Unrelenting sex drive may signal deadly rabies

A 28-year-old woman in India came to her doctor with an unusual complaint: a sudden and persistent increase in her sex drive. She felt constantly aroused, often with no stimulation at all.

Unable to find an explanation, the woman’s physician and gynecologist referred her to the department of emergency medicine at the Sri Gokulam Hospital and Research Institute in Salem, Tamil Nadu. Four days later, she was dead.

What disease could take a woman from distressing sexual symptoms to death in less than a week? The answer is a virus that has been nearly eradicated in humans in the U.S. but remains a scourge in the developing world: rabies.

Famous more for the symptomatic fear of water (actually a sign that the virus has paralyzed the swallowing muscles), rabies sometimes first shows up as unexplained hypersexuality, caused by the virus inflaming the brain. Unfortunately, by the time this symptom shows up, the disease is incurable.

In the case of the Indian woman, a small bite from a puppy two months earlier caused the disease, researchers reported online in June in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

“Often people will say, ‘Well, if I have any symptoms I’ll go to the doctor,’” said Peter Costa, the communications director for the Global Alliance for Rabies Control. But by then, Costa told LiveScience, it’s too late.

“If you’ve been bitten or suspect you’ve been licked or scratched by an infected animal, you should seek treatment within 24 hours,” said Costa, who was not involved in the Indian woman’s case. …

via Unrelenting sex drive may signal deadly rabies – Health – Sexual health – msnbc.com.

Citibank Arrests Customers for Trying to Close Accounts?

Customers of Citibank were arrested over the weekend after trying to close down their bank accounts.

Twenty-three customers of Citibank allegedly found themselves under arrest after being locked in the bank at 555 La Guardia Place, New York by security guards who even forced legitimate Citibank customers going about their daily business back into the bank.

Citibank responded to the allegations of arresting customer by releasing this statement:

“A large amount of protesters entered our branch at 555 La Guardia Place around 2:00 PM today. They were very disruptive and refused to leave after being repeatedly asked, causing our staff to call 911. The Police asked the branch staff to close the branch until the protesters could be removed. Only one person asked to close an account and was accommodated.”

Video below shows quite clearly that those inside the La Guardia Place branch of Citibank were not disruptive and remained quite calm and peaceful and also there are reports from eyewitnesses stating the explanation given by Citibank is far from the truth.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has seen a resurgence of Eric Cantona’s call for people to withdraw their money from the banks and one site moveyourmoneyproject.org is attempting to assist this move. …

via Citibank Arrests Customers for Trying to Close Accounts | Common Dreams.

Hey, I look like David Duchovney

X-files fans, what do you think? Resemblance?

Neuroscientists unlock shared brain codes

A team of neuroscientists at Dartmouth College has shown that different individuals’ brains use the same, common neural code to recognize complex visual images.

The paper, “A common, high-dimensional model of the neural representational space in human ventral temporal cortex,” is in the October 20, 2011, issue of the journal, Neuron. The lead author of the paper is James Haxby, the Evans Family Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Haxby is also the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Center at Dartmouth and a professor in the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences at the University of Trento in Italy. Swaroop Guntupalli, a graduate student in Haxby’s laboratory, developed the software for the new methods and ran the tests of their validity.

Haxby developed a new method called hyperalignment to create this common code and the parameters that transform an individual’s brain activity patterns into the code.

The parameters are a set of numbers that act like a combination that unlocks that individual’s brain’s code, Haxby said, allowing activity patterns in that person’s brain to be decoded – specifying the visual images that evoked those patterns — by comparing them to patterns in other people’s brains.

“For example, patterns of brain activity evoked by viewing a movie can be decoded to identify precisely which part of the movie an individual was watching by comparing his or her brain activity to the brain activity of other people watching the same movie,” said Haxby.

When someone looks at the world, visual images are encoded into patterns of brain activity that capture all of the subtleties that make it possible to recognize an unlimited variety of objects, animals, and actions.

“Although the goal of this work was to find the common code, these methods can now be used to see how brain codes vary across individuals because of differences in visual experience due to training, such as that for air traffic controllers or radiologists, to cultural background, or to factors such as genetics and clinical disorders,” he said.

