological-induced oxidative stress. Studies using knockout or overexpression of antioxidant enzymes have shown a relationship between anxiety-like behavior and oxidative stress. Related factors of oxidative stress that could influence anxious behavior are revised, including impaired function of different mitochondrial proteins, inflammatory cytokines, and neurotrophic factors. It has been suggested that a therapy specifically focus in reducing reactive species production may have a beneficial effect in reducing anxiety. However, the neurobiological pathways underlying the effect of oxidative stress on anxiety symptoms are not fully comprehended. The challenge now is to identify the oxidative stress mechanisms likely to be involved in the induction of anxiety symptoms. Understanding these pathways could help to clarify the neurobiology of the anxiety disorder and provide tools for new discovery in therapies and preventive strategies.

Keywords: Antioxidants, anxiety disorders, anxiolytics drugs, genetics, inflammation, mitochondrial, neurotrophic factor, reactive species.

Go to:

INTRODUCTION

Anxiety is defined as a state of uneasiness and apprehension. It is a general term that describes a large range of related and commonly experienced subjective mental states which are normally evoked by a wide range of external and internal stressors. Anxiety is a normal emotional response but when it is inappropriate (at in inappropriate time or to an inappropriate degree, and is disruptive to the individual), it then constitutes an anxiety disorder [1, 2]. This condition is implicated in a number of psychiatric disorders, such obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder (PD), social phobias (SP), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [1].

 

Tangled Path of Alzheimer's-Linked Brain Cells Mapped in Mice

 

"Transportation" may be at the heart of the disease

Release Date: June 4, 2014

Fast Facts:

• Cholinergic neurons, a type of extremely large brain cells, are found in all mammals and are the first cells to degenerate in people with Alzheimer’s disease.
• By studying laboratory mice, scientists have now mapped the complete size and structure of cholinergic neurons for the first time.
• Understanding the structure of cholinergic neurons should help researchers better understand what goes wrong in Alzheimer’s disease.

1 2

The paths taken by a single cholinergic neuron as it branches through a thin section of the forebrain of a mouse

Nathans Lab, eLife

By studying laboratory mice, scientists at The Johns Hopkins University have succeeded in plotting the labyrinthine paths of some of the largest nerve cells in the mammalian brain: cholinergic neurons, the first cells to degenerate in people with Alzheimer’s disease.

“For us, this was like scaling Mount Everest,” says Jeremy Nathans, Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and genetics, neuroscience, and ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “This work reveals the amazing challenges that cholinergic neurons face every day. Each of these cells is like a city connected to its suburbs by a single, one-lane road, with all of the emergency services located only in the city. You can imagine how hard it would be in a crisis if all of the emergency vehicles had to get to the suburbs along that one road. We think something like this might be happening when cholinergic neurons trying to repair the damage done by Alzheimer’s disease.”

Each cholinergic neuron, Nathans explains, has roughly 1,000 branch points. If lined up end to end, one neuron’s branches would add up to approximately 15 times the length of the mouse brain. But all of the branches are connected by a single, extremely thin “pipeline” to one hub — the cell body — that provides for the needs of the branches. The challenge of moving material through this single pipeline could make it very difficult for cholinergic neurons to combat the challenges that come with a disorder like Alzheimer’s disease, he says. Now, by mapping the branches and pipelines, scientists will likely get a better fix on what happens when the neurons fail to meet the challenges.

A summary of the research was published online in the journal eLife on May 7.

Cholinergic neurons are among the largest neurons in the mammal brain. Named for their release of a chemical messenger called acetylcholine, they number only in the thousands in mouse brains, a tiny fraction of the 50 to 100 million total neurons. Their cell bodies are located at the base of the brain near its front end, but their branches extend throughout the cerebral cortex, the outermost, wrinkled layer of “grey matter” that is responsible for the mind’s most advanced intellectual functions. Therefore, although there are relatively few cholinergic neurons, they affect a very large part of the brain, Nathans says.

