Friday, June 20, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Benghazi suspect described as being "somewhat cooperative"
CBS/AP June 18, 2014

WASHINGTON The capture of an alleged leader of the deadly 2012 attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, gave U.S. officials a rare moment of good news. Now, they are preparing to try the captured Libyan in the U.S. court system and pledging to double down on catching others responsible for the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in the attacks.

U.S. government sources said Ahmed Abu Khattalah was being held on the USS New York, a Navy amphibious transport dock ship in the Mediterranean Sea and continues to be questioned by intelligence experts on High Value Interrogation Group team, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

Khattalah is talking and is being described as being "somewhat cooperative," reports Orr. One official suggested it's a mixed bag - he's answering some questions but not others.

He had not been read his Miranda rights as of Wednesday afternoon. Once Khattalah is read his rights, a "clean team" of FBI interrogators will start over with fresh questioning in an effort to obtain information that would be admissible in court, Orr reports.

Khattalah, who was captured Sunday on the outskirts of Benghazi by U.S. special forces, was headed to the United States to face what President Barack Obama called "the full weight of the American justice system."

The Benghazi attacks, and the Obama administration's conduct in the aftermath, have long been a source of festering political discord. And some Republicans on Capitol Hill were quick to voice skepticism about the administration's plans to try Khattalah like a civilian.

They urged the administration to get as much intelligence out of him as possible before anyone reads him his rights to remain silent, supplies him with a lawyer and prepares him for trial in a U.S. courtroom. In fact, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said interrogation of the Libyan already was underway and "we hope to find out some positive things."

Some Republicans said Obama should be sending Khattalah to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, instead of U.S. soil, so that he could be interrogated at length.

"The president is more focused on his legacy of closing Guantanamo Bay than preventing future terrorist attacks like what happened in Benghazi," Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., countered that Khattalah can be brought to justice in U.S. courts "just as we have successfully tried more than 500 terrorism suspects since 9/11." He said sending the Libyan to Guantanamo would be taking "the easy way out."

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in an email statement: "We have not added a single person to the GTMO (Guantanamo) population since President Obama took office, and we have had substantial success delivering swift justice to terrorists through our federal court system."

Meanwhile, the Libyan government denied that it had prior knowledge of the U.S. capture of Khattalah and demanded his return. It condemned the seizure in a statement read on television Wednesday. The statement said: "The government stresses its right to try Abu Khattalah on its territories and according to its laws."

Khattalah is charged with terror-related crimes in U.S. District Court in Washington. The Obama administration's policy is to treat terror suspects as criminals when possible and not send them to Guantanamo, like hundreds of terror suspects captured during the administration of President George W. Bush.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the U.S. should skip the legal niceties and focus on interrogation.

"The most valuable thing we can get from this terrorist is information about who else was involved in this," McConnell told reporters. "We'll be watching closely to see how much information they glean from him and how they're handling it."

According to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday, Khattalah is charged with killing a person in the course of an attack on a federal facility and conspiring to do so; providing, attempting and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists that resulted in death; and discharging, brandishing, using, carrying and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence. Officials said he could face the death penalty if convicted of the first charge.

His arrest may not be the last.

FBI Director James Comey, speaking in Minnesota, said Khattalah's arrest sends a message to others who need to be held accountable for the Benghazi attacks.

"We will shrink the world to find you. We will shrink the world to bring you to justice," said Comey, whose agents were involved in the operation.

A witness interviewed by The Associated Press following the attack said Khattalah was present at the building when it came under attack nearly two years ago, directing fighters. Abu Khattala acknowledged being there but said he was helping rescue trapped people. The Libyan was the commander of a militant group called the Abu Obaida bin Jarrah Brigade and is accused of being a senior leader of the Benghazi branch of Ansar al-Shariah in Libya, which the U.S. has designated a terror group.

As recently as last August, Khattalah told the AP that he was not in hiding nor had he been questioned by Libyan authorities about the attack at the diplomatic compound. He denied involvement and said he had abandoned the militia. Administration officials said Tuesday that despite his media interviews, he "evaded capture" until the weekend, when military special forces, including members of the Army's elite Delta Force, nabbed him.

The Pentagon press secretary, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, said that regardless of how openly the Libyan was said to have been living, the important point was that he now is in custody.

