Protecting Psychologists Who Harm: The APA's Latest Wrong Turn

 By Roy Eidelson, Truthout | Op-Ed

Camp Delta, where detainees on the war on terrorism are kept, at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo, October 9, 2003. (Photo: Angel Franco / The New York Times)

Shortly after learning about the American Psychological Association's (APA) late February announcement of its new Member-Initiated Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists' Involvement in National Security Settings, I found my thoughts turning to the School of the Americas, Blackwater and perhaps even more surprisingly, the Patagonian toothfish. Those may seem like a strange threesome, but they share one important thing in common. All have undergone a thorough repackaging and renaming in a marketing effort aimed at obscuring - but not altering - some ugly truth.

The School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, became infamous for training Latin American soldiers who returned home and engaged in repressive campaigns involving rape, torture and murder of political dissidents. To combat its negative image, the school was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, but the nature of its activities remain largely unchanged. During the Iraq War, Blackwater, a private military company supported by hundreds of millions of dollars in US government contracts, gained international notoriety on many counts, including its use of excessive and often deadly force against Iraqi civilians. The company therefore renamed itself - twice - first as Xe Services and then again as Academi, with essentially the same core businesses. As for the Patagonian toothfish, it's wrong to blame the fish itself. But in an effort to spur sales, merchants renamed it Chilean sea bass (for similar reasons, the slimehead fish is now known as orange roughy instead).

Sadly, the same repackaging and renaming strategy of illusion and deception characterizes the APA's latest gambit to both protect and disguise the role of psychologists as purveyors of harm. But to fully understand this new ploy - a so-called "task force" to produce a comprehensive document of all APA ethics policies relevant to psychologists in national security settings - it's helpful to first review some disturbing history.

There is incontrovertible evidence that in the years following the 9/11 attacks, psychologists served as planners, consultants, researchers and overseers to the abusive and torturous interrogations of prisoners in the US "global war on terror." Multiple reports of wrongdoing emerged, such as one from the International Committee of the Red Cross describing psychological coercion techniques at Guantanamo Bay as "tantamount to torture." APA members and others responded with outrage and clamor. It was immediately clear that the world's largest psychological association needed to engage in a careful and transparent examination of whether professional ethics allow psychologists to serve in aggressive operational roles, such as detention and interrogation activities involving national security detainees. Tragically, however, APA's leadership decided to take a very different path. They chose to rubberstamp the status quo without any meaningful deliberation whatsoever.

More specifically, in mid-2005, the APA brought together a task force for a weekend meeting. It was dominated by representatives from the military-intelligence establishment, including several individuals who served in the chains of command publicly accused of detainee abuses. In short order, this Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) issued the PENS Report, which asserted that psychologists may indeed, "serve in various national security-related roles, such as a consultant to an interrogation." With comparable speed, the APA board called an "emergency" session and approved the report, bypassing entirely the association's actual governing body, its Council of Representatives. APA staff and leadership then quickly followed by publicly promoting the view that psychologists help to keep interrogations "safe, legal, ethical and effective." In sum, the Department of Defense (DoD) and CIA obtained just the endorsement they wanted from the APA.

Since that time, further evidence has accumulated pointing to the entire PENS process as deeply flawed and corrupt. Newspaper reports and previously classified government documents have revealed distressing details about the physical and psychological abuse that were part and parcel of the euphemistically named "enhanced interrogation techniques" supported by psychologists. The release of emails from the PENS listserv has shown that Task Force member Col. Morgan Banks promoted the view that psychologists help to keep interrogation operations "safe, legal, ethical and effective" before the Task Force ever met. As already noted, this exact phrase became the recurring public-relations mantra of APA leadership after the task force meeting.

Skepticism regarding the composition of this supposed "ethics" task force has been further strengthened by public statements from task force members themselves. As one example, task force member Col. Larry James wrote a 2008 memoir in which he recounts an episode at the Guantanamo detention center where, as commanding officer, he poured a cup of coffee and watched for several minutes as an interrogator and three prison guards struggled to force a pink nightgown onto a detainee already unwillingly outfitted with pink panties, a wig and lipstick (James never reported this incident to the appropriate authorities, even though he elsewhere described this kind of failure-to-report as a violation of military law). As another example, in a 2009 NPR interview, task force member Capt. Bryce Lefever defended the technique of locking an insect-phobic detainee in a small box with insects, explaining that, "the things that are called ... torture or exploitative are also therapy techniques."

Despite revelations of this sort, the APA board has consistently resisted efforts to re-open the crucial question of whether professional ethics support the use of psychologists in aggressive national security operational roles - roles that conflict with medical and therapeutic "do no harm" principles because they may involve coercion, deception, manipulation, humiliation and other non-beneficent actions. In fact, it took a grassroots member-initiated referendum in 2008 - unwelcome by both APA leadership and the DoD - to establish an APA policy that prohibits psychologists from working in national security detention settings operating outside of or in violation of the US Constitution or international law. But even though voting members of the APA overwhelmingly passed this petition resolution, the association's leadership has failed to take concerted action to implement the will of its membership, with psychologists' ongoing work at the Bagram/Parwan prison in Afghanistan as a prime example.