Due to the technical challenge of visualizing the complicated paths of hundreds of tiny branches from a single neuron tangled within millions of other neurons, the actual size and shape of individual cholinergic neurons — and the territory they cover — had been unknown until now, Nathans says. Using genetic engineering methods, the Nathans team programmed several cholinergic neurons per mouse to make a protein that could be seen with a colored chemical reaction. Critical to the success of the work was the ability to limit the number of cells making the protein — if all of the cholinergic neurons made the protein, it would have been impossible to distinguish individual branches.

Because microscopes cannot see through thick tissue, Nathans and his team preserved the mouse brains and then thinly sliced them to produce serial images. The branching path of each neuron was then painstakingly reconstructed from the serial images and analyzed. In adult mice, he says, the average length of the branches of a single cholinergic neuron, lined up end to end, is 31 cm (12 inches), varying from 11 to 49 cm (4 to 19 inches). The average length of a mouse brain is only 2 cm — a bit less than one inch. Although each cholinergic neuron, on average, contains approximately 1,000 branch points, they vary significantly in the extent of the territory that they cover.

The researchers used the same techniques to study the cholinergic neurons of mice with a rodent form of Alzheimer’s disease and found that the branches were fragmented. They also found clumps of material that may have been debris from the disintegrating branches.

Although the cholinergic neurons of human brains have not been individually traced, Nathans’ team was able to calculate that the average cholinergic neuron in the human brain has a total branch length of approximately 100 meters, a bit longer than a football field. “That is a really long pipeline, especially if one considers that the pipes have diameters of only 30 thousandths of a millimeter, far narrower than a human hair,” says Nathans.

He adds, “Although our study only defined a few simple, physical properties of these neurons, such as size and shape, it has equipped us to form and test better hypotheses about what goes wrong with them during disease.”

Other authors of the report include Hao Wu and John Williams of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

This work was supported by grants from the Human Frontier Science Program, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Brain Science Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.

Distance From a Conflict May Promote Wiser Reasoning- Solomon’s Paradox bias

 

If you’re faced with a troubling personal dilemma, such as a cheating spouse, you may think about it more wisely if you consider it as an outside observer would, according to research forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

“These results are the first to demonstrate a new type of bias within ourselves when it comes to wise reasoning about an interpersonal relationship dilemma,” says psychology researcher and study author Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo in Canada. “We call the bias Solomon’s Paradox, after the king who was known for his wisdom, but who still failed at making personal decisions.”

Grossmann and Ethan Kross from the University of Michigan asked study participants, all of whom reported being in monogamous romantic relationships, to reflect on a relationship conflict. They were asked to vividly imagine a scenario in which either their partner or a friend’s partner had been unfaithful, and were then asked to answer a set of questions about the scenario.

The questions were designed to tap into dimensions of wise reasoning, such as the ability to recognize the limits of one’s own knowledge, search for a compromise, consider the perspectives of others, and recognize the possible ways in which the scenario could unfold.

Results from the experiments indicated that participants who were asked to reason about a friend’s relationship conflict made wiser responses than those who were asked to reason about their own relationship conflict.

In a second experiment, Grossmann and Kross investigated whether personal distance might make a difference. The procedure was similar to the first experiment, but this time they explicitly asked participants to take either a first-person perspective (“put yourself in this situation”) or a third-person perspective (“put yourself in your friend’s shoes”) when reasoning about the conflict.

The results supported those from the first experiment: Participants who thought about their own relationship conflict from a first-person perspective showed less wise reasoning than those who thought about a friend’s relationship conflict.

But taking an outsider’s perspective seemed to eliminate this bias: Participants who thought about their own relationship conflict through a friend’s eyes were just as wise as those who thought about a friend’s conflict.

Interestingly, results from a third experiment that compared data from younger adults (ages 20-40) and older adults (ages 60-80) indicated that, contrary to the adage that wisdom comes with age, older participants were wiser in reasoning about their own relationship conflict than their younger counterparts.

