EU warns river wildlife at risk

Many of Europe's freshwater fish and molluscs are now threatened species, a new EU study shows.

The European Commission called for urgent action to preserve the diversity of Europe's wildlife.

Pollution, overfishing, habitat loss and alien species are blamed for the decline in species.

The latest findings are based on a study of some 6,000 species for the European Red List - an assessment of threats to wildlife.

The list of Europe's threatened species includes 44% of all freshwater molluscs, 37% of freshwater fish, 23% of amphibians, 19% of reptiles, 15% of mammals and dragonflies and 13% of birds.

The Commission says 467 plant species are also under threat, including wild varieties of crops such as sugar beet, wheat, oats and lettuce. Such species are "vital for food security yet are often neglected in terms of conservation," the Commission says.

The Commission has urged the 27 EU member states to adopt sustainable farming and forestry methods to halt biodiversity loss.

Nature's 'goods and services'

"The well-being of people in Europe and all over the world depends on goods and services that nature provides," said EU Environment Janez Potocnik. "If we don't address the reasons behind this decline and act urgently to stop it, we could pay a very heavy price indeed."

There are some notable successes however for wildlife conservation in Europe.

The EU's Natura 2000 conservation network of protected wildlife areas aims to give endangered species a better chance of survival. Corsica's Centranthus trinervis plant and the land snails on Madeira are showing signs of recovery, the Commission says.

A biodiversity expert at the environmental group Friends of the Earth, Paul de Zylva, says the thriving otter population in the UK is also a success story - a sign that the healthy fish they prey on are abundant in once-polluted rivers.

But many of Europe's water species are suffering, often because their natural habitat is disappearing, he told BBC News.

"Our water resources are a symbol of whether we are getting environmental policies right," he said.

Threat from aliens

Invasive species from other parts of the world often spread through Europe's rivers, he said. Among them are Chinese mitten crabs, Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed. Rivers disperse plant seeds across borders - one reason why co-ordinated European action is necessary, he said.

It is vital for the EU to provide the right financial incentives for farmers to boost nature conservation when a revised Common Agricultural Policy takes effect after 2013, he said.

The Natura 2000 network was expanded this month, taking in an additional 18,800 sq km (7,259 sq miles) - most of that being marine areas.

The UK has added some biodiversity hotspots in the Atlantic, including reefs off Rockall Island.

In the Mediterranean, marine habitats of endangered turtles and monk seals have also been added to the list of more than 26,000 European conservation sites.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-europe-15862137

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Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Boston study identifies possible therapy for radiation sickness

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 23-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Teresa Herbert
teresa_herbert@dfci.harvard.edu
617-632-4090
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

2-drug combination may alleviate radiation sickness in people

BOSTONA combination of two drugs may alleviate radiation sickness in people who have been exposed to high levels of radiation, even when the therapy is given a day after the exposure occurred, according to a study led by scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital Boston.

Mouse studies of other potential therapies suggest they would be effective in humans only if administered within a few minutes or hours of radiation exposure, making them impractical for use in response to events involving mass casualties. In contrast, the larger time window for administering the two-drug regimen raises the prospect that it could become a mainstay of the response to public health threats such as a nuclear power plant accident or nuclear terror attack.

In a paper published online by the journal Science Translational Medicine, the scientists report the beneficial effects, in mice, of a combination of a fluoroquinolone antibiotic (similar to the commonly used human antibiotic ciprofloxacin, or "Cipro") and a synthetic version of the natural human infection-fighting protein BPI. Mice that received the combination a day after being exposed to high doses of radiation fared far better than mice that received neither or only one of the agents. Whereas radiation exposures of that magnitude almost always prove fatal within a month, 80 percent of the mice that received the two agents were alive and apparently healthy a month into the study.

The study's lead author is Eva Guinan, MD, of Dana-Farber, and the senior author is Ofer Levy, MD, PhD, of Children's Hospital Boston.

The investigators also found that the ability to generate new blood cells which can shut down in the aftermath of radiation exposure rebounded much more quickly and vigorously in the mice treated with fluoroquinolone and rBPI21 (the synthetic version of BPI), potentially contributing to their return to health.

"Both fluoroquinolone antibiotics and rBPI21 have been shown to be quite safe in humans," says Levy. "Their combined effectiveness in our study involving mice is an indication that they may be equally beneficial in people."

