Tysabri May Treat Myelin Sheath Damage From MS

The drug Tysabri natalizumab appears to regenerate and stabilize damage done to the myelin sheath in people with multiple sclerosis MS, a study from drug makers Biogen Idec and Elan Corp shows.

MS is nervous system disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms experienced by MS patients are caused by damage to the myelin sheath that surrounds and protects nerve cells.

In this study, researchers used advanced MRI technology to measure lesions and normal brain tissue in patients who took either Tysabri, interferon beta-1a, or no drugs. After 12 months of follow-up, the 62 patients who took Tysabri showed remyelination when compared to the 26 who took inteferon beta-1a or the 22 patients in the control group.

The findings were presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, in Seattle.

“What we have seen in these MRI data suggest that Tysabri may have the capacity to repair and possibly restore some of the damaged myelin sheath that protects nerve fibers. Results from this study support the continued investigation of the potential effects of Tysabri on this process,” lead investigator Dr. Robert Zivadinov, of the Jacobs Neurological Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., said in a news release.

Tysabri is approved for treatment of relapsing forms of MS in the United States and for relapsing-remitting MS in the European Union.

via – Yahoo

Evidence Of The ‘Lost World’: Did Dinosaurs Survive The End Cretaceous Extinctions?

The Lost World, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s account of an isolated community of dinosaurs that survived the catastrophic extinction event 65 million years ago, has no less appeal now than it did when it was written a century ago. Various Hollywood versions have tried to recreate the lost world of dinosaurs, but today the fiction seems just a little closer to reality.

New scientific evidence suggests that dinosaur bones from the Ojo Alamo Sandstone in the San Juan Basin, USA, date from after the extinction, and that dinosaurs may have survived in a remote area of what is now New Mexico and Colorado for up to half a million years. This controversial new research, published today in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, is based on detailed chemical investigations of the dinosaur bones, and evidence for the age of the rocks in which they are found.

“The great difficulty with this hypothesis — that these are the remains of dinosaurs that survived — is ruling out the possibility that the bones date from before the extinction,” says Jim Fassett, author of the research.

“After being killed and deposited in sands and muds, it is possible for bones to be exhumed by rivers and then incorporated into younger rocks” he explains. This is not the usual way in which fossil deposits of this kind form, but it has been shown to explain some other post-extinction dinosaur bones. Fassett has amassed a range of evidence that indicates that these fossils from the Ojo Alamo Sandstone were not exhumed and redeposited and that these dinosaurs really did live after the end Cretaceous extinction event.

via Evidence Of The ‘Lost World’: Did Dinosaurs Survive The End Cretaceous Extinctions?.

White House will probe presidential plane PR stunt

The taxpayer bill for Monday’s presidential plane flight over Manhattan was $328,835. The political cost to the Obama White House will be harder to calculate.

“It was a mistake … and it will not happen again,” President Barack Obama said.

But the origins of the government public relations stunt that went awry remained a mystery — and a potential political problem for Obama. The White House military office approved the photo op, which cost $35,000 in fuel alone for the plane and two jet fighter escorts.

“I think this is one of those rare cases where we can all agree it was a mistake,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said of Monday’s “unfortunate” flight low over the Hudson River that for many on the ground evoked chilling memories of 9/11.

The sight of the huge passenger jet and an F-16 fighter plane whizzing past the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan financial district sent panicked office workers streaming into the streets.

WCBS-TV in New York reported Tuesday that it had obtained a Federal Aviation Administration memo outlining the photo op. The memo acknowledged “the possibility of public concern regarding (Defense Department) aircraft flying at low altitudes” around Manhattan, but the TV station reported that the FAA demanded secrecy from the New York Police Department, the mayor’s office, the Secret Service and the FBI.

A White House official has said the New York City mayor’s office and other New York and New Jersey police agencies were told about the Boeing 747’s flight. The official said the FAA, at the military’s request, told local agencies that the information was classified and asked them not to publicize it.

White House officials did not say why new photos were needed of the plane that is sometimes used as Air Force One — Obama wasn’t aboard the flight — or who the presumed audience of the planned photographs were.

via White House will probe presidential plane PR stunt – Yahoo! News.

