One-Stop Information Centre | BennyKusman.com

Scientists performing experimental brain surgery on a man aged 50 have stumbled across a mechanism that could unlock how memory works.

The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress the obese man’s appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation. Electrodes were pushed into the man’s brain and stimulated with an electric current. Instead of losing appetite, the patient instead had an intense experience of déjà vu. He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier. More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated.

Scientists are now applying the technique in the first trial of the treatment in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. If successful, it could offer hope to sufferers from the degenerative condition, which affects 450,000 people in Britain alone, by providing a “pacemaker” for the brain.

Three patients have been treated and initial results are promising, according to Andres Lozano, a professor of neurosurgery at the Toronto Western Hospital, Ontario, who is leading the research.

Professor Lozano said: “This is the first time that anyone has had electrodes implanted in the brain which have been shown to improve memory. We are driving the activity of the brain by increasing its sensitivity – turning up the volume of the memory circuits. Any event that involves the memory circuits is more likely to be stored and retained.”

The discovery had caught him and his team “completely by surprise”, Professor Lozano said. They had been operating on the man, who weighed 190kg (30st), to treat his obesity by locating the point in his brain that controls appetite. All other attempts to curb his eating had failed and brain surgery was the last resort.

The treatment for obesity was unsuccessful. But, while the researchers were identifying potential appetite suppressant points in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain associated with hunger, the man suddenly began to say that memory was flooding back.

“He reported the experience of being in a park with friends from when he was around 20 years old and, as the intensity of stimulation increased, the details became more vivid. He recognised his girlfriend [from the time] … The scene was in colour. People were wearing identifiable clothes and were talking, but he could not decipher what they were saying,” the researchers write in Annals of Neurology, published today.

The man, who has not been identified, was also tested on his ability to learn lists of paired objects. After three weeks of continuous hypothalamic stimulation, his performance on two learning tests was significantly improved. He was also much more likely to remember a list of unrelated paired objects with the electrodes turned on than when turned off.

Speaking to The Independent yesterday, Professor Lozano said: “His performance improved dramatically. As we turned the current up, we first drove his memory circuits and improved his learning. As we increased the intensity of the current, we got spontaneous memories of discrete events. At a certain intensity, he would slash to the scene [in the park]. When the intensity was increased further, he got more detail but, when the current was turned off, it rapidly decayed.”

The discovery surprised the scientists as the hypothalamus has not usually been identified as a seat of memory. The contacts that most readily produced the memories were located close to a structure called the fornix, an arched bundle of fibres that carries signals within the limbic system, which is involved in memory and emotions and is situated next to the hypothalamus.

Professor Lozano is a world authority on deep-brain stimulation who has undertaken 400 operations on Parkinson’s disease sufferers and is developing the technique as a treatment for depression, for which he has performed 28 operations. He said the discovery of its role in stimulating memory had wide implications.

“It gives us insight into which brain structures are involved in memory. It gives us a means of intervening in the way we have already done in Parkinson’s and for mood disorders such as depression, and it may have therapeutic benefit in people with memory problems,” he said.

The researchers are testing the approach in six Alzheimer’s patients in a Phase 1 safety study. Three have so far had electrodes surgically implanted. The electrodes are attached via a cable that runs below the skull and down the neck to a battery pack stitched under the skin of the chest. The “pacemaker” delivers a constant low-level current that stimulates the brain but cannot be perceived by the patient.

Professor Lozano said: “It is the same device as is used for Parkinson’s disease. We have placed the electrodes in exactly the same area of the hypothalamus because we want to see if we can reproduce the findings in the earlier experiment. We believe the memory circuits we are stimulating are close by, physically touching the hypothalamus.

“It is a very effective treatment for the motor problems associated with Parkinson’s disease and it has been used on 40,000 people. We are in the early stages of using it with Alzheimer’s patients and we don’t know if it will work. We want to assess if we can reach the memory circuits and drive improvement. It is a novel approach to dealing with this problem.”

British researchers welcomed the discovery. Andrea Malizia, a senior lecturer in psychopharmacology at the University of Bristol who is studying deep-brain stimulation as a treatment for depression, said: “If they had said let’s stick an electrode in the hypothalamus to modify Alzheimer’s disease, I would have said ‘Why start there?’ But, if they have had a serendipitous finding, then that is as good. Serendipitous findings are how a lot of discoveries in science have been made.”

Ayesha Khan, a scientific liaison officer at the Alzheimer’s Disease Society, said: “This is very cutting-edge research. It is exciting, but the initial result is in one person. It will need much further investigation.”

How deep-brain stimulation works

Deep -brain stimulation has been used for more than a decade to treat a range of conditions including depression, chronic pain, Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders.