The research potentially represents a major step in the United States government's efforts to build a stockpile of therapies to counter radiological dangers.

"There is great interest in creating systems for dealing with the short- and long-term health risks of a significant release of radiation, whether from an accident at a nuclear power plant, an act of terrorism, or even a small-scale incident in which a CT machine malfunctions," says Guinan. "Developing useful agents has proven difficult. Most existing drugs aren't effective enough and must be given within a very short time frame to provide any benefit. The recent disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan illustrates the need for agents that can be deployed rapidly to treat large populations."

Radiation sickness, also known as acute radiation syndrome, varies with the amount of radiation an individual receives. The first signs of the disease usually are nausea and vomiting, which can be followed by fever, dizziness, weakness, bloody vomit and stools, difficulty breathing, and infection. The body's blood-making tissue, nervous system, digestive tract, lungs, and cardiovascular system all can be affected. At very high doses, radiation is usually fatal.

Within the body, the effects of heavy radiation may include leakage of bacteria and the toxins they produce into the bloodstream from the digestive tract or through broken skin. Radiation effects play havoc with the function of the heart and lungs, disrupt the process of blood coagulation, and inflame tissue throughout the body.

When bacteria or certain toxins enter the blood under normal conditions, the body's immune system responds by dispatching neutrophils white blood cells to destroy the intruders. The neutrophils release a payload of BPI (bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein), which sticks tightly to molecules called endotoxins on the surface of the bacteria. The binding not only helps BPI kill the bacteria but also blocks inflammation caused by live or dead bacteria something that conventional antibiotics do not do.

When a person is exposed to high levels of radiation, however, the ability to generate neutrophils is almost obliterated. "It's a perfect storm of disease-causing events," Guinan remarks. "Radiation results in bacteria and endotoxins entering the bloodstream at the same time that the body's defenses are lowered."

The treatment approach developed by Guinan, Levy and their colleagues takes direct aim at two potential contributors to radiation sickness: bacteria and the endotoxins on their surface. "We theorized that a two-drug therapy would be most effective," Levy states. "Others had already shown some benefit to treatment with fluoroquinolones after radiation; at least part of the benefit came from killing bacteria in the blood. The second, rBPI21, would bind to, neutralize, and 'mop up' the endotoxins released by the dying bacteria, thereby removing the trigger of the inflammation process."

In the study, researchers exposed mice to radiation levels of 7 gray (by comparison, the amount emitted by a standard X-ray machine is 0.01 grays.) At those levels, radiation is 95 percent lethal to mice within 30 days.

Twenty-four hours after the radiation exposure, researchers began treating some of the mice with daily doses of fluoroquinolone antibiotic, some with twice-daily doses of rBPI21, and some with both. The mice that received both agents not only had much higher survival rates than the others, but their ability to generate new blood cells also recovered much more quickly.

The promise of this approach is underscored by the nature of the two agents, the study authors say. Both have a proven safety record in humans and can be stored for long periods of time, making them suitable for stockpiling.

The use of rBPI21 was inspired by research in patients whose blood-making tissue undergoes changes similar to those of people exposed to high levels of radiation: cancer patients who undergo bone marrow or stem cell transplants. Such transplants involve high doses of chemotherapy and in some cases radiation therapy, which kills cancer cells but also destroys the blood-forming tissue of the bone marrow, followed by an injection of stem cells to rebuild the blood supply.

"We measured BPI levels in patients receiving stem cell transplants and found they were BPI deficient while also having bacterial endotoxin in their bloodstream," says Levy, who first studied BPI as a graduate student at New York University with the protein's discoverers, Peter Elsbach, MD, PhD, and Jerrold Weiss, PhD. "These observations led to the hypothesis that replenishing BPI could decrease the toxicity of radiation," Levy adds.

The current study is the product of five years of work and collaboration between Levy, Guinan and their associates. "My experience in the field of stem cell transplantation, including the use of total-body irradiation, and caring for patients with diseases of the bone marrow has been a perfect complement to Ofer's expertise in neutrophil function and innate immunity [the arm of the immune system that is the first line of defense against infection]," Guinan comments. "This result is a promising new strategy for response to a nuclear event."

###

Funding for the study was provided by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Dana Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the G. Green Foundation, and the Shea Family Fund.