The New Straits Times Online: Schoolgirls who claim to ’see’ ghost spooked with hysterics

The ghostly apparition which spooked some 50 schoolgirls in Langgar here on Sunday made an appearance again this morning.

Another 17 girls from Forms One to Four of SMK Langgar became hysterical after they claimed they saw the apparition in the school canteen at 9.30am.

Kedah Education director Shahidan Abdul Rahman, in an immediate reaction, advised those affected by the incidents to stay home.

“We are still investigating the matter and I advise those still disturbed from the incidents to stay home,” he said.

One of students, Nasroh Abdul Rahim, 14, said she fainted after seeing the apparition of a long-haired woman in a flowing white gown hovering in the canteen.

“I screamed and then blacked out after seeing the figure,” she said when met at the school.

Incidentally, she was also one of the 50 girls who became hysterical when the ‘ghost’ appeared the first time.

Nasroh and her friends along with a few teachers were reciting the Yassin in the school surau when the ‘ghost’ reappeared. Her screaming sparked some of the others to become hysterical.

A bomoh, called in by the school to help check the problem, claimed he had caught a blur image of the ‘ghost’ on his handphone.

He said he was treating his daughter, Nur Fatihah Nani, who was among the 50 girls spooked in the first incident.

“Like Nasroh, my daughter is still very weak,” he said.

via The New Straits Times Online: Schoolgirls who claim to ’see’ ghost spooked with hysterics.

NKorea threatens nuke test if UN doesn’t apologize

North Korea warned Wednesday it will fire an intercontinental ballistic missile — or even carry out another nuclear test — unless the U.N. apologizes for condemning the regime’s April 5 rocket launch.

By flaunting its rogue nuclear and missile programs, Pyongyang has raised the stakes in the escalating diplomatic tit for tat with the outside world. North Korea also said it would start generating nuclear fuel — an indication the regime will begin enriching uranium, another material used to make an atomic bomb.

North Korea is known for its use of brinksmanship and harsh rhetoric to force the West to react, but the threat of a nuclear test is significant.

Pyongyang conducted its first atomic test in 2006, and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least half a dozen nuclear bombs. There are no indications, however, that scientists in the North have mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto a missile.

Still, North Korea’s April 5 rocket launch drew widespread international concern. Pyongyang claims the liftoff was a peaceful bid to send a communications satellite into space, but the U.S., Japan and others saw it as a furtive test of a delivery system capable of sending a long-range missile within striking range of Alaska.

The U.N. Council denounced the launch as a violation of 2006 resolutions barring the North from missile-related activity, and later imposed new sanctions on three North Korean firms.

Within hours of the sanctions, the North claimed it had begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex to harvest weapons-grade plutonium — a clear setback to years of negotiations on disarming the communist country.

The Security Council must apologize for infringing on the North’s sovereignty and “withdraw all its unreasonable and discriminative resolutions and decisions” against the North, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Otherwise, the regime “will be compelled to take additional self-defensive measures,” including “nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles,” the ministry said.

The U.S. criticized North Korea’s latest maneuver.

“Let me just say very clearly that these threats only further isolate the North,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood. “We again call on the North Koreans to come back to the (negotiating) table … We’ve heard these types of threats before.”

via NKorea threatens nuke test if UN doesn’t apologize.

Radio Shack employee punches customer

A Radio Shack employee faces disorderly conduct and battery charges for punching a customer. Police said the customer was trying to return an item Sunday, but the employee wouldn’t let him. The customer then asked to talk to a manager.

That’s when the 52-year-old male employee began punching the man. A bystander called 911.

The employee is due in court May 19.

- via AP

Swine flu is a man made virus ?

Investigative journalist from Washington Wayne Madsen says the outbreak of the swine flu virus is raising suspicions. The sources quoted by him say it could be manmade.

Gene splicing or not, this is not a time to be looking backward into the past. We just need to get on with the business of having our population reduced.

Another look at Two Lake Erie UFOs from Aug 18, 2006

What do you think about this? Some comments from the poster on Youtube:

Lake Erie UFO: A Closer Examination

What is depicted in the picture above?
Is it two jets several miles apart from each other?
Or two police cars several yards apart from each other?
Or is it what each of us want it to be?