Together, these findings suggest that distancing oneself from a personal problem by approaching it as an outsider may be the key to wise reasoning:

“We are the first to demonstrate that there is a simple way to eliminate this bias in reasoning by talking about ourselves in the third person and using our name when reflecting on a relationship conflict,” says Grossmann. “When we employ this strategy, we are more likely to think wisely about an issue.”

This research was supported by the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (both to I. Grossmann).

 

               

            June 9, 2014           

Learn a second language to slow ageing brain's decline

Learn a second language to slow ageing brain's decline

• 18:03 03 June 2014 by Catherine de Lange
• Magazine issue 2972.  Subscribe and save
• For similar stories, visit the Mental Health and The Human Brain Topic Guides

Feel too old or too stupid to learn a second language? It may be worth persevering. A study that tracked hundreds of Scottish people for decades is the strongest evidence yet that speaking an extra language slows the mental decline that accompanies ageing. The benefits hold regardless of your IQ and even if you learn your second tongue as an adult.

Previous studies have shown that people with Alzheimer's disease who are fluent in two languages exhibit symptoms of the condition four or five years later than people who are monolingual, and that people who are bilingual perform better in some cognitive tests. However, it has been difficult to disentangle the effects of knowing multiple language from other factors. For example, some studies have compared bilingual immigrants and their families with monolingual natives.

To resolve the issue, Thomas Bak of the University of Edinburgh, UK, and his colleagues turned to the Lothian Birth Cohort study, which has tracked about 1100 people born in 1936 in and around Edinburgh. All were monolingual English speakers at age 11, when they had taken a battery of cognitive tests.

The study wasn't designed to investigate language effects. But 853 of the participants were tracked down when they were in their early 70s. It transpired that almost one-third, or 262, of them had learned to speak at least one additional language and that 65 had learned it after the age of 18.

As a result, the study provides a unique research opportunity, says Ellen Bialystok at York University in Toronto, Canada, who was first to discover that being bilingual delays the onset of Alzheimer's. "You have this absolutely homogenous sample of Scottish kids – all monolingual – and you let them go off and have their lives and see what happens," she says.

Mental workout

Bak's team gave the participants cognitive tests and compared these with the test scores from when they were 11. Those who had learned an extra language performed better in the cognitive tests in their 70s than would be predicted from their earlier scores, indicating that the extra language itself is beneficial.

The strongest effects were on general intelligence and reading. This further suggests that the benefits are down to the extra language, because if they were simply due to greater intelligence, you would expect there to be a boost across all skills. "For the first time we address the chicken and egg question," says Bak. His team found that the benefits to the ageing brain were comparable to physical activity, or not smoking.

Advertisement:Replay Ad

 

Bialystok says the cognitive benefits seen in the Scottish study chime with her own work on bilingual people with Alzheimer's disease, suggesting that the same beneficial processes are at work.

How could languages protect the brain? A leading theory is that people who speak several languages constantly activate all the available words in each one before choosing the appropriate expression, giving them a mental workout.

Journal reference: Annals of Neurology, doi.org/s3c

This article will appear in print under the headline "Learn a second language to slow mental decline"

Consider: What happens if we don't teach our children to think for themselves?

Time to repost...or Why Putin likes a docile non-thinking population!

 

Consider: What happens if we don't teach our children to think for themselves? 

http://world.std.com/~lo/95.11/0254.html   Thu, 23 Nov 1995

 

Replying to LO3814 --Walter Derzko ([email protected]) wrote:

I was reviewing some old notes and decided to summarize some thoughts on the lost opportunity costs of  not teaching thinking skills. Consider: What happens if we don't teach our children to think for themselves ?

1) Since it is no longer possible to teach all available information we must teach children the thinking  skills to make the best use of available or changing information. Thinking skills improve performance in  other subject areas. Otherwise they become lost in new, unfamiliar situations.