Co-authors of the study include Christine Barbon, MS, Kalindi Parmar, PhD, Janice Russell, Annie Voskertchian, Geoffrey Cole, PhD, Kaya Zhu, Alan D'Andrea, MD, and Robert Soiffer, MD, Dana-Farber; Leslie Kalish, ScD, Christy Mancuso, Liat Stoler-Barak, Eugenie Suter, Christine Palmer, PhD, Leighanne Gallington, and Jo-Anne Vergilio, MD, Children's Hospital Boston; Jeff Kutok, MD, PhD, Brigham and Women's Hospital; and Jerrold Weiss, PhD, University of Iowa.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute. It provides adult cancer care with Brigham and Women's Hospital as Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center and it provides pediatric care with Children's Hospital Boston as Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center. Dana-Farber is the top ranked cancer center in New England, according to U.S. News & World Report, and one of the largest recipients among independent hospitals of National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health grant funding.
Follow Dana-Farber on Twitter: @danafarber
Follow Dana-Farber on Facebook: www.facebook.com/danafarbercancerinstitute

Children's Hospital Boston is home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. More than 1,100 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 members of the Institute of Medicine and nine members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children's research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children's Hospital Boston today is a 395 bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care grounded in the values of excellence in patient care and sensitivity to the complex needs and diversity of children and families. Children's also is the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more information about research and clinical innovation at Children's, visit: http://vectorblog.org.

Contacts: Teresa Herbert or Rob Levy, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: 617-632-4090
Erin Tonatore, Children's Hospital Boston: 617-919-3110


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 23-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Teresa Herbert
teresa_herbert@dfci.harvard.edu
617-632-4090
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

2-drug combination may alleviate radiation sickness in people

BOSTONA combination of two drugs may alleviate radiation sickness in people who have been exposed to high levels of radiation, even when the therapy is given a day after the exposure occurred, according to a study led by scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital Boston.

Mouse studies of other potential therapies suggest they would be effective in humans only if administered within a few minutes or hours of radiation exposure, making them impractical for use in response to events involving mass casualties. In contrast, the larger time window for administering the two-drug regimen raises the prospect that it could become a mainstay of the response to public health threats such as a nuclear power plant accident or nuclear terror attack.

In a paper published online by the journal Science Translational Medicine, the scientists report the beneficial effects, in mice, of a combination of a fluoroquinolone antibiotic (similar to the commonly used human antibiotic ciprofloxacin, or "Cipro") and a synthetic version of the natural human infection-fighting protein BPI. Mice that received the combination a day after being exposed to high doses of radiation fared far better than mice that received neither or only one of the agents. Whereas radiation exposures of that magnitude almost always prove fatal within a month, 80 percent of the mice that received the two agents were alive and apparently healthy a month into the study.

The study's lead author is Eva Guinan, MD, of Dana-Farber, and the senior author is Ofer Levy, MD, PhD, of Children's Hospital Boston.

The investigators also found that the ability to generate new blood cells which can shut down in the aftermath of radiation exposure rebounded much more quickly and vigorously in the mice treated with fluoroquinolone and rBPI21 (the synthetic version of BPI), potentially contributing to their return to health.

"Both fluoroquinolone antibiotics and rBPI21 have been shown to be quite safe in humans," says Levy. "Their combined effectiveness in our study involving mice is an indication that they may be equally beneficial in people."

The research potentially represents a major step in the United States government's efforts to build a stockpile of therapies to counter radiological dangers.

"There is great interest in creating systems for dealing with the short- and long-term health risks of a significant release of radiation, whether from an accident at a nuclear power plant, an act of terrorism, or even a small-scale incident in which a CT machine malfunctions," says Guinan. "Developing useful agents has proven difficult. Most existing drugs aren't effective enough and must be given within a very short time frame to provide any benefit. The recent disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan illustrates the need for agents that can be deployed rapidly to treat large populations."

Radiation sickness, also known as acute radiation syndrome, varies with the amount of radiation an individual receives. The first signs of the disease usually are nausea and vomiting, which can be followed by fever, dizziness, weakness, bloody vomit and stools, difficulty breathing, and infection. The body's blood-making tissue, nervous system, digestive tract, lungs, and cardiovascular system all can be affected. At very high doses, radiation is usually fatal.

Within the body, the effects of heavy radiation may include leakage of bacteria and the toxins they produce into the bloodstream from the digestive tract or through broken skin. Radiation effects play havoc with the function of the heart and lungs, disrupt the process of blood coagulation, and inflame tissue throughout the body.