People should not think this was a situation where "he was going to McDonald's for milkshakes every Friday night and we could have just picked him up in a taxi cab," Kirby said. "These people deliberately try to evade capture."

The Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, on the 11th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Stevens was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty in more than 30 years. In the immediate aftermath, political reaction formed along sharply drawn lines that hold fast to this day.

With the presidential election near, Republicans accused the White House of intentionally misleading voters about what sparked the attack by portraying it as one of the many protests over an anti-Muslim video made in America, instead of a calculated terrorist attack on the president's watch. Obama, for his part, accused the Republicans of politicizing a national tragedy.

After 13 public hearings, the release of 25,000 pages of documents and 50 separate briefings, more congressional hearings are yet to come. One element in the ongoing political situation: The attacks unfolded while Hillary Rodham Clinton, now considered a likely Democratic presidential candidate, was secretary of state. Republicans have faulted her words and actions in many respects.





Khattalah is accused of being at the embassy at the time of the attack and directing Islamic fighters, while he claims that he was there, but he was only trying to save people. Also he says that he has been living openly until his apprehension by the US Army's Delta Force. An Administration spokesperson said instead that he was “evading capture.” “Once Khattalah is read his rights, a "clean team" of FBI interrogators will start over with fresh questioning in an effort to obtain information that would be admissible in court.” Several Republicans have argued for sending him to Guantanamo Bay, but “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., countered that Khattalah can be brought to justice in U.S. courts 'just as we have successfully tried more than 500 terrorism suspects since 9/11.' Khattalah is accused of a long list of crimes and could receive the death penalty if he is convicted in the first degree.

Republicans wanted Khattalah transferred to Guantanamo Bay “so that he could be interrogated at length.” NSC spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden emailed, “'We have not added a single person to the GTMO (Guantanamo) population since President Obama took office, and we have had substantial success delivering swift justice to terrorists through our federal court system.'" The decision not to continue the tradition of torture and other long term interrogation techniques at GTMO is one that requires political courage, since the right-leaning members of the US population have steadily pressed for it, but Mr. Obama has apparently succeeded in his policy, and justice has proceeded strictly according to civilian law. I am proud of President Obama. It would have been less of a political risk to give in to Republican pressure.





Americans get more depressed over job loss than Europeans
By AGATA BLASZCZAK-BOXE CBS NEWS June 19, 2014

Job loss and depression often seem to go hand in hand, but it turns out layoffs may take a greater emotional toll on Americans than people in other countries.

A new study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology looked at the effects of job loss resulting from plant closure among workers ages 50 to 64 in the U.S. and Europe. It found that the unemployed workers in this country were much more likely to be depressed than the Europeans.

Overall, job loss was related to a 4.8 percent increase in depression rates in the U.S. and 3.4 percent increase in Europe. But when researchers looked specifically at people who were laid off due to plant closure, depression rates increased by 28.2 percent in the U.S. compared with just 7.5 percent in Europe.

What explains the difference? It may have more to do with the economic safety net than other psychological factors.

"Although studies need to conduct research on this subject to evaluate the reasons for these differences, one possible cause can be the social protection nets available in each context," study author Carlos Riumallo-Herl, currently a doctoral candidate at Harvard School of Public Health and research assistant at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told CBS News in an email. "Europe, overall, has more protective welfare systems that may reduce the negative effects of unemployment due to plant closure."

"This research emphasizes the importance that social policies have in protecting the health of elderly individuals during hard economic times," he said.

The study was conducted between 2006 and 2010, a period of time that included the initial phase ofthe economic recession that started in 2008, causing significant job losses in Europe and the U.S.

In the 50 to 64 age group, unemployment jumped from 3.1 percent to 7.3 percent in the U.S. and from 5.4 percent to 6.15 percent in the EU-15 countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom).

Interestingly, the researchers found that Americans who lost jobs and who were poorer before the recession experienced significantly greater increases in depression symptoms compared with those who were wealthier prior to the recession. By contrast, in Europeans who experienced job loss, pre-recession wealth status did not make a difference.

"What this conclusion implies is that household accumulated wealth has a more important role in the U.S. when protecting an individual's mental health from becoming unemployed," Riumallo-Herl said. "Consequently, the greater the wealth in the U.S., the greater the potential [for people] to protect themselves in a period of unemployment."

