Always board | Front Porch | Indy Week

With a new baby comes new cleaning. On a recent winter Saturday, I stayed in, sorting through storage closets to make room for the inevitable deluge of infant supplies that will arrive when my wife, Stacy, soon has our second child. When I stumbled across our stash of board games, I had to laugh: I hope the latest addition to our family comes equipped with a decent attention span.

Most of our rather immense board game collection comes from Stacy. Before we met, she was an avid card player and gamer. Still, as a child, I spent a lot of time playing board games and putting together 5,000-piece puzzles with my grandparents. During snowy days in Pennsylvania with my paternal grandmother, we would take breaks from marathon Monopoly sessions to build a snowman in the yard. After we retreated back into the warmth for dinner, we'd continue building our make-believe estates. My maternal grandmother taught me Canasta, a variation on rummy. And as Jeopardy sounded from the TV in the next room, my immediate family often huddled around the dinner table for hours playing Yahtzee.

I forgot about board games during my college years, but when I married Stacy, we soon became known to friends as the board-game duo. We hosted game nights, took games on our honeymoon, sat on the streets of Portland shuffling letters around while a parade passed. We've gone through phases of collecting board games like rare vinyl, owning several copies of the same game without realizing we already had one at home. Or if we've gone on a trip and forgotten the desired game, we've popped out to the closest shop to buy it. Need travel Scrabble? We must have five sets.

Though we did spend this New Year's Eve at home playing the new Cards Against Humanity with friends, we've typically found that, as young parents, finding a few hours to sit around the table and play long board games at the end of an exhausting day can be hard. Luckily, Scrabble for iPhone keeps one rivalry alive.

During the past three years, we've bought a few games for Oliver. He's played with them a few times and quickly forgotten about them, which is understandable for a toddler. This Christmas, though, all Oliver could talk about was Candyland after playing it with his cousins on vacation. On Christmas morning, his face lit up when he unwrapped the gift. Since then, we've pulled out Twister, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Trouble, Fastrack and a few others to keep us occupied during the cold winter months.

When we announced our second child, we simply posted online a photo of a Scrabble board with the names Stacy, Jed, Oliver, Niko (our dog) and Baby interconnected along the board. We want to continue this culture and tradition as much as possible for our children. The game collection is now happily out of a hidden closet and sits alongside our art and music collections upstairs.

As for our ongoing iPhone Scrabble rivalry, Stacy's currently ahead 39-10 after a few turns. But there are still 76 letters left in the bag.

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Owl monkeys who 'stay true' reproduce more than those with multiple partners

Jan. 23, 2013 ? Breaking up is hard to do -- and can be detrimental to one's reproductive fitness, according to a new University of Pennsylvania study.

Focusing on wide-eyed, nocturnal owl monkeys, considered a socially monogamous species, the research reveals that, when an owl monkey pair is severed by an intruding individual, the mate who takes up with a new partner produces fewer offspring than a monkey who sticks with its tried-and-true partner.

The findings underscore how monogamy and pair-bonds -- relatively rare social formations among mammals -- can benefit certain individuals, with potential implications for understanding how human relationship patterns may have evolved.

Eduardo Fernandez-Duque and Maren Huck report on the research in PLOS ONE. Fernandez-Duque is an associate professor in Penn's Department of Anthropology. Huck completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Fernandez-Duque's laboratory and is now a professor at the University of Derby in the United Kingdom.

Since 1997, Fernandez-Duque and colleagues have monitored an owl monkey population in a portion of Argentina's Chaco region. Their behavioral observations, demographic data and physiological sampling have provided a wealth of information on the animals.

"We have managed over the years to have quite significant sample sizes for a study of wild non-human primates," Fernandez-Duque said. "These findings are possible because we have intense demographic monitoring year-round that allows us to notice when a male is missing, when a female is missing or when there's a new adult in the group. We couple this with intense behavioral monitoring that allows us to document the details of fights or the whole process of mate replacement."

The current study amasses data from 16 years of observation of 18 owl monkey groups, a total of 154 animals. Owl monkeys live in monogamous groups consisting of an adult male, an adult female and their offspring. The juveniles disperse from the group around age 3 or 4.