When bacteria or certain toxins enter the blood under normal conditions, the body's immune system responds by dispatching neutrophils white blood cells to destroy the intruders. The neutrophils release a payload of BPI (bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein), which sticks tightly to molecules called endotoxins on the surface of the bacteria. The binding not only helps BPI kill the bacteria but also blocks inflammation caused by live or dead bacteria something that conventional antibiotics do not do.

When a person is exposed to high levels of radiation, however, the ability to generate neutrophils is almost obliterated. "It's a perfect storm of disease-causing events," Guinan remarks. "Radiation results in bacteria and endotoxins entering the bloodstream at the same time that the body's defenses are lowered."

The treatment approach developed by Guinan, Levy and their colleagues takes direct aim at two potential contributors to radiation sickness: bacteria and the endotoxins on their surface. "We theorized that a two-drug therapy would be most effective," Levy states. "Others had already shown some benefit to treatment with fluoroquinolones after radiation; at least part of the benefit came from killing bacteria in the blood. The second, rBPI21, would bind to, neutralize, and 'mop up' the endotoxins released by the dying bacteria, thereby removing the trigger of the inflammation process."

In the study, researchers exposed mice to radiation levels of 7 gray (by comparison, the amount emitted by a standard X-ray machine is 0.01 grays.) At those levels, radiation is 95 percent lethal to mice within 30 days.

Twenty-four hours after the radiation exposure, researchers began treating some of the mice with daily doses of fluoroquinolone antibiotic, some with twice-daily doses of rBPI21, and some with both. The mice that received both agents not only had much higher survival rates than the others, but their ability to generate new blood cells also recovered much more quickly.

The promise of this approach is underscored by the nature of the two agents, the study authors say. Both have a proven safety record in humans and can be stored for long periods of time, making them suitable for stockpiling.

The use of rBPI21 was inspired by research in patients whose blood-making tissue undergoes changes similar to those of people exposed to high levels of radiation: cancer patients who undergo bone marrow or stem cell transplants. Such transplants involve high doses of chemotherapy and in some cases radiation therapy, which kills cancer cells but also destroys the blood-forming tissue of the bone marrow, followed by an injection of stem cells to rebuild the blood supply.

"We measured BPI levels in patients receiving stem cell transplants and found they were BPI deficient while also having bacterial endotoxin in their bloodstream," says Levy, who first studied BPI as a graduate student at New York University with the protein's discoverers, Peter Elsbach, MD, PhD, and Jerrold Weiss, PhD. "These observations led to the hypothesis that replenishing BPI could decrease the toxicity of radiation," Levy adds.

The current study is the product of five years of work and collaboration between Levy, Guinan and their associates. "My experience in the field of stem cell transplantation, including the use of total-body irradiation, and caring for patients with diseases of the bone marrow has been a perfect complement to Ofer's expertise in neutrophil function and innate immunity [the arm of the immune system that is the first line of defense against infection]," Guinan comments. "This result is a promising new strategy for response to a nuclear event."

###

Funding for the study was provided by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Dana Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the G. Green Foundation, and the Shea Family Fund.

Co-authors of the study include Christine Barbon, MS, Kalindi Parmar, PhD, Janice Russell, Annie Voskertchian, Geoffrey Cole, PhD, Kaya Zhu, Alan D'Andrea, MD, and Robert Soiffer, MD, Dana-Farber; Leslie Kalish, ScD, Christy Mancuso, Liat Stoler-Barak, Eugenie Suter, Christine Palmer, PhD, Leighanne Gallington, and Jo-Anne Vergilio, MD, Children's Hospital Boston; Jeff Kutok, MD, PhD, Brigham and Women's Hospital; and Jerrold Weiss, PhD, University of Iowa.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute. It provides adult cancer care with Brigham and Women's Hospital as Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center and it provides pediatric care with Children's Hospital Boston as Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center. Dana-Farber is the top ranked cancer center in New England, according to U.S. News & World Report, and one of the largest recipients among independent hospitals of National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health grant funding.
Follow Dana-Farber on Twitter: @danafarber
Follow Dana-Farber on Facebook: www.facebook.com/danafarbercancerinstitute

Children's Hospital Boston is home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. More than 1,100 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 members of the Institute of Medicine and nine members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children's research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children's Hospital Boston today is a 395 bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care grounded in the values of excellence in patient care and sensitivity to the complex needs and diversity of children and families. Children's also is the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more information about research and clinical innovation at Children's, visit: http://vectorblog.org.