2) Unless we teach students to think for themselves they will be limited to slogan thinking, peer pressure, dogmatic thinking, lack of perception,  gut reactions, routine thinking, knee jerk reactions or the pull of some emotional argument (usually done by someone defending a point of view & wishing to manipulate instead of exploring for alternatives).

3) As the complexity of the world and the number of choices grows, thinking becomes increasingly important. Without thinking, students fear ambiguity.

4) Unless we teach thinking the only outlet for a growing energetic mind  is to be against everything and to be a perpetual critic, since that requires the least amount of thinking. Critics are never actually forced to   come up with ideas.

5)The functioning of democracy and able government is a function of the thinking skills of the population. A docile population is not healthy for democracy.

6)Thinking skills increase self-reliance and self-esteem. We often see  students who do not perform well in some subjects show their true ability in thinking lessons. They are the children who tend to grow up to be  entrepreneurs.
 

7)Education has to go forward to basics which includes thinking, reading, writing and “rithmatic”.

8)Education has traditionally focused on descriptive thinking. Action  requires a new set of thinking skills. Without it, thinking becomes muddled and confused.

9) We need to get away from traditional argumentative, "I can prove my  point of view" thinking to a more constructive, design thinking. This  provides a framework for conflict resolution. Change is sought by a   constructive instead of a destructive approach.

10) Thinking skills allow youngsters to cope with change. Without it we get resistance and fear.

 

 

Religious and scientific communities may be less combative than commonly portrayed

 

One of the largest surveys of American views on religion and science suggests that the religious and scientific communities may be less combative than is commonly portrayed in the media and in politics.

Only 27 percent of those surveyed said that they viewed science and religion as being in conflict with each other, with about equal percentages of those people "siding with either religion or science," said Rice University sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund at the AAAS Annual Meeting. The survey was commissioned by the AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion (DoSER) project and presented at the meeting on 16 February.

Perhaps more importantly, given the large population of evangelical Christians in the United States (up to 30 percent by some estimates), nearly half of the evangelicals surveyed said they felt that science and religion were in a collaborative relationship.

But there are still some significant differences among those surveyed, said Ecklund, who also serves as director of Rice's Religion and Public Life Program. For instance, she noted, evangelicals "were more than twice as likely as the rest of the sample to say that they would turn to a religious leader or text if they have a question about science." The survey also found that 43 percent of evangelicals supported a strong creationist view in which "God created the Earth, the universe and all life within the past 10,000 years."

More than a third of all respondents in the survey agreed that "scientists should be open to considering miracles in their theories or explanations."

The study included over 10,000 people who took a 25-minute survey online, along with 300 personal interviews with Christians, Jews and Muslims. About 5 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as scientists.

DoSER commissioned the survey as the start of a far-ranging project to bring together scientific and religious communities into a more fruitful partnership, less burdened by misconceptions of each other's views, said DoSER Director Jennifer Wiseman.

"Previously, studies have focused on what various groups think about a particular issue involving science, such as evolution or climate change...but this survey is different because it's asking where people look to for authoritative information on science, who do they trust as their authority figures, and how important do they think scientific issues are in their daily life," Wiseman said.

DoSER's advisory committee requested that the project contain a particular focus on evangelicals, "who are typically very interested in national policy and in science and technology, but are significantly underrepresented in the sciences themselves," Wiseman noted.

Galen Carey, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Evangelicals in Washington, D.C., said that he was pleased with the survey's findings. "There is quite a bit of scope for both of our communities to learn more about the other, to combat some of the ignorance which we see, which sometimes gets in the way of collaboration."

After the survey results have been thoroughly analyzed, DoSER will hold a series of regional workshops with leaders from local science communities and evangelical leaders to discuss improving communication between the two groups. They also plan a national conference in 2015 that builds off the issues discussed in the regional workshops.

Another session at the AAAS Annual Meeting discussed public opinions on science and technology as gauged through surveys by the US National Science Board, the Pew Research Center, and the polling company Gallup.

The NSB 2014 Science Indicators study, released earlier this month, found that roughly seven in 10 Americans believe that the effects of scientific research are more positive than negative for society -- a number that has remained roughly the same since 1979.