"I think it is an intriguing study," Dr. Eric Hollander, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who was not involved in the study, told CBS News. "They have some really important findings."

"Older workers are a particularly vulnerable population," as it is harder for them to retrain and learn new skills, he added, which is often crucial in finding employment after experiencing a job loss.

Other experts underscored the importance of policy changes.

"Job loss is a profoundly disruptive experience," Lisa F. Berkman, a professor of public policy and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study, wrote in a related commentary. "As economies become more globalized and job transitions more common, the identification and implementation of policies that enable both societal as well as personal resilience will becomes increasingly important. This new piece of research points us in the right direction."

In the study, the researchers examined data from two major health surveys that included responses from 38,356 people in the U.S. and the following European countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The people in the study were classified as either employed, unemployed and looking for work, retired or disabled. The investigators distinguished between reasons for job loss: due to a company or plant closing down, redundancy, and other reasons such as the end of a temporary contract. The Europeans in the study were rated on the Euro-Depression scale (EURO-D), while the U.S. participants were rated on the short version of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-D).




The International Journal Of Epidemiology has studied “job loss resulting from plant closure among workers ages 50 to 64 in the U.S. and Europe.” Depression rates overall were higher among Americans than Europeans, but when the job loss resulted from plant closure America's depression rate went up from 4.8% to 28.2%.

The study concluded that the better social structure in Europe for protecting the unemployed is responsible for their lower depression rate, which seems obvious to me, and equally obvious that people who had been poor for a length of time before their job loss were especially depressed. Obviously, they would have had less money in savings accounts or investments to fall back on.

The article didn't discuss why being laid off with a group of other people from their company would cause such an increase in depression. From 4% to 28% is a huge leap. There are, of course, people who have been employed at the same company for years, so perhaps they had a level of trust in the company which was lost when they were let go and almost certainly the loss of friendships which would have been associated with the job. It is also a real problem in a small economic environment like a small one-industry city when that company releases maybe two hundred people into the local job search pool at once. The competition for new jobs would be extreme.

Whatever the cause, it seems to me that this study is a call for special funding to people recently fired. I know from my own experience that the fact that I had several thousand dollars in a savings account stopped me from getting Food Stamps and relief from my medicare premium which is taken out of my Social Security payment. My monthly income is poverty level, but my assets are too high. I have since drastically reduced my expenses and made a budget on my SS, but at the time that I lost my part time job it was scary. I think that is reason enough for some middle aged to elderly people to become depressed.

The government now, with the Affordable Healthcare Act, has set up insurance which is mandated to cover mental health care as well as ordinary care. That, too is important. I also know from personal experience that once a depressive patient finds the best drug therapy for him or her, the relief from the depression is marked. Too many Americans, especially men, are loathe to seek out care for depression, since they consider psychiatric illness to be “unmasculine,” lacking in faith, or just “weak.” We fall prey to our thinking patterns until we become more enlightened, as to me this issue should be outdated by now. There should be no stigma on mental illness.




Hackers wanted: U.S. needs more cybersecurity workers
By ELIENE AUGENBRAUN CBS NEWS June 19, 2014

Want to be paid $200,000 a year to think like a hacker? Then Uncle Sam wants you.

According to the newly released RAND report, "H4cker5 Wanted: An Examination of the Cybersecurity Labor Market", there is a shortage of highly trainedcybersecurity workers, especially in the federal government, with potential negative consequences for national security.

"It's largely a supply-and-demand problem," saidMartin Libicki, lead author of the study and senior management scientist at RAND, in a press release from the nonprofit research organization. "As cyber attacks have increased and there is increased awareness of vulnerabilities, there is more demand for the professionals who can stop such attacks. But educating, recruiting, training and hiring these cybersecurity professionals takes time."

For those with the expertise to help secure essential networks and combat cyberattacks, it's a lucrative job market.

"The cybersecurity manpower shortage is primarily at the high end of the capability scale, commanding salaries of more than $200,000 to $250,000," Libicki said.

For the moment, many large organizations are dealing with the crunch by providing training and promoting from within.

But the federal government is especially short-handed in this field. One reason is salary. Experts working for private companies can command double the highest salary a federal agency is permitted to offer. Another challenge for government agencies is that many of the positions require security clearance and are limited to people who have lived and worked in the country for at least five years.