In 2008, Fernandez-Duque and colleagues published a paper reporting, for the first time, the presence of a so-called "floater" individual, which attacked the male member of an owl monkey pair and essentially replaced him as a mate and infant-care provider.

The Penn team now demonstrates that this usurping of mates by both male and female floaters is a common occurrence. The researchers documented 27 female and 23 male replacements in the groups they observed.

The replacements often involved dramatic fights, some of which ended fatally for the evicted individual.

"These are high-stakes competitions for reproductive positions," Fernandez-Duque said.

By following pairs and observing replacements, Fernandez-Duque and Huck show that having a partner evicted harms the reproductive success of the remaining mate. Owl monkeys with one partner produced 25 percent more offspring per decade than those with two or more partners.

"What we're showing is that if you manage to stay with the same partner you produce more infants than if you're forced to change partners," Fernandez-Duque said.

The reason for this significant impact on the reproductive success of the remaining partner is not yet completely clear, but the researchers surmise that it may have to do with a delay in reproduction due to the fact that female owl monkeys in Argentina typically only conceive between March and May. It's also possible the delay occurs because the two individuals take time to assess one another before reproducing, given the significant commitment to infant care that both males and females make.

The results demonstrate that, for owl monkeys, long-term monogamy and pair-bonding improves reproductive fitness. The finding helps explain previous research by Fernandez-Duque's group, which has shown that male owl monkeys invest significantly in raising their offspring.

"Monogamy makes sense for these primates, because the male who sticks to a female is certain about the paternity of the young, and so he invests in their care," he said. "The female benefits from shared provisioning of care which may help her reduce the burden of pregnancy and lactation."

Fernandez-Duque's studies of owl monkeys in Argentina and his collaborative research on monogamous titi and saki monkeys of Ecuador are helping scientists understand the ecological and biological factors that gave rise to pair-bonds in non-human primates and in humans.

"There's some consensus among anthropologists that pairs-bonds must have played an important role in the origin of human societies," Fernandez-Duque said. "Call it love, call it friendship, call it marriage, there is something in our biology that leads to this enduring, emotional bond between two individuals that is widespread among human societies."

The research was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation, the Zoological Society of San Diego and the German Science Foundation.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Pennsylvania.

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Journal Reference:

1. Eduardo Fernandez-Duque, Maren Huck. Till Death (Or an Intruder) Do Us Part: Intrasexual-Competition in a Monogamous Primate. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (1): e53724 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0053724

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/ZlF4K_AIQrk/130123195256.htm

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Here's The Good News For Apple - Business Insider

Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

?

A lot of normal people are looking at Apple's earnings results and asking themselves a pretty reasonable question: "What exactly is the problem here?"

After all, iPhone sales of 47.8 million units were up on a year over year basis, despite the fact that Apple only had 13 weeks to sell the iPhone this year versus 14 weeks for the year before.

Revenue and profits were new records for Apple. Apple can't make enough iPad Minis to keep people happy. And, oh yeah, it has $137 billion in cash.

Yet, the stock fell 11% in reaction to earnings. And to listen to some people, you might think Apple was going to close up shop tomorrow.

What exactly is the problem here?

Objectively, there is no problem. Apple is still a very strong company making products people absolutely love.

But, Apple's growth has fallen significantly. There was a time when it was producing mind boggling growth. As that growth took off, investors and analysts rejiggered their expectations for the company. And those expectations quickly got out of control.

Now expectations are being reset. The iPhone isn't going to take over the world. The iPad isn't going to be as lucrative as the iPhone. And it's highly unlikely Apple has another magic money machine like the iPhone.

Remember, Apple collects $640 per iPhone sold, with ~50% of that as profit. There will never be another Apple product as profitable that sells in such volumes. So, even if Apple comes out with a TV, it won't save Apple's sliding revenue and profit growth.

And the truth about the iPhone as currently constructed is that it has largely run its course. Its hyper-growth era is over. It will still grow, just not in the same tremendous way.

