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Monday, April 22, 2013

Babies are conscious? Science confirms what moms know.

Babies are aware of what's going on, not just reflexively reacting to it, scientists concluded after a series of experiments on babies as young as 5 months.

By Stephanie Pappas,?Live Science / April 18, 2013

A contestant in the 2000 American Baby Derby heads towards the finish line. Crawling babies raced to see who was fastest. According to the promoters, The Boston Baby Faire, a two-day event with more than 200 exhibitors of every type of baby product, is the largest baby exposition in the United States.

John Nordell / The Christian Science Monitor

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Infants have a conscious experience of the world at as early as 5 months of age, new research finds.

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New parents may raise an eyebrow at the idea that their baby might not be a conscious being, but scientists have, until now, not been able to clearly show that infants react with awareness rather than reflexively. Even in adults, much of the brain's processing of the world occurs without conscious awareness, said Sid Kouider, a neuroscientist at the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique in Paris and the Technical University of Denmark. ?

One odd phenomenon, "blindsight," occurs in people with damage to part of their visual cortex. Although they cannot consciously see, they're able to "guess" the location of a visual stimulus or even catch objects tossed at them. Blindsight reveals that even unconscious processing in the brain can result in seemingly goal-directed behavior.

So when babies look toward a face or grasp an object, they, too, might be doing so without a conscious experience of what they're seeing.

"Infants might be responding in a kind of automatic manner," Kouider told LiveScience. Unfortunately, since babies don't talk, scientists can't test consciousness by asking infants what they experience.

Baby brain patterns

So Kouider and his colleagues turned to brain activity for a peak into babies' awareness. When adults are shown a subliminal image, their brains show a spike in electrical activity in sensory regions ? even though they may not consciously register that they've seen such a brief image.

When the image does consciously register, however, the brain shows a second leap in activity, typically about 300 milliseconds after the presentation of the image. This pattern reveals visual consciousness, Kouider said, which means that not only does the brain respond to the image, but also the owner of that brain perceives that response and has a conscious experience of the image.

The researchers wanted to know whether babies would show this same brain pattern. They recruited 30 5-month-olds, 29 12-month-olds and 21 15-month-olds and fitted the babies with electrode caps that measure the brain's electrical activity through the scalp.

Next, the babies sat on their mother or father's lap while watching a screen with a patterned image. For a fraction of a second (ranging from as quick as 17 milliseconds up to 300 milliseconds), the researchers flashed a photo of a face on the screen.

Experiencing awareness

The scientists then analyzed the babies' brain activity to search for the two-phase pattern that would indicate consciousness. They found it: Babies did indeed show a secondary spike in neural activity, just like adults.

But there was one important difference between the babies' neural patterns and those seen in adults, Kouider said. In 5-month-olds, it took 1.3 seconds for the second flurry of brain activity to show up. In adults, the timing is closer to three-tenths of a second, or 0.3 seconds.

"It's about four times slower, actually, in the younger infants," Kouider said.?

Older babies show snappier processing, though still not as quick as adults, the researchers found. In 12- to 15-month-olds, the second phase is stronger than in 5-month-olds and occurs around eight-tenths to nine-tenths of a second.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/In93FUJa3Zc/Babies-are-conscious-Science-confirms-what-moms-know

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Kerry pushes Turkey-Israel rapprochement

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, left, shows U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the skyline of Istanbul before the start of a meeting on Sunday, April 21, 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey. Kerry is wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul with talks aimed at improving ties between Turkey and Israel and pushing ahead with Mideast peace efforts. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu point toward the Bosporus before a working lunch in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, April 21, 2013. Wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul, Kerry on Sunday sought to cement and speed up an improvement in relations between Turkey and Israel as well as explore new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts. President Barack Obama has made both issues foreign policy priorities for his second term and Kerry was pushing them in meetings with Abbas and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.(AP Photo/Hakan Goktepe, Pool)

