objects

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.

Failures in visual short-term memory of objects, what scientists call "iconic memory," could reveal people at risk of Alzheimer's disease, a new study finds. Iconic memory is the image that lingers in the mind's eye after a person sees something briefly.http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com

To find out whether iconic memories are lost more readily in people with mild cognitive impairments—which include slightly diminished capacity to solve problems and keep track of time—researchers tested 11 study participants with such deficits and 16 without them. The average ages of the two groups were 85 and 77 years.

The researchers asked each participant to recall letters arrayed in a circle and flashed momentarily on a screen. Up to 10 seconds after the image had disappeared, an arrow cued the participant as to which letter to recall.

When cued immediately beforehand by an arrow pointing to the location of the letter to watch for, participants in the two groups performed equally well. But when this initial cue was not offered, participants with mild cognitive impairments didn't score as well as those with no impairments did. That suggests there was a decay in iconic memory, the researchers report in the Feb. 1 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Although doctors have various ways to identify people with mild cognitive impairments, "we would always be better off having a more comprehensive set of tests," says study coauthor Barbara Anne Dosher, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine.http://ljsheehan.livejournal.com

Early detection of the cognitive declines that presage Alzheimer's disease would be useful because the neuroprotective drugs now available work best when administered early in the course of disease, says neuroscientist Zhong-Lin Lu of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, another collaborator on the study.

examined

Two genes already known to influence brain size have undergone relatively recent, survival-enhancing modifications in people and appear to be still evolving, a research team reports. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

Specific variants of these genes have spread quickly by natural selection, say Bruce T. Lahn of the University of Chicago and his colleagues, who published separate reports on each gene in the Sept. 9 Science.

The researchers examined DNA from 1,186 adults representing 59 populations worldwide and determined the frequency of specific variants of the two genes called microcephalin and ASPM.

A variant of microcephalin originated roughly 37,000 years ago and now appears in 7 of 10 people, the scientists conclude from comparisons of the gene's sequence for the different groups. Populations outside of sub-Saharan Africa most frequently possess this modified gene.

A distinctive ASPM variant arose approximately 5,800 years ago and now shows up in 3 of 10 people. It occurs most often in Europeans, North Africans, Middle Easterners, and South Asians. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

The functions of these particular DNA alterations, including any potential

native

A single population of prehistoric Siberians crossed the Bering Strait into Alaska and subsequently fanned out to populate North and South America, according to a new genetic analysis of present-day indigenous Americans. http://louisejesheehan.blogspot.com

The study also hints that early Americans reached Central and South America by migrating down the Pacific coast by land or sea and only later spread into the interior of South America.

"We have good evidence that a single migration [from Siberia] contributed a large fraction of the ancestry of the Americas," says population geneticist Noah Rosenberg of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who led the large international study team. http://louisejesheehan.blogspot.com

The finding draws on the largest database of Native American genetics ever compiled. The data include DNA from nearly 500 people belonging to 29 groups scattered across Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America. The researchers also studied samples from 14 Tundra Nentsi individuals living in eastern Siberia.

"They should be commended for bringing together an enormous database, something no one has done before," says Tom Dillehay, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The team examined 678 genetic markers in the human genome and found that one of the markers ties every Native American group to the Tundra Nentsi. The marker, moreover, is found nowhere else in the world. "It's extremely difficult to explain this kind of pattern unless all of the Native American populations ... have a large degree of shared ancestry," says Rosenberg.

In addition, the Canadian groups share more genes with the Siberians than do the groups in Central and South America, Rosenberg and his team report online in the November PLoS Genetics.

Tracing further migration through the Americas, the team then correlated genetic variations among different tribes with each group's location as measured along inland or coastal routes. The genetic data suggest that most migration to Central and South America followed the coast.

"That's the easy way south," says Vance Holliday, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He cautions, however, that the groups that populated the South American interior would have had to surmount the formidable Andes Mountains.

Despite the migration findings, Holliday and Dillehay both say that southward migration along interior routes should still be considered. Dillehay notes that the current study excludes Native Americans from the United States and eastern Brazil. "It's a sampling bias," he says, that might have erroneously favored the Pacific coast migration model.

Rosenberg says that a second paper will soon address the genetics of tribes in the United States and whether there was more than one major Siberian migration.

While the study points to an eastern Siberian origin for most of the genes that spread across the Americas, it can't rule out small genetic contributions from other groups, says Kari Britt Schroeder of the University of California, Davis. In 2001, scientists unearthed 8,000- to 11,000-year-old skulls in Brazil that strikingly resemble today's Australian aborigines (SN: 4/7/01, p. 212). The find fueled speculation that several waves of immigrants from different parts of Asia reached the Americas.

