Thursday, March 13, 2014


News Clips For The Day


White House more involved in CIA-Senate dispute, reports say – CBS
By Stephanie Condon CBS News March 13, 2014

The White House has played a larger role in the serious dispute between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee over an ongoing investigation, according to reports.

President Obama's team has been withholding about 9,400 documents that the Intelligence Committee requested as part of its review of the CIA's now-defunct detention and interrogation program, McClatchy reports. Since 2009, the White House has ignored or rejected multiple requests from the committee to review the documents.
Mr. Obama said Wednesday he supports the committee's efforts. "We have worked with the Senate committee so that the report that they are putting forward is well-informed, and what I've said is that I am absolutely committed to declassifying that report as soon as the report is completed," he said.
Obama stays quiet on CIA vs. Senate

Senate Intelligence chair: CIA snooped on Senate staff
Why Sen. Dianne Feinstein declared war on the CIA
The White House said in a statement to McClatchy that it withheld "a small percentage" of the 6.2 million pages of documents provided to the committee "because they raise executive branch confidentiality interests." The White House added it has worked closely with the committee "to ensure access to the information necessary to review the CIA's former program."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- who blew the lid open on the clash between the committee and the CIA on the Senate floor on Tuesday -- has reportedly reached out to Mr. Obama's chief legal adviser, Kathryn Ruemmler, to inquire about the withheld documents.

In another indication of deeper White House involvement in the dispute, Reuters reports that Ruemmler served as a mediator between the CIA and the Senate committee, in an attempt to "de-escalate" the situation.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said on the Senate floor Wednesday night that "there are still a lot of unanswered questions" about the allegations that the CIA and the Senate have leveled against each other.

"It may even call for some special investigator to be named to review the entire factual situation. Eventually, we will get to the bottom of this," he said.
On Tuesday, Feinstein, D-Calif., charged that the CIA had spied on the committee's staff while the staff was finishing up its report on the CIA detention program. The spying, she said, may have been unconstitutional or criminal, and a complaint against the CIA has been referred to the Justice Department. She also revealed that a CIA official has filed a crimes report against the committee staff, which she called "a potential effort to intimidate this staff."

CIA Director John Brennan, meanwhile, said Tuesday that it was "beyond the scope of reason" to allege that the CIA "hacked" the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Chambliss stressed Wednesday night that the Republican committee members on the Senate Intelligence Committee and their staff were not involved in the investigation of the detainee and interrogation program.

"Although people speak as though we know all of the pertinent facts surrounding this matter, the truth is, we do not," he said.




Obama himself has withheld 9,400 documents from the Senate committee, citing confidentiality on Executive Branch functions. This only stirs up interest further in the documents, and makes me wonder whether unethical CIA actions happened under Obama's watch. It is also interesting, though, that according to Chambliss there were no Republicans involved in the Senate investigation, indicating either that Feinstein gave the important roles to members of her own party or that the Republicans were not trusted to be willing to weigh in against the CIA as needed. This kind of infighting shows a government crippled by its own processes to the point that the body overseeing the CIA cannot exercise control over it. I think Mr. Obama needs to make a clear statement about what, if anything, the Executive Branch is hiding and to what degree they are responsible for the CIA's harsh interrogation tactics. Obama started out his years as president opposed to those things, and much of his public appeal has to do with that stance.




Volunteers cuddle babies at hospitals to boost health – CBS
CBS/AP March 13, 2014

CHICAGO -- Cuddling is being used at hospitals around the country to help premature newborns who can't go home yet.

At the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital, a volunteer slips her arms into a gauzy yellow hospital gown and approaches a medical crib holding a tiny newborn hooked up to noisy machines.
"OK," she says, with a smile. "Baby time."

That means cuddle time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Here, as at several other U.S. hospitals, strangers offer a simple yet powerful service for newborns too tiny or sick to go home.