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, third from left, meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, third from right, on Sunday, April 21, 2013, in Istanbul, Turkey. Kerry is wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul with talks aimed at improving ties between Turkey and Israel and pushing ahead with Mideast peace efforts. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas leaves a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, April 21, 2013. Wrapping up a 24-hour visit to Istanbul, Kerry on Sunday sought to cement and speed up an improvement in relations between Turkey and Israel as well as explore new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts. President Barack Obama has made both issues foreign policy priorities for his second term and Kerry was pushing them in meetings with Abbas and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.(AP Photo)

ISTANBUL (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday urged Turkey to speed up and cement an American-brokered rapprochement with Israel, and he explored with Palestinian officials new ways to relaunch Mideast peace efforts.

Kerry tried to advance those second-term foreign policy priorities for President Barack Obama in meetings with Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Kerry also said he had made it clear to the Turks that a planned trip to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his May 16 visit to the White House "would be better delayed and that it shouldn't take place at this point in time.

Both Israel and Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is based in the West Bank, oppose the Gaza visit.

"We would like to see the parties begin with as little outside distraction as possible. So our sense is that it would be more helpful to wait for the right circumstances," said Kerry, who did not meet with Erdogan on this stop in Turkey.

On a trip to Israel last month, Obama secured a pledge from Turkish and Israeli leaders to normalize ties that broke down after a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed eight Turks and a Turkish-American.

But the rapprochement has been slow, fueling concerns that Turkey may be backsliding on its commitment.

Israeli and Turkish negotiators plan to meet this coming week to discuss Turkey's demand for compensation for victims of the flotilla.

U.S. officials hope the discussions will jumpstart the process of restoring full diplomatic relations and exchanging ambassadors between two countries that Washington sees as vital strategic partners in the volatile Middle East.

The raid sparked throughout outrage in Muslim-majority Turkey, making it politically difficult for Erdogan to bend to persistent U.S. appeals to improve relations with Israel.

In March, Obama extracted an apology for the raid from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that broke the stalemate.

Kerry said he understood the anger and frustration of those Turks who lost friends and family in the raid. The former Massachusetts senator said last week's Boston Marathon bombings made him acutely aware of the emotions involved.

"It affects the community, it affects the country. But going forward, you know, we have to find the best way to bring people together and undo these tensions and undo these stereotypes and try to make peace," he said.

Kerry said he had a "prolonged and constructive" discussion with Davutoglu, about "the importance of completing the task with respect to the renewal of relations between Turkey and Israel."

Kerry added that he believed Erdogan and Davutoglu "are deeply committed to fulfilling all of the obligations of that understanding."

U.S. officials are keen to see substantive process by the time Erdogan comes to Washington.

"We would like to see us get to a point where we are moving on improving the situation in Gaza, which was part of the agreement ... and where we are also completing the tasks of moving to full diplomatic relations between the countries, which would be very beneficial to everyone," he said.

With Abbas, Kerry discussed ways to improve the Palestinians' living conditions as a confidence-building measure to improve the atmosphere for a resumption of peace talks with Israel.

Kerry has said he fears there is only a two- or three-year window of opportunity to reach a deal on a two-state solution that would end the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wants to move as quickly as possible.

Kerry was in Istanbul primarily to attend an international conference on Syria that began on Saturday and stretched into early Sunday as participants debated how best to boost aid to rebels trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad's government.

He announced that the Obama administration would double its nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition with an additional $123 million in supplies that could include for the first time armored vehicles, body armor, night vision goggles and other defensive military supplies.

"I can't tell you how quickly it will change things on the ground," Kerry said Sunday. "I can promise you that as soon as I return to Washington, I am going to press as hard as I can" to get it to the opposition within a matter of weeks.

"This has to happen quickly, it has to have an impact," he added.

The additional aid, which brings total nonlethal U.S. assistance to the opposition to $250 million since the fighting began more than two years ago, "underscores the United States' firm support for a political solution to the crisis in Syria and for the opposition's advancement of an inclusive, tolerant vision for a post-Assad Syria," Kerry said.