Yes, Apple is still a very healthy company, but contrary to expectations it is mortal. It will not fly to the moon. The $1,000 price targets are going away.

And, weirdly, that's sort of good news. The resetting of expectations gives Apple more room to breath. It won't have to live up to impossible standards. It can start beating expectations again.

If Apple's lucky, the stock will come back to life. If it doesn't, it doesn't. It won't mean Apple's products aren't great. It just means investors don't like the stock.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-good-news-for-apple-2013-1

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Plants adapt to drought but limits are looming, study finds

Public release date: 22-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Daniel Stolte
stolte@email.arizona.edu
520-626-4402
University of Arizona

Plants can adapt their demand for water depending on how much is available - However, this resilience has a limit, and prolonged drought conditions threaten the survival of plant communities, especially in more arid areas

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, and their partners have determined that water demand by many plant communities can fluctuate in response to water availability, indicating a capacity for resilience even when changing climate patterns produce periodic droughts or floods.

But their research also suggests that a limit to this resilience ultimately could threaten the survival of these plant communities. Sensitive environments such as the arid grasslands in the Southwestern U.S. already are approaching this limit.

Results from this study were published in the journal Nature by a team of Agricultural Research Service, or ARS, scientists, including three scientists affiliated with the UA. ARS is USDA's chief scientific research agency.

The study was led by UA-affiliated ARS researchers Guillermo Ponce Campos and Susan Moran and an Australian team led by Alfredo Huete from the University of Technology, Sydney.

"We found that plants have a capacity for resilience even in the face of the severe drought over the past decade," said Ponce Campos, the study's lead author. Ponce Campos led the research as part of his doctoral work at the UA and now is a research associate working with Moran.

"From grasslands to forests, plants can tolerate low precipitation, but if drought conditions continue past a certain point, this resilience will fail," said Moran, who graduated from the UA and now is a researcher with the USDA ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center and an adjunct professor in the department of soil, water and environmental science in the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Once that limit is reached, water-starved plants lose their ability to take advantage of increased precipitation, even if the drought makes way for wetter conditions, Moran explained.

The researchers conducted their investigation using measurements made during 2000-09 at 29 sites in the United States, Puerto Rico and Australia. This provided data about precipitation patterns in the various types of environments. Globally, the 2000-09 decade ranked as the 10 warmest years of the 130-year (1880-2009) record. The team compared these data with measurements taken from 1975 to 1998 at 14 sites in North America, Central America and South America.

To calculate ecosystem water use, the scientists used satellite observations to approximate above-ground net plant productivity at each site. Then they combined these approximations with field data of precipitation and estimates of plant water loss to generate indicators of plant water use efficiency.

The team observed that ecosystem water-use efficiency increased in the driest years and decreased in the wettest years. This suggests that plant water demand fluctuated in accordance with water availability and that there is a cross-community capacity for tolerating low precipitation and responding to high precipitation during periods of warm drought.

However, the team observed that the water-use efficiency data exhibited a trend of "diminishing returns." This suggests plant communities eventually will approach a water-use efficiency threshold that will disrupt plant water use and severely limit plant production when drought is prolonged.

"Prolonged, warm drought makes a difference," Moran said. "To date, it appears there is resilience, but in the more sensitive biomes like grasslands, we are starting to see evidence of decreasing resilience. And as more and more ecosystems increase in aridity, more will reach this threshold."

The authors report that in some Australian grasslands, ecosystem resilience has decreased with the increasing aridity widely reported as a result of the prolonged warm drought over these biomes.

Moran cautioned that her team also saw the limit in some of the study areas in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

"We know what the resilience was in the 1980s and 1990s, and we compared it to the early 21st century," she said. "That's how we know it's decreasing. We certainly found resilience, but it is approaching the threshold."

Moran pointed out this study was only possible through the collaboration of researchers combining long-term observations at study sites across the globe to reach these conclusions, including the oldest, longest-operating range-land research facility in the world: the Santa Rita Experimental Range managed by the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Established in 1902, the study area encompasses 52,000 acres, or about 80 square miles, on the western side of the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson.