When nurses are swamped with other patients and parents cannot make it to the hospital, grandmas, empty-nesters, college students and other volunteers step in. They hold the babies, swaddle them, sing and coo to them, rock them, and treat them as if they were their own.

A plaintive cry signals time to get to work.
"You can see them calm, you can see their heart rate drop, you can see their little brows relax," said Kathleen Jones, 52, a cuddler at the Chicago hospital. "They're fighting so hard and they're undergoing all this medical drama and trauma. My heart breaks for them a little bit."

Newborn intensive care units are noisy, stressful environments. There are babies born extremely prematurely, or with birth defects and other illnesses. Some are too sick to be held - but not too sick to touch. Cuddlers reach a finger inside their incubators and stroke tiny bare bellies.

Scientific evidence on benefits of cuddling programs is scarce, but the benefits of human touch are well-known.

A 2008 Canadian study published in BMC Pediatrics showed that cuddling babies born as early as 28 weeks reduced stress levels for them, especially during medical tests, the BBC reported.

Other recent studies have suggested touch may benefit preemies' heart rates and sleep and perhaps even shorten their hospital stays.

Studies also suggest that early negative experiences -- including pain, stress and separation from other humans -- may hamper brain development, while research in animals shows that positive interactions enhance brain growth, said Dr. Jerry Schwartz, medical director of medical neonatology at Torrance Memorial Medical Center near Los Angeles.

The benefit "at the most superficial level" is obvious, he said. "A baby is crying, mom's not there, the nurse is busy with other sick babies, and it's an unpleasant life experience to be crying and unattended to, and, voila! A cuddler comes over and the baby stops crying."

Nancy Salcido has been a cuddler at Torrance for a year. Her two daughters are grown, and she considers her three-hour cuddling shifts good practice for any potential grandchildren.

"I just kind of hold them close to me ... and talk to them, sharing my day, or give them little pep talks," Salcido said. "One of the nurses has nicknamed me the baby whisperer."

Parents typically must consent for their babies to be part of cuddling programs, and cuddlers must undergo background checks and training before starting the job. At Chicago's Comer hospital, that includes lessons in how to swaddle babies tight to make them feel safe and how to maneuver around intravenous lines, as well as instruction in hygiene including frequent hand-washing.

Other cuddling services for preemies exist throughout the country.
Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, New York has a program that allows staff and medical students to become certified cuddlers.

UnityPoint Health - St. Luke's Cuddler Program in Sioux City, Iowa trains volunteers to hold premature babies, read books or sing songs to them.

At the Golisano Children's Hospital in Rochester, N.Y., one cuddler is a young man born there prematurely long ago. He "just wants to come and give back," said Chris Tryon, a child life specialist at the hospital, part of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Comer's cuddlers include 74-year-old Frank Dertz, a retired carpenter who heard about the program from his daughter, a Comer nurse.

"It's quite a blessing for me. I get more out of it than the babies, I think," Dertz said.

Kathleen Jones says the same thing. A mother of three grown daughters and grandmother of two little girls, she joined Comer's program in 2012, working a couple afternoons a week or sometimes at night.

"They say that I look so in love with them when I'm there, but I cannot NOT crack an ear-to-ear smile whenever I pick that little guy or girl up."
Her love seems obvious as she rocks a stranger's newborn, the baby girl's tiny hand gripping Jones' finger.

"Ooh, I want to take you home," Jones coos. "You're so brave ... you're going to be feisty, aren't you?"

Jones used to wonder why parents or other relatives aren't comforting their own babies. But then, in August, her youngest grandchild was born deaf, with brain damage doctors say was caused by a virus her mom contracted before birth. Evelyn Steadman spent her first three weeks at Comer, and got cuddling care while she was there.
While family members visited often, "life happens and you can't sit by a bedside for three weeks," Jones said.

Erica Steadman had had a C-section, and already had her hands full with a toddler at home.

"She was being held and loved and watched over," she said. "I felt a great sense of relief from that."


