No matter which period throughout human history you examine, one of the constants of each culture is the incorporation of games for pleasure, competition and education. Games have been discovered by historians dating back to as far as 2500 BC, showing that this type of social interaction has been instrumental in shaping our existence from the very beginning.
Games come in a myriad of different flavors, ranging from single person activities to those that can span nations. With the introduction of modern technology in the last century, games have evolved into something truly spectacular, with whole worlds being created for the enjoyment of millions of people. In addition, the rise in popularity of mobile computing devices has provided the opportunity for people to bring their favorite gaming pastimes with them wherever they go.
One specific category of games has benefited greatly from the ability to play them on hand-held devices: strategy games. Strategy games provide a unique opportunity for developers to provide not only interesting challenges, but also the chance to enhance them with eye-catching graphics and immersive sound. Following are some of the best strategy games that are currently available for both Android and iOS mobile devices.
Plague Inc.
Plague Inc. is touted as one of the most popular strategy games currently available for both Android and iOS users, as well as being a nominee for IGN?s 2012 Best Overall Strategy Game award. Plague Inc. continues its run of popularity with over two million downloads, marking it as the 15th most downloaded paid game on the iOS market.
The object of the game is simple in its overall goal, as well as providing a challenge in accomplishing it. Your character is ?Patient Zero,? tasked with spreading a deadly virus around the world, all while staying just ahead of the efforts to provide a cure. While the premise for the game may seem a bit macabre, you can enjoy hours upon hours of harmless fun.
Plague Inc is available from the Google Play store (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miniclip.plagueinc&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5taW5pY2xpcC5wbGFndWVpbmMiXQ..) and at the Apple App Store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plague-inc./id525818839?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2).
Backgammon Free
Our second offering steers us toward a mobile computing rendition of the famous boardgame, Backgammon. Backgammon Free provides many different challenges, with five levels of difficulty, a strong AI opponent and multiple boards and piece sets. This game is perfect for those looking to go head-to-head with friends or family, as well as providing an engaging activity to enjoy on your own.
Backgammon Free is available from Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactory.backgammonfree&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsInVrLmNvLmFpZmFjdG9yeS5iYWNrZ2FtbW9uZnJlZSJd) and the App Store (https://itunes.apple.com/app/backgammon-free/id335445524?mt=8).
Mahjong
Another rendition of a popular and storied strategy game, which can be found for Android and iOS users, is Mahjong. Mahjong is similar in ways to solitaire, in that the goal of the game is to match up identical tiles to remove them from the board. Mahjong features over 80 different boards to play on, as well as varying levels of skill.
Versions of Mahjong can be found at the Google Play store (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nix.game.mahjong&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5uaXguZ2FtZS5tYWhqb25nIl0.), as well as in the App Store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mahjong-unlimited-hd/id434781441?mt=8) for iPad and iPhone users.
Great Little War Game
If your strategy gaming needs reach to the popular goal of conquering the world, Great Little War Game provides a 3D platform that gives you the opportunity to go head to head with other players in a fun and engaging atmosphere. Battle your enemies on land, air or sea, making tactical use of different terrain features and variables. GLWG also provides multiple skill levels, a wide variety of different unit types and multiple play modes for different gaming experiences.
GLWG can be found in the Google Play store for both Android and iOS users at http://www.rubicondev.com/glwg/.
Little Commander- WWII TD
Rounding out our list of some of the most popular strategy games available on Android and iOS is Little Commander- WWII TD. Little Commander is a cartoon-style tower defense game that allows you to control your armies in a World War II setting. Virtually every aspect of the game is customizable, allowing for a unique gaming experience each time it is played.
Little Commander- WWII TD is available on both Android and iOS by visiting http://www.heyzap.com/game/little-commander-wwii-td.
If you are looking for a fun and engaging way to pass your free time, as well as a way to exercise your brain in the process, finding a great strategy game can go a long way towards satisfying both goals. With technology ever advancing, be sure to keep an eye out for better and more sophisticated games as time progresses.
Source: http://www.techtous.com/blog/top-5-strategy-games-for-ios-and-android/
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By Peagie Woobay-Foday
Come October, when the heavy rains pour without stopping us, young and old, with all the fights at Model junction to get on the SU bus, which rarely came, or the overloaded taxis, we rush up Mount Aureol to achieve higher education.
A hill so promising and rewarding?
Down the ?blocks?, the boys strive hard to make it?.e nor easy don block, wata wata food nar di the canteen, blackout to name a few, but they burn their midnight candles well and the results are there?..
And for sure up & down? the difficult winding numerous steps leading to Lati Hyde and Beethoven, the ladies courageously go to classes, cook in their rooms and study hard to make their grades?
An interesting place Mount Aureol, A world of its own with the best supermarket in the world ?Third World? open 24hrs, 1st class library, though many important pages in the books for students reference work have been torn by their own very dear brothers and sisters before them (a miracle we still do our term papers and make our grades)
The Engineering students with their surveying materials at Mary Kinsley ? binoculars etc giving us the hope that the roads leading to FBC will be enlarged or new constructions may spring up after their reports, but this never happens.
The Aureol Times ? WOW! A newspaper that comes out once a year; a very scary one with all underground activities on campus revealed. But it is great and the last edition comes out during my time, and there is even ?a peagie woobay trophy? now that?s funny.
The famous night club ? SU Building ? where we can dance everyday of the week and still go to classes the next day. That building must have been giving us the energy.
The ?Bonfire? celebrating Bob Marley Night on 11 May. Only on this campus can we do that.
The march towards State House demanding student rights, famous ?Bus Tick? where all the gossip is done. The sport season, morning jogging time with singing and dancing of various halls. Bai Bureh Hall (my hall), the best hall on campus ?we de nar ya oh, we de kekte?. It is so much fun going up and down Court right.
The various social clubs on campus, fraternities, sororities with elegant dinners and speeches teaching us ethics in life after college. All done peacefully. We shall give back to the University, we say, to help improve in our little ways from funds raised through our clubs. Painting of ?bus tick? building kiosk for students, putting dust bins on campus?
The various grants students can benefit from ? Catholic scholarship, SLG as we call Sierra Leone Government Grant-in-aid, etc. I have a Catholic scholarship and my roomy has SLG. So we are sort of lucky and can survive the month. But not all are so lucky??
The debates at Mary Kinsley (great vocabularies/jargons we have that I can still recognize the writings of most FBC Alumni) and the drama concerts?.
Plus, of course, the best-organized well-run SU governments. The SU presidential campaigns, debates, candidates giving their vibes, we bombarding them with questions?.I long for the State of the Union addresses. We listen attentively as we are informed of how the Union is run, taking care of our affairs (accountability and all). It is so serious that I wonder what happens to these same people when they come down from Mount Aureol and do not keep to what they do up there. That hill must have something and I am wondering if the national government should not relocate its offices to Mount Aureol?
