All Seven Crew Alive. I had been following this urgent rescue mission closely, hoping we would not see a repeat of the horror of the Kirsk disaster of several years ago when Russian pride prevented them from calling for international help in a timely fashion and 118 crew members perished.
Daily Archives: 6 Aug 05
Discovering That Denial of Paralysis Is Not Just a Problem of the Mind
“Dr. Berti, a neuroscientist at University of Turin in Italy, has had many such conversations with stroke patients who suffer from denial syndrome, a strange disorder in which paralyzed patients vehemently insist that they are not paralyzed.
This denial, Dr. Berti said, was long thought to be purely a psychological problem. ‘It was a reaction to a stroke: I am paralyzed, it is so horrible, I will deny it,’ she said.
But in a new study, Dr. Berti and her colleagues have shown that denial is not a problem of the mind. Rather, it is a neurological condition that occurs when specific brain regions are knocked out by a stroke.
Patients deny the paralysis because a closely related region of the brain that is still intact appears to tell them that their bodies are responding normally.” (New York Times )
Dr Berti’s study really has little to say to the medical community or even the lay public. Whoever will think this is news after being familiar with Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, published in 1986?! And psychiatrists have never felt that the denial (and the related phenomenon of neglect) seen in stoke victims was a psychological problem; it fits none of the characteristics of psychological denial. Furthermore, denial of illness and the need for treatment, even in the face of profound dysfunction and inability to care for oneself, is frequently seen in some of the more severe psychiatric illnesses, notably schizophrenic conditions. I suspect these supposedly psychological cases too are caused by dysfunction in the specialized parts of the brain necessary for the recognition of dysfunction and debility.
R.I.P. Ibrahim Ferrer
Buena Vista Social Club Singer Dies at 78 (Yahoo! News)
![//us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050807/capt.ny12908070112.obit_ferrer_ny129.jpg?x=180&y=135&sig=nTxTxfAQdBbll.czfd.MFQ--' cannot be displayed]](https://i0.wp.com/us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050807/capt.ny12908070112.obit_ferrer_ny129.jpg "R.I.P. Ibrahim Ferrer")
Japan Remembers
Thousands of people in Japan marked the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. 140,000 were dead by the end of 1945 from blast and radiation, with a similar toll from the Nagasaki bombing three days after. The Japanses count the Hiroshima toll now as standing at 242,000. Neither the argument that it was not inherently more heinous than the impact of conventional weaponry such as the firebombing of Dresden nor the argument that it saved lives by shortening the war justify the unleasing of nuclear terror in these first and only uses of atomic weaponry against human targets. Hiroshima Day should stand as a ‘day of infamy’ just as we consider Pearl Harbor Day to be; Americans need to remember it with as much awe, revulsion and resolve as the Japanese do.
Related: Weblogger Susan Kitchens remembers too. She is ‘blogging like it’s 1945’, chronicling the dawn of the age of atomic war as if the events were happening now in realtime, just displaced by 60 years. (2020 Hindsight)
"Now I have three cars, I have two houses and I’m not looking for a job anymore."
A day in the life of a Nigerian scammer: “Why Nigeria? There are many theories. The nation of 130 million, Africa’s most populous, is well educated, and English, the lingua franca of the scam industry, is the official language. Nigeria bursts with talent, from former NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon to Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka.
But with World Bank studies showing a quarter of urban college graduates are unemployed, crime offers tempting career opportunities – in drug dealing, immigrant-trafficking, oil-smuggling, and Internet fraud.
The scammers thrived during oil-rich Nigeria’s 15 years of brutal and corrupt military rule, and democracy was restored only six years ago.
‘We reached a point when law enforcement and regulatory agencies seemed nonexistent. But the stance of the present administration has started changing that,’ said Ribadu, the scam-busting chief.” (Associated Press)
Robin Cook, R.I.P.
Former Labour Party Foreign Minister dies after collapse on mountain. (Guardian.UK) Cook should be recalled for the courage of his convictions, resigning from Tony Blair’s government because of his opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
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Related: Cindy Sheehan, as depicted here via daily kos, is another hero we should be celebrating for her outspoken exposure of the fact that the emperor has no clothes, as far as the Iraq war goes.
Remote-Controlled Humans
“Smiling nervously, the young woman walks forward in a straight line. Suddenly, she veers to the right. She stumbles and stops, attempting to regain her balance, and continues to walk forward. And then she veers off to the left.
No, she’s not intoxicated. The young lady’s vestibular system, which controls her sense of movement and balance, has been thrown off-kilter by two weak electrical currents delivered just behind her ears.
This sort of electrical stimulation is known as galvanic vestibular stimulation, or GVS. When a weak DC current is delivered to the mastoid behind your ear, your body responds by shifting your balance toward the anode. The stronger the current, the more powerful its pull. If it is strong enough, it not only throws you off balance but alters the course of your movement.
…At the 2005 SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles this week, NTT researchers debuted a device designed to exploit the effects of GVS. Known as “Shaking the World,” the project is the result of research carried out by NTT researcher Taro Maeda. Maeda and his colleagues constructed a headphone-like apparatus to deliver the electrical current and a small radio control to direct the strength and direction of the signal. Whoever wears such headphones can be steered by remote control. ” (Forbes)