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/cuddle-therapy-how-it-improves-preemies-health/article16256712/

Cuddle therapy? How it improves preemies’ health
Dave McGinn
The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Jan. 09 2014

As Time.com reports, kangaroo care, where parent holds a child with skin to skin contact, however briefly, is the norm today in most of the world. But that wasn’t the case in the 1990s. Back then, it was believed that it was better for preemies to be kept out of parents’ arms to avoid the risk of germs. That allowed Ruth Feldman, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, to examine the benefits of cuddles, essentially.

In 1996, Feldman began looking at two sample groups of 73 babies each. The sample groups were from different hospitals in Israel. At one hospital, babies did not receive kangaroo care. At the other, mothers held their babies for one hour a day for 14 days.

“Today, withholding KC from one group of preemies would be an ethical issue. Back then, though, the benefits weren’t proven, so we just asked one hospital if we could introduce it there,” Feldman told Time.

The study was conducted again in 1998, this time switching hospitals to make sure that couldn’t be a variable to explain the study’s findings. The babies, who had an average gestational age of 30 weeks and average weight of 2.8 pounds, were examined at three, six, 12 and 24 months old. Feldman and her team also followed up with the children when they were five and 10 years old.

The study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, indicates that those babies who received kangaroo care were shown to have better sleep patterns than those who did not, along with a range of other benefits. These include steadier respiration and heart rates and a better affective attention.

Kangaroo care had lasting benefits, as the follow-ups at ages 5 and 10 showed, with those kids better able to deal with stress.

“Every mammal has to be cuddled and in close proximity with its mother in the first days and weeks of life,” Feldman said. “This builds up the bodily systems that are sensitive to a physical presence.”

When moms and babies cuddle, there’s a rise in their levels of oxytocin, which is frequently deemed “the love hormone” because of its role in bonding. As well, cuddling seems to have a calming effect at the biological level.
Kangaroo care is today the standard in many if not most neonatal intensive care units around the world. But it is not the standard at all of them. This study is good reason to believe it should be.




When we think about good mental health we tend to think in terms of consciously developed things like a positive attitude or a good philosophy of life, and focus on relatively mature ages. We ask ourselves whether this patient had traumatic experiences that “warped” him? Maybe the trauma happens so young that we wouldn't even be aware of it as a problem, and can be so simple as the withholding of closeness and love. I worry for those mothers who have post partum depression and withdraw from human contact. Do they bond with their baby? If that baby doesn't learn to be close to people could he become (at worst) a sociopath? I think so, or simply be subject to severe depression. So next time somebody tells you that he needs a hug, just give him one. What does it cost?




Stepping up the fight against elephant poachers
CBS News March 9, 2014

NIGHT STALKERS too cowardly to show themselves by day are threatening the very survival of the African elephant. We caution that what our Cover Story shows this morning may be difficult to watch. It comes to us from M. Sanjayan, a CBS News contributor who has since joined the group Conservation International.

As a cloudless day yields to a moonlit night in this savannah in Northern Kenya, a dozen wildlife rangers armed with automatic weapons begin their nightly patrol.
Tonight, the team is on edge, says Commander John Palmieri.

"They give us a big, big worry," he said, as there is more poaching on the full moon.
And it is a deadly business. Six Kenyan rangers and three times as many poachers have been killed in gun battles the last two years.

Each night, rangers go up to an observation point at higher ground, then sit all night long and scour these valleys, looking for any sign of movement, or a gunshot.
Night vision goggles help spot elephants -- and see potential human threats.

For this night at least, it was all quiet for Nature's so-called "great masterpiece."
The African elephant is the largest mammal to walk the Earth; a majestic creature that shares many noble characteristics with humans -- strong family units and maternal bonds, intelligence, longevity and, yes, terrific memories.

Also, like us, they seem to grieve, and appear to mourn their dead, a trait which, tragically, has been on display far too often of late.