Contacts: Teresa Herbert or Rob Levy, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: 617-632-4090
Erin Tonatore, Children's Hospital Boston: 617-919-3110


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/dci-dhb112111.php

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Woman jailed for stealing $1 million from Mark Twain House (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? A former employee of author Mark Twain's historic Connecticut home who admitted to embezzling more than $1 million from it in a long-running scheme was sentenced on Monday to 3-1/2 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of and taxes on the stolen funds.

Judge Warren Eginton of U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, sentenced Donna Gregor, 58, of East Hartford to 42 months in prison and three years of supervised release for the theft, David Fein, U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, said in a statement.

According to court documents and in-court statements, Gregor used two different methods to embezzle $1,080,811 from Hartford's Mark Twain House between 2002 and 2010, and used the proceeds for theater tickets, dining out, mortgage payments, home improvements and credit card and car payments, Fein said.

Gregor, a long-time employee of the prolific American writer's former home and museum, admitted in August to fudging the accounting to steal from the financially troubled business. She pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud and filing a false tax return.

Eginton ordered her to repay the Mark Twain House and the insurance company that has paid out $500,000 on the loss. She also failed to pay federal taxes and was ordered to pay the Internal Revenue Service $322,970 on the stolen funds.

Gregor had faced a maximum term of 23 years and a fine of up to $2 million.

Twain, born Samuel Clemens in Florida, Missouri, had money troubles himself while living in the home from 1874 to 1891 -- a period in which he wrote such American classics as "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn."

Twain ultimately had to leave the Victorian Gothic home for lecture tours of Europe because of financial troubles.

Authorities say Gregor submitted false information over the Internet to the museum's payroll vendor between 2002 and 2010, with the misinformation leading to additional money being deposited to her bank account, classified as payroll advances.

She adjusted ledgers to cover up the advances by reclassifying the amounts as utilities, maintenance and similar items, and she falsified the museum's bank statements to hide the advances, authorities said.

Gregor allegedly also used Mark Twain House's check-writing system to write checks payable to herself and forged her supervisor's signatures on those checks.

The theft was discovered by a bank employee who questioned the signatures on the checks, according to a board member of the historic home.

(Reporting by Zach Howard; additional reporting by Mary Ellen Godin. Editing by Peter Bohan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oddlyenough/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111122/od_nm/us_crime_twain

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LightSquared teams with Soundtracker, gives access to 11 million tunes on-the-go

Nothing puts a pep in our step like streaming a little LMFAO radio on our smartphone and busting out a move or two. Until, of course, we see the astronomical data charges from our personal dance party at the end of the month. Hoping to lessen the blow to our wallets while keeping the party pumping, broadband network provider LightSquared is teaming up with internet radio purveyor Soundtracker to give customers access to 11 million songs stored in the cloud. The bundle will give dancing fools a portal into the world of music from wherever they are, without having to worry about racking up the ridiculous data charges associated with streaming radio -- something we can all get down to. We assume this means the cost of bandwidth will be folded in with the subscription costs, but neither party's spilling the beans on how much that'll be. Check out the full PR after the break.

Continue reading LightSquared teams with Soundtracker, gives access to 11 million tunes on-the-go

LightSquared teams with Soundtracker, gives access to 11 million tunes on-the-go originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sound of Music comes to Salzburg

Move over Mozart. Toes in Salzburg are tapping to a new beat as residents finally embrace the Hollywood musical that put them on the map nearly half a century ago.

Playing for the first time in this haughty town of opera lovers, "The Sound of Music," has been met with surprisingly positive reactions in what is commonly considered a last bulwark of resistance to the iconic show.

"A wonderful performance," enthused Johann Fink as he waited at the coat check at the end of a recent performance at the ornate Salzburg State Theater.

Such a reception in Salzburg is hardly a given despite the global popularity of the musical that was based on a true story and immortalized by the 1965 multiple Academy Award winning movie.

Fans around the world may know every word of every song performed by Julie Andrews as the governess of seven children who charms ? then weds ? their widowed father Baron von Trapp, before the singing family flees the Nazis.

But this city resonates to another sound of music ? the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms.

