Sighting of mystery animal in Hale

THERE has been another sighting of a mystery creature in Hale – the second within a month.Mother-of-two Sue Langham was astonished to see the animal sitting on her back door step on Rivington Road at 5am on Monday morning.The animal – about the size of a small dog with the head of a fox and a muscly body – was making a noise that sounded like a ‘strangled wolf’.

Sue, who had got up early to catch a train, said:

“I was shocked by what I saw. We sometimes see foxes in the back garden and this was nothing like that.”

On April 7, a similar creature was spotted by Mark Jackson and his son Jay on Belmont Road, Hale, which is just a couple of hundred yards from Sue’s home.

And last July a tan-coloured animal, thought to be twice the size of a domestic cat, was spotted on Hale’s Westminster Road by resident Tim Webb. His report to Messenger prompted others to get in touch about other sightings at the time. These included one near the Hare and Hounds pub in Timperley. Have you seen a mystery animal in Hale or surrounding area – or perhaps managed to take a photograph of it?

via Have you seen mystery creature? From Messenger Newspapers.

The image is of black bear with mange. Diseases or genetic conditions that make animals lose their fur can make a fox, bear, coyote, etc. appear to be some completely unknown animal.

The rise and fall of Dark Warrior epilepsy

Of all the names for a neurological disorder in the history of medicine, the most awesome has got to be ‘Dark Warrior epilepsy’.

The condition was reported in a 1982 edition of the British Medical Journal and was so named because the patient had seizures – but only while playing the Dark Warrior video game.

The game was actually a coin-up arcade machine and, despite the dodgy graphics, it is notable for being one of the first machines with an attempt at simulated speech.

The patient was a 17-year-old girl whose father was a video game engineer. He fixed the arcade machines and so she got to play for free.

Curiously, the case report mentions that she had already mastered Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Lunar Rescue.

Old skool video game freaks will be reading this and quietly thinking to themselves, respect, but the more medically inclined might be scratching their heads wondering why a patient’s video-gaming history has been included in their case report.

I mean, I ruled at Elite, but it’s never been mentioned in my medical notes.

The reason, is that only year before, the first ever case of epilepsy triggered by a video game was reported. It was named ‘Space Invader epilepsy’ because it was triggered by the arcade game Astro Fighter and the neurologist clearly didn’t know the difference between the original arcade classic and one of the cheap knock-offs.

The 17-year-old girl from Bristol, however, wasn’t troubled by Space Invaders, nor a host of other video games. She played them all with no problems at all. It was only Dark Warrior that affected her brain and, in fact, it was only a very specific scene in the game that contained a bright multicoloured flashing sequence.

The doctors treating the girl thought it was worth sending the case to a medical journal because video games were still very new in 1982.

But despite using the name ‘Dark Warrior epilepsy’ for this particular case they came up with another name – almost as awesome – for similar seizure disorders: ‘electronic space war video game epilepsy’

They then wrote what can only be described as one of neuroscience’s great paragraphs:

The term Space Invader epilepsy is, in fact, a misnomer, since no cases have been reported with the Space Invader video game itself. We suggest, therefore, that Astro Fighter and Dark Warrior epilepsy be classified under “electronic space war video game epilepsy” and this as a special category of photoconvulsive epilepsy. Video games other than space war games – for example, Super Bug and Munch Man – appear to be less epileptogenic. Electronic space war video game epilepsy has yet to be reported with Defender, Space Fury, Lunar Rescue, or Asteroids war games.

At the time, there was much media panic about ‘video games causing epilepsy’ but the real story is actually far more interesting.

Neurology nowadays doesn’t talk about specific game titles but it still considers the effect of video games on the likelihood of triggering seizures.

Firstly, let’s make it clear that video games don’t cause epilepsy, but the reason people can have seizures while playing is not because of the video game per se, but because of a type of neurological disorder called reflex epilepsy that can be triggered by idiosyncratic features of the environment.

The most well-known and most common is photosensitive epilepsy where certain types of flashing lights can cause a seizure. About 5 in every 100 people who have epilepsy have this type.

But actually, reflex epilepsy is very diverse. Some people will have seizures triggered by certain smells, or certain patterns, or certain emotions, or certain tunes, or even doing certain sort of problem-solving – like mental calculation.

Some of the early cases of computer-triggered epilepsy were caused by certain flash sequences in games, which are now not included by common consent.

Occasionally video-game linked seizures do still appear though, but largely because the game happens to have a characteristic which coincides with the trigger of someone’s pre-existing reflex epilepsy. Maybe a specific sequence of musical notes, or a certain pattern, or even causing a specific feeling of frustration.