Some 25,000 elephants a year are now being lost to poachers in Africa.
"It's the worst that it's been in the last 30 years," said Ian Craig. "It's a steady deterioration, and it's getting worse."

The Kenyan-born Craig leads conservation efforts for the Northern Rangelands Trust, an innovative partnership of nearly 20 wildlife conservancies.

In years past, said Craig, the typical poacher was a solitary local simply trying to feed his family. Today, though, foreign criminal syndicates with sophisticated equipment kill viciously and in ever greater numbers.

In an infamous 2012 episode, an estimated 300 elephants were gunned down in Cameroon right inside a national park.

So who's behind it?
"I think clearly China is driving this, or it's coming from the Far East," said Craig. "Ninety percent of the ivory being picked up in Nairobi Airport, or Kenya's port of entry and exit, is with Chinese nationals."

Despite laws banning the harvest and sale of ivory, it remains a powerful status symbol in China and the Far East, where it is used commonly to make artworks and religious icons.

The economic boom there has pushed ivory prices through the roof -- and rejuvenated the poaching economy in Africa.

The price on an elephant's head, Craig said, is about $2,000, or $2,500 to the gunman
"So it's several years' worth of wages from that elephant," said Sanjayan.

And therefore, said Craig, "People are prepared to risk their lives to kill them."
You hear about ivory wars, said Sanjayan, but it doesn't seem real until one comes across an elephant's carcass ... the animal had no chance against being shot by automatic weapons, no chance at all.

And then, it comes flooding right at you, and you can't escape the fact that people are willing to kill something this big just for a tooth.
There are some encouraging signs.

This past January, China crushed six tons of illegal ivory, and Hong Kong pledged to destroy 28 tons over the next two years.

Kenya has also enacted tougher anti-poaching laws. One smuggler faces seven years in jail.

United States cracks down on elephant ivory trade (Video)
Hillary Clinton calls on world leaders to end African elephant slaughter
Dramatic effort to save elephants as Cairo's illegal ivory trade booms
But the poaching continues . . . and protecting elephants has become an arms race.
Kenya spends tens of millions of dollars a year on its 3,000-member wildlife ranger force.

Tracking dogs hunt poachers in the field and detect ivory being smuggled.
Digital radio systems now connect rangers with observation posts throughout the country. And GPS collars can track family groups of elephants in real time.
They've even built wildlife "underpasses" beneath highways, allowing elephants to travel safely through historic migration corridors.

Just as important, is getting locals invested in wildlife. In many areas, tribesmen don't just lead tours, they run the preserves.

Profits from tourism help communities understand that living elephants can be more valuable than dead ones.

"They're seeing these new lodges developing," said Ian Craig. "They're seeing better security for themselves. They're seeing money being generated from tourism going into education. And so where these benefits are clean and clear to communities, it's working."

But changing attitudes takes time -- and time is NOT on the elephant's side.
From a high of 1.3 million African elephants in the late 1970s, poaching reduced populations to critical levels by 1980.

The numbers are plummeting again: there are only about 500,000 elephants left. If poaching continues unchecked, African elephants could be functionally extinct in our lifetime.

In an extraordinary attempt to save the life of just one animal, a Kenyan veterinarian armed with a tranquilizer dart shot Mountain Bull, a 6-ton local legend who's been targeted by poachers for his massive tusks.

This magnificent bull elephant has already had lots of interaction with poachers; in one incident alone, he's been shot 8 times -- the slugs are still within his body -- but he has survived.

Now conservationists and rangers are doing something dramatic: they're taking off part of his tusks in the hopes that it will make him less of a target. The operation was over quickly, and eventually the noble giant wobbled to his feet and headed back to the bush to hopefully live out his days in peace.

But the threat for thousands like him remains.
Craig worries that unless the lust for ivory is controlled, the elephant may not survive.

"The supply here is finite," he said. "This isn't gold. This isn't diamonds. This is even more precious, because it's been grown by an animal, and we're killing that animal to supply that demand."