"Even if Native Americans share a lot of ancestry from a single origin, there still could be contributions from other groups," says Schroeder.

birchington

Hydroponic farming is coming to the U.K.—70 soccer fields worth of it.
http://louis-j-sheehan.biz

Outside of Birchington in far southeastern England, workers are finishing the first of what will be seven giant greenhouses for growing tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Thanet Earth, as the complex is cleverly called, will cover around 220 acres of Kent County by its 2010 completion, according to the Daily Mail. In the greenhouses, plants will hang from a 26-foot-high ceiling. A drip will supply them with water, and also the nutrients they need and would normally take from soil, like potassium, magnesium, phosphate, and nitrogen.
http://louis-j-sheehan.biz

Greenhouse operators will deploy bees to pollinate the plants, and wasps to keep pests like aphids from wrecking their rows and rows of produce.

It’s not hard to see the practical reasons why Britons would go hydroponic: Thanet Earth’s proponents say the £80 million (approximately $160 million) project will produce 2.5 million tomatoes every week. That’s not bad for a country used to importing much of its produce—the BBC says half of the U.K.’s fruit and 95 percent of its vegetables come from abroad.

But not everyone is so thrilled. While the sun supplies much of the energy for normal agriculture, growing hydroponic crops year-round could be an energy glutton. You have to shine artificial light on tomatoes to trick them into growing in February, and 220 acres is a lot of artificial light. Growing hydroponic plants should save water compared to soil farming, but there’s also a lot of good soil now buried beneath glass and concrete, and any archaeologists who many have wanted to excavate the historical area are out of luck.

British foodies aren’t terribly happy with this trend, either. Where’s the culinary romance in a factory-grown cucumber? In the Daily Mail story, Jeanette Longfield of the food campaign group Sustain brings up the French word “terroir,” which means the specific traits a food gets from its soil and environment and is often used to start arguments about wine. Hydroponic tomatoes all have the same terroir, she argues, or none at all.

Lastly, we wrote earlier this week about the origins of the current salmonella scare in American tomatoes, and Keith Warriner of the University of Guelph in Ontario told DISCOVER that it was actually easier for pathogens to establish themselves in the hydroponic greenhouse compared to the field. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, salmonella can enter a hydroponic facility on tools, water, or workers’ clothing. So it seems that tightly-controlled greenhouse might not be so easy to control after all.

morgan

May 16, Monday. I yesterday took a steamer with a small company, consisting among others of Postmaster-General Blair, Senators Doolittle and Grimes, Messrs. Rice and Griswold of the Naval Committee, Count Rosen of the Swedish Navy, Mr. Hale (the newly selected Consul-General to Egypt), G. W. Blunt and Assistant Secretary Fox, Commander Wise, Dr. Horwitz, and two or three others, and went down the Potomac to Belle Plain. The day was pleasant and the sail charming. We reached Belle Plain about two P.M. and left a little past five. Is a rough place with no dwelling, — an extemporized plank-way from the shore some twenty or thirty rods in the rear. Some forty or fifty steamers and barges, most of them crowded with persons, were there. Recruits going forward to reinforce Grant’s army, or the wounded and maimed returning from battle. http://members.greenpeace.org/blog/purposeforporpoise Rows of stretchers, on each of which was a maimed or wounded Union soldier, were wending towards the steamers which were to bear them to Washington, while from the newly arrived boats were emerging the fresh soldiers going forward to the field. Working our way along the new and rough-made road, through teams of mules and horses, we arrived at the base of a hill some two or three hundred feet in height, and went up a narrow broken footpath to the summit, on which were the headquarters of General Abercrombie and staff. The ascent was steep and laborious. We had expected to find the prisoners here, but were told they were beyond, about one and a half miles. The majority were disposed to proceed thither, and, though tired and reluctant, I acquiesced. The prisoners, said to be about 7000 in number, were encamped in a valley surrounded by steep hills, the circumference of the basin being some two or three miles. Returning, we passed through the centre of this valley or basin. The prisoners were rough, sturdy-looking men, good and effective soldiers, I should judge. Most of them were quiet and well-behaved, but some few of them were boisterous and inclined to be insolent. http://members.greenpeace.org/blog/purposeforporpoise

One of the prisoners, a young man of some twenty-five, joined me and inquired if I resided in the neighborhood. I told him at a little distance. He wished to exchange some money, Rebel for greenbacks. When I told him that his was worthless, he claimed it was better than greenbacks though not current here. I asked him if they had not enough of fighting, opposing the Union and lawful authority. He said no, there was much more fighting yet to be done. Claimed that Lee would be in Fredericksburg before the Union army could get to Richmond. Would not believe that J. E. B. Stuart was killed, news of which I received just as I came on board the boat this morning. He was earnest, though uninformed, and said he was from western North Carolina. Returning, we reached Washington at 9 P.M.

To-day I have been busy in preparing two or three letters and matters for Congress.