In and out of the government, few women are entering or working in the field. According to the RAND report, "the percentage of women within the upper tier of the cybersecurity profession is well within single digits."

So what do the experts think we should do?

Don't panic. For the most part, the authors contend the labor market will correct itself, although it may take a number of years.

"The difficulty in finding qualified cybersecurity candidates is likely to solve itself, as the supply of cyberprofessionals currently in the educational pipeline increases, and the market reaches a stable, long-run equilibrium," the report states.

RAND recommends a few things the federal government could do to help:

Relax some federal hiring rules when hiring hard-to-find cybersecurity experts

Invest in cybersecurity education programs

Refine ways to identify non-traditional candidates likely to succeed

Attract more women into the profession

The number of cyberattacks may be on the rise. Fortunately, the number of computer science majors is too.




An article was in the news within the last month or so about a lack of IT jobs for women, so this seems to be a partial answer. Computer training establishments will probably be aware of this government call for applicants and will send their graduates to apply. In light of the Snowden episode, there may be stronger measures taken to eliminate people who might prove themselves untrustworthy, so that some candidates don't qualify. The article says that the number of computer science majors is on the rise, along with the number of cyberattacks.

I like to operate my computer, but I don't like to try to fix it when it's “broken.” I have a very nice “computer geek” named Russell Sweet at Affordable Computer Repair who charges me a very reasonable fee and comes to my apartment, or tunes in to my computer through a communication link and fixes it from his office. There, I have given him a plug. This is not Angie's List – I won't be plugging any more businesses.





Left Alone With a Sex Offender, a Teacher Is Raped – ABC

A teacher at an Arizona prison was alone in a room full of sex offenders before being stabbed and sexually assaulted by a convicted rapist, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press about an attack that highlighted major security lapses at the facility.

The attack occurred Jan. 30 at the Eyman prison's Meadows Unit, which houses about 1,300 rapists, child molesters and other sex offenders. The teacher was administering a high school equivalency test to about a half-dozen inmates in a classroom with no guard nearby and only a radio to summon help. The Department of Corrections issued only a bare-bones press release after the attack, but the AP pieced together what happened based on interviews and investigatory reports obtained under the Arizona Public Records Act.

After the last of the other inmates left, Jacob Harvey asked the teacher if she could open the bathroom and then attacked her, records show. Harvey is accused of stabbing her in the head with a pen, forcing her to the ground and raping her.

The teacher told investigators that she screamed for help, but none came. Afterward, Harvey tried to use her radio to call for help. It had apparently been changed to a channel the unit's guards didn't use, so Harvey let the woman use a phone, according to the reports.

Carl ToersBijns, a former deputy warden at the prison, said the assault highlights chronic understaffing and lax security policies that put staff members at risk.

"Here you've got a guy that commits a hell of a crime ... and he's put into an environment that actually gives him an opportunity to do his criminality because of a lack of staffing," said ToersBijns, who was deputy warden at the Eyman prison in Florence until retiring in 2010 and oversaw the Meadows Unit for 19 months.

State prison officials, however, dismiss the concerns. They say the assault at the prison about 60 miles southeast of Phoenix is a risk that comes with the job of overseeing violent prison inmates.

Harvey was in the first year of a 30-year sentence for raping a Glendale woman in November 2011. Just 17 at the time, he had knocked on the woman's door in the middle of the day, asked for a drink of water, then forced his way inside, where he repeatedly raped and beat her while her 2-year-old child was in the apartment. He fled naked when the woman's roommate arrived home.

He was arrested after DNA evidence connected him to the crime, and he pleaded guilty.

Harvey was initially classified as a "Class 4" security risk, one notch lower than the highest level. Six months later, despite violating prison rules at least once, he was reclassified at a lower level.

Department of Corrections spokesman Doug Nick said classrooms at prisons across the state are having cameras installed. But he said no administrative investigation was launched because there was no need, and no one was disciplined. He said all prisons are dangerous places and staff are trained accordingly.

"This is an assault that reflects the fact that inmates in our system often act out violently, and it is the inmate suspect who is responsible for this despicable act," he said.

Nick also said that not having a guard in classrooms or nearby "follows accepted corrections practices nationwide."