I must confess that I have a swell time at FBC, learn a lot. This great institution forms and shapes me for good and I owe most of my knowledge to Mount Aureol! Going through the hands of Professors like Dr Eustace Palmer, Dr Kadie Sesay (whose pure British English phonetics, I must admit, scared the hell out of me on the first day, so much so that I thought I would not survive in the English department), Mr Kenneth Osho, Dr Patrick Bernard, Mr Earnest Cole (now a Doctor) all of the English department. Then of course the French dept professors like Dr Bai-Sheka, Dr Lulu Wright, Dr Yillah, Dr Denis Bright, Mr Solomon Fofana and Mr Saidu Bangura. And in the linguistics dept, Mr Hasholu-Luke. RIP.
As the saying goes ?all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?. We work hard and party hard so finishing with a Honors degree in French and a solid linguistics package is the best I can do???.
And in my dreams, I just hope that these memories I have, these good memories, maybe shared by the current students of this Great University. That the students will be united and work hard and live life on campus as it should be without violence but with fun.
That the campus will be enlarged and modernized. That I will be able to realize one dream, a dream of helping out at the library with good modern books.
God Bless Mama Salone.
(C) Politico 28/03/13
Source: http://politicosl.com/2013/03/fond-memories-of-fourah-bay-college/
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My previous post suggested that two big, ambitious brain-mapping initiatives in Europe and the U.S. might be premature, given that scientists know so little about how physiological processes in the brain generate perceptions, memories, emotions, decisions and other components of the mind. The Human Genome Project began only after researchers had deciphered the genetic code, but neuroscientists aren?t close to cracking the ?neural code,? the brain?s operating program. One smart commenter pointed out that Scientific American recently published an article about neural coding, ?A Single Brain Cell Stores a Single Concept,? by Rodrigo Quiroga, Itzhak Fried and Christof Koch. I?m familiar with, and fascinated by, the research of Quiroga et al. In fact, I wrote about their work in a 2005 article for Discover Magazine, which I?m re-printing below. The research raises more questions than it answers about how brains make minds. But I wonder, re-reading my article, whether I engaged in the same hype of which I accuse some neuroscientists.
In the neurosurgery ward of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Danny, a stocky 21-year-old college student wearing blue pajamas and sporting a wispy goatee, sits on a bed watching one photo after another flash on a laptop screen. Several macho movie stars appear in rapid succession, including Arnold Schwartzenegger, Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone, and Mr. T, the mohawk-ed brawler who plays Stallone?s rival in the boxing film Rocky III.
At first glance, one might guess that Danny has volunteered for a Hollywood survey: Who?s your favorite action hero? But the black cables emerging from the white turban wrapped around his skull hint at his role in investigating a profound scientific question: How do thoughts form in the human brain?
Danny suffers from epilepsy, and he has had electrodes temporarily implanted into his brain to monitor seizures; ideally, the electrodes will pinpoint the neural defect triggering his seizures so it can be surgically removed. During the week or so that the electrodes remain in Danny?s brain, he has volunteered to participate in experiments aimed at understanding the underpinnings of cognition. Such research is quite rare; for obvious ethical reasons, neuroscientists have few opportunities to gather data from deep inside a living human brain.
This particular experiment touches on one of the most challenging puzzles of neuroscience: How do brain cells recognize items as complicated as a toaster oven, the number nine, a zebra, Bill Clinton, or the film character Rocky? Are single cells like transistors in a computer, or pixels on a television screen, contributing just minute pieces of information that only when combined with the output of thousands or millions of other cells form the complex pattern that means Rocky? Or can a single neuron learn to recognize that face?
Most neuroscientists adhere to the pixel view of neurons, arguing that individual cells can?t possibly be clever enough to make sense of a concept as subtle as Rocky; after all, the world?s fastest supercomputers have difficulty performing that pattern-recognition feat. But Itzhak Fried, the neurosurgeon who implanted the electrodes in Danny?s brain and who leads this UCLA research program, believes he has found ?thinking cells? in the brains of subjects like Danny. If he?s right, neuroscientists may be forced to overhaul their view of how the human brain works.
A true thinking cell should be able to recognize a person or fictional character even in many different guises. Danny is a big fan of Hollywood action heroes, especially Rocky; he owns DVDs of all four films in the series and never tires of watching them. So, amid the images that flash on the laptop screen, the research team has included shots that show Rocky running through the streets of Philadelphia, staring longingly at his girlfriend Adrian, or draped in the American flag after defeating his Russian rival. Now and then, to test whether a cell?s recognition cuts across sensory modes, Rocky or some other name is spelled out on the laptop screen or uttered by an eerie synthesized voice.
As Danny peers at the laptop, signals stream from more than 100 ultra-thin electrodes, each sensitive enough to detect the murmuring of a single cell?and into the cables that emerge from his head. The cables ferry the signals across the room to a cabinet crammed with amplifiers. A computer atop the cabinet displays the readouts from Danny?s cells as a series of multi-colored lines unfolding across a screen. Every now and then, a line jerks upward, as one of Danny?s cells sputters in response to an image or name. Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, the Argentinian neuroscientist overseeing this research session, points to one especially energetic squiggle and whispers, ?That?s Rocky.?
The vast majority of modern brain research involves technologies such as magnetic resonance-imaging, positron emission tomography, and electroencephalography. All measure neural activity from outside the skull. Figuring out how brains work with external scanners is like studying life on a cloud-shrouded planet with satellites. Implanted electrodes, by contrast, are like probes that drop down to the planet?s surface. Electrode studies of monkeys and other animals whose brains resemble ours have yielded valuable insights, but these creatures cannot describe their subjective sensations.
A handful of other hospitals are carrying out electrode research that piggybacks on the clinical treatment of patients with epilepsy, Parkinson?s disease, and other neurological disorders. But no research program approaches UCLA?s in experience, sophistication, or published results, says Christof Koch, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology who has been collaborating with the UCLA group since 1998. ?There is no one technique that?s going to give you all the answers? to the riddle of cognition, Koch says. ?But this is one that?s very, very good, and we?re getting better at it.?
Fried, the driven yet affable commander-in-chief of the program, founded it in 1992 after leaving Yale. Since then more than 100 of his epileptic patients with electrodes implanted in their brains for diagnostic purposes have volunteered as subjects for basic research. From the outset, Fried has been protective of his patients and their privacy; this is the first time he has allowed a reporter to watch him and his team at work.
Fried was born and raised in Israel, and he spends several months a year working at a hospital in Tel Aviv as well as at UCLA. He flew from Israel to Los Angeles on a Sunday, and during a three-hour operation on Monday he drilled ten holes in Danny?s skull and inserted the electrodes into his brain. The following day, wearing a white lab coat over aqua scrubs, Fried strode into a conference room packed with researchers who had gathered to discuss plans for Danny. The team included two undergraduates who flew here from the University of Pennsylvania, a few graduate students from UCLA and Caltech, a couple of postdocs, and two physicians.