Governor Morgan called on me relative to abuses in cotton speculations, and malconduct of Treasury agents and others. Some of the malpractices which are demoralizing the army and the officials and disgusting the whole people in the lower Mississippi are becoming known, and will, I trust, lead to legislative correction. As Morgan introduced the subject and thought proper to consult me, I freely gave him facts and my views, which conflict with Chase and the Treasury management. A bill which Morgan showed me is crudely drawn but introduces, or makes, an entire change. It is not, in some of its features, what I should have proposed, but it will improve on the present system.

slow fiz

Loretta Lynn's 2004 disc, "Van Lear Rose," was a remarkably modern-sounding record for the country-music veteran, thanks to the production and guitar-work of the White Stripes' Jack White. But for all the fashionably zitherish keening of the guitars, the CD's most popular song starts off with a paean to an anachronistic drink. http://Louis-J-sheehan.info"Well, Portland Oregon and Sloe Gin Fizz," sings the coal miner's daughter, "if that ain't love then tell me what is."

The Sloe Gin Fizz is that strange drink that few have actually tasted but whose name almost everyone has heard. This works for a lyricist because it taps into a deep reservoir of linguistic recognition while remaining rather mysterious. And it doesn't hurt that the drink's name also allows for the employment of a stock joke that turns on the fact that most people hear "slow" rather than "sloe" -- the purplish-red berry of the blackthorn bush that gives the liqueur its flavor. "Well, sloe gin fizz works mighty fast," Loretta Lynn sings, "when you drink it by the pitcher and not by the glass." In Dickens's England, a glass of sloe gin mixed with gin was known as a "Slow and Quick." More recently, in "Jitterbug Perfume," Tom Robbins lists a litany of drinks that includes "Two sloe-gin fizzes, two fast gin fizzes; three martinis dry, no starch."

Tennessee Williams uses the old joke in his play "A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur," reveling at the speedy moves a young man could make with a young lady when aided by sloe gin and a fancy car: "The gin was slow, maybe, but that man was a fast one, seducing a girl with adjustable seats and a flask of liquor in that Flying Cloud."

Sweetishly easy to drink, the Sloe Gin Fizz was famous for undoing co-ed inhibitions. Historian and Kennedy-crony Arthur Schlesinger Jr., recalling his days as a Harvard undergrad in the 1930s, noted that the cocktail was "supposed to reduce the most obdurate female to acquiescence." http://Louis-J-sheehan.info

But sometimes it worked the other way around. Belle, the commercial floozy in Eugene O'Neill's play "Ah, Wilderness!" is too tough a cookie to mess with Sloe Gin Fizzes -- Gin Rickeys are her poison. "Remember," she needles a bartender, "a rickey is supposed to have gin in it." But when she aims to move along her transaction with underage Richard Miller, she plies the boy with Sloe Gin Fizzes. O'Neill knew that the drink was relatively tame (sloe gin is usually about 50 proof, as opposed to the 80 or 90 proof of regular dry gin), so he has Belle insist with a nudge that the bartender "make it a real one." It takes only a couple of spiked Fizzes to get Richard drunk. After the bartender learns that the boy's father is the editor of the town newspaper, he gives Belle the heave-ho, furious that she "told me to hand him dynamite in that fizz." When the play was improbably made into a Hollywood musical (starring 27-year-old Mickey Rooney as the wet-nosed teen) the name was changed to "Summer Holiday," but the Sloe Gin Fizzes remained.

The absence of dynamite in the average Sloe Gin Fizz is one reason it makes such an excellent summertime cooler. In 1956, the Amy Vanderbilt etiquette column recommended them as a low-test way for partygoers to have a drink without ending up too far in their cups. Back then, there were many well-advertised brands of sloe gin. But by the '80s the liqueur survived only for its role in sexually suggestive quaffs.

First there was a Screwdriver made with sloe gin instead of vodka, a Sloe Screw. Such bawdy hilarity soon inspired the addition of Southern Comfort to the mix, creating the Sloe Comfortable Screw. Later, Galliano -- of Harvey Wallbanger fame -- was added to exploit even more elaborately lewd naming opportunities. The whole bunch were taste-impaired, figuratively and literally. It is an immutable law that the naughtier a drink's name, the worse that drink tastes.

Sloe gin might well have disappeared, slinking off in shamefaced embarrassment, had the folks at England's Plymouth Gin distillery not come to the rescue. Just now arriving in the States are bottles of their liqueur made by steeping honest-to-goodness sloe berries in Plymouth's dry gin. They have used a sparing hand with the sugar, letting the cranberry-tartness of the fruit come through. It makes for a fine Sloe Gin Fizz, a drink of lemon juice, sloe gin, sugar and soda water, on ice in a highball glass.