Other recent surveys show a partisan political gap, however, in views on scientific topics such as evolution and climate change. 

Between 2009 and 2013, the gap between Republicans and Democrats on the question of evolution grew by 11 percentage points, said Cary Funk of the Pew Research Center. "There had been a partisan gap before, but the size of the gap is now bigger. And what happened is that fewer Republicans said humans and other living things evolved over time."

Recent polling on climate change science reveals a similar kind of gap, said Gallup researcher Lydia Saad. "What we've seen in the last ten years is a polarization of views, with Democrats clearly becoming more supportive of climate science and Republicans less supportive."

"With the politicalization and debate about this in Washington, we have a situation where some Americans are skeptical of scientists and believe that scientists are now partisan or the science is affected by the politics," Saad added.

###

Why does the brain remember dreams?

     

Some people recall a dream every morning, whereas others rarely recall one. A team led by Perrine Ruby, an Inserm Research Fellow at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (Inserm/CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), has studied the brain activity of these two types of dreamers in order to understand the differences between them. In a study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the researchers show that the temporo-parietal junction, an information-processing hub in the brain, is more active in high dream recallers. Increased activity in this brain region might facilitate attention orienting toward external stimuli and promote intrasleep wakefulness, thereby facilitating the encoding of dreams in memory.

http://presse-inserm.fr/en/why-does-the-brain-remember-dreams/11156/

 

The reason for dreaming is still a mystery for the researchers who study the difference between “high dream recallers,” who recall dreams regularly, and “low dream recallers,” who recall dreams rarely. In January 2013 (work published in the journal Cerebral Cortex), the team led by Perrine Ruby, Inserm researcher at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, made the following two observations: “high dream recallers” have twice as many time of wakefulness during sleep as “low dream recallers” and their brains are more reactive to auditory stimuli during sleep and wakefulness. This increased brain reactivity may promote awakenings during the night, and may thus facilitate memorisation of dreams during brief periods of wakefulness.

In this new study, the research team sought to identify which areas of the brain differentiate high and low dream recallers. They used Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to measure the spontaneous brain activity of 41 volunteers during wakefulness and sleep. The volunteers were classified into 2 groups: 21 “high dream recallers” who recalled dreams 5.2 mornings  per week in average, and 20 “low dream recallers,” who reported 2 dreams per month in average. High dream recallers, both while awake and while asleep, showed stronger spontaneous brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), an area of the brain involved in attention orienting toward external stimuli.

Temporo-parietal jonction (TPJ) © Perrine Ruby / Inserm

 

“This may explain why high dream recallers are more reactive to environmental stimuli, awaken more during sleep, and thus better encode dreams in memory than low dream recallers. Indeed the sleeping brain is not capable of memorising new information; it needs to awaken to be able to do that,”

explains Perrine Ruby, Inserm Research Fellow.

 

The South African neuropsychologist Mark Solms had observed in earlier studies that lesions in these two brain areas led to a cessation of dream recall.  The originality of the French team’s results is to show brain activity differences between high and low dream recallers during sleep and also during wakefulness.

“Our results suggest that high and low dream recallers differ in dream  memorization, but do not exclude that they  also differ in dream production. Indeed, it is possible that high dream recallers produce a larger amount of dreaming than low dream recallers” concludes the research team.

What makes memories last?

What makes memories last?

Stowers researchers identify protein that initiates the formation of stable, long-term memories

Prions can be notoriously destructive, spurring proteins to misfold and interfere with cellular function as they spread without control. New research, publishingin the open access journal PLOS Biology on February 11 2014, from scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research reveals that certain prion-like proteins, however, can be precisely controlled so that they are generated only in a specific time and place. These prion-like proteins are not involved in disease processes; rather, they are essential for creating and maintaining long-term memories.