It has been so successful in treating Parkinson’s that 40,000 patients worldwide now have electrodes implanted in their brains driven by pacemakers stitched into their chests.

As the devices become smaller, requiring less risky surgery, and the target areas of the brain requiring stimulation are more precisely identified, demand for the treatment is expected to leap. Although it is expensive, the potential savings in care and treatment costs are immense. It does not lead to dependence on drugs and is reversible.

The electrodes are implanted under local anaesthesia while the patient is awake. Before the operation, the neurosurgeon performs an MRI scan and establishes the target location for the electrodes. He then carries out a craniotomy – lifting a section of the skull – and inserts the electrodes and leads. By stimulating the electrodes and checking the patient’s response, the surgeon can check that they are positioned in the right place.

Different areas of the brain are targeted for different conditions. For Parkinson’s disease, they are placed in the subthalamic nucleus; for depression, in area 25 of the cingulate cortex.

Deep-brain stimulation was developed in France and first licensed by the Food and Drug Administration in the US in 1997 as a treatment for tremor. In the UK, the surgery is performed at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, in Bristol, in Oxford and at a handful of other centres.

The name of the procedure is in some ways a misnomer as it often involves inhibiting electrical activity in an area of the brain rather than stimulating it. The technique is as much about restoring balance between competing brain areas which leads to the tremor characteristic of some types of Parkinson’s disease.

*source : http://www.independent.co.uk

Technorati Tags: loss memory

We all know that turning off your computer when it’s not in use is a smart way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and help fight against the effects of climate change.

In fact, if you leave your computer on 24 hours a day, it could be responsible for releasing up to 1,500 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. The flying-toaster screen saver is cool…but is it that cool?

But if you have to leave your computer on, here’s a way you can make up for it: By joining a distributed computing network that models the effects of climate change.

Distributed computing networks harness the unused power of thousands of personal computers to perform complicated tasks.

For instance, climateprediction.net is a distributed network run by Oxford University and other partners that helps climate scientists run climate models on networked computers when those computers are on, but are not running at full capacity.

Once you join the network, you will be asked to download a climate model from the website. It will then run automatically in the background whenever your computer is switched on. When the climate model is finished running, the results are automatically sent back to the site over the Internet for analysis.

Users are invited to watch the climate model process if they like, and are provided with a summary of the model’s results through climateprediction.net. Or you could simply let the model run and never think about it again.

Either way, “always on” computer geeks can now contribute to climate change solutions and keep their flying toasters.

*taken from http://www.nature.org/

What is it about eating raw fish? The country is filled with sushi-finados who spout off terms like gari and anago, but you probably have no clue what that stuff is. All you can think about is that Simpsons episode where Homer almost dies from eating raw blowfish (which was, by the way, fugu). But if you don’t jump on the sushi trend soon, you’ll probably die from embarrassment as quickly as from fugu.

Calm down, calm down. Even though many consider “sushi” to be synonymous with “icky raw fish,” the danger level is low (fugu excepted) and its variations can please even the finickiest eater. Contrary to popular belief, sushi does not mean raw seafood; instead, it refers to the vinegared rice that can (but need not) be paired with raw seafood. So even vegetarians and those hell-bent on having their meals cooked can be satisfied by sushi. Some sushi contains only rice and veggies.

So prepare yourself to frolic in all that is sushi. But two words of warning: bring cash. One order of sushi ranges from $3-7 (and that’s at the cheapo places), and a meal usually consists of anything from three to five orders. You math majors out there know that this calculates to… well, more than McDonald’s. And it could become an addictive (and expensive) habit; restaurants typically have a number of repeat customers who will eat sushi two or more times a week. But don’t be deterred by the prices - sushi is a delicacy that warrants its cost. So, that said, here we go:

1. CHOOSE A TYPE OF SUSHI

We’re not going to bother delving into the history of sushi. Just know that it’s considered to be a Japanese dish. Instead, let’s jump right in and decide what to eat. Most sushi restaurants will give you two options: to eat at a bar or at a table. If you’re at the bar, check out the selections in the refrigerated display case. If you’re at a table, the waiter will bring an a la carte menu, a sushi checklist of sorts. This is where it can start to get complicated… there are many types of sushi. Fortunately, sushi can be categorized into two types: nigiri and maki.