“Eyman prison's Meadows Unit, which houses about 1,300 rapists, child molesters and other sex offenders,” was the site of a shocking lapse of security procedures resulting in the rape and stabbing of a teacher who was administering a test to the group of six inmates. She only had a radio to summon help, but unfortunately it had been tuned to the wrong frequency and the guards didn't receive the message. The criminal himself lent her his cell phone (he had one??) to call the guards. He is young, having been in prison for a year and convicted at the age of 17. His classification was shifted down to a lower security rating since being in the prison, despite having broken prison rules. “Carl ToersBijns, a former deputy warden at the prison, said the assault highlights chronic understaffing and lax security policies that put staff members at risk.”

The prison is trying hard to shift blame off their shoulders, stressing that prisons “are dangerous places.” Spokesman Doug Nick said that on a statewide basis all classrooms are being equipped with cameras, but not having a guard stationed in the room or nearby "follows accepted corrections practices nationwide." Well, it doesn't make sense. The general public sometimes has to go into the prison for similar reasons as this teacher, and they should be protected while they are there. A prison near Jacksonville often advertises for data entry operators and I have always looked at those ads, but beyond the driving distance to get there, I have always been afraid of being in the prison environment.





Plan To House Immigrant Teens Prompts A Backlash In Virginia Town – NPR
by JENNIFER LUDDEN
June 19, 2014

The influx of tens of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children to the U.S. has sparked a controversy in an unlikely place far from the U.S.-Mexico border: a tiny town in southern Virginia.

The federal government had struck a deal to house some of the migrants in an empty college in Lawrenceville, in the heart of Virginia's tobacco belt. The first busload was expected as early as Thursday, but a local backlash has put the plan on hold.

St. Paul's College in Lawrenceville, Va., closed last year, but recently struck a deal to lease campus buildings to the federal government. The rent would allow the college to remain open — though not for education — and would provide funds to cut grass, staff guards, issue transcripts and allow the college to find a buyer.

Word spread this week that the detention center was a done deal, and it didn't go over well that most in this town of 1,400 had heard nothing of plans for the shelter.

"I was just shocked," says Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts. "The way this process has been handled puts more fear in our eyes, because it's been shoved down our throat," he says.

Roberts' main worry is public safety. "That's my job," he says, "and so 500 kids unaccounted for — illegal alien children in my little sleepy town — I just don't think it's the right fit for this community."

Tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors have crossed the southern U.S. border in recent months. Federal officials have been putting them up on military bases until they can be reunited with family members in the U.S. or deported.

So why turn to Lawrenceville? Because of Saint Paul's College.

One of the nation's oldest historically black colleges, Saint Paul's closed last year amid accreditation woes and a pile of debt, leaving dorms and other buildings sitting empty.

But this week, the college parking lot was full as a slew of officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services descended to prep the buildings and organize the transfer of migrant minors.

Media were not allowed on campus, and despite repeated requests, no federal officials gave NPR an interview.

The college's stately red brick buildings sit among clusters of lush green woods. But the open campus is in the heart of town, a stone's throw from Main Street and surrounded by homes.

At Pino's Pizza downtown, Emily and Derek Lewis say they and their children live just across the street from Saint Paul's, so the notion that migrant teens out on their own will be staying there makes them a bit uneasy.

"Kids find ways of getting out of places. It just happens," Emily says.

"I was a teenager," Derek says. "I learned how to get out of my school. The No. 1 concern we have is the potential for shenanigans and the potential for crime."

The Lewis' say they've been reassured by a federal official that the runaway rate at immigrant shelters is less than 1 percent. Still, a couple booths over, Joanna and Frederick Pritchett have other concerns.

"There's more things they can be doing with those buildings over there than housing immigrants," says Frederic Pritchett.

Joanna says it doesn't seem fair that the government is paying to house people who've entered the U.S. illegally. "We've got people right here in town that don't have anywhere to lay their heads," she says.

They and others also wonder: Will the kids end up in the local schools? Will they bring diseases? Will there be gang members?

Federal officials say no, no and no. They've been holding small meetings, trying to quell the backlash. They say the migrants will be vaccinated at the border, screened for criminal backgrounds, self-contained and well-guarded while here on the college campus.