But sadly, neither ‘Dark Warrior epilepsy’ nor ‘electronic space war video game epilepsy’ caught on and the medical literature now largely talks about ‘video game-induced seizures’. …

via The rise and fall of Dark Warrior epilepsy « Mind Hacks.

Synesthesia may explain healers claims of seeing people’s ‘aura’

Researchers in Spain have found that at least some of the individuals claiming to see the so-called aura of people actually have the neuropsychological phenomenon known as “synesthesia” (specifically, “emotional synesthesia”). This might be a scientific explanation of their alleged ability.

In synesthetes, the brain regions responsible for the processing of each type of sensory stimuli are intensely interconnected. Synesthetes can see or taste a sound, feel a taste, or associate people or letters with a particular color.

The study was conducted by the University of Granada Department of Experimental Psychology Óscar Iborra, Luis Pastor and Emilio Gómez Milán, and has been published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition. This is the first time that a scientific explanation has been provided for the esoteric phenomenon of the aura, a supposed energy field of luminous radiation surrounding a person as a halo, which is imperceptible to most human beings.

In basic neurological terms, synesthesia is thought to be due to cross-wiring in the brain of some people (synesthetes); in other words, synesthetes present more synaptic connections than “normal” people. “These extra connections cause them to automatically establish associations between brain areas that are not normally interconnected,” professor Gómez Milán explains. New research suggests that many healers claiming to see the aura of people might have this condition.

One of the University of Granada researchers remarked that “not all ‘healers’ are synesthetes, but there is a higher prevalence of this phenomenon among them. The same occurs among painters and artists, for example.” To carry out this study, the researchers interviewed some synesthetes including a ‘healer’ from Granada, “Esteban Sánchez Casas,” known as “El Santón de Baza”.

Many local people attribute “paranormal powers” to El Santón, because of his supposed ability to see the aura of people “but, in fact, it is a clear case of synesthesia,” the researchers explained. According to the researchers, El Santón has face-color synesthesia (the brain region responsible for face recognition is associated with the color-processing region); touch-mirror synesthesia (when the synesthete observes a person who is being touched or is experiencing pain, s/he experiences the same); high empathy (the ability to feel what other person is feeling), and schizotypy (certain personality traits in healthy people involving slight paranoia and delusions). “These capacities make synesthetes have the ability to make people feel understood, and provide them with special emotion and pain reading skills,” the researchers explain.

In the light of the results obtained, the researchers remarked on the significant “placebo effect” that healers have on people, “though some healers really have the ability to see people’s ‘auras’ and feel the pain in others due to synesthesia.” Some healers “have abilities and attitudes that make them believe in their ability to heal other people, but it is actually a case of self-deception, as synesthesia is not an extrasensory power, but a subjective and ‘adorned’ perception of reality,” the researchers state.

via Synesthesia may explain healers claims of seeing people’s ‘aura’.

Ohio Deputy Orders Summit County Jail Inmates To Dance, Gets Fired

A northeast Ohio sheriff fired a deputy for ordering five jail inmates to dance to a song by Usher in exchange for privileges such as using a phone or microwave, the sheriff’s office said Thursday.

Dominic Martucci was accused of ordering the inmates to dance last month, after they were locked up in a disciplinary area, and then inviting colleagues to watch. The date of the incident was unclear; according to an internal report, various inmates and deputies said it happened on either April 10 or 11.

The Summit County Sheriff’s Office conducted an internal investigation after an inmate reported the incident, and the 35-year-old Martucci was fired this week for violating department policies by mistreating inmates, acting inappropriately and having a cellphone in the jail, apparently used to play the music.

One inmate did the worm as Martucci played Usher’s “Yeah!” while another said he did the robot so that he could use a phone to contact relatives after a family member’s death.

Investigators say several deputies watched the inmates dance after they happen to walk by the cell or were called by Martucci. Some deputies told investigators the dancing only lasted a few seconds. But several inmates say the dancing went on for at least several minutes, and it appeared the deputies were protecting Martucci by being on the lookout for any supervisors.

“The community needs to be assured that all inmates that come through the doors of the Summit County jail will be treated humanely and with respect,” Inspector Bill Holland of the sheriff’s office said Thursday. “All allegations to the contrary will be investigated. We take these matters very seriously, and any member of our agency that does not share this philosophy will be disciplined accordingly.”

The internal report says inmates were asked by Martucci to do a “bump and grind” routine if they wanted a recently removed microwave returned to their unit.

Martucci said in the report he unplugged the inmates’ unit microwave after some ignored his orders to return to their cell for lockup. He said he returned later to tell the inmates they would have to dance for him if they wanted to get out of lockup and get their microwave back.

