31 Surprisingly Delicious High-Fiber Snacks | Greatist

Photo by Perry Santanachote

It helps keep things moving smoothly (you know what we mean), it can lower our risk for diabetes and heart disease, and it keeps us fuller, longer. What is this magic stuff? ?Dietary fiber! It?s essential to our diets, plus a high fiber nibble can buy us time before the next meal hits the kitchen table. Here are 31 of our favorite fiber-packed snacks ? one for every day of the month. We opted for snacks with at least five grams of fiber (20 percent of the daily recommended value) to tide you over. Instead of turning to chalky store-bought high-fiber bars, try out some of these tastier choices.

1. Orange Spinach Smoothie
This tasty treat goes down easy while sneaking in tons of fruits and veggies. Toss 1 large orange (peeled and separated), ? a large banana, 1 handful of strawberries, 2 cups of spinach, 1/3 cup of plain Greek yogurt, and 1 cup of ice into a blender. Store any leftovers in the freezer for tomorrow (pro tip: Pour the leftovers in ice cube trays for easier blending).

2. Raspberry Cream Cheese Toast
Toast 1 slice of whole-grain bread, spread with 1 to 2 tablespoons of low-fat cream cheese, and top with ? cup of raspberries (1 cup of raspberries has eight grams of fiber, so feel free to add a few extra, or snack on another handful while making the toast).

3. Mediterranean Artichokes
Strain 1 6-ounce jar of artichokes to remove all liquid. Snack on them as-is, or get fancy by topping with 1 tablespoon of feta, a squeeze of lemon juice, a little olive oil, and some cracked pepper. This six-ounce (or ? cup) serving of the hearts (the center portion of an artichoke) has more than seven grams of fiber. Plus, they?re a rich source of vitamin C. (We won?t tell anyone if you stick a fork in the jar.)

4. Enlightened Bars
These healthier ice cream bars aren?t just low in calories ? they actually have some impressive nutritional stats: Eight grams of protein, no artificial sweetener, only three grams of sugar, and five grams of fiber per bar. Plus, these smooth and creamy treats come in coffee, fudge, and orange cream flavors. At Greatist HQ, the favorite?s a tie between coffee and fudge. (I vote coffee!)

5. Maple n? Oat Stuffed Apple
This snack is not only tasty ? it?s lovely to look at, too. Boil 1 cup of steel cut oats in 4 cups of water. Stir in a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg, and a drizzle of maple syrup, and turn the heat to low while the oats cook (covered) for 20 minutes. Serve in a hollowed apple (we like ?em overflowing). If it?s too tough to eat raw, microwave the cored apple for a minute, and then fill it up. Or, if time?s on your side, stuff the apples with oatmeal and then bake for 20 to 30 minutes until the apple is tender.

Photo: Deb Perelman / SmittenKitchen.com

6. Sweet Potato Fries
This one is easy as pie. (Sweet potato pie, that is.) Cut a sweet potato lengthwise, and toss the orange-hued wedges in oil, and spices for a new take on a hamburger?s BFF.?Shhh, it?s a secret: A medium sweet potato has more potassium than a banana and five grams of fiber.

7. Pears and Cottage Cheese
Core a pear and slice in half top to bottom. Scoop low-fat cottage cheese on top of the pear and sprinkle with cinnamon or poppy seeds. One medium pear touts six grams of protein.

8. Edamame Hummus
A new take on hummus, this spread adds some color and fiber to your dipping delight. Bring a pot of water to a boil, and toss in 2 cups of frozen edamame (16 whopping grams of fiber!). Boil for three minutes, remove from heat, and drain. Combine edamame, 3 cloves of garlic, 6 tablespoons of olive oil, a pinch of salt, cumin, paprika, cayenne, and a squeeze of lemon in a food processor. Blend until smooth. Serve with toasted pita bread or sliced veggies like carrots and cukes.

9. Pumpkin Yogurt Dip
Pumpkin, a superfood?rich in beta carotene (essential for skin and eye health) is an easy and tasty way to sneak in some fiber, especially when it?s from a can. Mix together ? cup of canned pumpkin puree, ? cup of non-fat plain Greek yogurt, 1 teaspoon of honey, ? teaspoon of vanilla, and a good helping of cinnamon and nutmeg (or pumpkin spice if you?re feeling fancy). Spoon it straight or use as a dip with graham crackers or apple slices. (Note: Make sure to use plain pureed pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling, which is loaded with sugar and salt.)

10. Quinoa Pizza Bites
These simple nuggets are full of flavor. Fresh basil and tomato paste make them really taste like pizza. The key fiber-filled ingredients, quinoa and kidney beans, also make for a stellar protein-packed snack. Protein powerhouse quinoa is one of the only grains or seeds that provide all the essential amino acids our bodies can?t produce themselves!

11. Rice Cake with Almond Butter and Pumpkin Seeds
For a snack with some crunch, schmear 1 brown rice cake with 2 tablespoons almond butter. (Get this: almond butter beats peanut butter when it comes to fiber, iron, and vitamin E.) For even more crunch (and fiber), sprinkle 1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds on top. The little green seeds are a super rich source of magnesium, which is especially good for strong bones. Extra bonus: Just half a cup of pumpkin seeds has about 14 grams of protein.

Photo by Caitlin Covington

12. Banana Berry Oats
For quick microwave oatmeal, mix ? cup rolled oats and a dash of cinnamon in a microwave-safe bowl. Stir in ? cup of water and microwave for one minute. Remove the bowl, add ? a banana (sliced), and cook for another minute. Stir in 3 to 4 tablespoons of low fat milk or vanilla almond milk, and top with ? to 1 cup sliced strawberries, blackberries, and other berries of choice. While all fruit helps out in the fiber department, berries are especially good sources ? raspberries and blackberries have eight grams per cup.

13. Chocolate Bran Crunchies
For a seriously fiber-filled snack, grab a box of bran cereal, which has 10 grams of fiber per ? cup serving. Combine 1 cup of bran cereal with ? cup of slivered almonds, and 4 ounces (3 to 4 squares, depending on the bar) of melted dark chocolate (melt in a microwave in 20 second intervals until smooth). Spoon tablespoon-sized mounds of the chocolately delicousness onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and pop it in the freezer for 15 to 30 minutes to set.

14. Spiced Flax Balls
These balls get the fiber benefits of flax (five grams per tablespoon) plus their omega 3s.?Pulse 1 cup of almonds in a food processor until finely chopped. Add ? cup of ground flax seeds, ? cup of dates, ? cup of raisins, ? cup of chopped dried apricots, ? cup of shredded coconut, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg and ground ginger. Pulse the mixture until it sticks (you may want to add a teaspoon or two of water). Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls, then cover in cling wrap and refrigerate. Enjoy!

15. Blackberry Basil Popsicles
Toss 1 ? cups of fresh blackberries (one of the highest fiber contents of any fruit), 1 handful of fresh basil, ? cup of honey, and the juice of one lemon into a food processor or blender. Puree the ingredients until well combined (strain out the seeds if you?d like it smooth). Add the mixture to popsicle molds or small paper cups, and freeze for at least eight hours. For extra big kid fun, pour the mixture into ice cube molds and add them to blackberry margaritas or a mojito for an icy, antioxidant-filled treat.

16. Feta-Stuffed Prunes
Grandma was right: Prunes can get you back on track. The dried plums (once you get over the stereotype of them being an ?old people food?) are really sweet and delicious. Plus, prunes have an insane amount of fiber (12 grams for 1 cup). Eat them as is, or cut a small opening and stuff some feta or blue cheese in the center for a quick sweet-n?-savory bite. Bonus: Prunes are considered the epitome of a functional food(which means they?re really good at promoting health!)^[].