Outside the restaurant, one woman says she thinks the shelter is a great idea if it brings jobs.

The government says, at least at first, it will provide the couple hundred people to staff it itself.

Even so, Town Manager C.J. Dean says just having workers in town to prep the place has been a boon.

"They have been to the restaurants," Dean says. "They been to the gas stations. They been to the car wash this morning. You know, they been to Dollar General store buying stuff, so there is already some small economic activity."

Plus, Dean says 70 percent of the town budget is water and sewer sales; housing 500 migrants would certainly boost that.

With all the uproar, Lawrenceville has scheduled a public meeting about the shelter Thursday evening.

"I hope that the public gets all the information that they're seeking so they can make an informed decision of what's going on," Dean says.

In fact, it's not the public's decision to make. Saint Paul's is private, and by all accounts, the government has already signed a five-month lease. But residents say federal officials have told them, "If you really don't want this, we won't do it."




Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts said, “'it's been shoved down our throat.' Roberts' main worry is public safety. 'That's my job,' he says, 'and so 500 kids unaccounted for — illegal alien children in my little sleepy town — I just don't think it's the right fit for this community.'" The Federal government has so far been putting them up on military bases with the aim of “reuniting them with relatives in the US or deporting them.”

I was wondering what the government plan for the eventual disposition of 70,000 Spanish speaking teens and kids would be. It's going to cause some local upheaval among the populations in more places than this college, I'm sure, because “warehousing” them all in New Mexico and Texas under FEMA blankets is not a good solution. It's like the situation in New Orleans when thousands of people crowded into a sports arena with limited bathroom facilities and no beds.

A large number of them are going to have to go back to their countries of origin, and that is fair. Those countries should clamp down on the roving gangs and other criminals that are terrorizing those places, often without government interference. Latin American dictators have never been at a loss for repressive means to maintain their idea of order, so they can handle the Cartels etc. if they will stop being on the take from the gangs. Of course, the people of the nations may need to band together politically to oust their ineffective leaders. 70,000 migrants doesn't happen by accident.






Your Brain's Got Rhythm, And Syncs When You Think -- NPR
by JON HAMILTON
June 17, 2014

Even if you can't keep a beat, your brain can. "The brain absolutely has rhythm," says Nathan Urban, a neuroscientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

When you concentrate, Urban says, your brain produces rapid, rhythmic electrical impulses called gamma waves. When you relax, it generates much slower alpha waves.

The internal cadences of the brain and nervous system appear to play an important role in everything from walking to thinking, Urban says. And abnormal rhythms, he says, have been associated with problems including schizophrenia, epilepsy, autism and Parkinson's disease.

The rhythms of the brain begin with the firing patterns of individual brain cells. Some types of cells tend to fire as slowly as once a second, while others tend to fire more than a hundred times as fast. "They're little clocks," Urban says. "They have an intrinsic frequency."

All those different beats in the brain could produce chaos. One reason they don't is that groups of brain cells synchronize when they need to get something done. So, when a mouse is exploring a new place, cells begin firing together in areas of the brain involved in navigation and memory.

Urban has been studying how brain cells achieve this synchrony and has found evidence that it works a bit like a room full of people clapping their hands. At first, each person claps to his own beat. But if you ask them to clap together, they'll start listening to their neighbors and adjusting their rhythms until the claps are synchronized.

Brain cells appear to do something very similar, Urban says. There's still debate about why this synchronization takes place. But many scientists believe it's important, because they know that when any two cells fire together, the connections between them get stronger, a process that is critical to learning and memory.

The Rhythms of Digestion and Dance

Of course, rhythms in the brain and nervous system also control many rhythms in the body. Among these rhythms are the repetitive muscle contractions responsible for functions as basic as digestion and as elevated as dance, says Eve Marder, a biology professor at Brandeis University. Marder has spent years studying the complex patterns of nerve cell firing that allow crabs to chew, filter and digest their food.

"It turns out that the stomach of a crab is a very, very complicated mechanical device," driven by the precisely choreographed contractions of 42 sets of muscles, Marder says. And the way a crab processes lunch has a lot in common with the way a ballerina does pliés, she says. Both actions rely on circuits of nerve cells that fire in a sequence, activating one muscle, then another, then another until the pattern repeats.

