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Source: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt219810.html
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Wednesday, January 2, 2013
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Tuesday, January 1, 2013
'Saint of Death' gathers followers in Mexican town
Lined up inside a dark-black painted building in Ciudad?Ju?rez, Mexico, worshippers of La Santa Muerte wait their turn to place their rolled-up paper prayers at the feet of a 5-foot tall statue of an idolized female skeletal figure. She is draped in a white, laced cloak and holds a small globe in one hand, and a tall wooden scythe in the other.
Many of the Santa Muerte statues started popping up in this city around 2009, when drug-related violence began to ravage this border town. More than 10,000 people have been killed in Ciudad?Ju?rez?alone since 2007, when Mexico?s outgoing President Felipe Calder?n?first declared war on the country?s drug cartels. The murder rate earned Ciudad?Ju?rez?the title of murder capital of the world for a while.
Santa Muerte statue looks over prayer room during vigil. (Photo by Alex Pe?a)
Followers recognize La Santa Muerte as an iconic figure of prayer for those looking for protection. The Catholic Church in Mexico denounces the worship as a cult.
The origins of Santa Muerte worship is debated, but many believe it came from the ancient Aztecs and their worship of death. The modern image of Santa Muerte is believed to have surfaced in the mid-20th?century in poor areas of Central Mexico. Now, Santa Muerte can be found throughout all of Mexico, the border, and even some parts of the United States.
Yolanda Salazar inside her prayer room. (Photo Alex Pe?a)
?You can ask the Santa Muerte for many things,? said Yolanda Salazar, self-proclaimed priestess of the Santa Muerte cult in Ciudad Juarez.
?Here in?Ju?rez, people pray for protection, but also health, and for love. What?s important is it comes from the heart. If your intentions are true, it will help you,? she said.
Salazar lives in and runs this particular sanctuary, which is located in the heart of the city, just a drive of a few minutes from the border with the United States. It?s believed there are many makeshift sanctuaries and Santa Muerte altars in?Ju?rez, but Salazar?s is public, and the most popular.
She said she had just a handful of followers in 2010, when she first opened her Santa Muerte sanctuary, which consists of perhaps 100 or more small and large statues of Santa Muerte. This year, her weekly prayer vigils to the Santa Muerte draw in a crowd similar to the size of a Catholic Mass.
Sign telling Santa Muerte believers where to place their money for good luck economically. (Photo by Alex Pe?a)
On this particular night, her vigil resembled more of a Mexican fiesta than an underground worship of death. Mariachi music flooded out into the street, and the 25 or more worshipers ate and danced while the others went inside to make their offerings.
?This has always existed here, but people were timid about professing their belief. They were afraid to be judged by society,? Salazar said. ?But now, a lot of us don?t really care what society thinks.?
According to Salazar, the violence in the city has drawn many followers to her sanctuary, searching for protection that neither the church nor their government can give them.
?Now that it?s come to light, I would say that 40 percent of the people in Juarez believe in Santa Muerte,? she said. ?Still, not all are professing it.?
In Mexico, a traditionally Catholic society, the worship of a deity that isn?t recognized by the Catholic Church usually?means?an association to criminal organizations. Members of drug cartels, commonly referred to as narcos, have long been followers of the Santa Muerte.
Little girl looks into glass window lined with life size statues of La Santa Muerte. (Photo by Alex Pe?a)
Narcos make offerings to the icon in return for protection in their illicit activities. In some rare and very brutal cases, the offerings have consisted of human body parts.
Eight people were arrested in northern Sonora state in March of this year after they were accused of killing two ten-year-old boys and a woman in ritual Santa Muerte sacrifices.
Salazar said that this type of worship is not the ?true cult? of La Santa Muerte.
?This is not exclusively for the narcos,? she said. ?Even police go to her for protection. Even they realize how powerful she is.?
The Catholic Church in Mexico has consistently denounced the worship of such a deity, but it cannot deny the rise in adoration for such figures in Mexico?s violent border towns.
Rev. Felipe de Jes?s Ju?rez,?head priest at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in CD.?Ju?rez, says the belief of Santa Muerte arrived in Ciudad?Ju?rez?around 2009 and 2010, at the height of the violence. Though the murder rate has dropped dramatically, the culture of death has not.
Mix of flowers, ginger, and other ingredients being offered as a sacrifice to La Santa Muerte inside of Sanctuary. (Photo by Alex Pe?a)
?We are all exposed to this new cultural situation. Here in the border we see a lot of different types of beliefs,??Ju?rez?said. ?This started with people who don?t have a good moral base. They are grabbing death, putting a cloak on it, and making it a saint. But it?s not a saint; it?s death.?
In the case of Santa Muerte, once followers pray to her, they believe she will grant them favors, but they must repay her.