17. Chocolate Bean Butter
For a no-fuss sweet (but healthy!) snack, try out this chocolate spread. Combine 1 can of white kidney beans, 5 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder, ? teaspoon of stevia powder (or sweetener of your choice), a pinch of sea salt, 3 tablespoons of coconut oil, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract in a blender or food processor and pulse until smooth (adding a splash of water or almond milk if it?s too dry). Spread onto a brown rice cake or use as a dip for sliced fruit. We know chocolatecan lower blood pressure but adding beans to the mix effectively pumps a healthy dose of fiber to the mix (6 grams for ? a cup!)^[].

18. Buffalo Wing Hummus
Seriously, this is a real thing. It?s all the deliciousness of the Super Bowl, minus all the not-so-good stuff. Blend 2 cans of chickpeas, 2 to 3 cloves of garlic, ? cup of tahini, ? cup of lemon juice, 1 ? teaspoons paprika, 3 tablespoons wing sauce, 2 tablespoons hot sauce, 1 tablespoon white vinegar, and a pinch of kosher salt. Puree until smooth and dip-able, and enjoy with celery and carrot sticks (or by itself?). The beans up the fiber content to a dip that usually gets its base from a fatty dairy source.

Photo by Perry Santanachote

19. Kale Chips
We?ll be honest here: These guys definitely don?t taste exactly like potato chips. But if you?re looking for a healthier (or more chic) way to crunch, kale chips are it. Preheat oven to 375. Rinse and dry 1 large bunch of kale, then remove the stems and tough center ribs. Rip the kale into large pieces, toss with a little olive oil, then sprinkle with some salt and pepper. Arrange in a single layer on a large parchment lined baking sheet (careful not to overlap). Bake until crisp, about 10 to 15 minutes, checking frequently (they can burn easily!).

20. Lentil Trail Mix
We did tell you trail mix can be a dangerfood. However, we?re about to give you a healthier option for this munchable snack, plus it?s pretty (and vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, and grain-free!).? Bake 1 cup of red lentils in a 350 degree oven on a baking sheet (after sprinkled with a touch of salt) for 30 to 35 minutes, or until they are crunchy. Chop up ? cup dried apricots and pineapple, and toss the little chunks in rice flour to take away the stickiness. Combine lentils, fruit, ? cup of pumpkin seeds, ? cup of sunflower seeds, and ? cup of dried cranberries, and munch away.

21. Banana in A Sweater
This easy-to-whip-together snack gets its fiber from superfoods flaxseed, chia, and oats. In a small bowl mix 1 teaspoon of honey with 2 tablespoons of a nut butter of choice (peanut and almond tend to be our favorites, but for a different taste and texture, try pecan butter, cashew butter, or walnut butter). In a shallow bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of oats, ? tablespoon of chia seeds, ? tablespoon of ground flaxseed, and ? teaspoon of cinnamon. Coat a peeled banana with the nut mixture (it?ll be easier if the banana is cut in half), then roll it in the dry mixture. While the banana serves as a carrier for all the tasty toppings, it adds three grams of fiber, too.

22. Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls
Considering my love affair with chocolate and peanut butter as separate entities, a combo of the two really knocks it out of the park. Plus, these snack bites are actually healthy and you only need three ingredients to make ?em. Mix 3 scoops of chocolate protein powder, ? cup of ground flax seed, and ? cup of peanut butter (look for the unsalted variety). Form the mixture into small balls and pop in the freezer to set before eating.

23. Banana Chocolate Chip Quinoa Bake
The very best thing about this recipe is that it takes only five minutes to make. Grease a microwave safe dish (try coconut or vegetable oil on a piece of paper towel for a light coating). In a small bowl, mix 1/3 of a medium banana (mashed), ? cup of egg whites, ? cup of quinoa flakes (the flake version of the superfood grain), 1 tablespoon of chocolate chips, 1 tablespoon of chopped pecans, and a pinch each of cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour the mix into the dish, and even out with a fork until it reaches all of the edges. Pop it in the microwave for two and a half minutes. Let it cool and enjoy!

24. Chocolate Crunch Mix
This is the ultimate homemade Chex mix. Combine 1 cup of Chex cereal, 1 cup of pretzel sticks broken in half, and ? cup of roasted almonds. Drizzle with 3 tablespoons of melted dark chocolate (to melt: microwave for one minute, stir, and continue heating in 20 second intervals until completely melted). Spread the mixture on a wax paper-lined baking sheet and refrigerate until the chocolate sets. For a little extra fiber, sprinkle in some sesame seeds.

Photo by Lisa Cain

25. Spicy Roasted Chickpeas
Crunchy roasted chickpeas are becoming pretty popular at grocery stores, but they can bare a hefty price tag. These chickpeas are a heckuva lot cheaper, easy to make, and have a kick to them. Drain and rinse 1 can of chickpeas and add to a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, ? teaspoon of salt, and ? teaspoon of cayenne pepper and toss to coat. Arrange in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Take them out and shake ?em around before returning to the oven for another 15 minutes, or until the chickpeas are brown and crunchy. Just half a cup of the little guys provides six grams of fiber and six grams of protein.

26. Pumpkin Spice Smoothie
Combine 1 cup of pumpkin puree, 1 tablespoon of honey, 1 frozen banana, 1 cup of unsweetened soy milk or almond milk, 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed, and a ? teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cardamom (pumpkin spice works too). Aside from shelling out fiber, pumpkin is a great source of vitamin A, which is key for healthy eyes and also helps maintain heart, lung, and kidney health.

27. Fig and PB Dough Balls
Each of these dough hunks has four grams of fiber and just 150 calories. Grind ? cup of peanuts in a food processor until it reaches a fine crumb. Add in 2 tablespoons of maple syrup, ? cup of agave, ? cup of oats, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, ? cup of ground flax seed, ? teaspoon of cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of chia seeds, and 6 dried figs. Pulse until the mixture begins to come together, and then roll into 1-inch balls.

28. Avocado Boat
Cut an avocado in half, and twist it to separate both pieces. Remove the pit, and fill up the hole with salsa and some shredded cheese. Aside from a pretty stellar fiber content (six grams for just half of a medium one), avocados are a fantastic source of monosaturated fats, which can help improve cholesterol levels, decrease the risk of heart disease, and benefit brain activity.

29. Black Bean Brownies
Brownies with beans? These fudgy squares take on the taste of chocolate way more than the beans ? we promise. The batter forms up quick in a food processor, and doesn?t require a whole lot of prep work. More good news: Sneaking in black beans loads the brownies with fiber, and provides lots of folate, a nutrient that?s necessary to make DNA and RNA, the building blocks of cells.

30. Yellow Split Pea Spread
This spread makes for a colorful alternative to hummus. Dip veggies like broccoli, celery, or cauliflower, or try whole-wheat pita triangles. Veggies, on veggies, on veggies!

31. Popcorn
Popcorn is a whole grain, made from a seed so it can keep you fuller longer than other more calorie-laden snacks. For a budget friendly version, try popping a handful of kernels in a small brown bag in the microwave. Fold the rim of the bag over twice, and lay it horizontally in the microwave. Cook until popping begins to slow but doesn?t stop completely. To jazz up the regular old movie necessity, add fresh herbs like dill or parsley, or try a sweet variety with cinnamon, nutmeg, and honey (microwave it first for a bit to thin it out).

What are your favorite high-fiber snacks??Share with us in the comments below or tweet the author @nicmcdermott.