Plymouth's sloe gin is also good enough to drink in a straight-up cocktail. In the 1930s there were variations on a drink called a Sloe Gin Cocktail using the spirit as a base and adding bits of this and that. I played around with this basic idea until, on the seventh try, I hit upon a delicious drink of two parts sloe gin to one part dry vermouth, with one dash each of lemon juice and curaçao. Let's call it a Sloe Gin No. 7.

And please, no jokes about how fast it works.

Hershey Co.

Hershey Co. laid out plans Tuesday to battle the global candy giant to be created by the Mars-Wrigley merger, but offered little detail on how the iconic chocolate-bar maker will address its overwhelming reliance on the U.S. market for revenue. http://louisajasheehan.blogspot.com

At an investor update in New York, Chief Executive David West said Hershey would boost spending on marketing about 20% this year and next. He also slightly increased the company's long-term annual sales targets and outlined plans for new products.

But it isn't clear those steps will be enough in the coming candy wars. When Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms, and Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., maker of Juicy Fruit and Doublemint, combine in a $23 billion deal expected to close in the next few months, their new company will have broad global reach. And that will put Hershey, whose business outside the U.S. represents just 14% of sales, in a difficult spot.

Consummating a long-time flirtation with Cadbury PLC would give Hershey broader international scale. But over the weekend, LeRoy Zimmerman, chairman of the Hershey Trust, the company's controlling shareholder, reiterated the trust's refusal to cede control of the Pennsylvania chocolate maker. In an opinion piece published Sunday in the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa., he wrote, "Simply put: We will not sell the Hershey Co." Hershey Trust spokesman Tim Reeves said that Mr. Zimmerman wouldn't comment further.

After the article was disseminated by a Wall Street analyst, shares of Hershey fell 6% Monday to close at $35.87. http://louisajasheehan.blogspot.comThey fell again Tuesday to $35.15 after Mr. West addressed shareholders.

Mr. West set a new long-term annual sales growth target of 3% to 5%, compared with the previous goal of 3% to 4%, and an earnings-per-share growth target of 6% to 8%, down from the earlier 9% to 11%. Hershey affirmed its 2008 earnings forecast of $1.85 to $1.90 a share, but Mr. West said that Hershey won't hit its target in 2009 because of expected high commodity costs.

With the Mars-Wrigley combination looming, Hershey's options appear increasingly limited. To acquire Cadbury, which is valued at about $17 billion and is more than twice its size, Hershey would need to find a significant investment partner and would probably need to borrow a considerable sum.

Hershey could find itself in an even tighter bind if another company, such as Kraft Foods Inc., makes a play for Cadbury, as some analysts have speculated. A Kraft spokesman declined to comment on deal speculation but said one of the company's criteria for acquisitions is determining that it can "build scale in international geographies, especially in emerging markets."

Mr. West offered scant guidance on how the company plans to expand globally beyond saying it will continue entering into joint ventures and making acquisitions in Asia and Latin America.

He told investors that Hershey will take on Mars-Wrigley by competing aggressively in the U.S. "Although the Mars-Wrigley deal could affect our ranking, we remain well positioned on many dimensions, especially in chocolate, where we have a 43% share" of the $16 billion U.S. market, he said. "We are more convinced than ever that our core U.S. business can grow." http://louisajasheehan.blogspot.com

Not enough, said Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow. "My concern is that the international footprint they now have in these emerging markets is very tiny. The real focus internally seems to be squeezing more growth out of the domestic market." Mr. Moskow has the equivalent of a "hold" rating on Hershey stock; his firm has an investment-banking relationship with Hershey.

Hershey has struggled in recent years as it neglected core brands in favor of pushing limited-edition products. That opened the door for Mars to introduce new Dove dark chocolates and other items that stole market share from Hershey.

Mr. West told investors that Hershey marketers have talked to tens of thousands of consumers to determine why and how often they buy candy. They identified six core consumer groups, including "loyal indulgers," or older consumers who are loyal to specific brands, and "engaged exploring munchers," who are the least price-sensitive and most profitable.

The company is now developing products targeted at these groups, Mr. West said. New Reese's Whipps -- a chocolate bar with a fluffy peanut butter and nougat filling -- is aimed at consumers seeking less fat, while Reese's Select Clusters -- chocolate-covered pieces of nuts, peanut butter and caramel that resemble turtle candies -- target consumers who want to indulge. To appeal to women between the ages of 25 and 49, the company launched creamy bite-size pieces of milk or dark chocolate called Hershey's Bliss. Hershey has also worked with Starbucks Corp. to develop a new line of chocolates in such flavors as Caramel Macchiato and Madagascar Vanilla Bean.

Mr. West said the company will increase marketing spending about 20% this year to more than $155 million, and plans an additional 20% increase next year. The company is also trying to make grocery-store candy aisles easier to shop by testing new displays that group products by purchasing occasion, such as movie candy, gifts and items for the candy dish.