?If they don?t, they believe they will be punished,??Ju?rez?said. ?So many live in fear.?
He said he opposes such a practice because he believes the grace of God is free.
Nonetheless,?Ju?rez?recognizes the power of Yolanda Salazar and her followers of this growing cult in his city.
?This woman, a self-proclaimed high priest who started out of her house, now has a full building with a sanctuary,? he said. ??The devotion in Mexico is very strong.?
Candles lit for prayer vigil inside Santa Muerte Sanctuary. (Photo by Alex Pe?a)
And nowhere is the diversity of Santa Muerte worship more prevalent than inside the gates of a Salazar prayer vigil. Little boys and girls hold flowers and candles as offerings; their parents write the prayers on small sheets of paper.
All while a group of teenagers stand and chat near the door, waiting their turn to enter and place their own prayers.
?I feel a lot of security,? said Alexia Varaza, 20, a follower of Santa Muerte. ?I?ve had a lot of luck with La Santa Muerte. She gives me strength.?
Varaza?s mother and father are believers in the cult, but the rest of her family is skeptical.
?That stuff?s for sicarios ? for killers!? said Varaza,?explaining what her family thinks of the cult vigils she attends every weekend.
?That?s not what it is for me. I just tell them I?m a student, and I need the good luck!?
Whether for sicarios or students, Salazar?s doors are open 24/7 to people searching for protection in a city saturated with violence.
?The real cult, our cult, is to go out and profess the goodness of La Santa Muerte,? Salazar said. ?That?s why I opened the sanctuary.?
Salazar has plans to open another Santa Muerte sanctuary next year, with the expectation that her following will continue to grow as massively as during the past year. ?She certainly will be praying to her beloved Santa Muerte for that to happen.
Alex Pe?a is a freelance foreign correspondent currently covering Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Previously, Pena was based in Nairobi, Kenya covering East Africa for Voice of America TV, and has also filed stories from the Middle East, including the border of Jordan and Syria. He graduated from the journalism program at Florida Gulf Coast University in December 2011.
Source: http://nbclatino.com/2012/12/31/la-santa-muerte-cult-sees-major-growth-in-mexican-border-town/
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Clinton's blood clot an uncommon complication
The kind of blood clot in the skull that doctors say Hillary Rodham Clinton has is relatively uncommon but can occur after an injury like the fall and concussion the secretary of state was diagnosed with earlier this month.
Doctors said Monday that an MRI scan revealed a clot in a vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind Clinton's right ear.
The clot did not lead to a stroke or neurological damage and is being treated with blood thinners, and she will be released once the proper dose is worked out, her doctors said in a statement.
Clinton has been at New York-Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday, when the clot was diagnosed during what the doctors called a routine follow-up exam. At the time, her spokesman would not say where the clot was located, leading to speculation it was another leg clot like the one she suffered behind her right knee in 1998.
Clinton had been diagnosed with a concussion Dec. 13 after a fall in her home that was blamed on a stomach virus that left her weak and dehydrated.
The type of clot she developed, a sinus venous thrombosis, "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said neurologist Dr. Larry Goldstein. He is director of Duke University's stroke center and has no role in Clinton's care or personal knowledge of it.
The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull ? it's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein explained.
It should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, he said.
Dr. Joseph Broderick, chairman of neurology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, also called Clinton's problem "relatively uncommon" after a concussion.
He and Goldstein said the problem often is overdiagnosed. They said scans often show these large "draining pipes" on either side of the head are different sizes, which can mean blood has pooled or can be merely an anatomical difference.
"I'm sure she's got the best doctors in the world looking at her," and if they are saying she has no neurological damage, "I would think it would be a pretty optimistic long-term outcome," Broderick said.
A review article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005 describes the condition, which more often occurs in newborns or young people but can occur after a head injury. With modern treatment, more than 80 percent have a good neurologic outcome, the report says.
In the statement, Clinton's doctors said she "is making excellent progress and we are confident she will make a full recovery. She is in good spirits, engaging with her doctors, her family, and her staff."
___
Online:
Medical journal: http://dura.stanford.edu/Articles/Stam_NEJM05.pdf
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clintons-blood-clot-uncommon-complication-233641274.html
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Security arrangements intensified in city on New Year's Eve ...
KARACHI?-?The Sindh government has imposed a ban on pillion-riding and carrying of licensed arms for three days as extra security measures have been put in place on New Year?s Eve in Karachi.
The Sindh Home department had issued a notification which banned pillion-riding and carrying of licensed arms in Karachi for a period of three days. The ban would be effective from 5:00 pm December 31, 2012 to January 3, 2013. The home department had also withdrawn section 144 arms license permit for the mentioned period. The provincial government also banned aerial firing in the metropolis on New Year?s night, while operating motorcycles without silencers had also been prohibited on the occassion.