Nigiri sushi

Ordered and served in pairs, nigiri sushi puts everything in full sight for you: any kind of fish on rice with a touch of wasabi (we’ll explain in step 3) between the two. Here are the fundamentals:

• The raw fish on top of the rice is called sashimi and can be ordered without the rice on the bottom as an appetizer. This is NOT the kind of sushi wrapped in seaweed; nigiri sushi is just fish on rice.
• For your first sushi experience, order the tuna (maguro) or the salmon (sake; not the rice wine) - these are the least “fishy” fish and also the most popular among Americans.
• The salmon is deeply frozen and then slightly smoked or cured to kill any parasites, which can be present in freshwater seafood.
• Other common sashimi are the oily mackerel (saba), which is salted and marinated before being served, and hamachi, another type of tuna with a distinctive bright yellow tone (yellowtail).
• Sometimes you can replace the sashimi with fish eggs instead. Salmon eggs are the most common, wrapped in a bit of seaweed to hold them on top of the traditional rice base. More popular in Japan is the roe (little eggs) harvested from the inside of sea urchins (uni), which also doubles as the animal’s gonads. In the U.S., uni is expensive but still a delicacy.
• Surprisingly, much of nigiri sushi is not even raw. Shrimp (ebi) and crab (kani) are both cooked before they are laid to rest on the rice bed. At some point, try eel (unagi), which is grilled and then marinated in a sweet sauce for several days. Finally, a test of the chef is the tamago, an omelet of stacked paper-thin egg slices strapped onto the rice with a band of seaweed.

To see some great pictures of nigiri sushi, go to Sushi 101.

Maki sushi

Also called roll sushi, maki sushi is probably the first image of sushi that pops into your mind. Maki combines toppings and rice wrapped in sheets of seaweed (nori) and served as six (or eight) slices. So when you see those cute little pieces of fish surrounded in rice and wrapped in seaweed, you’re looking at maki. Typically, maki sushi has less raw fish and allows for more creativity. Here are some typical rolls:

• Tekka: tuna (the name refers to gambling parlors where patrons snacked on the roll)
• Kappa: cucumber (the name refers to a mythological goblin fond of the vegetable)
• California: famous combination of avocado, crab, and cucumber
• Avocado: figure this one out on your own
• Boston: scallion, crab, and salmon
• New York: apple, avocado, and salmon
• Philadelphia: smoked salmon, cream cheese, and cucumber
• Texas: beef and cucumber

As you probably could have guessed, these are not the names that the ancient Japenese maki-makers chose for these dishes. But as we said, maki allows for tons of creativity. There’s one other “brand” of maki: temaki (or a “handroll”). Temaki is a large single cone-shaped roll (similar to an ice cream cone) and usually contains larger items, like pieces of vegetables and smoked salmon. To see some pictures of maki sushi, check out Sushi 101.

One last note about health: sushi can be easily classified as a health food, being low in fat and calories while high protein. Nori (the seaweed, remember?) is extremely high in vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, Niacin, and C. But no matter how healthy sushi can be, you still must remember that you’re eating raw fish. Sushi should NEVER smell bad, so use your common sense and take a sniff before downing it.

2. CHOOSE YOUR BEVERAGE

After you sit down at the bar/table/floor, the waiter will probably bring you an oshibori (hot towel for wiping your hands and face) before asking what you would like to drink. Your first impulse might be to go for a Coke or a Bud Lite, but you’ve come this far, so why not try to be authentic? We recommend one of these three options:

• Sake (Japanese Rice Wine): Made from fermented rice, sake is served warm and is drunk before eating, not during or after. Some would say that the drink is obligatory, while others would say it is redundant because (like the sushi) it is made from rice. Drinking sake during the meal is certainly akin to ordering bread with a sandwich. But it’s tradition, so cope. Remember that the waiter will continue to fill an empty cup, so flip it over when you’re done. And yes, it is acceptable to have sake with sashimi (which doesn’t have rice).
• Green Tea: Green tea is served throughout the meal. It removes aftertastes and freshens the mouth for the next serving. Don’t be miffed by the color; the flavor is actually quite mild.
• Beer: Sapporo, Kirin, or Asahi, please. You’ll have to try them on your own.

3. EAT THE SUSHI CORRECTLY

So you’re sitting at the table, and the waiter gives you your order along with some green paste, some thinly-sliced pink stuff, and a bottle of dark mysterious liquid. What is all this stuff?