"Here, scientists studying vegetation, animals and soils have documented changes in the environment as a function of land use and how weather and climate have influenced these patterns," said Mitchel McClaran, a professor in the UA's School of Natural Resources and the Environment and the range's director for research, who co-authored the study.

"Making these long-term data available to researchers across the world today is what makes studies like this possible," McClaran said. "We perform experiments and explore best management practices so they can be adopted wildlife managers, ranchers and other natural resources managers throughout the Southwest."

Work like the present study can help resource managers develop agricultural production strategies that incorporate changes in water availability linked to changing precipitation patterns.

"In the United States, much of our agricultural productivity has depended on long-term precipitation regimes. But those patterns are changing and we need information for managing the effects of those shifts," said ARS Administrator Edward Knipling. "These findings can help managers respond to the challenges of global climate change with effective strategies for maintaining agricultural productivity."

###

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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.

Public release date: 22-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Daniel Stolte
stolte@email.arizona.edu
520-626-4402
University of Arizona

Plants can adapt their demand for water depending on how much is available - However, this resilience has a limit, and prolonged drought conditions threaten the survival of plant communities, especially in more arid areas

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, and their partners have determined that water demand by many plant communities can fluctuate in response to water availability, indicating a capacity for resilience even when changing climate patterns produce periodic droughts or floods.

But their research also suggests that a limit to this resilience ultimately could threaten the survival of these plant communities. Sensitive environments such as the arid grasslands in the Southwestern U.S. already are approaching this limit.

Results from this study were published in the journal Nature by a team of Agricultural Research Service, or ARS, scientists, including three scientists affiliated with the UA. ARS is USDA's chief scientific research agency.

The study was led by UA-affiliated ARS researchers Guillermo Ponce Campos and Susan Moran and an Australian team led by Alfredo Huete from the University of Technology, Sydney.

"We found that plants have a capacity for resilience even in the face of the severe drought over the past decade," said Ponce Campos, the study's lead author. Ponce Campos led the research as part of his doctoral work at the UA and now is a research associate working with Moran.

"From grasslands to forests, plants can tolerate low precipitation, but if drought conditions continue past a certain point, this resilience will fail," said Moran, who graduated from the UA and now is a researcher with the USDA ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center and an adjunct professor in the department of soil, water and environmental science in the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Once that limit is reached, water-starved plants lose their ability to take advantage of increased precipitation, even if the drought makes way for wetter conditions, Moran explained.

The researchers conducted their investigation using measurements made during 2000-09 at 29 sites in the United States, Puerto Rico and Australia. This provided data about precipitation patterns in the various types of environments. Globally, the 2000-09 decade ranked as the 10 warmest years of the 130-year (1880-2009) record. The team compared these data with measurements taken from 1975 to 1998 at 14 sites in North America, Central America and South America.

To calculate ecosystem water use, the scientists used satellite observations to approximate above-ground net plant productivity at each site. Then they combined these approximations with field data of precipitation and estimates of plant water loss to generate indicators of plant water use efficiency.

The team observed that ecosystem water-use efficiency increased in the driest years and decreased in the wettest years. This suggests that plant water demand fluctuated in accordance with water availability and that there is a cross-community capacity for tolerating low precipitation and responding to high precipitation during periods of warm drought.

However, the team observed that the water-use efficiency data exhibited a trend of "diminishing returns." This suggests plant communities eventually will approach a water-use efficiency threshold that will disrupt plant water use and severely limit plant production when drought is prolonged.

"Prolonged, warm drought makes a difference," Moran said. "To date, it appears there is resilience, but in the more sensitive biomes like grasslands, we are starting to see evidence of decreasing resilience. And as more and more ecosystems increase in aridity, more will reach this threshold."

The authors report that in some Australian grasslands, ecosystem resilience has decreased with the increasing aridity widely reported as a result of the prolonged warm drought over these biomes.

Moran cautioned that her team also saw the limit in some of the study areas in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

"We know what the resilience was in the 1980s and 1990s, and we compared it to the early 21st century," she said. "That's how we know it's decreasing. We certainly found resilience, but it is approaching the threshold."