Because of variability in brain anatomy, brain decoding had required separate analysis of each individual. Although detailed analysis of an individual could break that person’s brain code, it didn’t say anything about the brain code for a different person. In the paper, Haxby shows that all individuals use a common code for visual recognition, making it possible to identify specific patterns of brain activity for a wide range of visual images that are the same in all brains. …

via Neuroscientists unlock shared brain codes.

The image is not moving, by the way.

Future computers could rewire themselves

Future microchips may have only one type of component, capable of rewiring itself to do different jobs.

Researchers from Northwestern University in the US have developed a material that can radically change its electronic properties.

A resistor made from it could become a transistor or a diode, according to the report in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The discovery could lead to cheaper, smaller and more powerful computers.

As electronics advance and demands for portability increase, one of the main challenges has been decreasing the size of elementary components.

Technology firms have attempted to address this with a number of innovations, including new ways of building circuit tracks so signals do not suffer damaging interference at ultra small sizes.

The Northwestern University team took a different approach.

“It’s becoming more and more challenging to make devices smaller and you need to think of new ways rather than just shrinking things down because you’re reaching a fundamental scientific limit here of how small you can make a device,” said David Walker, one of the researchers.

“Our solution to this is instead of making things smaller, why don’t we try to make them more versatile – by taking all these hardware components and building them into one. …

To achieve this, the scientists have created a new material that consists of a “sea” of small negatively charged particles and larger, positively charged particles, which are “jammed” in place.

Because the negative particles form conductive regions, they act like conventional copper tracks in a circuit.

Once an electrical charge is applied to the material, those particles can be shifted around and reconfigured.

“Like redirecting a river, streams of electrons can be steered in multiple directions through a block of the material – even multiple streams flowing in opposing directions at the same time,” explained the lead researcher, Professor Bartosz Grzybowski, of Northwestern University.

This unusual property could allow a component made from this material to change its functions – allowing, in turn, a future computer to redirect and adapt its own circuitry as required.

“So the computer could send some set of electrical impulses or some type of electrical potential, and that would actually reconfigure the device to operate in a different way,” said Mr Walker. …

He explained that there was not yet a name for the new material, but it was unlike any other material that exists today. …

via BBC News – Future computers could rewire themselves.

Libya’s Col Muammar Gaddafi killed, says NTC

Libya’s ex-leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has been killed after an assault on his birthplace of Sirte, officials say.

Acting Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril announced the death, saying it was the moment Libya was waiting for.

Mr Jibril gave few details of how Col Gaddafi died, but video footage emerged showing him captured alive. Other images apparently showed him being dragged through the streets.

Some fighters claim to have shot him, though it is not clear when he died.

US President Barack Obama said it was a “momentous day” for Libya, now that tyranny had fallen.

He said Libya had a “long and winding road towards full democracy”, but the US and other countries would stand behind Tripoli.

Col Gaddafi was toppled from power in August after 42 years in charge of the country.

He was fighting his last stand in Sirte alongside two of his sons, Mutassim and Saif al-Islam, according to reports.

Acting Justice Minister Mohammad al-Alagi told the AP news agency Saif al-Islam had been captured and taken to hospital with a leg wound; other officials said Mutassim had been killed in battle on Thursday.

via BBC News – Libya’s Col Muammar Gaddafi killed, says NTC.

Claim: Hitler Died In Argentina, Nazi Leader Escaped Berlin In 1945

British journalist Gerrard Williams has told Sky News he and co-author Simon Dunstan found an “overwhelming amount of evidence” to suggest Hitler died an old man in South America.

Many historians say the Nazi leader died in his Berlin bunker in 1945 – but Williams claims their research, looking at newly de-classified documents and forensic tests, challenges this.

“We didn’t want to re-write history, but the evidence we’ve discovered about the escape of Adolf Hitler is just too overwhelming to ignore,” he said.

“There is no forensic evidence for his, or Eva Braun’s deaths, and the stories from the eyewitnesses to their continued survival in Argentina are compelling.”

Grey Wolf: The Escape Of Adolf Hitler claims the Fuhrer and his mistress Eva Braun were secretly flown out of Germany in April 1945 and taken to fascist-controlled Argentina.