Fried briskly provided background on the patient: Danny is a bright, friendly young man, he said, who is looking forward to working with the research team as a way to ?break the boredom? of his hospital stay. ?Okay, let?s get down to practical issues,? he continued in his distinctive Israeli accent. Rapid-fire, he queried the researchers on the status of their ?paradigms.? He prefers that term to ?experiments,? which might suggest electrodes had been implanted in Danny?s brain primarily for research rather than diagnostic purposes.
The discussion keeps returning to problems with data storage and analysis. Several researchers asked for upgrades in equipment for storing data?which the microelectrode experiments generate by the terabyte?and Fried said he?d see what he could do. The researchers also received detailed instructions on how to grapple with a major technical challenge: electrodes in patients? brains often detect pulses from two or more nearby neurons at the same time, which may show up in the computer as one big signal. Quiroga has written a program that mathematically unravels overlapping pulses. The process, called cluster-cutting, makes it possible to extract more information from the data, at least in principle. But some of Quiroga?s colleagues were still trying to familiarize themselves with the fine points of what the team has dubbed ?Rodrigo?s code.?
The researchers had prepared more than enough studies to keep Danny from becoming bored. One called for him to view computer-generated pictures of celebrities morphing into each other: Mr. T into Will Smith, and Sly into Arnie. The objective: to see if a cell that lights up for Sly fires more slowly as the photo gradually morphs into Arnie, or just abruptly falls silent. In other words, are face-recognition cells like simple on-off switches, or can they act like dimmers?
Another paradigm, called X-Cab, is designed to yield insights into how we navigate. More than a decade ago microelectrode studies of rats and monkeys revealed place cells that light up when the animals move to a particular spot in a maze. Previous versions of X-Cab, which involves driving a virtual taxi through a cyber-city, have confirmed that humans have place cells, too, as well as view cells that respond to specific landmarks, and goal cells that respond to the driver?s ultimate destination.
Arne Ekstrom, a UCLA postdoc, and Indra Viskontas, a graduate student, had made preparations for Danny to test drive a new version of the X-Cab program, which allows the driver to pick up and discharge passengers. Fried asked if they had made the changes he requested in the paradigm. ?Almost all of them,? Viskontas replied, adding that she and Ekstrom ?respectfully? disagreed with some of Fried?s requests and wanted to discuss them with him.
Fried nodded. ?Any more questions?? he asked, scanning the room one last time. ?If not, to work.?
Back in his office, Fried recalled how he ended up overseeing this unusual program. One of his role models was Wilder Penfield, the Canadian surgeon who carried out pioneering operations on epileptics in the 1950?s and 1960?s. After removing the skull-cap of patients, Penfield electrically tickled different spots of their brains with wires and asked them what they felt; because the brain lacks pain receptors, the patients needed no anesthesia. They could report feeling a tingle in their left forefinger, seeing a blue flash, hearing a low-pitched hum.
This procedure not only helped to guide Penfield?s surgical treatment of each patient; it also yielded clues to what different parts of the brain do. ?Here was somebody who was really looking at the human mind,? Fried said, ?but at same time he was helping a human being.? Fried?s method is much more refined than Penfield?s. Fried typically drills a dozen holes in the patient?s skull and inserts a dozen hollow macroelectrodes, which can detect large-scale electrical waves emanating from a seizure.
Protruding from the end of each macroelectrode are as many as ten flexible microelectrodes that can detect the pulses of individual neurons. The patient?s clinical status dictates the placement of the macroelectrodes. In Danny?s case, tests suggest that his seizures originate in his frontal lobes, so Fried inserted most of the macroelectrodes in that region. He embedded one macroelectrode in Danny?s hippocampus, a minute region that underpins memory and is often implicated in epileptic seizures.
The patient?s clinical health and comfort, Fried emphasized, take precedence over research objectives. Even the most carefully planned paradigm must be set aside if the patient becomes bored, tired, frustrated, gets a headache, or just wants to be left alone. Fried carefully screens prospective colleagues to ensure that they treat his patients like human beings rather than laboratory animals.
?The person who will not do well,? he said, ?is a compulsive-obsessive animal physiologist who, if he doesn?t control all the variables, falls apart.? But Fried also said he believes that ?there is a responsibility? to take advantage of these rare chances to learn more about the behavior of individual neurons, which he calls the building blocks of cognition.
Following Penfield?s example, Fried occasionally does studies that involve stimulating brain cells with minute electrical jolts. In 1998, he and three colleagues discovered that a female patient burst into laughter every time they stimulated a spot at the top of her brain called the supplementary motor area. Her hilarity was not just physiological; the woman felt subjective sensations of ?merriment or mirth.? She displaying a syndrome known as confabulation?she invented reasons for her hilarity, telling the researchers at one point, ?You guys are just so funny? standing around.?
But most of Fried?s findings, which he has described in more than a dozen papers in such leading journals as Nature, Neuron, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involve not electrically stimulating neurons but passively listening to their chatter as a patient performs various tasks. In one set of experiments, Fried, Koch, and Gabriel Krieman, a Caltech grad student, found cells that light up both when a subject looks at an image?of a baseball, say, or a woman?s face?and when he closes his eyes and recalls the image in his minds? eye. The results provide the most convincing evidence yet that human perception and imagination share neural circuitry.
The experiments that have attracted the most attention are those supporting the existence of ?thinking cells.? The possibility of such cells has been debated at least since the 1950s, when researchers found single neurons in the visual cortex of cats and other animals that respond to simple stimuli, such as lines oriented at a certain angle or moving in a specific direction or light of a particular wavelength. Some theorists wondered whether single neurons might also respond to much more complicated stimuli, such as specific people.
Once known as gnostic cells, after the Greek word for knowledge, they were dubbed grandmother cells in the late 1960s by neuroscientist Jerry Lettvin of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lettvin meant to make fun of?if not to dismiss?speculation that single cells could be dedicated to recognition of family members or other individuals who loom large in an individual?s mental universe. In one paper, he joked that mother-smothered neurotics such as Portnoy, the hero of Phillip Roth?s novel Portnoy?s Complaint, could be cured of their Oedipal disorders by having all the mother cells purged from their brains.
Many neuroscientists found it hard to believe that a single cell could recognize an inanimate object, let alone a human being. Even objects as simple as chairs, trees, or buildings come in an almost infinite variety of forms, and the same object looks different from different perspectives or in different contexts. Neuroscientists were therefore startled in the early 1970s when experiments on monkeys by Charles Gross of Princeton turned up cells that respond selectively to hands and faces?not specific faces but faces in general.