Moran pointed out this study was only possible through the collaboration of researchers combining long-term observations at study sites across the globe to reach these conclusions, including the oldest, longest-operating range-land research facility in the world: the Santa Rita Experimental Range managed by the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Established in 1902, the study area encompasses 52,000 acres, or about 80 square miles, on the western side of the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson.

"Here, scientists studying vegetation, animals and soils have documented changes in the environment as a function of land use and how weather and climate have influenced these patterns," said Mitchel McClaran, a professor in the UA's School of Natural Resources and the Environment and the range's director for research, who co-authored the study.

"Making these long-term data available to researchers across the world today is what makes studies like this possible," McClaran said. "We perform experiments and explore best management practices so they can be adopted wildlife managers, ranchers and other natural resources managers throughout the Southwest."

Work like the present study can help resource managers develop agricultural production strategies that incorporate changes in water availability linked to changing precipitation patterns.

"In the United States, much of our agricultural productivity has depended on long-term precipitation regimes. But those patterns are changing and we need information for managing the effects of those shifts," said ARS Administrator Edward Knipling. "These findings can help managers respond to the challenges of global climate change with effective strategies for maintaining agricultural productivity."

###

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/uoa-pat012213.php

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Ohio State implants first brain pacemaker to treat Alzheimer's

Public release date: 23-Jan-2013
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Contact: Eileen Scahill
Eileen.Scahill@osumc.edu
614-293-3737
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center

COLUMBUS, Ohio During a five-hour surgery last October at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Kathy Sanford became the first Alzheimer's patient in the United States to have a pacemaker implanted in her brain.

She is the first of up to 10 patients who will be enrolled in an FDA-approved study at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center to determine if using a brain pacemaker can improve cognitive and behavioral functioning in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The study employs the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS), the same technology used to successfully treat about 100,000 patients worldwide with movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease. In the study, researchers hope to determine whether DBS surgery can improve function governed by the frontal lobe and neural networks involved in cognition and behavior by stimulating certain areas of the brain with a pacemaker.

Dr. Douglas Scharre, neurologist and director of the division of cognitive neurology, and Dr. Ali Rezai, neurosurgeon and director of the neuroscience program, both at Wexner Medical Center, are conducting the study.

"If the early findings that we're seeing continue to be robust and progressive, then I think that will be very promising and encouraging for us," says Rezai, who also directs the Center for Neuromodulation at Ohio State. "But so far we are cautiously optimistic."

The deep brain stimulation implant is similar to a cardiac pacemaker device with the exception that the pacemaker wires are implanted in the brain rather than the heart.

"Basically, the pacemakers send tiny signals into the brain that regulate the abnormal activity of the brain and normalize it more," says Rezai. "Right now, from what we're seeing in our first patient, I think the results are encouraging, but this is research. We need to do more research and understand what's going on."

The study, which will enroll people with mild or early-stage Alzheimer's disease, will help determine if DBS has the potential to improve cognitive, behavioral and functional deficits.

Sanford continues to be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the technology, says Rezai. She says she volunteered for the study to help others avoid the angst she has suffered as Alzheimer's slowly disrupted her life.

"I'm just trying to make the world a better place," says Sanford. "That's all I'm doing."

Her father, Joe Jester, says he is proud that his daughter is participating in the study, and is pleased to see her showing improvements.

"This study seemed to just give us hope," said Jester. "I guess we were at the place where you just don't do anything and watch the condition deteriorate over the years, or try to do something that would give us hope and might stop the progression of this disease."

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of degenerative dementia, afflicting about 5.5 million Americans and costing more than $100 billion per year, ranking it the third costliest disease in terms of health care expenditures in the United States.

Alzheimer's disease which has no cure and is not easily managed becomes progressively disabling with loss of memory, cognition, worsening behavioral function, in addition to a gradual loss of independent functioning, says Scharre.