Source: http://greatist.com/health/high-fiber-snacks/

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AP Interview: Iran opposition chief sees rebirth

FILE - In this Jan. 25, 2011 file photo, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of Iranian opposition party National Council of Resistance of Iran, smiles as she attends an international conference on Iran policy in Brussels. Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based head of the exiled opposition group, said in an interview that she hopes the organization can now have the ear of the world's diplomats to help bolster its bid to overthrow Iran's clerical regime. She stressed that its goal was to replace the Islamic Republic with a democratic government, Friday, Sept. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 25, 2011 file photo, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of Iranian opposition party National Council of Resistance of Iran, smiles as she attends an international conference on Iran policy in Brussels. Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based head of the exiled opposition group, said in an interview that she hopes the organization can now have the ear of the world's diplomats to help bolster its bid to overthrow Iran's clerical regime. She stressed that its goal was to replace the Islamic Republic with a democratic government, Friday, Sept. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe, File)

AUVERS-SUR-OISE, France (AP) ? The leader of an Iranian militant group that was taken off the U.S. terror list on Friday says the move will change her group's "balance of power" with the world ? predicting a higher profile in politics, fundraising and diplomacy and increased anti-regime activity in Iran.

The U.S. State Department said the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) hasn't committed terror for more than a decade. The group has also complied with demands that more than 3,000 of its once-armed members abandon their base in Iraq near the Iranian border for a camp outside Baghdad, an essential step to ending their decades-long presence in Iraq.

The U.S. decision means that, effective immediately, any assets the group has in the United States are unblocked and Americans are permitted to do business with the organization.

A court order had given Clinton until Oct. 1 to act. The group was removed from the European Union's terrorist list in 2009.

Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based head of the exiled opposition group, said in a rare interview that she hopes the organization can now have the ear of the world's diplomats to help bolster its bid to overthrow Iran's clerical regime. She stressed that its goal was to replace the Islamic Republic with a democratic government.

"It now has become evident for everyone that these (terror) allegations were untrue," she said, praising U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for her "courage."

"Our cause is democracy and the freedom of democracy for the future of Iran," Rajavi said. "We are against fundamentalism which is in power in Iran ... ... The mullahs' (clerical) regime is the center of the exportation of terrorism and fundamentalism in the Middle East."

However, a senior State Department official suggested that removing MEK from the U.S. terrorist list does not translate into a shared common front against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The official said Washington does not view MEK as an opposition movement that can promote democratic values in Iran. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

"They are not part of our picture in terms of the future of Iran," the official said.

The Iranian regime is sure to be furious at the U.S. decision to delist MEK ? for years the only armed exile opposition group. The group, which began as a guerrilla movement fighting Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, helped overthrow the monarch in 1979 then quickly fell out with the Islamic Republic's first leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

MEK later teamed up with Iraq to battle Iran in an eight-year war in the 1980s, then from its Iraqi base continued military action against neighboring Iran.

The United States contends the group was responsible for the killing of several American military officials and defense contractors in the 1970s, carrying out attacks on Iran from its base in Iraq.

The MEK spent huge sums of money over years lobbying for removal from the U.S. terror list, holding rallies in European capitals and elsewhere that featured luminaries like former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge from the administration of George W. Bush. Former House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was among those recently welcomed by the MEK to Paris.

Rajavi, 58, wore what has become a trademark headscarf among MEK women during the interview Friday at MEK's headquarters in the leafy town of Auvers-Sur-Oise north of Paris. She denied claims by critics that MEK has all the earmarks of a cult, saying it is Iran who seeded such allegations as part of their "psychological war" against the group.

"All the energy and potential of our movement were chained" during the 15 years that MEK was listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, she said, speaking in French as well as the Iranian language of Farsi through a translator.

At its headquarters, the group was preparing for a jubilant fete on Saturday, plastering walls on the street with red drapes and photographs of "martyrs," as it refers to members who have been killed.

"The diplomatic scene will be completely different" because the group's status as a pariah will evaporate, Rajavi said, reiterating MEK's long-standing denial of terrorism.

But, she said, "the most important impact ... will be seen inside Iran."

"The balance of power, the balance of power is going to change. For example, the first message for the Iranian people will be they won't fear increasing their activity and increasing their demonstrations," she said. The fear "will evaporate ... and that will lead to the expansion of anti-regime activities within Iran."

With a clean bill of health in the West, the Iranian regime "will no longer have the excuse" of acting against an organization deemed terrorist by the United States.

Mujahedeen, protected in Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein, were disarmed after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and are disliked by the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite Muslims like those in Iran.

The United States had insisted the MEK's members leave Camp Ashraf, their home in Iraq, as a condition for removal from the terrorist list. All but several hundred militants are now located in Camp Liberty, a former U.S. base outside Baghdad, looking for placement in third countries.

Among those transferred to Camp Liberty were Rajavi's 30-year-old daughter and her 32-year-old son, she revealed.

A veil of mystery has long clung to the group, not the least over the whereabouts of its main founder, Massoud Rajavi, who married Maryam in 1985. He has not been seen publicly since at least 2003, although he continues as MEK's co-leader, and his portrait greets visitors at the well-secured entranthe group's French headquarters.

There has been speculation that he is dead. Rajavi countered those reports Friday and said he is alive but would provide no details.

___

Bradley Klapper contributed to this story from New York.

___

Follow Elaine Ganley at ?www.twitter.com/Elaine_Ganley.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-09-28-US-Iran-Opposition/id-1943f705fe9b4f4c8ea397dfc077b754

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South Florida Classical Review ? Blog Archive ? For 25 years New ...

Elizabeth Hainen is principal harp of the Philadelphia Orchestra and has started a community program to provide harp lessons to public school students.

As an alumnus of the New World Symphony, Zeneba Bowers has established a successful traditional career as assistant principal second violin of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

Not content to serve as lieutenant in a regiment of violins under the command of a conductor, Bowers has also struck out on her own. She founded the ensemble ALIAS, a venture in which musicians donate their services and profits go to charities. Lest one think that the group is once treated more n good intentions than quality music-making, ALIAS performances have reached such a high level that a recent recording has been nominated for a Grammy.

The young violinist promotes the ensemble relentlessly.

?We?re really heavy on the press, and when I say heavy I mean I call them until they get restraining orders,? she said. ?There?s still kind of a pull away in the classical field from advertising yourself or marketing. There?s an attitude that you?re dumbing it down, and I just could not disagree with that more.?

Her dual role, her aggressiveness as a promoter and lack of concern for maintaining the often stiffly formal protocols of classical music represents an ideal promoted by the New World Symphony, the Miami Beach ensemble for young conservatory graduates, as it tries to turn out musicians who can make classical music thrive in the 21st century.

The 86-member orchestra, founded in an old movie theater on Lincoln Road, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this season with an opening concert of Russian music led by Michael Tilson Thomas Saturday night [Oct. 6]. Yet the South Beach educational institution is also marking its quarter-century with renewed efforts to retool the traditional classical music format as well as helping young musicians find employment during a difficult, quickly changing period for symphony orchestras.

In the past decade, the Florida Philharmonic folded, as did orchestras in Honolulu, Syracuse and other cities. Opera companies in Boston, Baltimore, Orlando and elsewhere closed their doors. The Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the world?s great symphonic ensembles, declared bankruptcy. Audiences continue to grow grayer.

As for the younger generation, they pull music off the web and expect it to be free. The career path of the orchestral musician, never among the easiest ways to make a living in this country, was starting to look as promising as that of newspaper reporter or Blockbuster video store manager.