• Soy Sauce: The bottle of dark mysterious liquid, soy sauce, is essential to eating sushi. However, the sushi should not be soaked in soy sauce. The rice will fall apart, and the soy is meant to complement, not overwhelm, the flavor of the sushi. With your sushi will be a small dish where you can pour the soy sauce and use it for dipping. Pour as much as you think you will need, keeping in mind you can always add more. It is poor form to fill the dish like a wading pool.
• Wasabi (Japanese Horseradish): The green paste. Grown only in Japan, finely-grated wasabi is pungent and guaranteed to clear your sinuses. Because fresh wasabi is very expensive, cheaper powder and paste alternatives are often used. Many people mix some wasabi into their soy sauce, but this is only proper with sashimi and maki sushi. Even though wasabi is given for nigiri sushi, it is not supposed to be used. This really only holds true at the bar; feel free to use wasabi to suit your own tastes out of the chef’s view. The most important thing to know about wasabi is that it is VERY HOT and VERY SPICY. Only use a tiny, tiny dab.
• Gari (Pickled Ginger Root): The thinly-sliced pink stuff. Used to freshen the mouth between bites of sushi, pickled ginger root comes in numerous small and incredibly thin slices. It is eaten with chopsticks (hashi) and essential for cleansing your palate between eating different types of sushi.

The standard protocol in America is to start a meal with miso soup, a clear broth with floating kelp and tofu. From there, your tastebuds will enjoy some assorted sashimi (the fish pieces without the rice). But first, place some wasabi in the soy dish. Be moderate; you are paying for the taste of the fish or topping, not the taste of the wasabi. Then it’s time to move on to the sushi. While there is no specific order for eating the various kinds of sushi, the maki should be eaten first, since the crispness of the seaweed does not last long after touching the damp rice. Before the nigiri sushi is eaten, the soy dish should be changed. Unlike maki sushi and sashimi (which require chopsticks), nigiri sushi should be eaten with the hands. Grip the sushi from the top, then flip it so that the rice is on top. Dip only the topping into the soy sauce, and always place the sushi in the mouth so that the topping meets the tongue first. Most of all, remember that you’re not eating hot dogs at the ballgame; sushi is far more expensive, and should be savored as a delicacy.

Lots of people like to eat of each other’s plates when experiencing death by sushi. When you pick something up from a friend’s dish, make sure to turn the chopsticks around and use the backend, not the end you ate from.

A note on chopsticks: even if you are uncoordinated, you should try to use them. A fork and knife will seldom be found at a sushi bar, and even if they are, using them is akin to saying that the meat is tough. Do you want to insult the chef? Go with your hands if you have to. Some restaurants may have you finish the meal with a bowl of miso soup, rather than serving it at the beginning of your dining experience.

4. PICK A LOCATION

Now things seem really out of order. Obviously you need a place to eat sushi before you can eat sushi. But if you’ve mastered everything above, this should be the easy part.

• Sushi Bar/Restaurant: The sushi bar is the Japanese equivalent of the English pub, and the best way to experience the food is along with the atmosphere that traditionally accompanies it. Sushi is currently very trendy (we know because we just saw Pauly Shore in a sushi bar, and isn’t he the epitome of cool?), so it shouldn’t be too hard to find a local establishment. To find a restaurant in your neighborhood, use this search guide.Given the choice, we recommend that you sit on a stool at a sushi bar. From that vantage point, you can watch the sushi chef (itamae-san) prepare a selection chosen from the refrigerated display in front of him. Furthermore, from the bar, a newbie sushi addict can ask the chef for advice and recommendations. Even for experienced eaters, common practice is to ask the chef for recommendations. This demonstrates respect for the chef, and he will thusly give you the best pieces. At the bar, it is best to place many small orders continuously rather than one large order at the beginning. This will ensure continued interaction with the chef. And it is never bad to throw in a few Japanese phrases:
  

  Konichiwa (koh NEECH ee wah)

  Dozo (DOH zoh)

  Domo (DOH moh)

  Domo arigato (ah ri GAH toh)
  “How are you?”

  “Please.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  The only thing you should ever order from the chef is sushi and sashimi. For everything else (your beverage, the check, etc.), ask the waiter. And try to leave around a 20% tip, as it gets divided among everyone.

  If you are eating at a table instead of a bar, you will generally order all your sushi at once. So we recommend that you order a combination plate rather than ordering individual sushi. That way, you’ll get an interesting sample of all kinds of sushi.

• Supermarket: These days, sushi can be found at supermarkets and convenience stores. A portion of maki sushi serves as a good meal for many on their lunch breaks. If you’ve tried sushi and you like it, then go for it. But if it’s your first time, do not eat supermarket sushi - it’s not as fresh as restaurant sushi, so you might not like it as much.
• At home: This could be a good option if you get hooked but aren’t willing to shell out the cash for a restaurant meal every evening. There are a few basic tools that you need to make sushi, mainly a bamboo mat (makisu) and an extremely sharp knife. Most importantly, you must obtain quality ingredients from Japanese grocers and trustworthy fish stores. Information on making your own sushi could fill an entire SYW, but for a start, check out Sushi 101.
• Go to Japan: Eating sushi is already an expensive habit; throw in an 18-hour plane ride and you’re really a sushi aficionado. In Japan, eating blowfish (fugu) sashimi is the ultimate dining experience - and a culinary variation of Russian roulette. The fish contains a toxin 1250 times deadlier than cyanide, and if ingested, it will probably kill you. But fugu consumption is a status symbol, so many people try it just to say that they have. Fugu is one of the most expensive foods in Japan; you can pay up to $400 for one meal, which must by law be prepared by specially trained and licensed chefs.