The provincial government also banned entry in the Sea View area on New Year?s Eve. The roads leading to Sea View were sealed off by installing barricades. Meanwhile, the traffic police banned parking on Shara-e-Faisal, Abdullah Haroon Road, Salahuddin Road, Mai Kolachi and MT Khan Road. Roads from Korangi to Akhtar Colony leading to Sea View would also be blocked. Traffic police had been advising the residents of Karachi to use the route from Korangi to Shara-e-Faisal, Regent Chowk and Club Chowk and from Teen Talwar to Abdullah Shah Gazi. Due to closure of Korangi road, a traffic jam was reported earlier in Korangi Industrial Area.
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Republican Senator Kyl cites progress in fiscal cliff talks
New York State Assemblyman Sean M. Ryan announced this week that he?s proposing tougher animal abuse penalties. The legislation, which is being called, ?Phoenix?s Law,? is named for a Jack Russell Terrier who was burned alive by two teenagers in October. ?Phoenix? lived through the ordeal, but is still in a Buffalo animal hospital recovering from burns and broken bones.
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Electronic Sports activities Nirvana as well as Olympics tend to be ...
It?s extremely situated in order to forge the profitable route via compensated high quality content material, interactive advertising as well as interpersonal advertising. However the Disney-owned sports activities huge is actually treading much more gently in to these types of areas compared to numerous anticipated.
Up to now, ESPN has had in order to center the actual well-publicized cases of press gamers who?ve sustained the actual wrath associated with it?s appreciation people once they attempted in order to wreck havoc on their own advertising, marketing, content material as well as interpersonal associations. Nevertheless, it?s much more essential than ever before with regard to businesses in order to discover as well as test potential customers with regard to addressable marketing as well as high quality spend content material. There?s a good financial bonanza inside someplace.
ESPN offers each and every cause to maneuver very carefully. ESPN adds $9. four million associated with Disney?s complete cable television system income associated with $12. four million, as well as $3. 6 million associated with Disney?s complete cable television system income associated with $4. 6 million within financial 2011, based on Morgan Stanley. televised privileges will probably get to be the very first, the majority of raucous scrimmage with regard to electronic content material. It might spend good looking returns within brand new electronic income in order to counteract the advised $4 million cost with regard to household telecast privileges from the 4 Olympics Video games, resources state.
For several years, NBC cast it?s Olympics telecasts right into a lucrative as well as exclusive proposal through strongly increasing the actual club through transmit in order to cable television in order to loading on the internet movie as well as cellular, exactly where presently there continues to be lots of fertile floor in order to discover. The actual extreme universality can make the actual Olympics a unique check situation within brand new electronic company versions in order to counter-top growing over-the-top TELEVISION as well as cord-cutting actually in the nation?s biggest cable television techniques owner.
Comcast might ambitiously places it?s Kayak Endeavors, TELEVISION Almost everywhere, Xfinity upon steroids along with other brand new functions to operate. Perhaps Comcast can consider twin possession associated with content material as well as submission in order to locations Period Warner would not proceed. For a long time, Comcast may be intention upon getting much more of the sports activities pressure to become believed along with upon local as well as nationwide amounts.
Simply because ESPN is actually distinctively situated to try electronic sports activities nirvana, Comcast might have to dedicate enormous amounts to keep NBC?s Olympics advantage. As the MSO obviously is actually purchasing NBCU because of its cable television system butt, amusement as well as information content material usually aren?t however powerful profitable membership as well as advertising ways of assistance wholesome brand new income flow.
Sports activities encoding privileges as well as ideals is only going to be complicated. Reside sports activities is within the actual fairly sweet place from the almost $29 million marketers are required to invest on the internet this season, even though video?s part remands under 10%, based on eMarketer. Sports activities includes just about all types of electronic content material as well as performance past reside perform ? through dream groups as well as game titles as well as replays, in order to loading information as well as information, smartphone applications, as well as specific items.
Quick modifications within the marketing as well as press scenery tend to be making client purchase problems which content material for example sports activities may permeate, based on JP Morgan?s voluminous ?Nothing Bu Net? statement. It is the 1 type of content material which adapts to any or all press products as well as systems, in a vocabulary.
The biggest and many essential income flow within the b-to-b industry would be the costs compensated through cable television as well as satellite television proprietors for that to make use of their own sports activities privileges along with other content material. Within the arriving many years, these types of affiliate marketer costs would have been a crucial car owner associated with field income along with a ongoing supply of antagonism in between content material proprietors as well as marketers.