UFO NEWS – On February 6th we posted Michael Lee Hill’s UFO video captured on August 18th, 2006 on the shores of Lake Erie. Six days later it has generated a heated debate in the post’s comments.

Many skeptics believe the lights pictured above are two distant jets coming at us in a landing pattern – appearing to hover. Other skeptics say these are two police cars driving across a hill at night – on parallel roads with distance forcing the perspective.

We don’t think so.

1) Michael Lee Hill tells us he shot this in Eastlake, Ohio. In this topo map of the area you will see no hills near or across the shoreline.

2) If these aircraft are flying towards Eastlake then we can only find two destinations, Lost Nation Municipal Airport and Cuyahoga County Airport. Neither of these airports look the part for what would be obviously BIG planes on approach.

3) If these aircraft were coming in to Cleveland Airport they would be traveling from right to left.

4) In the frame grab above shouldn’t there be an appreciable size difference between two aircraft of this size, miles apart — even with the alleged mirage affect?

UFO NEWS believes these two ‘things’ are flying about 20 feet apart from each other.

If anyone would like to further debunk this sighting I believe we must begin with these new ideas. – UFO NEWS

This footage is from the FOX News UFO segment 2/3/07. They cut out the good parts so I thought you might want to see the whole clip.

from www.Fromheretoandromeda.com

Best Video I’ve Seen Today – Songs around the world

I love this concept, bringing musicians all around the world together with technology. Great project. Worth watching!

By Jesus Diaz

If this video doesn’t bring a tear to your eyes and makes you smile for the rest of the day, you are a cold hearted bastard. Watch it from beginning to end—you won’t regret it.

This cover of Stand By Me was recorded by completely unknown artists in a street virtual studio all around the world. It all started with a base track—vocals and guitar—recorded on the streets of Santa Monica, California, by a street musician called Roger Ridley. The base track was then taken to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grandpa Elliott—a blind singer from the French Quarter—added vocals and harmonica while listening to Ridley’s base track on headphones. In the same city, Washboard Chaz’s added some metal percussion to it.

And from there, it just gets rock ‘n’ rolling bananas: The producers took the resulting mix all through Europe, Africa, and South America, adding new tracks with multiple instruments and vocals that were assembled in the final version you are seeing in this video. All done with a simple laptop and some microphones.

I don’t know about you, but it blew me away. Best version of Ben E. King’s classic I’ve ever heard in my life. And I’ve probably heard between five and two billion of them. [Thanks to my friend Fernand

via www.playingforchange.com as described on  Gizmodo – Best Video I’ve Seen Today Will Make You Smile – Songs around the world.

Trio acquitted of London 7/7 charges

A British jury has cleared three men of charges of conspiring with four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in London’s 2005 suicide bombings.

Waheed Ali, Sadeer Saleem, and Mohammed Shakil were acquitted of the most serious offenses at the Kingston Crown Court Tuesday, but two of them were found guilty for lesser charges. The carefully collected evidence against them was largely circumstantial, and could not finally persuade the British jurors of their alleged guilt.

Four bombers and 52 commuters died in the attacks on July 7, 2005 when bombers set off bombs they carried in sacks on three subway trains and a double-decker bus.

Ali and Shakil will be jailed Wednesday for a second charge of “conspiring to attend a terror training camp”.

Ali, 25, Shakil, 32, and Saleem, 28, who had been accused of collaborating with the suicide bombers, were the only people ever charged for the deadly bombings, and their acquittals mean that no one has been legally held accountable for the attacks.

In a statement, Saleem accused police and prosecutors of charging him based on “guilt by association”.

“I am indebted to these 12 courageous individuals who have now cleared my name and allowed me the opportunity of seeing my children grow up,” he said in the statement.

This is the latest blow to British authorities who have been forced to release Muslims after arresting them on terrorism charges amid much publicity, only to be forced to release them – often quietly – for lack of evidence.

The latest manifestation of what many describe as ‘Islamophobia’ was the much publicized arrest of eleven Muslim students in Manchester on April 8. …

via Trio acquitted of London 7/7 charges.