It is alleged Hitler lived in the country for 17 years, initially raising his two daughters, until his death in 1962.

The book also accuses US intelligence of being complicit in the scam in return for access to Nazi war technology.

“Stalin, Eisenhower and Hoover of the FBI all knew there was no proof of him dying in the bunker,” Williams told Sky News.

“It’s difficult to understand why so much of the already published material we present in the book has been ignored over the years.”

He added that the book’s new findings prove the “Hitler” skull fragments held by the Russians are actually that of a young woman.

Williams said he and Dunstan conducted intensive field research in Argentina, including interviews with many eyewitnesses to Hitler’s presence there.

“It’s only now that Argentina is once more a thriving democracy that the real stories are beginning to come out,” he said.

“Even so, two of our eyewitnesses received death threats from persons unknown while working with us on this book.”

The film Grey Wolf is currently in production and is expected to be released in January.

via Hitler ‘Died In Argentina’, Book Claims: ‘Grey Wolf’ Author Says Nazi Leader Escaped Berlin In 1945 | World News | Sky News.

Mysterious bird deaths baffle hotel workers

The apparent death of 30-40 birds has workers at one Myrtle Beach hotel wondering what’s to blame.

Ocean Forest Resort Hotel Security Guard Brandon Nelson said between 30 and 40 birds of various breeds fell from the sky around 2 Sunday morning while he was patrolling the building.

“The birds were just landing with a plop, some of them chirped and squirmed for a few minutes before they died. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Nelson said.

Nelson’s mother, Sarah Allen, stopped at the hotel to visit her son during his shift when she says one of the birds hit her in the shoulder as it fell from the sky.

“I stepped out of my car and asked what was going on and no sooner had I asked when a bird hit my shoulder,” Allen said.

Ocean Forest Maintenance Worker Jimmie Livingston said birds die almost yearly around the Hotel, though not in such large numbers.

“Oh no, this isn’t the first time. And I think it’s going to keep happening too,” Livingston said.

Livingston said he thinks the birds may be colliding with hotel late at night when the poor visibility makes the building difficult to see, especially in the moonlight.

“They just confuse it for open air and they run into it,” Livingston said.

Myrtle Beach Police confirmed they did respond and investigate the incident, but did not have any further details at the time.

via Mysterious bird deaths baffle hotel workers – WIS News 10 – Columbia, South Carolina |.

Machine uses artificial vision to detect rotten oranges

A machine that uses artificial vision and UV rays to scan through citrus fruits and get rid of rotten ones has been developed in Spain.

Usually the inspection is done manually in dark rooms, also using UV light.

But this type of light can harm workers’ eyes and skin, so they must wear protective clothing and goggles.

The team from the Valencian Institute of Agrarian Research said that their technology could eliminate these risks.

The researchers describe the study in the journal Food and Bioprocess Technology.

Health risks

Detecting rotten citrus fruit is tricky, as interior decay is not visible to the naked eye.

That is why traditionally, workers use ultraviolet light – and when the essential oils of the decayed citrus rind react with UV rays, the fruits emit fluorescence.

But although there is usually a good chance that the oranges and mandarins that present spots of fluorescence turn out to be rotten, it is not always the case.

Fluorescence can be produced by defects other than decay, and thus workers often need to examine the fruit manually as well.

They must wear gloves and special goggles, and should not stay in the dark room too long. “The biological effect of UV rays is very bad for the health,” said Gregory Varennes of Roda Iberica, the company responsible for introducing the technology into the market. ..

via BBC News – Machine uses artificial vision to detect rotten oranges.

And the oranges are healthy to eat after being zapped with UV?

Man Allegedly Beat Woman with Frozen Armadillo

A man used a frozen armadillo to attack a 57-year old Pleasant Grove woman, Dallas police said.

The incident happened on Sept. 29 in an apartment complex parking lot.

According to investigators, the altercation occurred when the suspect was selling the carcass to the victim, who planned to eat the animal.

The pair apparently began arguing over the price of the item when the man twice threw the armadillo at the woman.

The animal first struck the woman in the leg and then in her chest.

She was reportedly bruised by the attack.

Detectives have been unable to find the man, who could face assault charges.

via Man Allegedly Beat Woman with Frozen Armadillo.