"I think clearly China is driving this, or it's coming from the Far East," said Craig. "Ninety percent of the ivory being picked up in Nairobi Airport, or Kenya's port of entry and exit, is with Chinese nationals." China needs to be made to confront this ivory trade by detecting and arresting the perpetrators and putting them in prison. In spite of bans on the harvesting and sale of ivory, it remains a status symbol in Chinese society. It seems to me that the society could declare the ownership of ivory to be against the law in a communist country. The fact that they have begun to crush illegal ivory in China and plan to in Hong Kong shows that they are doing some concrete steps to slow down the trade.

The actions of wildlife rangers in the African nations involved are another piece to the puzzle. The case of their removing the tips off a large bull's tusks to keep poachers from targeting him looks like a good idea. Getting locals to work to keep the elephants alive and show them to tourists is also helpful, rather than killing them. It seems to me that this is a war of an idealistic goal – the maintenance of the world's animal life – against the results of poverty and primitive thinking which cares little for life, only for a source of income no matter how destructive.




Vaginal gel might prevent HIV hours after exposure – CBS
By Dennis Thompson Health Day March 13, 2014

A new vaginal gel has the potential to protect women from HIV, even if it is applied several hours after sex, animal research suggests.

The antimicrobial gel protected five out of six monkeys from a hybrid simian/human AIDS virus when it was used three hours after exposure to the AIDS-causing virus, said lead author Walid Heneine, a researcher in HIV/AIDS prevention for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The same gel also protected two out of three monkeys when applied a half-hour before HIV exposure, according to the study, published March 12 in Science Translational Medicine.

Such a gel could be extremely useful in protecting women from HIV, because it can provide protection either before or after sexual activity, said Rowena Johnston, vice president of research for amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

"If you're having sex that's in any way not anticipated, you might not have an opportunity to apply the microbicide before the sex happens," Johnston said. "In the heat of the moment, you might not always have time to say 'Stop, put everything on hold while I put this product in.'"

Don't expect the gel to be on the market anytime soon, however. Researchers are a few years away from human clinical trials, Heneine said, because they are working on improving the gel's effectiveness. And results of animal trials aren't necessarily replicated in humans.

The gel contains a 1-percent solution of the anti-HIV drug raltegravir (Isentress), and works by blocking the ability of the virus to integrate its DNA into the DNA of animal cells.

DNA integration is a crucial step in HIV infection but comes late in the infection process, typically more than six hours after exposure, the researchers found. Focusing preventive treatment on that specific step provides an hours-long window when people can take steps to protect themselves after exposure to HIV.

"It's really a very interesting leap," Johnston said. "If you do want something that would protect against HIV after exposure, then you want a drug that acts later on in the virus' life cycle."

Once the gel is applied, the HIV cannot transmit its DNA into cells, the researchers say.

"The DNA degrades and the cell does not become affected," Heneine said. Raltegravir has "been very effective in HIV treatment, and now we're looking at it in prevention," he added.

In the United States, the AIDS virus is mainly spread by having unprotected sex (sex without a condom) with someone infected with HIV, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers first tested the gel's effectiveness pre-contact, by applying it to three monkeys who were exposed to HIV twice a week for seven weeks. By the end, two of the three remained HIV-free, compared with just one out of 10 monkeys in a group that received an inactive placebo gel.

The team then tested whether the gel could protect against HIV infection after exposure, using six monkeys exposed to HIV twice a week for two and a half months. By applying the gel three hours after exposure, researchers were able to protect five of the six monkeys from HIV infection. All four monkeys in the placebo group contracted HIV.

Such a gel, once through its clinical trials and approved, could become as widely used as birth control devices such as condoms and spermicidal gels, Johnston said.
"You can imagine this to be a useful product to have, if it were something you could buy over the counter and have at home just in case," she said.