So now you’re all set. Not only are can you begin enjoying a classic sushi meal, but you can make fun of the heathens that are still sushi-impaired. Please, wield your power with mercy.”

Read original article here.

Soeharto (8 June 1921 - 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian military leader, and the second President of Indonesia, holding the office from 1967 to 1998.

Suharto was born in a small village near Yogyakarta, during the era of Dutch Colonial. His ethnic Javanese peasant parents divorced not long after his birth, and he was passed around several foster parents for much of his childhood. After a brief and an unsuccessful stint as a village bank clerk, Suharto joined the KNIL or Netherlands Army in 1940. During the Japanese Occupation, Suharto served in various Japanese-organised Indonesian security forces. He joined the newly formed Indonesian army during Indonesian Independence struggle where he rose through the ranks to command a garrison against Netherlands at the Republican capital of Yogyakarta. Following Indonesian independence, Suharto rose to the rank of Major General.

An attempted coup on 30 September 1965 was countered by Suharto-led troops. The Suharto-led army blamed the attempt on the PKI or Indonesian Communist Party and led a violent anti-communist purge that killed between 500,000 and one million people. Soeharto wrested power from the weakened incumbent, and founding president, Soekarno, and was inaugurated President in March 1968. Over the three decades of his New Order administration, Suharto constructed a strong militarized centralized government. An ability to maintain control over a sprawling and diverse Indonesia, and an avowedly anti-Communist stance, won him the economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold war. For most of his three-decade rule, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialization. Indonesia under his power has obtained many awards, one of it from FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) because of the swasembada in indonesia (able to fulfill its own rice and export to other countries).

Like many Javanese, Suharto had only one name. In religious contexts, he is sometimes called “Haji” or “el-Haj Mohammed Suharto”, but this Islamic title is not part of his formal name or generally used. The spelling “Suharto” has been official in Indonesia since 1947 but the older spelling Soeharto is still frequently used.

*quoted from wikipedia.com

After 21 days in the hospital and much sufferings, soeharto passed away at 13.10pm on 27 January 2008. The next day he was buried in Astana GiriBangun in Solo where he is laid beside his wife, Ibu Tien Soeharto. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono claimed as 27th January until 3rd February 2008 as mourning day.

Good Bye Soeharto.. Selamat Jalan Pak Harto. Bapak Pembangunan RI.

Pictures tell everything..

From a traffic police into the Jakarta road to old chinese opera show and to everything. Pictures below are taken on my way from Citraland Jakarta Barat to Glodok Jakarta Pusat.

Below are few photos from Tanjung Duren to airport

Jakarta… Capital of Indonesia with about about 9 millions people over 662.52 km2 (that’s very dense ya). The new governor, Fauzi Bowo, which was elected last year, has planned to make Jakarta Free-From-Flood. He won the election from Adang Daradjatun with 58.9% to 42.1%.

Below is some of the pictures that reveals about Jakarta. If you think Jakarta is a place where many rich people stay and earn their life, that may be true. But, look at the other sides. Here are some people that work very hard to earn “a scoop of rice”.

They are more than these pictures. If you think this pictures are pathetic, you should come to Indonesia and see more. Have you seen people sleeping and living under the bridge/highway bridge? Come to Indonesia. Indonesia is having “Visit Indonesia 2008″ now.

Jakarta is known as the capital of Indonesia, the centre of business. That’s why lots of people coming to Jakarta for better life. Some succedd and get better income, some has to struggle in the hardness and roughness of the competition.

A lot of students will go to Jakarta for better education and better future and employment for sure. This makes Jakarta everything.. You can find the latest fashion, style, movies, even flood in this city.

Some places that you must visit if you are in Jakarta are :

1. Istana Negara (President Palace) - where you can see our SBY and JK

2. Monumen Nasional (Monas) - gold-tower that can see all Jakarta

3. Jakarta Expo - Expo hall that held most international events

4. ITC Mangga Dua

Jakarta is a place to find everything (even pirate CDs are still widely distributed and sold. Police? Not sure if they have eyes to see those cheap CDs)..

Visit Indonesia 2008 !