"This protein is not toxic; it's important for memory to persist," says Stowers researcher Kausik Si, who led the study. To ensure that long-lasting memories are created only in the appropriate neural circuits, Si explains, the protein must be tightly regulated so that it adopts its prion-like form only in response to specific stimuli. He and his colleagues report on the biochemical changes that make that precision possible.

Si's lab is focused on finding the molecular alterations that encode a memory in specific neurons as it endures for the days, months, or years—even as the cells' proteins are degraded and renewed. Increasingly, their research is pointing toward prion-like proteins as critical regulators of long-term memory.

In 2012, Si's group demonstrated that prion formation in nerve cells is essential for the persistence of long-term memory in fruit flies. Prions are a fitting candidate for this job because their conversion is self-sustaining: once a prion-forming protein has shifted into its prion shape, additional proteins continue to convert without any additional stimulus.

Si's team found that in fruit flies, the prion-forming protein Orb2 is necessary for memories to persist.

Flies that produce a mutated version of Orb2 that is unable to form prions learn new behaviors, but their memories are short-lived. "Beyond a day, the memories become unstable. By three days, the memory has completely disappeared," Si explains.

In the new study, Si wanted to find out how this process could be controlled so that memories form at the right time. "We know that all experiences do not form long-term memory—somehow the nervous system has a way to discriminate. So if prion-formation is the biochemical basis of memory, it must be regulated." Si says. "But prion formation is random for all the cases we know of so far."

Si and his colleagues knew that Orb2 existed in two forms—Orb2A and Orb2B. Orb2B is widespread throughout the fruit fly's nervous system, but Orb2A appears only in a few neurons, at extremely low concentrations. What's more, once it is produced, Orb2A quickly falls apart; the protein has a half-life of only about an hour.

When Orb2A binds to the more abundant form, it triggers conversion to the prion state, acting as a seed for the conversion. Once conversion begins, it is a self-sustaining process; additional Orb2 continues to convert to the prion state, with or without Orb2A. By altering the abundance of the Orb2A seed, Si says, cells might regulate where, when, and how the conversion process is engaged. But how do nerve cells control the abundance of the Orb2A seed?

To look for leads, the scientists searched for proteins that physically interact with Orb2A. Because Orb2A is so scarce, finding it and identifying its molecular accomplices took perseverance and refinement of the standard protein-cataloging techniques. Post-doctoral researcher Erica White-Grindley led that effort, and after several years, turned up more than 60 suspected partners for Orb2A.

One of these proteins, TOB, doubled the half-life of Orb2A, thereby temporarily increasing its abundance. The scientists were skeptical that this boost in stability would be enough to reliably stabilize long-term memories, but further biochemical analyses led them to a more satisfying explanation.

Their experiments revealed that when TOB associates with Orb2A – which is known to occur in response to an incoming nerve signal—this triggers the addition of chemical tags known as phosphates to both of the proteins, altering both proteins' stability. Once phosphorylated, the TOB-Orb2A complex falls apart and Orb2A becomes much more stable, with a new half-life of 24 hours. This increases the prevalence of the prion-like state.

This explained how Orb2's conversion could be specifically triggered following nerve cell stimulation. The next step was to determine how the process could be localized to the right neuronal connections. They found that the enzyme that places the phosphate tag on Orb2A is Lim kinase, a neuron-specific kinase that others had shown is activated at the synapse—the connection between neurons—when cells receive an impulse. Taken together, Si says, these experiments show how Orb2's conversion to the prion state can be confined in both time and space.

The findings raise a host of new questions for Si, who now wants to understand what happens when Orb2 enters its prion-like state, as well as where in the brain the process occurs. While unraveling these mechanisms will likely be more accessible in the fruit fly than in more complex organisms, Si points out that proteins related to Orb2 and TOB have also been found in the brains of mice and humans. He's already shown that in the sea snail Aplysia, conversion to a prion-like state facilitates long-term change in synaptic strength. "This basic mechanism appears to be conserved across species," he notes.

###

Researchers who also contributed to the work include Liying Li and Repon Mahammad Khan in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and Fengzhen Ren, Anita Saraf and Laurence Florens at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.