An “antimicrobial gel” is a new term, at least to me. I have used bacitracin and “triple antibiotics” for years, but they don't combat viruses. It contains “a 1-percent solution of the anti-HIV drug raltegravir (Isentress),” and can be applied ½ hour before sex or up to three hours afterward. It isn't available for humans yet, though.

It works by preventing “DNA integration”.... “ Once the gel is applied, the HIV cannot transmit its DNA into cells.” It would be kept on hand in case it is needed and used like spermicidal gels. I do hope this product passes its clinical trials and is approved. Sexual partners can never be considered perfectly free from HIV in today's society, given the changes in actual sexual behavior since the birth control pill made pregnancy no longer a risk. Since this is an antiviral drug, I wonder if it or something like it could be found to combat herpes as well.





Barely-elevated blood pressure may raise stroke risk by 66 percent – CBS
By Ryan Jaslow CBS News March 12, 2014

If your blood pressure is anything over the normal reading of 120/80 mmHg, a stroke may be in your future -- even if it's not high enough to be considered hypertension.

That's what a new study published March 12 in Neurology suggests. Researchers analyzed data collected on 760,000 people, and found people with "prehypertension" were 66 percent more likely to develop a stroke than people with a normal blood pressure reading.

Prehypertension is a blood pressure that's higher than 120/80 mmHg, but lower than the high blood pressure (hypertension) threshold of 140/90 mmHg.

Twenty percent of all strokes seen in the study were among people with prehypertension. The raised risk remained even after ruling out other factors that could lead to a stroke, including high cholesterol, diabetes and smoking.

A closer look found people with blood pressure over 130/85 mmHg (but still less than the "high" 140/90 mmHg) were 95 percent more likely to develop a stroke than people with normal blood pressure, while prehypertensives lower than 130/85 were 44 percent more likely to have a stroke than someone with a normal 120/80 mmHg reading.
The study has important takeaways for the public, according to the researchers.

"Considering the high proportion of the population who have higher than normal blood pressure, successful treatment of this condition could prevent many strokes and make a major difference in public health," study author Dr. Dingli Xu, a blood pressure researcher at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China.

About one in three Americans have high blood pressure, which increases risk for heart disease and stroke - two leading causes of U.S. deaths.

Risk factors include high sodium intake, obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, family history of stroke and advanced age. Lifestyle changes and medications, such as statins, may reduce blood pressure for someone with high blood pressure.

But blood pressure medications aren't recommended for people with prehypertension, Xu pointed out, because not much research has looked at whether the drugs could be safe and effective for this group. Thus, diet and exercise are the best ways to reduce stroke risk among people with prehypertension, he said.

Strokes are a leading cause of death and disability in the United States.
Strokes affect more than 795,000 people in the U.S. and kill about 130,000 people each year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates -- about on out of every 19 U.S. deaths.

Stroke risk typically doubles for each decade between ages 55 and 85, but last year researchers reported a "startling" 25 percent rise in strokes in younger adults between 20 and 64 years old over the past two decades.

The ongoing obesity epidemic, along with diabetes and high blood pressure caused by the extra weight were thought to make younger people more susceptible to stroke.
Some recent research has added that the risk can start early, and children may be at risk for elevated blood pressure and eventual cardiovascular problems from eating too much sodium. The American Heart Association estimates more than 90 percent of kids eat too much salt.

One expert said the study suggests more research needs to be done looking at whether medications could prevent stroke in people without high blood pressure.

"I think if you were to consider prehypertension... as a risk factor for stroke, then you are dealing with millions of Americans," Dr. Jahandar Saleh, chief of cardiology at Northridge Hospital in Northridge, Calif., told CBS News' Teri Okita.

To prevent a stroke, you should keep your blood pressure low, lose weight, exercise more, drink only in moderation, take baby aspirin (check with doctor if it's appropriate for you), quit smoking and get other health conditions like diabetes and atrial fibrillation under control, Harvard Medical School suggests.




