Sleep deprivation can have cognitive consequences, including learning and memory deficits, but the mechanisms by which sleep deprivation affects brain function have remained unknown. A research collaboration led by biologists and neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania has found a molecular pathway in the brain that is the cause of cognitive impairment due to sleep [...]
Archive for October, 2009
Fighting Sleep: Researchers Reverse Cognitive Impairment Caused By Sleep Deprivation
Posted in Health on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Efficient Market Theory and the Crisis
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Neither the rating agencies’ mistakes nor the overleveraging by financial firms was the fault of an academic hypothesis. Financial journalist and best-selling author Roger Lowenstein didn’t mince words in a piece for the Washington Post this summer: “The upside of the current Great Recession is that it could drive a stake through the heart of [...]
Washington’s Suicide Mission
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion, Politics on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The real problem is Washington’s riverboat gamble on saving the economy with free money. Members of the Obama administration have taken turns deploring the billions of dollars in year-end bonuses the finance industry is getting ready to hand out. Never mentioned is what they think firms should do with the money. Give it back to [...]
Cancers Can Vanish Without Treatment, but How?
Posted in Health on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Call it the arrow of cancer. Like the arrow of time, it was supposed to point in one direction. Cancers grew and worsened. But as a paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted last week,data from more than two decades of screening for breast and prostate cancer call that view into question. [...]
BASIC FOOTWEAR Arnulfo Quimare, a Tarahumara Indian who is a champion distance runner, laces up his sandals for a 50-mile race on canyon trails. Does running a marathon push the body further than it is meant to go? The conventional wisdom is that distance running leads to debilitating wear and tear, especially on the joints. [...]
While the President Golfs
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged Afghanistan on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Afghanistan, once a necessary war, is downgraded to someone else’s mess. Who says President Obama hasn’t accomplished anything since taking office? To his Nobel Peace Prize and two Grammys, we can add a sports record, Politico reports: Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he’s already hit the links as [...]
Today in History – October 27
Posted in This day in history, tagged October 27 on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Tuesday, Oct. 27, the 300th day of 2009. There are 65 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On Oct. 27, 1787, the first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, was published in New York. On this date In 939, Athelstan, the [...]
The man who walks with bears
Posted in Animals on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Black bears are often considered among the most dangerous animals in North America, depicted down the years as ferocious predators threatening to man. Duffy and Lynn Rogers But, says one man, that perception could not be further from the truth. For 43 years, Professor Lynn Rogers has studied wild bears, walking and playing with [...]
Scientologists convicted of fraud
Posted in Law, Other, Religion on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Scientology’s Celebrity Centre in Paris was fined in the ruling A French court has convicted the Church of Scientology of fraud, but stopped short of banning the group from operating in France. Two branches of the group’s operations and several of its leaders in France have been fined. The case came after complaints from two [...]
‘Obama Is Average’
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Interview with Charles Krauthammer Krauthammer on US President Barack Obama: “In Obama’s view, America would subsume itself under a fuzzy internationalism in which the international community, which I think is a fiction, governs itself through the UN.” In a SPIEGEL interview, Charles Krauthammer, the leading voice of America’s conservative intellectuals, discusses Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace [...]
The Media Death Spiral
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Media on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The circulation figures for the top 25 dailies in the US are out, and they’re horrifying. The median decline is well into the teens; only the Wall Street Journal gained (very slightly). I think we’re witnessing the end of the newspaper business, full stop, not the end of the newspaper business as we know it. [...]
To the rigger the spoils
Posted in Politics on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Dirty elections New research on how many countries rig elections and why HAMID KARZAI’S acceptance this week, through gritted teeth, of a run-off in Afghanistan’s presidential poll is a reminder both of how common rigged elections have become, and of how rarely incumbents fail to get away with it. Think, in the past two years, [...]
The week ahead
Posted in The Week ahead on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The trial of Radovan Karadzic for war crimes gets under way, and other news • THE trial of Radovan Karadzic is set to begin at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Monday October 26th. Mr Karadzic, who led Bosnian Serbs during the war of secession that accompanied the collapse [...]
An uncelebrated century
Posted in Economy and business on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
American bank failures Smaller American banks are now at the centre of the credit storm PARTNERS BANK of Naples, Florida, earned a dubious distinction on Friday October 23rd. It became the 100th American bank failure of the year. On the same day six other lenders—two more in Florida and banks in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and [...]
A good time to be a conservative
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Bien-pensant conservative elites and establishment-friendly Republican big shots yearn for a more moderate, temperate and sophisticated Republican Party. It’s not likely to happen. And probably just as well. The Gallup poll released Monday shows the public’s conservatism at a high-water mark. Some 40 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, compared with 36 percent who self-describe [...]
U.S. official resigns over Afghan war
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Afghanistan on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan. A former Marine Corps captain with [...]