Investigators said Martucci admitted making a mistake but told them he was only trying to ease tension in the jail. He said his actions were wrong in hindsight, and he had not planned to ask the inmates to dance. He also was cited for conduct unbecoming an officer and failing to properly document why the inmates had been put in the disciplinary area.

One inmate said Martucci told him he had to dance “one full minute to my liking.” He said Martucci later didn’t reward him for the dancing like he had with other inmates, and told him he “messed up, you’ll be going to the hole.”

Another inmate, who reported the incident, told investigators he felt “humiliated” for being forced to dance in front of other inmates.

The deputies who may have observed the dancing remain on the job, but the investigation is ongoing and could lead to further disciplinary measures, Holland said. Some deputies told investigators the inmates had been laughing and appeared to be having a good time during the incident, according to the report. …

via Ohio Deputy Orders Summit County Jail Inmates To Dance, Gets Fired.

The video above of 1,500 plus CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines practicing “Thriller” is in a different category than what the Ohio inmates had to do… I think.

Pottery donated to Goodwill may be 1,000-year-old Native American artifact

A piece of pottery given to Goodwill by an anonymous donor may in fact be a prehistoric artifact taken from a Native American burial site in Oklahoma.

The Buffalo News reports that the mysterious piece of pottery traveled through Goodwill’s internal distribution system before arriving in New York. Employees at Goodwill had no knowledge of the item’s potential significance and put it up for auction, where it received two bids for just $4.99 before several readers pointed out its potential historical value.

A note inside the 7.5-inch piece of pottery reads, “Found in a burial mound near Spiro Oklahoma in 1970.”

“We’re pretty amazed that the thing wasn’t (a) broken or (b) just thrown out,” Jeremy Juhasz, Goodwill’s local social media and website coordinator, told the Buffalo News.

Local New York affiliate WKBW says Goodwill has received a number of unintentional, high-value donations over the years, including a book written by Albert Einstein in German and an autographed copy of Mickey Mantle’s book.

It’s thought that the piece originates from the Spiro Mounds archaeological site in Oklahoma, meaning it could potentially be several thousands of years old. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, the site was a permanent settlement from approximately 800 to 1450 but that people have inhabited the area for 8,000 years.

Goodwill says it is returning the piece to the Caddo Indian Nation.

via Pottery donated to Goodwill may be 1,000-year-old Native American artifact | The Sideshow – Yahoo! News.

Goat sacrifice fixes aeroplane

Officials at Nepal’s state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft.

Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing aircraft, has had to suspend some services in recent weeks due the problem.

While many airlines might choose to tackle the problem by, say, having engineers fix the problem, Nepal Airlines opted for a more goat-centric approach.

The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at Nepal’s only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions, according to an official at the company.

‘The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights,’ said Raju K.C., a senior airline official, without explaining what the problem had been.

Local media last week blamed the company’s woes on an electrical fault, rather than a superabundance of goats.

via Goat sacrifice fixes aeroplane | Metro.co.uk.

Why do I have the urge to hit these three superstitious goat killers repeatedly in the head with a goat carcass? It is because I care about them and hope that such an alternative therapy would destroy the malfunctioning aggregates of brain cells which block their accurate comprehension of cause and effect.

I.Q. Points for Sale, Cheap

A STRIKING trend in today’s culture is the pursuit of rapid cognitive enhancement. The idea behind many popular video and online “brain-training” games is that practicing tasks that strengthen memory, attention and other mental processes will make you a smarter person.

Nintendo markets its Brain Age game as a “treadmill for the mind.” Lumosity, which claims 20 million users, says that its brain-training games offer “real-world cognitive benefits in individuals of all ages.” Cogmed, which has been adopted by schools in the United States and Sweden, helps its users “unlock their natural cognitive abilities by training their brain.” Forbes magazine recently declared cognitive enhancement the next “trillion-dollar industry.” The United States military is even exploring the possibility of using such cognitive training to increase soldiers’ capacities.

Why the craze? Until recently, the overwhelming consensus in psychology was that intelligence was essentially a fixed trait. But in 2008, an article by a group of researchers led by Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl challenged this view and renewed many psychologists’ enthusiasm about the possibility that intelligence was trainable — with precisely the kind of tasks that are now popular as games.

Yet I and many other intelligence researchers are skeptical of this research. Before anyone spends any more time and money looking for a quick and easy way to boost intelligence, it’s important to explain why we’re not sold on the idea.