The U.S. pledge was the only tangible, public offer of new international support at the meeting of the foreign ministers of the 11 main countries supporting the opposition and fell well short of what the opposition has been appealing for: weapons and direct military intervention to stop the violence that has killed more than 70,000 people.

The Syrian National Coalition is seeking drone strikes on sites from which the regime has fired missiles, the imposition of no-fly zones and protected humanitarian corridors to ensure the safety of civilians.

With the exception of the United States, none of the participants offered new assistance, although European nations are considering changes to an arms embargo that would allow weapons transfers to the Syrian opposition.

Kerry ended the day in Brussels, where he plans talks with European officials and was to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of a NATO-Russia Council meeting. He has said he has not given up on persuading Moscow to reverse its support for Assad.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-04-21-Kerry/id-f79ad36addbc43f0a4b5ca2ff7cc6e7e

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

IMF, Egypt say working to reach loan deal in "coming weeks"

By Gregory Blachier MONTE CARLO, April 21 (Reuters) - Current anti-doping measures in tennis are a "disaster" and the introduction of biological passports can only improve matters, world number six Tomas Berdych said. "The system right now... I don't know how it works with the others but with me, it does not work at all," the Czech told Reuters in an interview at the Monte Carlo Masters this week. "You have to say every single day... where you are. I've done this for three or four years already and I had only two tests out of the tournaments," Berdych said. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/imf-egypt-working-reach-loan-deal-coming-weeks-232354767--finance.html

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Police commissioner: No suspect interview yet

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, at podium, speaks while accompanied by State Police Col. Timothy Alben, second from right, and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, right, during a news conference, after the arrest of a suspect of the Boston Marathon bombings in Watertown, Mass., Friday, April 19, 2013. A 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Boston's police commissioner says the lone surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing is in serious condition and authorities have not been able to try to interrogate him.

Commissioner Edward Davis also tells CBS' "Face the Nation" that the crime scene from the early Friday firefight in Watertown, Mass., was "littered" with unexploded improvised explosive devices.

Davis says it's his belief that 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan "were going to attack other individuals" ? and Davis says that's based on the evidence at the scene and the firepower that the brothers had.

Tamerlan died in the gunbattle with police in Watertown.

Davis says "this was as dangerous as it gets in urban policing."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-21-Boston%20Marathon-Police/id-5e0ff8de553b465da7608e02df30c4b6

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Texas plant explosion death toll at 14

WEST, Texas (AP) ? A law enforcement official says two more bodies have been recovered in the wake of the Texas fertilizer plant explosion, bring the death toll from the blast to 14.

Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Jason Reyes did not say where the bodies were found but said more information would be provided later Friday.

He says the bodies will be sent to the Dallas County medical examiner's office for identification.

Reyes earlier announced that 12 bodies had been recovered by Friday morning and that search and rescue efforts were ongoing.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-more-bodies-texas-explosion-death-toll-14-212003377.html

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The technological revolution and freedom at Catallaxy Files

My esteemed IPA colleague, and good friend of the Catallaxy blog, Chris Berg, has written another fine piece. Appearing in today?s edition of The Age newspaper, Berg writes about the ?creatively destructive? properties of internet spin?off applications, such as Bitcoin and 3D printing, which promise to substantially undermine the effectiveness of state authority and empower individual creativity.

There are too many highlights in Berg?s piece to mention here, but I?ll cite just one:

The economic consequences of these innovations are huge. But economies are used to change. One of the advantages of a free market is how it is able to adapt. Absolutely, those adaptations aren?t always pretty. The shift from a manufacturing to a service economy has been traumatic for some. When we can make custom industrial products in our own home, what happens to all the companies and workers doing that now? Yet we?ve been through this sort of rapid industrial change many times. And we always end up more prosperous.