This article isn't very good news. I have never had a reading over 120/80, with typical readings of 120/60, but I do have some of the other risk factors. I have started to exercise more due to a painful condition in my thigh which is improved by stretching and exercise, but which hurts again after I sit for as much as an hour or lie down in that same time range. Doing this blog is proving to be a problem, and I have to get up every hour or less and walk around. Thank goodness for that pain because it is causing me to make better habits.




Preschoolers beat college students at figuring out gadget – CBS
HealthDay March 12, 2014

When faced with a strange new gizmo, preschoolers figured out how it worked more quickly than college students did, a new study shows.

The likely reason, according to the researchers, is that very young children may be less fixed than adults in their ideas about cause and effect.

The study included 106 young children, aged 4 and 5, and 170 college students who were asked to figure out a gadget that worked in an unusual way. They did this by placing different clay shapes on a special box to find out which shapes -- single or together -- could light up the box and play music.

The children were quicker than the college students to understand that unusual combinations of shapes could make the box perform, according to the study, which will be published in the May issue of the journal Cognition.

"The kids got it. They figured out that the machine might work in this unusual way and so that you should put both blocks on together," senior study author Alison Gopnik, a developmental psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in a column last week for The Wall Street Journal.

"But the best and brightest [college] students acted as if the machine would always follow the common and obvious rule, even when we showed them that it might work differently," Gopnik said.

"As far as we know, this is the first study examining whether children can learn abstract cause- and-effect relationships, abstract principles about the logical form of causal relationships, and comparing them to adults," Gopnik said in a university news release.

"One big question, looking forward, is what makes children more flexible learners -- are they just free from the preconceptions that adults have, or are they fundamentally more flexible or exploratory in how they see the world?" study author Christopher Lucas, a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said in the news release.

"Regardless, children have a lot to teach us about learning," he added.




“What makes children more flexible learners -- are they just free from the preconceptions that adults have, or are they fundamentally more flexible or exploratory in how they see the world?” This reminds me of another way that small children are better than adults, which is language learning. It is well known that a young child brought to a foreign country and immersed in the new language will learn it without accent and do better with it than their parents. I think maybe the young brain is programmed to learn faster in general than older people, as the growing child has to acquire the culture and skills of his parents with great speed, understand conversation or commands, and help with chores and other activities as a member of the society. Maybe there's something about the brain in a baby being a clean slate just waiting for something to be written on it.




When is violence necessary to protect yourself? – CBS
By Stephanie Slifer CBS News March 13, 2014

Self-defense and the question of when it is or isn't appropriate to use violence to defend yourself have been topics of increasingly heated discussion of late. How do you know when your life is truly being threatened? When do you need to fight back and when can you safely walk away?

Michael Dunn claimed he felt his life was in danger when he shot and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis in a dispute over loud music in a Jacksonville, Fla., parking lot on Nov. 23, 2012.

George Zimmerman claimed a violent altercation made him fear for his life when he fatally shot Florida teen Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012.

Self-defense expert Tim Larkin says, aside from their deadly outcomes, the two cases had something else in common.

"Both of those situations involved choice, on both ends," Larkin, author of the best-selling book "Survive the Unthinkable," tells CBS News' Crimesider. "We focus on that end result where somebody was killed but we don't focus on all the bad choices made by both sides that anybody could have disengaged from."

In both cases, Larkin says, those involved made choices that "upped the ante to the point where there was lethal action taken."

In the minutes leading up to when Dunn, 47, fired his gun, killing the unarmed Davis, the two engaged in a dispute over loud music.

Dunn had pulled into a parking space outside a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., beside the SUV holding Davis and three other teens. The teens were blasting loud music and when Dunn asked them to turn it down, they obliged, but then turned the music back up after Davis objected. This initiated a verbal back and forth between Davis and Dunn in which, Dunn says, Davis threatened to kill him and began getting out of the car.