No one had really followed up on Gross?s findings, however, until the late 1990s, when Fried and his colleagues started reporting how epileptic patients reacted to various images. Some neurons were apparently smart enough to comprehend the highly abstract concept ?non-human animal.? Their neurons fired when the patient was shown a picture of a tiger, eagle, antelope, and rabbit, but not when shown pictures of humans or inanimate objects. Other cells favored images only of food, or of buildings, or of human faces. Some cells responded to all faces, but others were picky, firing for male faces but not female ones, or scowling faces but not smiling ones?or, finally, faces of specific individuals.
One of the first neurons of this type was the so-called Bill Clinton cell, which was buried deep in the amygdala of a female patient. The cell responded to three very different images of the former President: a line drawing of Clinton laughing; a formal painting of him; and a photograph of him mingling with other dignitaries. The cell remained mute when the patient viewed images of other people, including male politicians and celebrities. Fried?s group found cells in other volunteers that responded in this same highly selective way to actors, including Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt, and Halle Berry.
One reason celebrities have played a prominent role in Fried?s experiments is that their photographs are often easier to come by than images of a patient?s own relatives. But as part of her dissertation project on biographical memory, the UCLA graduate student Viskontas has for several years been showing patients photographs of family members. Viskontas is reluctant to reveal details about her results, which have not been published yet. But she confirms that she has found neurons that respond to a particular relative: father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather, and, yes, grandmother. The experiments have also found cells that light up when a patient sees an image of himself. Call them narcissism cells.
Viskontas is wary of over-interpreting these results or others emerging from the UCLA program. She does not believe, for example, that they support the most extreme version of the grandmother-cell hypothesis, in which cells are exclusively and permanently assigned to one person, place, or thing. The past few decades, she adds, have revealed that brain cells are versatile, or ?plastic,? changing their roles in response to new experiences. The UCLA experiments may not be detecting long-term memory but so-called working-memory, in which cells are temporarily assigned to the job of representing Grandma, Jennifer, Aniston, or Rocky only as a result of the stimulation provided by the experiment.
Koch isn?t so sure. It would make sense, he argues, for our brains to dedicate some cells to people or other things frequently in our thoughts. The larger significance of the UCLA experiments, he says, is that neuroscientists may have to change their view of neurons as simple switches, transistors, or pixels. Each neuron may be more like a sophisticated computer, running customized software. After all, individual neurons can receive input from hundreds of thousands of other cells, some of which inhibit rather than encourage the neuron?s firing. The neuron may in turn encourage or suppress firing by some of those same cells in complex positive or negative feedback loops.
What excites Koch most about the thinking-cell results is the possibility that they may illuminate a fundamental component of cognition. Our comprehension of the world, he says, requires that we ignore much of the data flooding in through our senses. When we turn on a TV or reminisce about a movie, our brains somehow instantly compress raw sensory data into meaningful concepts and categories. This feat may be accomplished at least in part, Koch says, by cells that represent not just this or that particular image of Rocky but ?the platonic ideal of Rocky.?
Quiroga notes that a short story by a fellow Argentinian, Jorge Luis Borges, spelled out what would happen to us if we lacked this capacity for compression. ?Funes the Memorious? tells the tale of a youth who, after falling from a horse and striking his head, becomes gifted, or cursed, with photographic recall of every minute experience. He is so overwhelmed by the infinitude of his perceptions that he retreats into a darkened room. ?To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract,? Borges writes. ?In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details.? Unlike Danny, Funes had lost the capacity to perceive the platonic ideal of Rocky.
In Danny?s hospital room, weighty philosophical issues yield to more practical concerns, like getting a tray on rollers properly positioned over his lap. ?I?m not an engineer, just a scientist,? Quiroga says apologetically as he struggles with the balky tray. He eventually succeeds with the help of Emily Ho, who is an engineer, and the team?s chief troubleshooter.
As other researchers come and go, Ho remains in Danny?s room, manning the amplifiers, computers, and other equipment. When the readouts from Danny?s microwires go haywire, Ho starts checking lights and other appliances that might be causing electrical interference. Within minutes she traces the problem to the remote-controller that Danny uses to make his bed go up and down. After she unplugs it, the readouts return to normal.
The atmosphere in the room is surprisingly cheery. One reason is the frequent presence of Danny?s father, Bill, owner of a carpeting business. Although silence reigns during experiments, so that Danny doesn?t get distracted, between sessions Bill teases both the researchers and his son. At one point, Ho, watching signals from Danny?s neurons scroll across a computer screen, tells him that he?s got ?great brain cells.?
?Are you kidding?? Bill exclaims. ?He?s got lousy brain cells!?
Danny grins, even more so later after his father fumbles a styrofoam container of Chinese food, sending chicken chunks skidding across the floor. ?Who?s got the lousy cells?? Danny chortles.
Bill turns serious when asked why he and his wife agreed to let their son participate in these studies. ?It?s a duty,? Bill says. Danny, Bill points out, has benefited because many other patients before him have volunteered to be subjects for research. In the future, people suffering from epilepsy or other brain disorders may benefit from what the UCLA team learns from Danny.
For his part, Danny says he enjoys hanging out with the scientists and doing the experiments??as long as there?s no math.?
Image: Scientific American; Dan Saelinger; DOMINIQUE BAYNES (prop styling).
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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=eda4808854a4663ba0ea13add16714c2
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Mar 26 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $3,787,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $2,859,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,154,500 4. Steve Stricker $1,820,000 5. Phil Mickelson $1,650,260 6. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 7. John Merrick $1,343,514 8. Dustin Johnson $1,330,507 9. Russell Henley $1,313,280 10. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 11. Keegan Bradley $1,274,593 12. Charles Howell III $1,256,373 13. Michael Thompson $1,254,669 14. Brian Gay $1,171,721 15. Justin Rose $1,155,550 16. Jason Day $1,115,565 17. Chris Kirk $1,097,053 18. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mursi-sees-parliamentary-vote-october-mena-063926965.html
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NEW YORK (AP) ? Concern about Cyprus and other nations in the Eurozone is weighing down U.S. stock market futures.
Cyprus is formulating details for reopening its banks after a nearly two-week shutdown, following an international bailout agreement that calls for large deposits to be taxed heavily to help pay for the rescue.
Dow Jones industrial average futures are sliding 69 points to 14,409. Nasdaq 100 futures are down 13 to 2,786.80. S&P 500 futures are off 7.75 to 1,549.50.
Investors are waiting for data on pending U.S. home sales for February, set for release at 10 a.m. Eastern.
In Europe, major indexes fell amid worries that the "bail-in" that taps deposits in Cyprus could be considered a model should other countries falter. Asian stocks rose, following Tuesday's rally in U.S. markets.