?That?s very much on everybody?s mind here,? said Howard Herring, the New World Symphony?s president and chief executive officer. ?We?ve seen orchestras go out of business. We?ve seen orchestras step back in terms of number of weeks and we?ve certainly seen salary decreases. We actually think that the New World Symphony is guiding our fellows to a place where instead of taking a negative approach to why it isn?t working, assess your talents, look to your responsibilities and then be prepared to represent the art form both as a great player and as a member of your community.?

With its high-tech new hall, the orchestra is experimenting with alternatives to the traditional full-length concert. It trains its young musicians in how to engage with audiences in a more informal, contemporary manner. They are coached in how to speak to audiences, how to talk to second-grade classes, how to be interviewed on the radio and mingle with donors.

?I think in the whole music profession there?s this idea that this is such a great tradition, and the future of the tradition depends on reimagining it and revivifying it,? said Tilson Thomas, the orchestra?s founder, artistic director and dominant personality, who is also music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

?This has to come from giving young people the opportunity to be part of that process. Not only are people focusing on the training that gives them the maximum competitive edge to go after these big orchestral jobs, but also they?re thinking of other opportunities of working in music. I think making people realize that if you really love music and you want to create an interesting life for yourself that there are a number of ways of doing that, not necessarily the traditional paths, and that New World enables you to explore some of those.?

Katie Wyatt

Among those choosing a non-traditional path is violist Katie Wyatt, who labored for years at her instrument in order to play in an orchestra. But after traveling to South America and seeing Venezuela?s famous El Sistema classical music program for poor children, she returned for her second season at New World with new ideas of what she wanted to do. ?My mind was made up that I was going to do more than take orchestra auditions, that I wanted to shape the way that people care about music in their community,? she said.

She called her teacher, Robert Vernon, principal viola of the Cleveland Orchestra, in tears. ?I thought I was failing him,? she said. ?I called him and said ?I?m so sorry. You?ve invested so much in me as a viola player, so much time preparing all this repertoire for the auditions, and now I really think that what I want to do is be a leader in music and social change,?? she said.

?He said, ?Katie, knock it off. Everything that we?ve been preparing you for has led you to this day. All of the passion that you have for music and the way that it has changed your life you will share with others and inspire others and be excellent on the job.??

Wyatt went on to found KidZNotes, an organization that provides free instruments, music lessons and ensemble training to poor children in Durham, North Carolina. This school year, the program will enroll 200 children. ?I wanted to shape how music could build a community for the good,? she said.
?
Tilson Thomas founded New World in 1987 at the old Lincoln Theater?home at the time to a colony of feral cats?with the backing of the late Carnival Cruise Lines founder Ted Arison. Aided by Arison?s generous financial backing, Tilson Thomas? prestige and the abundance of conservatory graduates chasing a tiny number of jobs, the orchestra quickly established itself as one of Florida?s top performing arts organizations.

Since that time, South Beach lost some of the edgy allure that had originally inspired fashion photographers to pose models against decaying Art Deco hotels. And as Lincoln Road settled into a comfortable existence as a place for dining, strolling and shopping, the New World Symphony left its drab hall, with its rabbit warren of practice rooms and offices, for a futuristic symphonic Taj Mahal designed by the architect Frank Gehry, with the latest in sound and video systems, auxiliary stages and Internet-connected practice rooms.

Among the traditional elements of the classical music experience that New World has sought to change is the stuffy formality of orchestral performances, which begin at a set point in the evening, require a ticket purchased in advance and consist of a pretty standard format of overtures, concertos and symphonies that would have been familiar to anyone attending a concert in the 1920s.

Since moving into its new hall, the orchestra has experimented with shorter, alternative concert formats intended to attract casual strollers in the Lincoln Road neighborhood in the manner of an art gallery. By the hard data collected so far, the innovative formats did exactly what they were intended to do: Bring in newcomers to the New World Symphony. Herring reels off the numbers: For 30-minute concerts performed a few times a night, 60 percent of the audience was new to New World (or ?new to the database,? as he puts it). For the Pulse concerts, in which lights are lowered and the orchestra performs a mix of club music and classical, it?s 40 percent. For short-but-substantial 60-minute concerts, it?s 25 percent. The concerts projected on the hall?s outdoor wall in front of picnickers in the adjacent city park attract an average of 1,500 people per concert, of which about half are new.

These newcomers are now targets of the orchestra?s marketing machine, starting with mail and email pitches, with possible follow-up phone calls. ?We want to bring those people back,? he said.

Of New World?s 900 or so alumni, the largest number have taken positions in American orchestras. Among these are the Boston Symphony with eight alumni, the Chicago Symphony with five, the Metropolitan Opera with five, the San Francisco Symphony with 13 and the Cleveland Orchestra with 10. Employing the largest number is the Kansas City Symphony ? dubbed ?New World Symphony West??-with a whopping 25, more than one fourth of its roster.

New World wouldn?t be successful in placing alumni in major orchestras if it just turned out PR-minded musical entrepreneurs. Achieving mastery of the horn, cello or clarinet to the level demanded by a top orchestra requires a level of commitment and discipline seen in few professional fields. At the Cleveland Orchestra, for example, everything depends on an audition of difficult solo works and excerpts from the orchestral literature, with the first round conducted behind a screen. There are no interviews. Such soft skills as the ability to speak to an elementary school class count for exactly zero.

?We have a very rigorous audition process,? said Gary Ginstling, the Cleveland Orchestra?s general manager and a clarinet alumnus of New World. ?It?s very traditional as far as orchestras go. There?s no doubt in Cleveland that we?re looking for musicians that are absolutely at the top of their field on their instrument.?

Yet once they?re in, he said, the Cleveland Orchestra can certainly utilize their community relations skills. ?We?re in a city that?s challenging economically, and the population is declining, so we?re trying to find ways to connect the orchestra with a larger group of people from northeast Ohio,? he said. ?We?ve really worked to connect our musicians with our audiences closer and giving them a chance to speak from the stage and engage with our donors and members of the public, humanizing and personalizing the members of the orchestra.?

The desire to make orchestral musicians an active part of their community has long been an essential part of the New World Symphony?s DNA. The harpist Elizabeth Hainen joined New World in its second year, 1988. Her memories include working on Mahler?s Symphony No. 5 (and hanging out at the pool) with Leonard Bernstein, whose advocacy of Mahler helped raise the composer?s work to the leading position it holds today. She went on to what for most New World members would be a dream job: principal harp of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which despite its financial troubles, continues to make great music as one of the nation?s great ensembles.

But in addition to her orchestral work, solo career and teaching responsibilities as chair of harp studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, she has established a non-profit group that provides harp lessons and access to harps for public school students.

?At the New World Symphony they gave us a lot of seminars and coaching, and it always made you very aware of where you came from,? she said. ?So you really feel, when you?re given such a gift as a big position like Philly, that I need to do something, I need to give back. It?s probably the most rewarding thing that I do.?

This season 31 new fellows, selected from more than 1,200 graduates of music conservatories, arrived in South Beach. They moved into small furnished apartments in two renovated hotels. Each receives a weekly stipend of $450. During the year they will receive private lessons from visiting members of leading orchestras, undergo training in dealing with the public, learn from psychologists how to handle auditions and work with contemporary composers.

The heart of the program is a full concert schedule, a fast-paced series of concerts that will throw many of them into the world of performing orchestral musician for the first time in music spanning the early Baroque to contemporary premieres. The musicians will perform under Tilson Thomas as well as a variety of well-known conductors from around the world this season, including St?phane Den?ve, Susanna M?lkki, Matthias Pintscher and composer John Adams.

In addition to the value and excitement of working with such top rank conductors, the typical New World fellow today is faced with two roles and an array of choices: the thrill of being part of the massed forces of a superb orchestra along with somehow carving out a career and achieving one?s personal career goals.