In the Jaeggi study, the researchers began by having participants complete a test of reasoning to measure their “fluid” intelligence — the ability to draw connections between things, solve novel problems and adapt to new situations. Then some of the participants received up to eight hours of training in a difficult cognitive task that required paying careful attention to two streams of information (a version of this task is now marketed by Lumosity); others were assigned to a control group and received no such training. Then all of the participants took a different version of the reasoning test.

The results were startling. The authors reported that the trained participants showed a larger gain in the reasoning test than the control group did, and despite the relatively brief period of training, this gain was large enough that it would be expected to substantially improve performance in everyday life.

Does this sound like an extraordinary claim? It should. There have been many attempts to demonstrate large, lasting gains in intelligence through educational interventions, with few successes. When gains in intelligence have been achieved, they have been modest and the result of many years of effort.

For instance, in a University of North Carolina study known as the Abecedarian Early Intervention Project, children received an intensive educational intervention from infancy to age 5 designed to increase intelligence. In follow-up tests, these children showed an advantage of six I.Q. points over a control group (and as adults, they were four times more likely to graduate from college). By contrast, the increase implied by the findings of the Jaeggi study was six I.Q. points after only six hours of training — an I.Q. point an hour.

Though the Jaeggi results are intriguing, many researchers have failed to demonstrate statistically significant gains in intelligence using other, similar cognitive training programs, like Cogmed’s. The Web site PsychFileDrawer.org, which was founded as an archive for failed replication attempts in psychological research, maintains a Top 20 list of studies that its users would like to see replicated. The Jaeggi study is currently No. 1. While this is an indication of the interest among psychologists in the idea that cognitive training might produce remarkable gains in intelligence, it also reflects a widespread cautiousness toward the results of a single study.

Another reason for skepticism is a weakness in the Jaeggi study’s design: it included only a single test of reasoning to measure gains in intelligence. As the cognitive psychologists Zachary Shipstead, Thomas Redick and Randall Engle note in a recent review of the cognitive training literature in Psychological Bulletin, intelligence can’t be measured with any single test; it reflects what tests of many cognitive abilities have in common. Demonstrating that subjects are better on one reasoning test after cognitive training doesn’t establish that they’re smarter. It merely establishes that they’re better on one reasoning test.

We shouldn’t be surprised if extraordinary claims of quick gains in intelligence turn out to be wrong. Most extraordinary claims are. But we shouldn’t be totally discouraged, either. Results of studies like the Abecedarian project suggest that intelligence can be increased by making improvements in people’s environments, and that this can improve people’s lives.

But such studies also suggest that meaningful increases are not likely without a substantial commitment of resources. If we lose sight of this fact, this is a commitment we may never make.

David Z. Hambrick is an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University.

via I.Q. Points for Sale, Cheap – NYTimes.com.

Prostitutes acquitted of raping 17 men

Three sex workers accused of raping 17 men in Zimbabwe have been freed after a magistrate found no evidence against them.

The women, all in their 20s, were arrested last year after being stopped at a police roadblock. A search of their vehicle revealed more than 30 used condoms.

The trio were charged with “aggravated indecent assault,” amid claims by men who said the women forced them to have sex while brandishing weapons.

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However, DNA evidence on Thursday disproved any link between the women and the men who contended they were abused.

The women will still face prostitution charges, authorities said.

When the trio’s arrest was made public it was followed by a rush of men expressing fear of being attacked.

Fears were given extra impetus by widespread speculation that the sex workers were collecting semen for witchcraft.

via Prostitutes acquitted of raping 17 men.

Ghost Town Set To Reopen One Year After Owner’s Mysterious Shooting Death

A popular southwestern New Mexico ghost town, struck by the tragic and mysterious shooting death of its longtime owner, is reopening to the public after being closed nearly a year.

Steins Railroad Ghost Town will formally reopen May 11, said Melissa Lamoree, granddaughter of the late Larry Link.

Lamoree, 29, said the family has been raising money and working to restore the old western town near the Arizona border to its original state. They want to keep it running because it reminds them of happier times, she said.

“My grandfather put so much work into this ghost town,” Lamoree said. “Instead of focusing on how he died, we wanted to remember the happy moments that this place brought him and share that with everyone.”

Larry Link bought Steins in 1988 with his wife, Linda, and gave private tours.

He was shot and killed last June at age 68, in what state police believe may have been a robbery gone wrong. Police said a semi-trailer used for storage on the property appeared to have been broken into, with items from inside strewn on the ground.

The killing at the ghost town, just north of the Mexico-New Mexico border, sparked fear among area ranchers since the town sits atop the state’s Bootheel, where nearby residents have long worried about drug trafficking and its related violence. The U.S. Border Patrol has recently stepped up its presence in the isolated and rugged region, and Steins rests at the end of a known trafficking route.