And it has a different concept of culture.

While residents earn millions each year from the tourists who come for sing-along tours of sites featured in the film, they traditionally view the visitors with benign disdain ? and occasionally as pests.

Residents of the upscale Salzburg neighborhood where the von Trapp home is located tried ? and failed ? to block attempts to turn the edifice into a hotel, fearing tourists would tie up traffic and make a nuisance of themselves. A museum dedicated to the film is still looking for a home after more than 600 residents in another neighborhood signed a petition three years ago against it, telling the city council they feared that local streets would be jammed with tour buses.

Resistance persists even though the city would literally be poorer without the musical's magnet effect.

Peter Proetzner, who guides daily buses full of tourists on pilgrimages of the sites immortalized by the film, cites a poll showing the Sound of Music as the city's second biggest draw ? right after the dozens of classical music events that resonate through its cobblestoned alleys.

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"The Sound of Music is better known than Mozart worldwide," he asserts.

South Koreans learn the songs as part of their English lessons. Some foreigners think "Edelweiss" ? composed for the musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein ? is Austria's national anthem. And Austrian tourism surveys show that three out of four American visitors to Salzburg come because of the musical.

Australian Dianne Cole says she knows "absolutely nothing" about Austria ? and will probably go home still ignorant of the country's cultural, scenic and culinary delights.

"This is why I came to Austria," she said recently, as her Sound of Music tour bus set out for its first stop ? Leopoldskron Lake (where Maria and the children capsized their boat). "The sole reason is to do this tour."

In contrast, most Salzburgers don't even know the musical. In a city that traditionally raps American culture as trashy, residents prefer to be associated with Mozart, Salzburg's favorite son, instead of a film many write off as Hollywood kitsch.

And then there is the troubling Nazi component of The Sound of Music ? a reminder, reinforced by the Swastika flag and storm troopers on stage, that not only Mozart, but Hitler, too, was Austrian.

Austria has long shed its self-fabricated myth that it was a victim of Nazi atrocities instead of one of its most fervent supporters. Restitution panels have returned homes and precious artworks. Millions of euros (dollars) have been doled out to Holocaust victims and their descendants, and schoolbooks now deal in depth with this nation's complicity in the crimes of the Nazi dictator, born just 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Salzburg.

"I think that this is truly the right moment in time, when Austrians are actually ready to deal with their past," says Andreas Gergen, who directed the German-language production.

Still, anti-Semitic sentiment remains. A survey of 1,070 Austrians conducted earlier this year showed that 12 percent want their country "free of Jews." Backed by the country's neo-Nazi fringe, the country's rightist FPO party is the second-strongest in the country ? although it now exploits Islamophobia instead of anti-Jewish sentiment.

And the sight of Nazis on stage may remind some older audience members of uncomfortable historical facts. Over 99 percent of Austrians voted in favor of their country becoming part of the Third Reich in 1938; proportionally more Austrians than Germans were Nazi party members, and many of Hitler's closest henchmen were Austrians.

Like the Salzburg version, the first full Austrian showing in Vienna in 2005 featured actors dressed as Nazi storm troopers standing guard at exits and a theater box filled with mock Nazi dignitaries ? clearly too painful for some. Back then, some elderly audience members who last witnessed brown-shirted men wearing swastika arm bands as children were so troubled they hastily left the theater without watching the performance.

Six years later, reactions to the Nazi theme are mixed.

"Of course it's not so pleasant for us Salzburgers to be confronted with it," said Judith Herbst. But the smartly dressed woman in her mid 60s said that as far as she was concerned the role of Austria in Hitler's crimes was no longer debatable.

For others, though, the sight of men in forbidden Nazi garb entering the theater remains traumatic.

"It was horrible for a moment ? almost unbelievable," said theatergoer Fink. "Thank God this era is in the past!"

But there were no gasps of dismay regarding the rest of the show.

Some hummed its ear-candy melodies at the coat check after the performance.

"Kitsch? I was afraid that would be the case," said Helmi Popeter. "But once you see it, you realize that's not so."

___

George Jahn can be reached at http://twitter.com/georgejahn

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45400066/ns/travel-destination_travel/

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Dreaming takes the sting out of painful memories

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help.

UC Berkeley researchers have found that during the dream phase of sleep, also known as REM sleep, our stress chemistry shuts down and the brain processes emotional experiences and takes the painful edge off difficult memories.