Please mention PLOS Biology as the source for this article and include the links below in your coverage to take readers to the online, open access articles

All works published in PLOS Biology are open access, which means that everything is immediately and freely available. Use this URL in your coverage to provide readers access to the paper upon publication:  http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001786

Contact:

Gina Kirchweger Head of Science Communications Stowers Institute [email protected] 816.806.1036

Citation: White-Grindley E, Li L, Khan RM, Ren F, Saraf A, et al. (2014) Contribution of Orb2A Stability in Regulated Amyloid-Like Oligomerization of Drosophila Orb2. PLoS Biol 12(2): e1001786. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001786

Funding: The work is supported by the institutional fund from Stowers Institute for Medical Research and a fellowship to KSI from The McKnight Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. 

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Disclaimer: This press release refers to an upcoming article in PLOS Biology. The release is provided by journal staff, or by the article authors and/or their institutions. Any opinions expressed in this release or article are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLOS. PLOS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the releases and articles and your use of such information.

About PLOS Biology

PLOS Biology is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal published by PLOS, featuring research articles of exceptional significance, originality, and relevance in all areas of biology. For more information visit http://www.plosbiology.org, or follow @PLOSBiology on Twitter.

About PLOS:

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization founded to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. PLOS engages in outreach activities that promote Open Access and innovations in the communication of research for scientists and the public. 2013 marks PLOS's tenth year as an Open Access publisher, reaching an international audience through immediate and free availability of research on the Internet. PLOS publishes a suite of seven journals: PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Pathogens, and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and PLOS ONE, which publishes research from more than 50 diverse scientific fields and is the largest journal in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What makes memories last?

What makes memories last?

Stowers researchers identify protein that initiates the formation of stable, long-term memories

Prions can be notoriously destructive, spurring proteins to misfold and interfere with cellular function as they spread without control. New research, publishingin the open access journal PLOS Biology on February 11 2014, from scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research reveals that certain prion-like proteins, however, can be precisely controlled so that they are generated only in a specific time and place. These prion-like proteins are not involved in disease processes; rather, they are essential for creating and maintaining long-term memories.

"This protein is not toxic; it's important for memory to persist," says Stowers researcher Kausik Si, who led the study. To ensure that long-lasting memories are created only in the appropriate neural circuits, Si explains, the protein must be tightly regulated so that it adopts its prion-like form only in response to specific stimuli. He and his colleagues report on the biochemical changes that make that precision possible.

Si's lab is focused on finding the molecular alterations that encode a memory in specific neurons as it endures for the days, months, or years—even as the cells' proteins are degraded and renewed. Increasingly, their research is pointing toward prion-like proteins as critical regulators of long-term memory.

In 2012, Si's group demonstrated that prion formation in nerve cells is essential for the persistence of long-term memory in fruit flies. Prions are a fitting candidate for this job because their conversion is self-sustaining: once a prion-forming protein has shifted into its prion shape, additional proteins continue to convert without any additional stimulus.

Si's team found that in fruit flies, the prion-forming protein Orb2 is necessary for memories to persist.

Flies that produce a mutated version of Orb2 that is unable to form prions learn new behaviors, but their memories are short-lived. "Beyond a day, the memories become unstable. By three days, the memory has completely disappeared," Si explains.

In the new study, Si wanted to find out how this process could be controlled so that memories form at the right time. "We know that all experiences do not form long-term memory—somehow the nervous system has a way to discriminate. So if prion-formation is the biochemical basis of memory, it must be regulated." Si says. "But prion formation is random for all the cases we know of so far."

Si and his colleagues knew that Orb2 existed in two forms—Orb2A and Orb2B. Orb2B is widespread throughout the fruit fly's nervous system, but Orb2A appears only in a few neurons, at extremely low concentrations. What's more, once it is produced, Orb2A quickly falls apart; the protein has a half-life of only about an hour.