Amos Fayette

?I would love to play in an orchestra, but I?d like to do a little bit of everything,? said violinist Amos Fayette, who is now entering his second season with New World. Among the highlights of his first season, Fayette mentioned both the late-night Pulse concerts, and the performance of Mahler?s Ninth Symphony with Tilson Thomas.

?For me this was a very meaningful experience, exploring Mahler with someone who?s a real expert,? he said. ?That piece was kind of the culmination of everything we worked on through the year to gel the orchestra and treat the orchestra like a big chamber group.?

Yet Fayette also coached a gifted young violinist through the works of Bach, Mendelssohn and Paganini to the point that she could study with the concert violinist Elmar Oliveira at Lynn University. And he even managed a concert series, coordinating the Musicians? Forum series, which includes solo, chamber, jazz and pop performances.

?The definition of what it means to be an orchestral player is changing,? he said.

The New World Symphony opens its season 7:30 p.m. Saturday at New World Center in Miami Beach with Stravinsky?s Circus Polka and Petrushka and Tchaikovsky?s Symphony No. 4. nws.edu; 800-597-3331.

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Source: http://southfloridaclassicalreview.com/2012/09/for-25-years-new-world-symphony-alums-are-making-beautiful-music-in-different-ways/

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Obama mixes debate preparation with fundraising

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama warned Democrats about becoming too complacent with six weeks left before the election. He joked that Democrats tend to believe that the "sky is falling" or that "everything is great."

"This is going to be a close race right down to the wire," he told about 90 donors gathered at the Washington home of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat.

His remarks come amid public polls that show him gaining advantages in some key battleground states. It also comes months after anxious Democrats worried Obama would not be able to keep up with Romney's fundraising.

In a day partly devoted to a fundraising blitz for himself and other Democrats, Obama also offered themes of political unity, telling another group of donors that the nation is "not as divided as the pundits make it seem."

"I don't know how many folks will vote for me this time around," Obama told an audience of donors near the White House. "But I say the same thing to them (as in 2008): I will be your president, too."

"I'm not fighting to create Democrat or Republican jobs," Obama added. "I'm fighting to create American jobs."

The message came as Obama continues to seize on a leaked video in which his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, said that 47 percent of people "will vote for the president no matter what." Romney described them as people who pay no federal income tax and "believe that they are victims."

Obama spoke at the first of three fundraisers after another Friday afternoon of debate prep at Democratic National Committee headquarters. He will face off against Romney in Denver on Wednesday.

The Obama fundraiser at the Capital Hilton drew an estimated 700 guests with tickets starting at $250.

Tickets for the event at Rockefeller's home cost $20,000 per person.

The final fundraiser, back at the Hilton, is estimated to draw 200 people. Tickets for that event start at $2,500 per person.

The money is to go to Obama's campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-mixes-debate-preparation-fundraising-174226864--election.html

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Ex-Sen. Bond now backing Akin's Mo. Senate bid

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) ? Former Missouri Sen. Kit Bond is now supporting Todd Akin's Senate campaign after previously calling on him to quit.

Bond's endorsement Friday marks an encouraging sign for Akin, who is trying to rebuild support among the Republican establishment after remarking last month that women's bodies have ways of avoiding pregnancy in what he called "legitimate rape."

Bond was part of a coalition of past and present Missouri senators who had urged Akin to drop out. But Bond now says he believes Akin's apology was sincere and will help his campaign against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Bond says, quote: "It is time to focus on the national stakes in this election."

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt also recently backed Akin. But former Sen. John Danforth is still not doing so.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-09-28-Missouri%20Senate-GOP%20Endorsement/id-c8dd3de0028f40b6981d1873db39fb1e

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BlueStacks teams with AMD to optimize Android App Player for Fusion, Radeon chips (video)

AMD has a disproportionately large $6.4 million investment in BlueStacks, and now we're seeing one clear reason why. The two companies have teamed up to create a special version of the BlueStacks App Player that's tuned for AMD's Fusion-based processors and Radeon graphics cards, running Android apps with the full help of the chip desgner's hardware in Windows 7 and 8 PCs. Accordingly, over 500,000 Android apps are invading AMD's new AppZone portal without any needed tweaks of their own, giving the service a much larger catalog than if it had gone with Windows alone. Both companies have a clear incentive to this melding of desktop and mobile: BlueStacks suddenly gets exposure to as many as 100 million AMD-running users, while AMD can tout a giant app catalog that may be preloaded on future PCs using its components. We don't know if the world needs yet another avenue for playing Angry Birds, especially when many AMD-based PCs won't have touchscreens, but the BlueStacks partnership could be a strong lure for new PC buyers who'd like an instant software library.

Continue reading BlueStacks teams with AMD to optimize Android App Player for Fusion, Radeon chips (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

BlueStacks teams with AMD to optimize Android App Player for Fusion, Radeon chips (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/27/bluestacks-teams-with-amd-to-optimize-its-android-app-player/

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What's Facebook's New Real Estate Investment Deal? ? CT Homes ...

Facebook recently announced a sizable new investment in California real estate. What is it, is it a good move and what other opportunities are evolving for real estate investors?

Facebook?s New Real Estate Bet

Zuckerberg recently proclaimed he was ready to make some ?big bets?. One of them appears to be a major expansion of the social networks offices in Menlo Park, CA. The massive complex is being designed by the legendary Frank Gehry and boasts an expansive hanger like 10 acre open working area heralded as the ?largest open floor plan in the world?.

So beyond the cool design, is this really a smart move given the current stock situation and will the show end up killing productivity at the tech giant causing it to lose even more of its edge?

It is certainly a fantastic time to buy California real estate, especially with interest rates so low however many question whether this is the only smart thing about the plans. You?d think Facebook was still the last brand who needed to stoop to Hollywood antics in order to stay in the news. Building the tallest condo or office building or even selling the most expensive one is one thing but there are real business operations to be kept in mind here.

Many are concerned that the vastnesses of the open space could easily kill productivity and creativity and ultimately the stock, especially after plowing so much money into the new building and taking on more overhead. Yes, having mini kitchens throughout, treadmill desks, a roof top walking trail and encouraging more interaction between staff sounds good but it is going to take some amazing design skill to be able to keep real working going on. Before you think about opening a real estate office like this think about the noise, lack of focus, germs, privacy and stress. Tech firms like Facebook can?t afford high turnover or to slip for even a month.

Facebook?s Opportunities for Real Estate Professionals

Mobile aside and not mentioning the fact that Apple left out further integration on the new iPhone 5, Facebook also seems like it may be losing serious ground to Google as Google+ racks up 400 million plus serious business users and Facebook slashes user numbers due to fake accounts.

Zuckerberg did allude to the social network pursuing search marketing as a channel which could be interesting but will face serious competition. However, many will be surprised if the Zuck is still at the head of the table next year. Right now he?s a sitting duck, a scapegoat whose firing can save Facebook from bankruptcy when current plans don?t go right, but if there is one thing the he is slick about it is control.

Real Estate Education from Facebook

While this is a great time for buying California real estate you have to imagine flipping real estate like this has to be a little more challenging given the numbers and niche.

Maybe the original house is a hotter flipping item? What other soon to be billionaire entrepreneurs? inspiring first digs are up for grabs and can be flipped for great profit with a good story?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2012 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.cthomesllc.com/2012/09/whats-facebooks-new-real-estate-investment-deal/

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Video: Gut bacteria could cause diabetes

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The number of people suffering from type 2 diabetes world-wide has risen rapidly in recent years, and scientists estimate that just as many people could be suffering from the illness without realising it. New research now indicates that your gut bacteria can reveal whether you suffer from the disease.