However the introduction associated with brand new products as well as entry choices may deliver brand new types of ?affiliates. inch Simply because ESPN?s month-to-month affiliate marketers charge is actually this type of substantial outlier ? ESPN statements 20% from the affiliate marketer charge container along with just 5% from the watching target audience. Additional outliers consist of local sports activities systems such as INDEED will also be in the top finish associated with month-to-month affiliate marketer costs, based on a current statement through Nomura Investments analyzer Erina Nathanson. Period Warner?s TNT offers bolstered it?s general worth by having an NBA agreement with regard to normal period video games, All-StarWeekend as well as playoffs.
ESPN is actually including much more three dimensional choices as well as electronic interactive functions as well as support that may just appeal to customers as well as marketers. ESPN?s household sports activities expenses are required to improve through higher solitary numbers within 2011, that is greater than recently using its NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, NBA, NASCAR as well as NCAA agreements secured within via financial 2013. The only real ?notable development exception? might be ALL OF US privileges towards the 2014 as well as 2016 Olympic Video games, Nathanson stated.
Based on MAGNA, the actual NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE offers a lot more than 25% ever invested watching sports activities using its privileges costs, symbolizing almost 1 / 2 of just about all complete nationwide tv bucks allocated to sports activities, or even more compared to $5 million. Each and every press describe within transmit as well as cable television, on the internet as well as within cellular, in publications as well as upon stereo is actually pressurized in order to develop methods to produce plenty brand new income in order to with each other much better counteract individuals expenses. ESPN may be settling the five-year, 5% price improve restoration for that privileges in order to Mon Evening Soccer.
ESPN?s cable television affiliate marketers may produce approximately $6. four million as well as marketing income associated with $2. 8 million within 2011 when compared with almost $300 zillion within on the internet as well as cellular earnings for any complete associated with $9. four million within financial 2011 income as well as $3. 6 million within income, based on Morgan Stanley. ESPN may hardly gather $325 zillion within on the internet as well as cellular income through 2015. That is horrible, provided the actual connection sports activities enthusiasts need to discovering a common groups, gamers as well as sports activities in most interactive method feasible.
In the event that Comcast or even every other cross-platform press huge may accomplish an electronic interactive sports activities coup, they might nick aside from ESPN?s general $60 million resource worth, composed of 1 / 2 of just about all Walt Disney Company. Because traditional press is constantly on the deliver in order to as well as intertwine using the so-called brand new electronic press, actually ESPN?s TELEVISION foundation will need shoring through brand new income resources as well as brand new affiliate marketers that will not end up being nearby TELEVISION channels, nationwide TELEVISION systems as well as cable television MSOs.
Posts related to Electronic Sports activities Nirvana as well as Olympics tend to be ESPN's to get rid of in order to Comcast
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Direct evidence for receptor's role in synapse development
Dec. 31, 2012 ? Jackson Laboratory researchers led by Associate Professor Zhong-wei Zhang, Ph.D., have provided direct evidence that a specific neurotransmitter receptor is vital to the process of pruning synapses in the brains of newborn mammals.
Faulty pruning at this early developmental stage is implicated in autism-spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. The definitive evidence for N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) in pruning has eluded researchers until now, but in research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Zhang's lab had serendipitous help in the form of a mouse model containing brain cells lacking NMDAR side-by-side with cells containing the receptor.
Soon after birth, mammals' brains undergo significant development and change. Initially, large numbers of synapses form between neurons. Then, in response to stimuli, the synaptic connections are refined -- some synapses are strengthened and others eliminated, or pruned.
In most synapses, glutamate serves as the neurotransmitter, and NMDAR, a major type of post-synaptic glutamate receptor, was previously known to play an important role in neural circuit development. Previous research has implicated the importance of NMDARs in pruning, but it remained unclear whether they played a direct or indirect role.
Zhang and colleagues focused on the thalamus, a brain region where synapse pruning and strengthening can be monitored and quantified with relative ease. They got unexpected help when they realized the mouse model they were using had thalamus cells lacking NMDARs right next to cells with normal NMDAR levels.
The researchers showed that the refinement process was disrupted in the absence of NMDARs. At the same time, neighboring neurons with the receptors proceeded through normal synaptic strengthening and pruning, clearly establishing the necessity of NMDARs in postsynaptic neurons for synaptic refinement.
"Whenever I give a talk or meet colleagues," Zhang says, "the first question that comes up is whether the NMDA receptor is important. It's good that this is now settled definitively."
There has been extensive research into synaptic strengthening, and most of these studies indicate that the presence of NMDARs may support the recruitment of larger numbers of another kind of glutamate receptor to strengthen the synaptic connections. How NMDARs regulate the pruning process remains largely unknown, however.
The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and a new genomic medicine institute in Farmington, Conn. It employs a total staff of more than 1,400. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Jackson Laboratory.
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Journal Reference:
- Zhong-Wei Zhang, Matthew Peterson, Hong Liu. Essential role of postsynaptic NMDA receptors in developmental refinement of excitatory synapses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1212971110
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/Ilph_sjEjzg/121231161049.htm
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