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?Florida State's Chasity Clayton (00) and Chelsea Davis (34) watch as Baylor center Brittney Griner (42) dunks in the first half of a second-round game in the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Tuesday, March 26, 2013, in Waco, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Florida State's Chasity Clayton (00) and Chelsea Davis (34) watch as Baylor center Brittney Griner (42) dunks in the first half of a second-round game in the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Tuesday, March 26, 2013, in Waco, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Baylor center Brittney Griner (42) celebrates after dunking against Florida State in the first half of a second-round game in the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Tuesday, March 26, 2013, in Waco, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Baylor guard Odyssey Sims (0) celebrates after sinking a 3-pointer in the first half of a second-round game against Florida State in the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Tuesday, March 26, 2013, in Waco, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Baylor center Brittney Griner (42) blocks a shot attempt by Florida State's Leonor Rodriguez (10) in the first half of a second-round game in the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Tuesday, March 26, 2013, in Waco, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Florida State forward Natasha Howard (33) has her shot blocked by Baylor's Brittney Griner, right rear, as Alexis Prince, bottom, watches in the first half of a second-round game in the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Tuesday, March 26, 2013, in Waco, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
WACO, Texas (AP) ? Brittney Griner had 33 points and 22 rebounds to go along with three impressive slam dunks in her final home game for Baylor, and the defending national champion Lady Bears beat Florida State 84-47 in the second round of the NCAA tournament Tuesday night.
The Lady Bears (34-1) are in the NCAA round of 16 for the fourth year in a row. They play Louisville (26-8) on Sunday in Oklahoma City.
With former President George W. Bush part of the crowd packed into the Ferrell Center for the final home game of her impressive career, Griner delivered in a big way.
The 6-foot-8 Griner had her second dunk in this NCAA tournament, with a one-handed slam late in the first half. She added two more in a 79-second span in the second half soon before coming out of the game.
Leonor Rodriguez had 11 points to lead Florida State (23-10).
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US Brewing Equipment company, Spike Brewing LLC, which focuses on providing affordable, high-quality brewing equipment to small-craft and home-based brewers, released a new sight glass brew kettle on March 8th 2013. The company released the kettle on a pre-sale to US-based customers in the home brew market. Spike aims to simplify the brewing process for newcomers, as well as seasoned brew veterans, that are looking for ways to save time and improve their efficiency.
As its name suggests, the new kettle contains a Pyrex sight glass, which allows users to see the volume of wort in the kettle. The site glass is removable, which makes cleaning and sanitization a snap. The sight glass is built with a return system, which allows any liquids that overflow the glass to be re-circulated back into the kettle, reducing any spattering issues. The sight glass comes protected with a stainless steel heat shield, to prevent any damage to the Pyrex glass. An added bonus to this line of kettles is the staggered installation of the couplers, which make the pot easier to use by placing critical gauges and valves in locations that are more convenient during the brewing process. The new kettle is available in a variety of sizes, including 10, 15, 20, 25, and a whopping 45 gallons.
Like every Spike kettle, the new sight glass line is constructed with a brilliant 304 stainless steel - a favourite among brewers. The kettle has a 1mm wall/bottom thickness. The new coupler array puts the top coupler at 4? from the bottom, with the lowest coupler at 1.5? from the bottom.
Spike Brewing acknowledges that home brewers don't often have access to the resources that major breweries have, and therefore face challenges in terms of their output quality and brewing capabilities. These issues can sometimes lead to weaker beer properties, which can affect things such as taste, appearance, and the overall character of the brew. While many of these issues are determined by the brewer?s skill, a brew kettle with additional features can give home brewers better control over the final outcome of their beer. The company also reminds beginners that it's essential to procure durable equipment, since they may not be able to add new or repair their equipment immediately following any type of failure.
Spike Brewing founder, Ben Caya commented, ?Getting started in home brewing can be an expensive hobby, and that's why we make kettles our customers can depend on for a reasonable price.? The company aims to encourage more people to start and continue their home brewing interests with products like their new sight-glass enhanced brew kettle. Ben Caya further commented, ?We're adding a high quality, US sourced feature which will make your brew day easier and more enjoyable. We're not inventing anything with this kettle. We're using a kettle with a few new additions to get people to re-invent their brewing process.?
Source: http://www.beernews.co.uk/2013/03/new-sight-glass-enhanced-brew-kettle.html
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This week in celebrity real estate, J.P. Morgan Chase paid $950,000 for R. Kelly?s Illinois foreclosed mansion, actor Ryan Phillippe finally sold his Zen-inspired home and Camille Grammer threw her Malibu estate back on the market.
Report: R. Kelly loses mansion to foreclosure
R&B star R. Kelly?s real estate saga is finally over. J.P. Morgan Chase paid $950,000 for Kelly?s 22,000-square-foot Illinois mansion at an auction on March 18, according to Chicago Real Estate Daily.
The singer-songwriter-producer, whose legal name is Robert S. Kelly, was hit with a $2.9 million foreclosure suit in July 2011 because he had stopped making payments on the Olympia Fields, Ill. home. But after trying to force a loan modification when the home?s appraised value dropped from $5.2 million to $3.8 million in the span of a year, Kelly threw in the towel.
The home, only 30 miles from Kelly?s Chicago hometown, had been listed as a short sale ? first for $1.595 million and most recently for $995,000 ? since 2011. From a jungle-themed swimming pool to a home theater and large, gated driveway, the estate has several celeb-worthy amenities.
Walking away may have been the smartest choice for the artist, who has faced financial difficulties for a few years. As of last summer, Kelly reportedly owed more than $5 million in unpaid taxes, according to documents held by the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. He paid $2.8 million back in 2008 ? the same year he beat a child pornography case ? and more than $1 million in 2011, but still owes a hefty sum.
Ryan Phillippe sells Hollywood home
Ryan Phillippe?s Hollywood Hills estate may promote a peaceful Zen-inspired escape, but the actor has had to face the realities of real estate head-on. After divorcing ?Cruel Intentions? co-star Reese Witherspoon, Phillippe listed his 7,477-square-foot home for $7.45 million in December 2010. However with a steady decline in home prices and a strong recession taking its toll in 2011, the actor learned it wasn?t the best time to sell and removed the listing.
Last summer, the home hit the market again, this time with a $6.995 million price tag. A little over eight months later, Phillippe?s home has sold for $6 million.
The home was built in 1998 and called ?Rising Zen? due to its combination of Asian and modern architecture. The landscaping also adds to the home?s tranquil feel with green foliage creeping up the sides and extending into the foyer. Inside, a sleek modern design provides updated amenities, while ornate accessories add hints of cultural flair.
While the home?s design style is tasteful and subdued, over-the-top amenities have celebrity status written all over them. Highlights include a two-story gym directly off the master suite, a bar surrounded by an in-home aquarium, a koi pond and media room. Not to mention the home has a private ?eco-friendly? pool with sweeping views of downtown L.A.