"We have demonstrated that people with type 2 diabetes have a high level of pathogens in their intestines," says professor Jun Wang from the University of Copenhagen's Department of Biology and Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research.

Important intestinal bacteria

The 1.5 kilograms of bacteria that we each carry in our intestines have an enormous impact on our health and well being. The bacteria normally live in a sensitive equilibrium but if this equilibrium is disrupted our health could suffer. In the new study, scientists examined the intestinal bacteria of 345 people from China, of which 171 had type 2 diabetes. The team managed to identify clear biological indicators that someday could be used in methods that provide faster and earlier diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

The research, which was recently published in the scientific journal Nature, also demonstrated that people with type 2 diabetes have a more hostile bacterial environment in their intestines, which can increase resistance to different medicines.

Similar studies carried out on sufferers of type 2 diabetes in Denmark also discovered a significant imbalance in the function of their intestinal bacteria and composition. Future Danish studies will examine whether intestinal bacteria is already abnormal in people that are deemed to be at risk of developing diabetes.

"We are going to transplant gut bacteria from people that suffer from type 2 diabetes into mice and examine whether the mice then develop diabetes," says another of the lead scientists behind the project, professor Oluf Borbye Pedersen from the University of Copenhagen and centre director at LuCamp, the Lundbeck Foundation Centre for Applied Medical Genomics in Personalised Disease Prediction, Prevention and Care.

International research team investigates gut bacteria

By working together, a team scientists from the University of Copenhagen and the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) was able to make to several breakthroughs in the field of 'metagenomics'.

Scientists working on the EU research project MetaHIT have uncovered more than 3.3 million genes from gut bacteria found in people from Spain and Denmark. These genes could play a key role in understanding and treating a range of serious illnesses. According to Professor Karsten Kristiansen from the University of Copenhagen's Department of Biology, the recent discovery is an important step in the comprehensive international research that is currently underway to investigate the interplay between intestinal bacteria and health.

"The European and Chinese working on the MetaHIT project were able to make important new discoveries about the relationship between intestinal bacteria and health. The new discovery indicates a possible connection between type 2 diabetes and the intestinal bacteria in Chinese people," Kristiansen says.

"It is important to point out that our discovery demonstrates a correlation. The big question now is whether the changes in gut bacteria can affect the development of type 2 diabetes or whether the changes simply reflect that the person is suffering from type 2 diabetes."

###

University of Copenhagen: http://www.ku.dk

Thanks to University of Copenhagen for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 24 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/123904/Video__Gut_bacteria_could_cause_diabetes

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Todd Akin Thinks Claire McCaskill Isn't Very 'Ladylike' (Atlantic Politics Channel)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/251571703?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Ke$ha Dons Leather -- And Not Much Else -- On 'Die Young' Set

Warrior singer was spotted shooting music video in L.A with pin-straight blond hair and army boots
By Jocelyn Vena

Ke$ha on the set of her "Die Young" music video
Photo: Jeff Steinberg / PacificCoastNews

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1694553/kesha-die-young-set-photos.jhtml

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Business School Admissions Blog | MBA Admission Blog | Blog ...

September 27th, 2012

When you select an MBA program, you are not just choosing your learning environment, but are also committing to becoming part of a community. Each Thursday, we offer a window into life ?beyond the MBA classroom? at a top business school.

A weekly event at the University of Virginia?s Darden School of Business, Cold Call takes place most Thursday evenings in the PepsiCo Forum. Offering beer and a light dinner, Cold Calls are an opportunity for students and professors to get together outside of class or study sessions. Occasionally, student clubs will sponsor Cold Calls. A second-year student told mbaMission that many students bring their partners to Cold Call. Darden alumni sometimes host Cold Call get-togethers, akin to happy hours, in their home cities or countries.

For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Darden and 15 other top MBA programs, check out the?mbaMission Insider?s Guides.

Source: http://www.mbamission.com/blog/2012/09/27/beyond-the-mba-classroom-a-different-cold-call-at-darden/

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Assembling an Avenger?Inside the Brain of Iron Man

When I first started reading comic books there were many superheroes that interested me. Naturally the list included Batman, Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain America, Thor, Nova, the Flash, the Black Panther, the Phantom, and lots more.

What I enjoyed best of all were team ups where you got more heroes per page. Classics like the Fantastic Four, the Justice League, the Justice Society, and the Defenders as well as the Inhumans, the Invaders, and the Legion of Superheroes. The group to top the list for me, though, has always been ?The Avengers?. They are ?Earth?s Mightiest Heroes? after all.

The Avengers are also the Earth?s super group of scientists. Back in the 1963 debut story (penned by Stan-the-man-Lee, of course) ?The Coming of the Avengers!?, the original line-up included Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, Thor, and the Hulk. This was arguably the most well-educated superhero group ever, well, assembled.

The scientists in that group included Dr. Bruce Banner (atomic physicist, the Hulk), Tony Stark (Iron Man, who may or may not have a PhD but has 2 master?s degrees in engineering from MIT), Dr. Hank Pym (sub-atomic physicist, Ant-Man), Janet van Dyne (not sure about her training, but she knew her way around the lab as the first Wasp), and Dr. Donald Blake (physician and surgeon, Thor).

That?s a line-up of heavy hitters of science that even one of my superheroes of science, Sir Francis Bacon, could be proud of. This remains even when it?s admitted that while rampaging around as the Hulk, we don?t usually get many insights about the Higgs-Boson and Thor isn?t typically trying to help treat injuries. Despite that, I am going to go ahead and assign the original Avengers line-up an A+ in scientists, if not always for science itself.

The 2012 Avengers movie re-envisions the origin and uses a plot that?s a lot closer to the excellent Marvel ?Ultimates? story lines. In the spirit of recreating and reinvisioning story lines, in this post I want to concentrate on turning the lens of science on good ole? Shellhead.

Iron Man is one of those few superheroes representing a more ?realistic? take on what might be possible. As I wrote in ?Inventing Iron Man?The Possibility of a Human Machine?, his origin story has some very plausible bits to it. This makes him seem more accessible as a character. But it?s accessing the mind of the Golden Avenger?connecting the Iron Man exoskeleton to Tony Stark?s brain?that is the main focus here.

Malleable Maps in Iron Man?s Mind

Starting in utero, a calibration of the motor and sensory inputs to and from your body parts began. This process has continued in your brain throughout your life. This results in a loose ?mapping? of neurons that goes on in the somatosensory and motor parts of your brain. As a result you have multiple representations of your body in your brain. This gives rise to our sense of self, body ?image?, and body ?schema?.

These representations have been refined and tuned throughout your life along with your changing body size and the experiences you?ve had. Except in the case of tragic accidents where a limb may have been lost or amputated, your body has always been there with you 24/7. Your body is you and it?s there all the time.

It turns out that tool use can alter these representations. But tools that we use aren?t part of our body and aren?t with us all the time. At least not physically. But are they with us in our brains? We use tools only when we need them (we always need our bodies). It turns out that the sensory maps of our bodies in our brains can be reshaped to include parts of the way we use tools.

This kind of melding with the tool is termed ?embodiment?? and reflects the plasticity your nervous system experiences to keep you as a fully functional you. This process is heavily influenced by the sensation of moving the tools and the visual input that you get from seeing yourself using the tools.

The main premise of my Iron Man book is that for Tony Stark?s exoskeleton to work as we see it work in comics, graphic novels and movies it would need to be connected directly to the brain and spinal cord of the user. It would need to be the most fantastic brain machine interface ever created.