When Orb2A binds to the more abundant form, it triggers conversion to the prion state, acting as a seed for the conversion. Once conversion begins, it is a self-sustaining process; additional Orb2 continues to convert to the prion state, with or without Orb2A. By altering the abundance of the Orb2A seed, Si says, cells might regulate where, when, and how the conversion process is engaged. But how do nerve cells control the abundance of the Orb2A seed?

To look for leads, the scientists searched for proteins that physically interact with Orb2A. Because Orb2A is so scarce, finding it and identifying its molecular accomplices took perseverance and refinement of the standard protein-cataloging techniques. Post-doctoral researcher Erica White-Grindley led that effort, and after several years, turned up more than 60 suspected partners for Orb2A.

One of these proteins, TOB, doubled the half-life of Orb2A, thereby temporarily increasing its abundance. The scientists were skeptical that this boost in stability would be enough to reliably stabilize long-term memories, but further biochemical analyses led them to a more satisfying explanation.

Their experiments revealed that when TOB associates with Orb2A – which is known to occur in response to an incoming nerve signal—this triggers the addition of chemical tags known as phosphates to both of the proteins, altering both proteins' stability. Once phosphorylated, the TOB-Orb2A complex falls apart and Orb2A becomes much more stable, with a new half-life of 24 hours. This increases the prevalence of the prion-like state.

This explained how Orb2's conversion could be specifically triggered following nerve cell stimulation. The next step was to determine how the process could be localized to the right neuronal connections. They found that the enzyme that places the phosphate tag on Orb2A is Lim kinase, a neuron-specific kinase that others had shown is activated at the synapse—the connection between neurons—when cells receive an impulse. Taken together, Si says, these experiments show how Orb2's conversion to the prion state can be confined in both time and space.

The findings raise a host of new questions for Si, who now wants to understand what happens when Orb2 enters its prion-like state, as well as where in the brain the process occurs. While unraveling these mechanisms will likely be more accessible in the fruit fly than in more complex organisms, Si points out that proteins related to Orb2 and TOB have also been found in the brains of mice and humans. He's already shown that in the sea snail Aplysia, conversion to a prion-like state facilitates long-term change in synaptic strength. "This basic mechanism appears to be conserved across species," he notes.

###

Researchers who also contributed to the work include Liying Li and Repon Mahammad Khan in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and Fengzhen Ren, Anita Saraf and Laurence Florens at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.

Please mention PLOS Biology as the source for this article and include the links below in your coverage to take readers to the online, open access articles

All works published in PLOS Biology are open access, which means that everything is immediately and freely available. Use this URL in your coverage to provide readers access to the paper upon publication:  http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001786

Contact:

Gina Kirchweger Head of Science Communications Stowers Institute [email protected] 816.806.1036

Citation: White-Grindley E, Li L, Khan RM, Ren F, Saraf A, et al. (2014) Contribution of Orb2A Stability in Regulated Amyloid-Like Oligomerization of Drosophila Orb2. PLoS Biol 12(2): e1001786. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001786

Funding: The work is supported by the institutional fund from Stowers Institute for Medical Research and a fellowship to KSI from The McKnight Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. 

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Disclaimer: This press release refers to an upcoming article in PLOS Biology. The release is provided by journal staff, or by the article authors and/or their institutions. Any opinions expressed in this release or article are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLOS. PLOS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the releases and articles and your use of such information.

About PLOS Biology

PLOS Biology is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal published by PLOS, featuring research articles of exceptional significance, originality, and relevance in all areas of biology. For more information visit http://www.plosbiology.org, or follow @PLOSBiology on Twitter.

About PLOS:

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization founded to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. PLOS engages in outreach activities that promote Open Access and innovations in the communication of research for scientists and the public. 2013 marks PLOS's tenth year as an Open Access publisher, reaching an international audience through immediate and free availability of research on the Internet. PLOS publishes a suite of seven journals: PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Pathogens, and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases and PLOS ONE, which publishes research from more than 50 diverse scientific fields and is the largest journal in the world.