Camille Grammer?s Malibu Mansion Back on the Market
Not only has Camille Grammer walked away from ?The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,? but the ex-wife of actor Kelsey Grammer is also trying to cut her Malibu ties. The former couple?s mansion is back on the market for $14.995 million, significantly less than its original asking price of $17.5 million last summer.
Meanwhile, the Grammers? longtime Beverly Hills residence recently received a price cut, now wearing an identical price tag of $14.995 million.
Located at 3250 Serra Road, Malibu, Calif. 90265, the Malibu retreat has been owned by the ?Frasier? and Bravo-TV stars since 1998, when they purchased the 4.75-acre property for $4.5 million. While their one-time primary residence in Beverly Hills is luxurious in its own right, the Malibu home is all about location, situated on the prestigious Serra Road hillside.
The grounds play up the location with towering trees, flowering gardens, a private pool, barn and guest house draped over the property. Inside, large french doors open to an outdoor dining area with panoramic views.
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T-Mobile is finally getting the iPhone this Spring, some Windows 8 apps have a Google problem, Chrome gets better at spelling, and Xbox Music gets an update.
Photo by photastic (Shutterstock), a2bb5s (Shutterstock), and Feng Yu (Shutterstock).
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Insurance companies will have to pay more for medical claims on individual health policies under President Barack Obama's overhaul, says a new report by the Society of Actuaries.
President Barack Obama signs the health care bill in Washington, March 23, 2010. Medical claims costs, the biggest driver of health insurance premiums, will jump an average 32 percent for individual policies under President Barack Obama?s overhaul, according to a study by the nation?s leading group of financial risk analysts.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP / File
EnlargeInsurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 percent more for medical claims on individual health policies under President Barack Obama's overhaul, the nation's leading group of financial risk analysts has estimated.
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That's likely to increase premiums for at least some Americans buying individual plans.
The report by the Society of Actuaries could turn into a big headache for the Obama administration at a time when many parts of the country remain skeptical about the Affordable Care Act.
While some states will see medical claims costs per person decline, the report concluded the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets, where people purchase coverage directly from insurers.
The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland. Much of the reason for the higher claims costs is that sicker people are expected to join the pool, the report said.
The report did not make similar estimates for employer plans, the mainstay for workers and their families. That's because the primary impact of Obama's law is on people who don't have coverage through their jobs.
The administration questions the design of the study, saying it focused only on one piece of the puzzle and ignored cost relief strategies in the law such as tax credits to help people afford premiums and special payments to insurers who attract an outsize share of the sick. The study also doesn't take into account the potential price-cutting effect of competition in new state insurance markets that will go live on Oct. 1, administration officials said.
At a White House briefing on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said some of what passes for health insurance today is so skimpy it can't be compared to the comprehensive coverage available under the law. "Some of these folks have very high catastrophic plans that don't pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus," she said. "They're really mortgage protection, not health insurance."
A prominent national expert, recently retired Medicare chief actuary Rick Foster, said the report does "a credible job" of estimating potential enrollment and costs under the law, "without trying to tilt the answers in any particular direction."
"Having said that," Foster added, "actuaries tend to be financially conservative, so the various assumptions might be more inclined to consider what might go wrong than to anticipate that everything will work beautifully." Actuaries use statistics and economic theory to make long-range cost projections for insurance and pension programs sponsored by businesses and government. The society is headquartered near Chicago.
Kristi Bohn, an actuary who worked on the study, acknowledged it did not attempt to estimate the effect of subsidies, insurer competition and other factors that could mitigate cost increases. She said the goal was to look at the underlying cost of medical care.
"Claims cost is the most important driver of health care premiums," she said.
"We don't see ourselves as a political organization," Bohn added. "We are trying to figure out what the situation at hand is."
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ABU DHABI // Private investors have been invited to build and operate 40 new community centres in Abu Dhabi at a total cost of nearly Dh3 billion.
Work is expected to begin this year on 20 of the neighbourhood centres, which will contain convenience shops, leisure facilities and government services, and two larger district centres with supermarkets and other facilities.
The remaining eight neighbourhood centres and 10 district ones should be completed by 2016.
Each neighbourhood centre will cost between Dh30m and Dh40m to build, and district centres will cost about Dh120m to Dh150m each.
The municipality will deliver the project with the help of the private sector, using a Build, Operate and Transfer framework, in which the investor is required to finance, develop and operate the centres. No public funding will be allocated to the projects.
Centres may also incorporate sporting and educational facilities, restaurants, cafes and what Abu Dhabi Municipality describes as "high-class recreational outlets".
Each centre will consist of convenience retail, community services and customer services under one roof.
Convenience retail is defined in the plan as supermarkets, pharmacies and banks; community services as facilities such as swimming pools, gymnasiums, libraries and training facilities; and customer services include government-related services allowing people to pay bills.
The centres will be either "neighbourhood" or "district" depending on the population density in any given area and depending on the scope and nature of services needed by residents.
The neighbourhood centres will serve between 6,000 and 10,000 people and the total floor area will be about 7,000 square metres, while the district centres will serve 30,000 to 40,000 persons with a total floor area of up to 21,000 square metres.
According to the municipality, tenders for eight of the 40 centres are already out and construction agreements have been submitted for six of the eight.
The 40 sites for the centres - eight on Abu Dhabi island and 32 on the mainland - have been identified.
Mainland areas such as Khalifa City A and B, Mohammed bin Zayed City, Shawamekh, Shamkha, Shahama, Samha and Abu Dhabi Gate City will all benefit from the project.
The initiative is part of the municipality's strategy of engaging the private sector in delivering community amenities.
This is a two-pronged strategy - the first relating to the "rehabilitation and upgrading of the existing municipal assets and examining the strategy of managing them" and the second relating to "the launch of new investment projects as well as entertainment and service facilities".
The project is also part of Abu Dhabi's drive to upgrade public facilities and introduce new facilities needed by the community for the sake of proving integrated, modern services that conform to the highest international standards.
The municipality said the initiative had received huge support from the emirate's Executive Council, which said it fitted perfectly with Abu Dhabi's 2030 plan.
Yesterday, the municipality also announced the construction of a series of rest houses on motorways built to world-class standards and filled with multiple services. Many of the rest-house projects will be auctioned off to private-sector investors this year.
The aim of the rest houses project is to serve the needs of road users and ease existing traffic issues through moving some services, such as restaurants, to new sites, where parking spaces are more readily available.
The rest-house project will also enhance the standards of safety, health and quality of services, while also improving the appearance of facilities, enhancing the shopping experience and creating more job opportunities.
Another aim is to provide attractive investment opportunities for a number of small enterprises that are supported by the Khalifa Fund.