My view of Iron Man is very similar to the version that Warren Ellis created in the Marvel Iron Man ?Extremis? story arc. Warren advanced the concept of an embedded interface between the nervous system and a highly modular armor. In broad strokes, this is really the only way it could work. But if such an ultimate brain machine interface existed could such a ?tool? be incorporated into the cortical representation of a real human brain?

Extending your reach beyond your grasp?

French and Italian scientists headed up by Lucilla Cardinali, confirmed brain plasticity from tool use in a really simple but clever study back in 2009. They developed a long hand-held ?grabber? like those used to clean up trash from parks and streets without the user having to bend over.

In this experiment the researchers asked participants to practice using the grabber to pick up and move things around on a table. They measured reaching and grasping movments before and after using the grabber. Surprisingly, practice using the grabber changed later arm movements performed even when the grabber wasn?t used!

There were changes in pointing movements and in how long participants perceived their arms to be. They thought their arms were longer, likely because the tool allowed them to reach further. From a functional perspective within the brain, their arms were longer since they could reach further with the grabber.

This plasticity is related to changing those body maps in the brain as a result of using a tool. Tools give us different abilities, like reaching further in this example, and this change in function pushes the plastic changes in the brain. The strength and length of that plasticity is not completely certain.

Could the changes become durable enough to become real memories for a new representation or map? We know that limb amputation can lead to changes in the maps. It leads to emptying some territory in those maps and taking over of territory by brain cells for other regions. The opposite perspective, that is, what happens when you add something to a map that is already complete, isn?t well understood.

Enter the alien arm?

Primate research using neural prosthetics controlled by the brain show very strong changes that occur after only a few weeks. These ?prosthetic motor memories? are in features of long-term memories. So it seems that the brain can incorporate foreign parts into this schema.

This idea of incorporating foreign parts into the body was shown in 1998 by Matthew Botvinick and Jonathan? Cohen at Carnegie Melon in Pittsburgh. They conducted what is now known as the ?rubber hand illusion?.

Using a life-sized rubber arm as an ?alien limb?, these scientists hid the left arm of each participant behind a blinding screen. Participants then focused their vision on this ?alien limb?. Using small paintbrushes, the experimenters then simultaneously stroked the alien hand (fully in view) and the real hand (hidden out of view behind the screen). After 10 minutes of this conditioning, participants were asked a number of questions about the experience.

Some of the answers were astounding. They suggested an illusion which provided touch sensation on the alien limb and not the real hand. That is, they seemed to feel the touch of the viewed brush as if the rubber hand had actually sensed the touch. One participant said that ?I found myself looking at the dummy hand thinking it was actually my own.? This powerful illusion has now been employed in many other experiments with similarly striking results.

A Swedish scientific team headed by Henrik Ehrsson extended the ?rubber hand illusion? to upper limb amputees. Using procedures similar to the initial experiment above, they created a sensation of embodiment that a rubber hand was actually a real hand attached to the stump where the amputated limb used to be.

Although this illusion works well in able- bodied persons, the researchers weren?t sure if it could still work after amputation. Strong illusions were actually found in one third of the amputees. Interestingly, the illusions were more powerful when the tests were done soonest after amputation.

The illusion was so powerful that in some cases suddenly plunging a syringe into the rubber hand produced physiological responses of anxiety (changes in skin conductance) that would occur if the hand was part of their body! Clearly a process of ?embodiment? was occurring. This group has recently done something that provides a bit of an answer to something I have been puzzling over since I wrote ?Inventing Iron Man?.

Paul?s puzzle?

Here it is: I don?t really understand where the Iron Man suit of armor could be represented in the somatosensory and motor cortices of Tony Stark. Above we discussed how we can reshape our body schema with practice using tools and in response to trauma like limb amputation. But those approaches all make use of neuronal territory that exists and is reshaped or was lost and is reused. What about something completely new like a whole new body? That?s what is meant to be shown in the Figure below.

And it?s an experiment from Ehrsson?s group that helps us get to the answer. Instead of jumping directly to the idea of a whole new body, they asked instead: ?Could it be possible that, in the not-so-distant future, we will be able to reshape the human body so as to have extra limbs? A third arm helping us out with the weekly shopping in the local grocery store, or an extra artificial limb assisting a paralysed person?? These questions are certainly on par with considering the question of embodying the Iron Man exoskeleton.

To see if you can really trick your brain into thinking you have an extra arm they used a variation of the ?rubber hand illusion?. And it includes a very bold placement of a 3^rd limb?the rubber arm?right beside the person?s actual arm. So it?s right out there in full view. They then did the basic procedure of brushing the real fingers and those of the rubber hand. All while participants looked on.

Of course, the rubber hand illusion worked again. This elegant experiment included all kinds of control conditions and even some physiological measures like galvanic skin response that all showed the fake arm could even be ?threatened? by danger (this time by cutting with a knife). The upshot was that those in the study felt like they had a second right hand!

The concluding paragraph of this paper reads as follows: ?Thus, under certain circumstances, healthy humans can experience somatic sensations that seem to violate the human body plan.? This real-life research work is the closest thing I?ve found that possesses the answer to whether there is enough neuroplasticity to adapt to a full Iron Man exoskeleton. The answer is a tentative yes!

On Machine, (Hu)man, and Mind

A prosthetic limb or exoskeleton that is meant to be incorporated into the user?s body schema needs to include sensors and feedback. For example, sensors on the digits of the Iron Man suit could be used to activate brain areas that normally get that sensation from the real fingers! The idea is that over time the sensation from the artificial sensor would become integrated into the perceptions of the person such that they are ?one with the body?. Embodiment.

This means that an Iron Man suit of armor should have sensors on the fingers, hands, toes, etc. that would normally be activated on Tony Stark?s body. Using this approach, Tony would embody Iron Man like he declared by saying ?the suit of Iron Man and I are one? in Iron Man 2.

Since the lines between science and science fiction are pretty labile, it?s likely not a surprise that real experimental work shows this to be very useful. In 2010, Aaron Suminski, Nicholas Hatsopoulos, and colleagues at the University of Chicago used a ?sleeve? placed over a monkey?s arm to help learn how to move a cursor on a computer screen driven by recording activity in motor cortex.

Including sensation from the robotic limb improved the ability to learn the brain-machine interface commands. The scientists at the University of Chicago allowed the monkeys to use visual and somatosensory feedback together and learned how to control the cursor much faster and more accurately than without those sensations.

Back in 2011, my ?Inventing Iron Man? book had only been out for a few months when I was asked to comment on a paper just about to appear in ?Nature?. A research team at the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering headed by Miguel Nicolelis, a pioneer and leader in the area of brain machine interface, trained two monkeys using brain activity to control and move a virtual hand.

The critical piece in this experiment?and a requirement for functional training with the fictional Iron Man exoskeleton?was that electrical activation in the sensory and motor parts of the brains were used. Motor signals were used to drive the controller and then feedback was given directly into the brain by stimulating the sensory cortex when the monkeys made accurate movements. This huge advance actually provides patterns of electrical stimulation to the brain that mimic sensory inputs in movement.

This is really asking what happens when you take tool use?where the Iron Man suit of armor is the tool?to the extreme? What would happen in the brain if the tool is a representation of the body? What would happen to the body maps if we increase the representation of the body in the brain without first taking something away?

Would the neural plasticity associated with this affect the connection between your brain and your real body? How strong would the plasticity?the remapping?be and would you forget how to use your own real body if you used it too much? There remain a lot of questions. And a lot of work needs to be done. To borrow a bit of physics/engineering/mathematics jargon, some ?non-trivial? problems remain.