In February, Dunn was convicted of three counts of attempted murder for firing into the SUV, but the same jury deadlocked on whether Dunn was guilty of murder for killing Davis. Prosecutors said they will retry him.

In Larkin's opinion, either side could have disengaged before the situation turned violent.

Similarly, in the Zimmerman case, Larkin believes the deadly outcome could have been avoided.

Throughout Zimmerman's trial, prosecutors painted him as a vigilante, frustrated by the break-ins that prompted him to launch a neighborhood watch program. They said Zimmerman profiled Trayvon Martin as a criminal and followed him as he walked through the gated community. Defense attorneys, however, claimed Martin threw the first punch and slammed Zimmerman's head into a concrete sidewalk.

Zimmerman, 29, was acquitted of second-degree murder in July 2013.
"Zimmerman could have disengaged," Larkin says. "He didn't have to do what he did to lead him to the end result."

Both the Dunn and Zimmerman confrontations are examples of what Larkin calls anti-social aggression.

"In anti-social aggression, as we're defining it, you always have a choice. You're choosing to participate in it. 'My ego's hurt, so I'm going to come back at you.' Those are the situations that are easily avoidable," he says.

Larkin, who teaches workshops on a self-protection technique he calls Target Focus Training, says it's important to recognize when you can avoid violence and when you are truly facing imminent, life-threatening danger and have to do whatever you can to survive.

Road rage, he says, is an example of avoidable, anti-social aggression. At any point, he says, the conflict can be ignored and disengaged from. In a robbery or mugging, "[if] you have the choice to, say, give them your iPhone or give them your wallet and disengage, then that's what you try first."

Conversely, asocial violence is exemplified in a situation like a school shooting or an attack by a serial killer or dangerous psychopath. Disengaging or reasoning with the assailant may not be an option.

"There's no choice involved there. You're involved in this whether you want to or not...You can't avoid violent confrontation," he says.

That's when fighting violence with violence may be the only option.
"The use of violence in self-defense has to be devoid of choice. You have to be facing grievous bodily harm, it has to be imminent and there's no exit for you. There's nothing that you can do. That is really the only justification to use the type of violence that both [Zimmerman and Dunn] used."




Those involved made choices that "upped the ante” and ended up behaving with “anti-social aggression,” an interaction in which both sides have a choice to walk away but instead they let their anger guide them to the next step. I have been troubled by both these cases because it seemed to me that this writer's description is exactly accurate. Zimmerman was told by the police to stay away from the boy and let the police handle it, but he didn't do that. He picked a fight instead and then when the boy was stronger than he was he shot him. Dunn on the other hand said he was afraid for his life and that he saw a gun and the boy getting out of his car. There is no doubt that he responded with anger over the loud music, though. But he said the boy threatened to kill him and he shot in response to that.

“Asocial violence” is a case in which you cannot avoid the attack, such as a serial killer or other homicidal attacker whose goal is to kill or rape you and who attacks without provocation. “That's when fighting violence with violence may be the only option.” I put the case of the SUV driver when the 50 motorcyclists began bedeviling him and trying to drive him off the road into this category. When he saw a chance he hit the gas and ran over one of the bikers, crippling him. He saw himself as being hopelessly outnumbered and under attack, which I think was the truth. I was glad to see that the police did not prefer any charges against him, but arrested 15 or so of the bikers. To me those bikers were behaving like “a dangerous psychopath.”

“The use of violence in self-defense has to be devoid of choice.” The so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws are not written with a mandate to attempt withdrawal, giving instead the right to use deadly force without trying to get away. That's what we need to stop. A key element here, though, is the fact that the parties are carrying weapons at all. If they only had their bare fists to use in a fight it would be less likely to be fatal unless one of the parties knows martial arts. Even in the case of women, I would rather see them be martial arts trained for self defense rather than carrying a gun. Killing with a gun is just too easy, and even women sometimes kill in anger. I would like to see the number of people with concealed carry permits be much fewer in number. The NRA and I don't see eye to eye.