The municipality is now inviting private-sector investors to participate in the development of the community centres project in both mainland and island locations in Abu Dhabi.
anwar@thenational.ae
Source: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/abu-dhabis-dh3bn-plan-for-new-community-centres
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Nati Harnik / AP file
Margery Gibbs uses coupons at a store in Omaha, Neb., in 2009. Coupon use fell in 2012 after several strong years.
By Allison Linn, TODAY
The good, old-fashioned coupon ? which surged in popularity in recent years ? appears to be falling out of favor.
Two separate studies show that coupon use declined significantly in 2012.
One study, from coupon industry consulting firm Inmar, found that about 3 billion coupons were redeemed in 2012, a drop of about 14.3 percent from approximately 3.5 billion coupons redeemed in 2011. Another, from NCH Marketing Services, found that coupon use fell by 17 percent in 2012 over the year before.
The drop came after several good years for the coupon, which seemed to indicate that the weak economy had helped bring coupon clipping back in style. The coupon has even enjoyed its 15 minutes of pop culture fame thanks to the reality show ?Extreme Couponing,? which documents people using thousands of coupons to save hundreds of dollars stockpiling diapers, paper towels and other items.
But experts say that while frugality is still in vogue, many shoppers have gotten so savvy at saving money that they've moved past the coupon.
?It was like the training wheels ? to teach people how to save money,? Phil Lempert, the chief executive of Supermarket Guru, said of coupons.
Experts say it?s pretty common for coupon use to rise when the economy goes south, and start falling as the economy gets better.
But the economic gains in 2012 weren?t really strong enough to warrant people giving up their frugal habits. In addition, experts say they saw plenty of other reasons that coupon use has declined.
?It?s sort of a thousand cuts,? said David Mounts, the chief executive of Inmar. ?It?s little things here and there.?
For starters, there were slightly fewer coupons. The industry distributed about 310 billion coupons in 2012, down from 313 billion in 2011 and a big drop from 336 billion in 2010, according to Inmar?s research.
Last year?s batch of coupons also tended to be for smaller discounts and to expire more quickly than in the past, Mounts said.
In addition, shopping habits have changed.
Some customers have started to want more than a one-size-fits-all coupon that you clip out of a Sunday newspaper, Mounts said.??Instead, more shoppers are looking for personalized deals that more closely match their shopping habits. They also want deals that are delivered digitally so they don?t have to manage a stack of paper.
So far, though, those types of coupons aren?t that widespread. Inmar?s data shows that more than four in 10 coupons still come from the newspaper inserts.
Frugally minded shoppers also are finding even more sophisticated ways to save money, said Lempert of Supermarket Guru, which tracks customer shopping habits.
These days, he?s seeing more savvy shoppers going to multiple stores to find the best prices on food and other items. Their stops may include drugstores, dollar stores, warehouse chains like Costco and specialty grocers such as Trader Joe?s.
They?re also turning more to store brands that may be cheaper than name brands, even when there?s a coupon for the branded item, he said.
Many younger customers also are constantly changing their eating and shopping habits, he said, and may not be as interested in buying the items that are traditionally discounted with coupons. They also may be more captivated by new types of ways to save, such as a four-hour sale promoted on Twitter.
?Frankly, the coupons weren?t meeting their needs,? Lempert said.
The extreme couponing fad may not have helped either.
The trend sparked a backlash among some in the industry, who alleged that the TV show set unrealistic expectations.
Lempert thinks it also made some shoppers feel uneasy. He said he receives thousands of emails a week from shoppers, and reaction to extreme couponing was largely negative.
Despite such challenges, experts say?the coupon industry is adapting to changing customer preferences.?Inmar?s early data from the start of 2013 appears to be showing more positive trends in coupon use than last year, Mounts said, which suggests coupon clipping likely won't disappear completely any time soon.
Do you use coupons?
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ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? Dwight Howard endured the worst reception of his NBA career on Tuesday night.
He then promptly turned in probably his best performance of this season.
Howard scored a season-high 39 points, had 16 rebounds and was sent to the free throw line 39 times by his former team as the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Orlando Magic, 106-97.
The victory came in Howard's first return to Orlando since his drama-filled offseason trade to the Lakers. He endured a chorus of boos throughout, and tied his own NBA record for free throw attempts.
The majority of them came as the Magic tried to employ an intentional foul strategy. It backfired, though, as the All-Star center hit on 16 of 20 attempts in the second half. It silenced his detractors and more importantly, helped the Lakers secure their fourth straight victory and keep from slipping in their playoff chase.
His reception aside, Howard said he left the court still thankful for the support he got during his eight years in Orlando.
"I wasn't nervous tonight. I was looking forward to playing here," Howard said. "It was a hostile environment, but I think that was something that was good for me. For my progress as a player, I think I needed that tonight."
Jameer Nelson scored 21 points, but also had six of Orlando's 14 turnovers. The Magic have lost three of their last four and haven't won back-to-back games since December. They also missed on their first season sweep of the Lakers since 2008-09.
After a week of back-and-forth in the media following some perceived negative comments made about his former team during a television interview, Howard and Nelson spoke briefly just after the final buzzer and shook hands.
"Everybody's always going to say certain things in order to start certain situations," Howard said. "But Jameer's my brother. We came in together, and I have no bad feelings toward him."
The embrace was a light moment in what was mostly a hostile atmosphere.
Homemade signs jeering Howard with sentiments that said everything from "Coward" to "Kobe's Kid" were sprinkled throughout the Amway Center stands.
Boos rained down on the All-Star center almost every time he touched the basketball. They were followed by louder cheers when he missed a free throw.
The intensity was also ramped up at times, too.
Howard got tangled up in a verbal back-and-forth with the Magic bench at one point during the first half, and Kobe Bryant left briefly in the first quarter, bleeding from his right eye after a collision.
"I think professionally it was really big for him," Bryant said of Howard's night. "Coming into this environment, playing as well as he did, it's big for his confidence."
The Lakers led 76-68 entering the final period and scored the first eight points of the quarter to push it out to a 16-point lead.
The Magic battled back and closed to 91-82 on a 3-pointer by E'Twaun Moore with 6 minutes to play in the game.
Howard made four straight free throws at one point and the Lakers got their lead back up to 102-88 on a 3-pointer by Jodie Meeks with 2:25 left.
The Magic kept up the strategy, but Howard ? who was shooting 47.8 percent before the game ? hit his final eight attempts to help close out the victory.
"With any player, if you get 39 cracks at it, it's only natural for you to gain some type of rhythm," Magic guard Arron Afflalo said. "And he did a good job of making them down the stretch for them."
Magic coach Jacque Vaughn defended the strategy, though.
"I think early on it was a strategy that worked for us," he said. "If we would have made six more 3s, I probably wouldn't have done it, but strategy-wise I need to give our guys a rest."
Howard embraced the negative environment from the outset and was the main reason the Lakers had a 50-46 halftime lead.