The Ohio State neurology team is nationally renowned for expertise in dementia and Alzheimer's care and research. In addition, the neuromodulation team at Ohio State are pioneers in the use of DBS to treat Parkinson's disease, as well as exploring the use of DBS for other neurological and neurobehavioral conditions. Researchers at the Neuromodulation Center are completing a study of DBS in patients with traumatic brain injuries, and have initiated a study of DBS for treating obesity.

The Alzheimer's study is scheduled to be completed in 2015.

###

BROADCAST QUALITY B-ROLL, SOUND BITES, WEB ELEMENTS & STILL PHOTOS - Including HD video available with or without names/titles is available free/unrestricted: http://bit.ly/114UlJB

Media Contact: Shannon McCormick, office: 614-932-9950 or cell: 614-477-2719 or shannon@mediasourcetv.com

---

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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.

Public release date: 23-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Eileen Scahill
Eileen.Scahill@osumc.edu
614-293-3737
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center

COLUMBUS, Ohio During a five-hour surgery last October at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Kathy Sanford became the first Alzheimer's patient in the United States to have a pacemaker implanted in her brain.

She is the first of up to 10 patients who will be enrolled in an FDA-approved study at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center to determine if using a brain pacemaker can improve cognitive and behavioral functioning in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The study employs the use of deep brain stimulation (DBS), the same technology used to successfully treat about 100,000 patients worldwide with movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease. In the study, researchers hope to determine whether DBS surgery can improve function governed by the frontal lobe and neural networks involved in cognition and behavior by stimulating certain areas of the brain with a pacemaker.

Dr. Douglas Scharre, neurologist and director of the division of cognitive neurology, and Dr. Ali Rezai, neurosurgeon and director of the neuroscience program, both at Wexner Medical Center, are conducting the study.

"If the early findings that we're seeing continue to be robust and progressive, then I think that will be very promising and encouraging for us," says Rezai, who also directs the Center for Neuromodulation at Ohio State. "But so far we are cautiously optimistic."

The deep brain stimulation implant is similar to a cardiac pacemaker device with the exception that the pacemaker wires are implanted in the brain rather than the heart.

"Basically, the pacemakers send tiny signals into the brain that regulate the abnormal activity of the brain and normalize it more," says Rezai. "Right now, from what we're seeing in our first patient, I think the results are encouraging, but this is research. We need to do more research and understand what's going on."

The study, which will enroll people with mild or early-stage Alzheimer's disease, will help determine if DBS has the potential to improve cognitive, behavioral and functional deficits.

Sanford continues to be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the technology, says Rezai. She says she volunteered for the study to help others avoid the angst she has suffered as Alzheimer's slowly disrupted her life.

"I'm just trying to make the world a better place," says Sanford. "That's all I'm doing."

Her father, Joe Jester, says he is proud that his daughter is participating in the study, and is pleased to see her showing improvements.

"This study seemed to just give us hope," said Jester. "I guess we were at the place where you just don't do anything and watch the condition deteriorate over the years, or try to do something that would give us hope and might stop the progression of this disease."

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of degenerative dementia, afflicting about 5.5 million Americans and costing more than $100 billion per year, ranking it the third costliest disease in terms of health care expenditures in the United States.

Alzheimer's disease which has no cure and is not easily managed becomes progressively disabling with loss of memory, cognition, worsening behavioral function, in addition to a gradual loss of independent functioning, says Scharre.

The Ohio State neurology team is nationally renowned for expertise in dementia and Alzheimer's care and research. In addition, the neuromodulation team at Ohio State are pioneers in the use of DBS to treat Parkinson's disease, as well as exploring the use of DBS for other neurological and neurobehavioral conditions. Researchers at the Neuromodulation Center are completing a study of DBS in patients with traumatic brain injuries, and have initiated a study of DBS for treating obesity.

The Alzheimer's study is scheduled to be completed in 2015.