The piece does, I think, allude to an answer, but one of the profound questions posed by technological change is on what balance of probability will these indeed undermine the state?s policy effectiveness? Will online and other technologies eventually sow the seeds for the undermining of economically retrograde and liberty eroding taxes and regulations? Would such undermining eventually lead to the withering of the state?

There are many writers in the modern liberal tradition drawing rather optimistic conclusions; in other words, the internet and other technologies will eventually undermine the fiscal and legal bases of the state, ushering in an enlarged scope for the exercise of individual freedom.

In the late 1990s the great British liberal economist Arthur Seldon nominated the internet, or ?capitalism by keyboard? as one technological means through which individuals can escape the burdens of over?government:

The Web will cost time to use to the full, but it will also save time by discovering information almost instantaneously about intending purchases. It will thus raise what Hayek called ?the discovery process? of the free market, still often ?imperfect,? to unimagined heights of ?perfection.?

No one will have to pay more than the lowest possible price anywhere in the world. ? no government will be able to charge more in taxes for its services than the market can supply at lower prices around the globe.

Seldon also favourably referred to electronic money, scientific innovations, black markets, personal services and bartering, migration and affluence as other means by which peoples can escape the oppressions imposed by governments.

In an interesting book released recently, the British Conservative MP Douglas Carswell argues that the unsustainable cost structures underpinning contemporary governmental leviathan are increasingly being exposed by technologies, and that people will discover via technology new ways to achieve previously untold levels of prosperity.

Below is an interesting passage among many from Carswell?s book, The End of Politics:

The digital revolution ? which is only just beginning ? will mean hyper?personalisation, and less deference to experts. Instead of leaving it to an elite to make generic choices for the rest of us, we will decide things for ourselves ? including what opinions we hold.

Intellectually, it will become much harder to justify seeking to arrange human affairs on the basis of grand design. Financially, it will be much harder to pay for it. Unable to manipulate the money or count on a solid tax base, the old bureaucratic state will become progressively more unaffordable.

In his book An Army of Davids, Glenn Reynolds (well known for his Instapundit.com website) describes how all manner of technological innovations, from the iPhone to nanotechnology, have the potential to economically and socially empower the individual, and in the process undermining the stultifying structure of bureaucracy and increasing the velocity of the winds of structural change through industries.

On the other hand, while not ruling out the potential for technological innovations to undo the politicisation of societies, Tyler Cowen, in an important presentation to the Mont Pelerin Society a few years ago (publicly available copy of presentation here), persuasively illustrated how governmental authorities co?opted technological improvements in communications and transportation to collect taxes and enforce its laws, and disseminate its propaganda, more swiftly than was previously the case.

Both effects, liberating and non?liberating, are evident in practice, so it is inappropriate to construe the optimistic view as portraying technologies as a panacea for the realisation of a radical upscale in the extent of individual freedoms in our lifetimes. To be fair, nobody I?ve read who is pointing out the beneficial, freeing effects of technology is suggesting that.

Nonetheless if one is pressed to make a judgment call as to the implications of technological developments for freedom, I think on balance that technological change will continue to prove to be a kind servant to human freedom. (This statement implies that, on balance, I believe that technologies, from the printing press to the internet have, indeed, clearly extended the bounds of freedom more often than not.)

At the very least, most individuals have an abiding interest in freedom and so will discover ingenious ways to employ the internet and other technologies that would help push humanity, even if unintentionally and gradually, in a pro?freedom direction.

There can be little doubt that political actors with an abiding interest in influencing, not necessarily freeing, others, will simultaneously try to utilise technologies in ways to expunge new?found freedoms. For instance, high?cost and indebted governments will, sadly and unconscionably, continue to use technologies to hound high?wealth taxpayers to the ends of the earth. Nonetheless, Arthur Seldon?s statement that ?science and the human spirit will remain two or three decisive steps ahead? will tend to ring true in this regard.

Source: http://catallaxyfiles.com/2013/04/21/the-technological-revolution-and-freedom/

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