Rhythmic sequences are also required to move around, says Mark Churchland, a brain scientist at Columbia University. Walking, for example, requires repeatedly lifting a foot up, putting it down, and pushing it back. Fish swish a tail from side to side to swim. "It's sort of hard to imagine any way of doing continuous locomotion that wasn't built on a rhythmic underpinning," Churchland says.

Many of these rhythms are maintained by cells in the nervous system, not the brain, Churchland says. This means the brain can use a kind of shorthand to control motion. So instead of sending instructions for each muscle contraction needed to take a step, the brain sends a general command: "Activate the walking rhythm."

What's interesting, Churchland says, is that the brain may be using this rhythmic shorthand for some motions that don't appear rhythmic at all, like reaching. "You start with your hand in one place and you move your hand to another place. There's nothing rhythmic about that," he says.

But when Churchland took a closer look at reaching he found something really surprising. "That pattern of muscle activity is the sum of two rhythms," he says.

When Rhythms Go Wrong

Diseases including epilepsy, schizophrenia and Parkinson's can disrupt the brain's normal rhythms. People with Parkinson's disease, for example, tend to develop abnormal firing patterns in their brains that result in tremor and other difficulties with movement.
Surprisingly, these symptoms of Parkinson's are greatly reduced when patients respond to the external rhythms of music and dance. This transformation is easy to see at a studio in Silver Spring, Md., where Lucy Bowen McCauley teaches a dance class designed for people with Parkinson's.

When a half dozen of her students arrive for class, their steps are halting, their gestures visibly distorted by tremors. After some warm-up exercises, they make their way to folding chairs on the dance floor and sit. Then, as the sound of Ella Fitzgerald fills the room and McCauley calls out "heel, heel, heel, toe, toe, toe," the group begins tapping out the beat in unison.

"When we use music, these Parkinson's patients become dancers," McCauley says. "They look graceful and they can move in rhythm."

After class, some students talk about the role that rhythm plays in their disease. "My doctor says he can tell a Parkinson's tremor from any other kind," says Anne Davis, a retired teacher who's had the disease for more than 15 years. That's because the tremors of Parkinson's have their own distinctive rhythm, Davis says.

And a man-made rhythm has helped reduce her tremor, she says. It comes from an implanted deep brain stimulation device that sends high-frequency electrical impulses to the area causing her hands to tremble. Scientists think the fast pulses somehow override the much slower rhythm responsible for tremor.

Many Parkinson's patients also experience something called freezing — a temporary inability to initiate a movement like taking a step. "You're trying to go forward or sideways or whatever and your feet won't move," says Phyllis Richman, another student in the dance class and a former food critic for the Washington Post. "So then you fall," Davis adds.

But musical rhythms have a remarkable ability to help Parkinson's patients unfreeze, McCauley says. "Two times I've had people really have trouble walking down the hall to get to the class," she says. The solution: "We hum a tune. One time I did a march and one time I did a waltz. And we got in sync with the rhythm and they were able to get their feet to match."

Of course, dance doesn't halt the brain damage caused by Parkinson's. But McCauley's students say the rhythms of dance give them a respite from the abnormal brain rhythms of Parkinson's. "I come here because this is where I get joy," Davis says.




Nathan Urban, neuroscientist, describes the brain as “having rhythm.” During concentration, the brain produces rapid, rhythmic gamma waves and when relaxed, it produces a slower variety called alpha waves. Abnormal rhythms are associated with schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. An implanted “deep brain stimulation” device is now being used which fires high frequency impulses to the area causing the patient's hands to tremble and “overcomes the slower rhythm of Parkinson's. Music therapy is also being used, which temporarily overrides the disease impulses. Parkinson's patients who can barely walk can dance “gracefully” and in rhythm to the music. Humming a tune also allows the patients to walk effectively even when they have the symptom called “freezing.” This a condition in which the patient wants to walk forward, but can't get his feet to move and bear weight, so he may fall down. It doesn't solve the brain damage of the condition, but it gives relief from the symptoms. In the end Parkinson's is not fatal, but does lead to progressive brain degeneration and “an early death” if not treated. Symptoms can be much less severe if treated. This prognosis is taken from the website http://www.news-medical.net/health/Parkinsons-Disease-Prognosis.aspx.