###

BROADCAST QUALITY B-ROLL, SOUND BITES, WEB ELEMENTS & STILL PHOTOS - Including HD video available with or without names/titles is available free/unrestricted: http://bit.ly/114UlJB

Media Contact: Shannon McCormick, office: 614-932-9950 or cell: 614-477-2719 or shannon@mediasourcetv.com

---

[ | E-mail | 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/2013-01/m-osi012313.php

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Being Gobbled Up By This Furry Monster Chair Looks Incredibly Comfy

Inspired by a story his grandmother used to tell him at dinner about how his fish balls would turn into a giant hairy hungry monster if he didn't eat up, Jason Goh created this incredibly cozy looking Moyee Monster Chair. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/3HJbF0w7SaU/being-gobbled-up-by-this-furry-monster-chair-looks-incredibly-comfy

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Midwest wind chill nears 50 below; storm heads east

By John Newland, Staff Writer, NBC News

Icy winds and bitter cold lashed the Midwest as a powerful storm made its way eastward and left New England preparing for up to a foot of snow.

Pushed by northwesterly winds, Arctic air was bringing wind chills near to minus 50 in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Highs were expected to remain below zero into Tuesday, according to forecasters.

In Detroit, about 40,000 customers were without power early Monday. Utility DTE Energy blamed high winds for knocking out power Sunday to 120,000 customers.

DTE said it was receiving assistance from crews based in neighboring Ohio and Wisconsin, as well as outlying parts of Michigan.

"We expect to have the vast majority of our customers restored by midnight Monday," DTE said in a statement.

In Illinois, temperatures dipped into the single digits, with wind chills well below zero, NBCChicago.com reported.?NBC Chicago meteorologist Cheryl Scott said wind chills could hover around 15 below zero, which would be the city's coldest weather in two years.

The?National Weather Service?issued lake-effect-snow warnings from western Michigan to western New York, and a winter storm watch for Boston and the surrounding area.

In Boston, forecasters predicted 4 to 8 inches of snow, poor?visibility?and slippery travel Monday evening as well as a difficult commute Tuesday morning.

Some high spots in northeast Massachusetts, eastern New Hampshire and southwest Maine could approach 12 inches of snow, The Weather Channel reported.

A hazardous-weather outlook reached into New Hampshire and Connecticut. Gale warnings were issued for much of the New England coast.?

A so-called?Alberta Clipper?could bring as much as three inches of snow to parts of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey Monday afternoon and early evening.

However, Weather.com said there was "a small chance" that the Alberta Clipper could strengthen closer to the New Jersey coast, which would bring heavier snow to New York City, Long Island and New Jersey.

NBCChicago.com and weather.com contributed to this report.

Related:

More coverage from weather.com

More news from NBCChicago.com

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/21/16619662-minnesota-shivers-as-wind-chill-nears-50-below-zero-new-england-braces-for-foot-of-snow?lite

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Pakistan's action in Kashmir "highly provocative" - Indian defence minister

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India on Wednesday branded as "highly provocative" Pakistan's action in Kashmir, where two Indian soldiers were killed in an encounter the previous day, and said the mutilation of one of the soldier's bodies was "inhuman".

"The way they treated the dead body of the Indian soldiers is inhuman. We will convey our protest to the Pakistan government," the minister, A.K. Antony, told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday.

India on Tuesday accused old enemy Pakistan of triggering a gunfight by sending troops across the heavily militarized line dividing the disputed region of Kashmir.

The body of one of the soldiers was found "badly mutilated" in a forested area of the Himalayan territory on the side controlled by India, military officials said.

(Reporting by Arup Roychoudhury; Editing by John Chalmers)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistans-action-kashmir-highly-provocative-indian-defence-minister-053711619.html

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Gunmen kill 2 local Afghan officials in north

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Police say gunmen have killed two local government officials in separate attacks in northern Afghanistan.

Deputy Police Chief of Kunduz province Ghulam Mohammad says both attacks happened Tuesday. He says the commander of a police detention center in Dashti Archi district was ambushed by gunmen while driving on a main road through the area in the afternoon. Commander Abdul Salam and his bodyguard were killed.

Mohammad says the commander of the district's government-backed militia force was also killed in a similar ambush about the same time. He says it was not clear if there was a connection between the two attacks.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-09-Afghanistan/id-a768843215ca47be95df1155ec9003a0

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