He had 19 points and 10 rebounds in the opening 24 minutes, and would have had more if not for his 9-for-19 effort at the line.
Howard started just 2 for 9 from the foul line, prompting the Magic to try fouling him intentionally three times late in the second quarter. He had found his touch by then, though, hitting five of six on those occasions.
With the exception of Tobias Harris' 15-point first half, Orlando struggled offensively. The Magic had decent looks at the basket, but shot a paltry 37 percent (17 for 46) from the field.
They were also thin in the frontcourt for most of the half with center Nik Vucevic playing only 13 minutes because of two quick fouls. He went scoreless, with just two three rebounds.
At the end of the night, Howard said he was ready to turn the page.
"I think it was something I needed, to come back and I think it was something that the city needed, too," he said. "It's closure. We can all move on. We had eight great years. People are going to feel the way they feel. I totally understand that."
Notes: Los Angeles now leads its all-time series with Orlando, 32-15....Harris had a career-high 15 rebounds....Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said that injured F Pau Gasol (torn plantar fascia, right foot) is starting to run again and "feels pretty good." He said he will continue to be monitored to make sure there aren't setbacks, but that "it's close."
___
Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/khightower .
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/howard-scores-39-leads-lakers-past-magic-106-020728841--spt.html
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DANVILLE, Va. (AP) ? A star of the TV show "Moonshiners" has been arrested for public intoxication.
Police in Danville announced Tuesday they had arrested Steven Ray Tickle ? known on the show by his surname ? at a convenience store on Thursday.
Police say they received a report of a man sitting in the parking lot of Charley's Stop and Shop drinking, and they saw Tickle with an open container and smelling of alcohol.
The 35-year-old Tickle was released from the Danville City Jail later that day. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney. A spokesman for Discovery Channel, which airs the show, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
"Moonshiners" follows people making the illegal brew. The show's website describes Tickle as "a hard working still hand who loves moonshine."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/moonshiners-star-faces-public-intox-charge-215852134.html
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Can you have it almond?Photo by Gary Kazanjian/AP
The first time I ate a nut I was 4 years old.?Almost instantly, I felt a tight itchiness in the back of my throat. Eventually, my pediatrician diagnosed it: a tree nut allergy.?With each subsequent exposure, my reaction intensified. Eventually, eating errant nuts prompted trips to the emergency room.?My mom stocked her purses and my backpacks with EpiPens, Benadryl, and bottles of neuroticism. ??
My food allergies aren?t?and weren?t?as severe as those of Tessa Grosso, the young girl profiled by Melanie Thernstrom in this week?s New York Times Magazine. Thernstrom details the struggles of Tessa and her own severely allergic son, Kieran, as they attempt to do normal things like go to birthday parties, swim, and play with friends at school. The kids are miserable. Tessa, at one point, is so shaken from a reaction that she refuses to eat.
Enter Dr. Kari Nadeau, an associate professor of allergies and immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. A few years ago, she developed a special oral immunotherapy treatment to eradicate reactions like anaphylaxis in allergic patients. How does she do it? Nadeau desensitizes allergic kids to allergens through exposure. They begin her clinical trial by consuming a miniscule amount of the allergen. Gradually, after a couple of years of increasing the allergen dose, they?re chomping on full servings of the once toxic foods. Nadeau has also discovered she can immunize kids suffering from multiple allergens at once?which is what she did for Tessa and Kieran.
But for me, the revelatory moment of the piece came toward the end. Thernstrom relays happy news: Thanks to Nadeau, Tessa can now tolerate her allergens.
And then, in a line that many readers may pass over, Thernstrom exposes a vital truth about those who suffer from allergies. ?Profound change is profoundly unsettling,? she writes. With the successful treatment, ?Tessa lost a defining aspect of her identity.?
That might be a tough concept for someone without food allergies to grasp. Wouldn?t I love, for example, to eat chocolate souffl? at a restaurant without worrying that the cake contains almond extract?and fearing that the waiter has determined the nut content by peering into the cake?s insides? (?It doesn?t look like it has nuts!?) What if I could stroll into a bakery and select any of the beckoning pastries, regardless of whether the chef made it in a clean bowl?
Of course I want those things. But at the same time, I?m grateful for the positive ways my tree nut allergy has defined my identity. It?s shaped my behavior in ways that transcend restaurant encounters and transfer to my everyday noneating hours.
It has taught me to be assertive and persistent. Restaurant waiters and store clerks are often condescending and flippant when I ask about ingredients. ?You?re fine,? they say with a dry sneer. ?I?ve worked here for a while. I know the menu.? At first, I clammed up in response to their dismissiveness; I never wanted to ?make a scene.? Today, I grill them. I don?t care if it?s a fancy restaurant or if I?m dining with people I don?t know well. A few weeks ago, I was out with my boyfriend at one of Washington?s swankier establishments for Restaurant Week. I told the waiter about my allergy and asked that he talk to the chef but got the sense that he didn?t really care. (Blank stares and silence are always so reassuring.) I continued questioning him as each dish arrived. As it turned out, several of the dishes he brought me did contain nuts, and he had to sweep them away at the last minute.
My nut allergy has also taught me to be my own protector and guardian. Family members and friends mean well, but they?re fallible. (They?re also even more frustrated by my interrogations than restaurant waiters because they?rightly?interpret questions as distrust.) The truth is even one?s best friends and closest family members can forget or overlook ingredients: Long-time residents of allergy world have learned, like Dave Navarro, to trust no one. A couple of years ago, my aunt hosted a wake for my grandmother. She?d been offering food at the house for days, and I?d asked her about every morsel. Her exasperation was obvious. At the wake, I once again asked her what I could eat. She told me everything was safe. I grabbed a slice of marble cake from the kitchen; it contained almond flour. Soon, we were zooming to the ER.
It was a typical trip in that she and my family members were far more rattled than me. That?s because I?ve also learned to remain calm in high-stress situations. When I eat a nut, there?s no time to freak out. If I want to live, I must immediately inject myself with epinephrine (a shot of adrenaline which temporarily halts the effects of anaphylaxis) and explain calmly to those around me what they need to do.
But perhaps the most important skill I?ve learned in nut world is the ability to relinquish control. Inevitably, even after I cross-examine family members and waiters, each bite is still a risk. By learning to let go, I?m able to enjoy my meal and the company. I refuse to live in a bubble of phobia and fear.
Of course, I?m still terrified each time I accidentally pop an almond or walnut. So let me be clear, lest the above exaltation paint me as a total nutcase: I?d happily trade in my anaphylaxis today for a life of carefree cupcake consumption. Dr. Nadeau, sign me up for your next clinical trial. I?ve learned all of the lessons I can from a life of food allergies?and I?m more than ready to discover the perks of an allergy-free life.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=ee8393140b38607686c511a81face555
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