Some trivia about non-trivial problems?

A major non-trivial problem has to do with the ?form and function? relationships in biology. The cool thing about most of the body is that you can tell a lot about physiology (how it works) from the anatomy (how it looks). Function comes from form.

In your cardiovascular system you?ve got a big muscular pump in the form of the heart that receives and pushes blood all around the body. Taking a good look at the heart along with all the piping coming in and out, allows a reasonable estimate of what it does and how blood flows in the body.

In the case of the human nervous system, you have a big brain containing about 100 billion neurons. Those 100 billion neurons might have on average ~5000 connections from other neurons. That could produce about 100 trillion connections. A pretty big number. Far bigger than the estimated number of galaxies in the universe estimated to be between 200 to 500 billion. Overall this is a huge number of connections to consider.

This is part of what allows the nervous system to present with a much broader scope. Not because the anatomy is impenetrable or that much more complicated within different areas of the brain. It is certainly complex, but the general features of the connections from those 100 billion neurons form into tracts and bands of connections within the brain that can be reasonably identified (mostly).

The real non-trivial problem comes from the fact that the function?the behaviour?of the brain cannot be directly predicted from anatomy. Enter those 100 trillion connections. The key thing is that the network activity in the brain emerges from the activity of whatever synaptic connections are active at any given time. It is a constantly shifting landscape of network activity.

For a simple approximation of this complexity, imagine sitting in a ship that is rising and falling on the swells of the Mediterranean. Boats all around you rise and fall such that at any given moment you see different boats. Those boats all represent active connections between neurons that are expressed when you can see them and silenced when you cannot. To complete the metaphor, multiply by many trillions.

The real answers to these questions lie ahead. While we await those answers and work towards their solutions, let?s close with one of my favourite neuroscience quotes. The South African zoologist Lyall Watson (1939-2008) wrote: ?If the brain were so simple we could easily understand it, we would be so simple we couldn?t.?

Luckily for us and the advance of knowledge there are many scientists who keep trying to illuminate the function of the human brain. In true ?Avengers? fashion, the lack of simplicity is offset by the vigor and rigor of their efforts. I look forward to future developments. Developments, possibly inspired by fiction, but created for a new reality in neurorehabilitation (see Figure below).

?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=bf93eed3c06064e7753bb8eafda794da

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Mass. gov says he expects charges in lab scandal

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick speaks with reporters in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. Patrick says he expects criminal charges will be brought in an investigation of misconduct by a state lab chemist who admitted faking drug sample results, forging signatures and skipping proper procedures. Patrick said he shut down the drug lab soon after learning of admissions chemist Annie Dookhan made during an interview with state police at the end of August. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick speaks with reporters in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. Patrick says he expects criminal charges will be brought in an investigation of misconduct by a state lab chemist who admitted faking drug sample results, forging signatures and skipping proper procedures. Patrick said he shut down the drug lab soon after learning of admissions chemist Annie Dookhan made during an interview with state police at the end of August. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick speaks with reporters in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. Patrick says he expects criminal charges will be brought in an investigation of misconduct by a state lab chemist who admitted faking drug sample results, forging signatures and skipping proper procedures. Patrick said he shut down the drug lab soon after learning of admissions chemist Annie Dookhan made during an interview with state police at the end of August. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick speaks with reporters in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. Patrick says he expects criminal charges will be brought in an investigation of misconduct by a state lab chemist who admitted faking drug sample results, forging signatures and skipping proper procedures. Patrick said he shut down the drug lab soon after learning of admissions chemist Annie Dookhan made during an interview with state police at the end of August. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

BOSTON (AP) ? Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday he expects criminal charges will be brought in an investigation of misconduct by a state lab chemist who admitted faking drug sample results, forging signatures and skipping proper procedures.

Speaking to reporters, Patrick said he shut down the drug lab soon after learning of admissions chemist Annie Dookhan made during an interview with state police at the end of August. The governor said he finds it troubling that Dookhan and her supervisors "did not seem to understand the gravity of this."

State police say Dookhan tested more than 60,000 drug samples covering 34,000 defendants during her nine years at the lab. She resigned in March during an internal investigation by the Department of Public Health, which ran the lab up until July 1, when state police took over as part of a state budget directive.

The scandal has thrown thousands of drug convictions into question. Already, judges have reduced bail and put sentences on hold in approximately 20 cases handled by Dookhan.

Dookhan's admissions were detailed in state police reports obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

When asked why Dookhan has not been arrested yet, Patrick referred to a criminal investigation being conducted by Attorney General Martha Coakley.

"I fully expect, and indeed I will say, I hope that there are charges, and I think that all of those who are accountable for the impact on individual cases need to be held accountable," Patrick said.

Coakley's spokesman, Brad Puffer, said the criminal investigation "remains active and ongoing."

"Our office provided the preliminary findings of our investigation to stakeholders so that immediate steps could be taken in the interest of justice," Puffer said.

Chemists who worked with Dookhan told investigators they had concerns about her work for several years, but they either convinced themselves they were invalid or reported them to supervisors who failed to intervene.

Dookhan admitted to investigators that she faked drug sample results for two to three years, according to the report.

Attorney Rosemary Scapicchio, who represents several defendants whose samples Dookhan handled, called for federal officials to take over the probe.

"I can't imagine she could have been this corrupt without someone noticing," she said. "The investigation needs to go deeper than Annie Dookhan to get to the point of 'How did she get away with it?'"

The state has created a central office to examine cases Dookhan was involved with and figure out how to deal with them.

After state police took over the lab they said they discovered her violations were much more extensive than previously believed and went beyond sloppiness into deliberate evidence mishandling.

Supervisors suspended Dookhan's lab duties in June 2011, when she was caught forging a colleague's initials on paperwork after taking 90 drug samples from evidence, according to police. But she told police later she disobeyed orders and continued to access an evidence database and give law enforcement officials information on their cases.

On Aug. 30, Gov. Deval Patrick ordered state police to close the lab.

That day, a police lieutenant spoke with Dookhan to tell her she should get an attorney because she could face criminal charges.

Dookhan cried on the phone. She said she was involved in a long divorce from her husband, didn't have money and didn't know any lawyers.

Anne Goldbach from Committee for Public Counsel Services, which oversees legal representation for indigents, said the interviews included in the police report show the problems at the now-closed Hinton State Laboratory are more troubling than originally believed. She said it appears there was unsupervised access to the evidence office and safe.

Goldbach said because Dookhan was in charge of quality control equipment, other chemists could have gotten false test results without knowing it.

"It calls into question all the testing done by the lab," she said.

Attorney John T. Martin said Wednesday that he noticed a pattern of suspicious behavior from Dookhan while looking over his clients' cases.

He said in four cases, Dookhan determined the weight of the drug sample was just 1 gram above the amount needed for a more serious penalty even though police reports made the seizure seem smaller.

Concerns from Dookhan's colleagues prompted two supervisors to audit her work in 2010, but they just looked at paperwork and didn't retest drug samples.

Things started to unravel in spring 2011 with the forging incident. A colleague told police it was "almost like Dookhan wanted to get caught."

One lab supervisor told police later that he believed Dookhan had a mental breakdown.

Dookhan told investigators several times in an August interview that she knew she had done wrong.

"I screwed up big time," she said, according to the report from investigators for Attorney General Martha Coakley's office. "I messed up bad. It's my fault. I don't want the lab to get in trouble."

Authorities haven't commented on Dookan's possible motives as their probe continues. She hasn't responded to repeated requests for comment.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-09-27-State%20Police%20Lab%20Shutdown/id-8dfced0d8d9f40a68710e2b57500e205

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