But Link’s daughter Pamela Link said there was no evidence her father’s death had anything to do with drug traffickers or illegal immigration. She said some border ranchers were using her father’s death for their own “political agenda” and to get more Border Patrol agents to police the area.

“This had nothing to do with protecting our borders,” she said. “Evil took him from us. He wasn’t involved with drug trafficking. He didn’t harbor illegal immigrants. He wasn’t a rancher. He didn’t even know how to raise a cow.”

No arrests have been made. …

via Steins Railroad Ghost Town Set To Reopen One Year After Owner Larry Link’s Mysterious Shooting Death.

Flash-heating breastmilk to inactivate HIV is feasible for women in resource-poor countries, UC Davis study finds

An international team led by UC Davis researchers has found that mothers in sub-Saharan Africa could successfully follow a protocol for flash-heating breastmilk to reduce transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) — the virus that causes AIDS — to their infants.

Flash-heating breastmilk is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for HIV-infected mothers during times of increased transmission risk. The technique involves expressing breastmilk into a glass jar that is placed in a small pot of water and heated until the water boils.

Previous research from UC Davis and UC Berkeley showed that this process inactivates HIV in breastmilk, while retaining the milk’s nutritional and infection-fighting properties. But whether or not women in poor countries would be willing and able to successfully use the technique had not been established.

Published in the May issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, the current study showed that women in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — a resource-poor urban area — could follow the protocol consistently over an average of about 10 weeks, with some mothers utilizing the method up to a full year.

“More women with HIV than we anticipated were willing and able to flash heat their breastmilk and make it safe despite very limited resources,” said Caroline Chantry, professor of pediatrics at UC Davis Children’s Hospital and lead author of the study. “These findings show that the World Health Organization’s recommendations are feasible in a real-world setting.”

Even in the absence of HIV medications, HIV-positive mothers in resource-poor regions are advised to exclusively breastfeed their children for six months. When compared to partial breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding can reduce the chances of mother-to-child HIV transmission during the first months of life. Physicians believe this is because mixed feeds increase the likelihood of allergens or contaminants that compromise the epithelial lining of a baby’s digestive tract, making it easier for HIV to pass through. But while longer-term breastfeeding substantially increases the likelihood of HIV transmission, early cessation of breastfeeding is associated with high morbidity and mortality in developing areas.

“It’s a very high-risk period for diseases and deaths from gastrointestinal infections,” Chantry said. “Flash heating can help women provide nutrient and antibody-rich breastmilk to their infants beyond 6 months of age and reduce the possibility of HIV transmission at the same time.”

To find out if women would use the protocol, Chantry and her team enrolled 101 HIV-infected mothers and their infants in the study: 86 infants were still alive and participating in the study at 5 months of age when the infants were tested for HIV. Of these infants, 72 were HIV negative, and more than half of their mothers chose to flash heat their breastmilk.

Peer counselors provided the necessary equipment and then visited the mothers weekly to offer instructions on flash heating and observe how well they followed the protocol, which included washing their hands, cleaning utensils, bringing the milk to the correct temperature (typically 72.9° C) and then allowing it to cool before feeding it to children with a spoon or cup.

“These mothers succeeded in flash heating with only modest support from trained peer counselors rather than professional health-care providers,” Chantry said. “This method is inexpensive in terms of costs and workforce and could be sustainable in resource-limited settings.”

Untreated and flash-heated breastmilk samples were collected every two weeks for bacterial analysis. The flash-heated milk was found to be bacteriologically safe.

Chantry said that the study sets the stage for a clinical trial to determine whether flash heating improves infant-health outcomes and to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of health improvements in addition to averted HIV infections.

“Our focus is on improving both HIV-free ‘thrival’ as well as HIV-free survival,” Chantry said. “WHO has also called for research on the feasibility of supporting and sustaining this practice on a large scale.”

In addition to Chantry, study authors were Sera Young, Janet Peerson and Kathryn Dewey of UC Davis; Waverly Rennie, Monica Ngonyani, Clara Mashio and Margaret Nyambo of University Research Company, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Kiersten Israel-Ballard and Peggy Koniz-Booher of PATH, Seattle; Mecky Matee of Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Deborah Ash of Academy for Educational Development, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

“Feasibility of Using Flash-Heated Breastmilk as an Infant Feeding Option for HIV-Exposed, Uninfected Infants after 6 Months of Age in Urban Tanzania” was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grant number R01HD057602).

via Flash-heating breastmilk to inactivate HIV is feasible for women in resource-poor countries, UC Davis study finds.