The sheriff of Cook County, Ill., grabbed headlines earlier this year when he sued Craigslist, the online classified advertising forum, for allowing posts that he said promoted prostitution. A federal judge in Chicago wisely threw out the suit last week. As Congress has recognized, if an Internet proprietor had to police every posting that a [...]
Changing the World
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
One of the most cherished items in my possession is a postcard that was sent from Mississippi to the Upper West Side of Manhattan in June 1964. “Dear Mom and Dad,” it says, “I have arrived safely in Meridian, Mississippi. This is a wonderful town and the weather is fine. I wish you were here. [...]
The Fatal Conceit
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Humans are overconfident creatures. Ninety-four percent of college professors believe they are above average teachers, and 90 percent of drivers believe they are above average behind the wheel. Researchers Paul J.H. Schoemaker and J. Edward Russo gave computer executives quizzes on their industry. Afterward, the executives estimated that they had gotten 5 percent of the [...]
Britain Resolves, U.S. Wavers
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Afghanistan, Israel on October 27, 2009 | Comments Off
In Afghanistan there’s the United States, Britain and then the rest. Britain has lost 85 soldiers this year, more than all other European NATO allies combined. For both countries the annual death toll has been rising steadily since 2006, and with it the drumbeat of public opposition to the war. In all, more than 1,100 [...]
Struggle in the Midst of Success
Posted in Literature on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Her life was divided between trying to escape from her parents and fulfilling her duty toward them. If you’ve ever been 10 years old, and a girl, chances are that you have fallen under the spell of the March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, the heroines of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” (1869). Generations of [...]
Freaked Out Over SuperFreakonomics
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Energy and Environment on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Global warming might be solved with a helium balloon and a few miles of garden hose. Suppose for a minute—which is about 59 seconds too long, but that’s for another column—that global warming poses an imminent threat to the survival of our species. Suppose, too, that the best solution involves a helium balloon, several miles [...]
Ortega Assists Honduras
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged Honduras, Nicaragua on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
The Chávez model hits Nicaragua. If Honduras manages to preserve its democracy despite U.S. pressure to abandon it, the tiny Central American country may wind up thanking Nicaragua’s Danny Ortega, of all people. Last week, President Ortega inadvertently provided the best defense yet of the Honduran decision this summer to remove Manuel Zelaya from the [...]
‘NATO Has the Watches, We Have the Time’
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Afghanistan on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Unless the U.S. shows resolve, the Taliban will simply wait us out. Those of us in the Bush administration who were responsible for its “Afghan Strategy Review” kept our mouths shut when we handed over the document to the Obama transition team last fall. We didn’t want to box in the new administration. And when [...]
The Post-Gracious President
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Whenever he must make a difficult decision, Mr. Obama complains it’s Bush’s fault. Nine months after Barack Obama entered the Oval Office, his most adamant critics must concede he’s delivered on “change.” And we see it in our first post-gracious presidency. The most visible manifestations of the new ungraciousness are the repeated digs the president [...]
Agave Syrup May Not Be So Simple
Posted in Health, Other, Practical advice, tagged Agave on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Agave is not just for tequila anymore. The sap from the Mexican plant is now increasingly being sold as a natural sweetener called agave nectar. Companies that sell it say it saves calories and raises blood sugar less than conventional sugar. Doctors are skeptical that it is healthier, and a major testing lab issued a [...]
A Plan for Afghanistan
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged Afghanistan on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Talking to the Taliban is key for a durable solution. President Barack Obama is currently wrestling with the question of troop escalation in Afghanistan, against an upsurge of violence in the country and enormous complexities obscuring a clear path of action. In the cacophony of opinions being circulated, few have mentioned what would have to [...]
Why Are Egypt’s Liberals Anti-Semitic?
Posted in Editorials and opinion on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Western delegates to the Cairo congress should know about the country’s Judeophobia. Later this week, Egypt will play host to the 56th Congress of Liberal International, which bills itself as the world federation of liberal and progressive democratic parties. Among the nearly 70 parties represented by LI are Britain’s Liberal Democrats, Germany’s Free Democrats, and [...]
In Battle Over Gay Marriage, Timing May Be Key
Posted in Law, tagged Same-sex marriage on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
In a San Francisco courtroom two weeks ago, a prominent lawyer opposed to same-sex marriage made a concession that could mark a turning point in the legal wars over the purpose and meaning of marriage. The lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, has studied the matter deeply, and his erudite briefs are steeped in history. He cannot [...]
The Great American Arm-Twist in Afghanistan
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Politics, tagged Afghanistan on October 26, 2009 | Comments Off
RIVAL A poster for Abdullah Abdullah, who is battling President Hamid Karzai. By the looks of it, the ceremony that unfolded last week inside the Presidential Palace here was marking a joyous, even triumphant, occasion. President Hamid Karzai, flanked by Senator John Kerry and an array of Western ambassadors, had just announced that he would [...]