The findings offer a compelling explanation for why people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as war veterans, have a hard time recovering from painful experiences and suffer reoccurring nightmares.They also offer clues into why we dream.

"The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day's emotional experiences," said Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study to be published this Wednesday, Nov. 23, in the journal Current Biology.

For people with PTSD, Walker said, this overnight therapy may not be working effectively, so when a "flashback is triggered by, say, a car backfiring, they relive the whole visceral experience once again because the emotion has not been properly stripped away from the memory during sleep."

The results offer some of the first insights into the emotional function of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which typically takes up 20 percent of a healthy human's sleeping hours. Previous brain studies indicate that sleep patterns are disrupted in people with mood disorders such as PTSD and depression.

While humans spend one-third of their lives sleeping, there is no scientific consensus on the function of sleep. However, Walker and his research team have unlocked many of these mysteries linking sleep to learning, memory and mood regulation. The latest study shows the importance of the REM dream state.

"During REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and connected and integrated, but in a state where stress neurochemicals are beneficially suppressed," said Els van der Helm, a doctoral student in psychology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.

Thirty?five healthy young adults participated in the study. They were divided into two groups, each of whose members viewed 150 emotional images, twice and 12 hours apart, while an MRI scanner measured their brain activity.

Half of the participants viewed the images in the morning and again in the evening, staying awake between the two viewings. The remaining half viewed the images in the evening and again the next morning after a full night of sleep.

Those who slept in between image viewings reported a significant decrease in their emotional reaction to the images. In addition, MRI scans showed a dramatic reduction in reactivity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that processes emotions, allowing the brain's "rational" prefrontal cortex to regain control of the participants' emotional reactions.

In addition, the researchers recorded the electrical brain activity of the participants while they slept, using electroencephalograms. They found that during REM dream sleep, certain electrical activity patterns decreased, showing that reduced levels of stress neurochemicals in the brain soothed emotional reactions to the previous day's experiences.

"We know that during REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress," Walker said. "By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength. We feel better about them, we feel we can cope."

Walker said he was tipped off to the possible beneficial effects of REM sleep on PTSD patients when a physician at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in the Seattle area told him of a blood pressure drug that was inadvertently preventing reoccurring nightmares in PTSD patients.

It turns out that the generic blood pressure drug had a side effect of suppressing norepinephrine in the brain, thereby creating a more stress-free brain during REM, reducing nightmares and promoting a better quality of sleep. This suggested a link between PTSD and REM sleep, Walker said.

"This study can help explain the mysteries of why these medications help some PTSD patients and their symptoms as well as their sleep," Walker said. "It may also unlock new treatment avenues regarding sleep and mental illness."

###

University of California - Berkeley: http://www.berkeley.edu

Thanks to University of California - Berkeley for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115445/Dreaming_takes_the_sting_out_of_painful_memories

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Soyuz with three astronauts lands in Kazakhstan (AP)

MOSCOW ? A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts back from the International Space Station touched down safely in the snow-covered steppes of Kazakhstan early Tuesday morning.

NASA astronaut Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan's JAXA space agency landed at the break of dawn some 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the town of Arkalyk at 8:26 a.m. (0226 GMT) after spending 165 days in space.

The landing was close to its target point.

NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said in the NASA television broadcast that the recovery operation was swift despite the freezing weather and strong wind.

Video from the site showed the Soyuz capsule, blackened by the intense heat of re-entry, lying on its side as the astronauts were extracted.

The three men looked well and smiling, although Furukawa looked visibly exhausted. They were seated in chairs and wrapped in warm blankets to help them get adjusted to gravity after spending four months in space.

Valery Lyndin, spokesman for the Russian Mission Control Center, said all three astronauts are in good health.

NASA's Dan Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin remain onboard the International Space Station and are due to return to Earth in March. They arrived at the station on Wednesday. A launch next month will take the station back to its normal six-person crew.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_on_sc/sci_space_station

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Why Are Thinner People More Likely To Die After Surgery?

TIME:

Thin and normal-weight people may have a higher risk of dying soon after surgery than patients who are overweight, a new study finds. The reason for the link isn't clear, but the findings suggest that BMI, or body mass index, could help identify patients who might be at greater risk after some procedures.

Read the whole story: TIME

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/thinner-people-surgery-risk-death_n_1108094.html

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