The latest effort to challenge the legitimacy of APA's stance in support of aggressive operational psychology is a broad-based campaign calling for official annulment of the PENS Report. Spearheaded by the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology (of which I am a member), this online petition effort has already garnered endorsements from 34 organizations, including the American Civil LIberties Union (ACLU), Physicians for Human Rights, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and several divisions of APA itself, as well as from over 1,800 individuals. These individual signers include two members of the PENS Task Force, current and past presidents of APA divisions, psychologists who work with torture survivors, and psychologists who have spent their careers working with veterans at VA hospitals. At the same time, recognition of the urgent need for PENS annulment extends well beyond the profession of psychology alone. Also among the petition signers are psychiatrists such as Robert Jay Lifton (author of "The Nazi Doctors") and Stephen Xenakis (retired brigadier general, US Army), scholar-activists such as Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, attorneys who have represented Guantanamo detainees, former members of the military and intelligence community, and members of the general public.

What can annulment of the PENS Report accomplish? First, annulment will serve to indisputably repudiate the illegitimate process by which the military-intelligence establishment took control over the core ethics of psychology as a profession. Second, annulment will set the stage for a long-overdue transparent, broad-based and independent examination - by psychologists, by human rights advocates, by national security experts and by ethicists - of whether or not it is ethical for psychologists to serve in aggressive operational roles in national security settings. More than a decade has passed since the attacks of 9/11, yet this fundamental question has never been honestly and openly addressed. Indeed, the PENS Report was strategically designed to take this question off the table - by offering the mere pretense of meaningful discussion and debate.

This brings us back to the newly hatched Member-Initiated Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists' Involvement in National Security Settings. Not surprisingly, the APA board has already endorsed this initiative, giving an authoritative role to a handful of APA members who have opposed past efforts to restrict the actions of operational psychologists in national security settings. For example, one of the five members of the so-called task force is William Strickland, president of HumRRO, a company that has received tens of millions of dollars in military contracts over the past decade. In 2010, Colonel James (he of the pink panties episode noted earlier) thanked Strickland for his "hard fight on the floor of the Council of Representatives over the petition resolution and changes to the APA Ethics code."

If this small group is successful, their actions will counter the push for annulment of the PENS Report and will thereby postpone indefinitely any careful examination of the ethics of aggressive operational psychology. Deceptively, the new task force has actually claimed common cause with the annulment campaign by emphasizing that they aim to replace the PENS Report. Indeed, that's the headline, and, superficially, it sounds encouraging. But a closer reading of the details quickly reveals the disturbing reality: key policies will simply be lifted from the PENS Report and placed in the proposed new "unified, comprehensive APA policy document." This is the repackaging and renaming reminiscent of the School of the Americas, Blackwater and the Patagonian toothfish. The PENS Report as a document may fall by the wayside, but its pernicious and illegitimate policy conclusions will be securely enshrined in APA's "new and improved" replacement document - which means the presumption that it's ethical for psychologists to serve in aggressive operational roles will continue to escape the inspection and evaluation it warrants.

If I seem to be describing a worst-case scenario, let me be clear: what I've just presented is really the only plausible scenario given the guidelines under which the new task force has said it will operate. Their announcement states that the new comprehensive document (months away from completion) will be "reflective of existing APA policy," and that it will "not set new policy." The announcement also states: "Some earlier policies are no longer valid as a result of subsequent policy statements." Through a process of what the task force calls "reconciliation," those old policies that conflict with more recent APA resolutions will be excluded from the final comprehensive document. However, the specific PENS policy asserting that it is ethical for psychologists to serve in aggressive operational activities such as interrogation consultation in national security settings does not conflict with any more recent APA resolution. Therefore, this policy's safe transit into the new unified ethics document is already guaranteed.

So, a highly controversial policy with profound ethical implications, established solely through a corrupt process, will be repackaged, renamed and preserved by this deceptively named "task force." They will give the policy a comfortable new home, from which it will retain its influence while also serving as the linchpin in efforts by some to promote operational psychology as an official area of professional specialization. There is no question that this new initiative is anti-annulment by design. Its supporters either knowingly seek to protect the policy prescriptions of the PENS Report or they have been misled by those who do.

At this point, it's uncertain whether the APA's latest maneuver will succeed. The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology has issued a statement expressing strong opposition to the new "task force," and the petition campaign calling for annulment of the PENS Report continues to attract supporters. But there's little doubt that clever marketing often carries the day (just ask the Patagonian toothfish), and APA leadership has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to resort to stonewalling and obfuscation when necessary to achieve its aims.

Such tactics are regrettable. It's wrong to run away from a serious consideration of what's truly ethical for psychologists working in the national security sector. We know that psychologists play valuable roles in such settings, including providing dedicated and expert care to our soldiers and their families. But with changing times, a profession committed to human welfare must be willing to look inward in order to honestly explore challenging and fundamental questions. Foremost among them is whether coercion, deception, manipulation and humiliation should be part of a psychologist's ethical work in support of his or her country. Answering this crucial question begins not with some diversionary new "task force," but rather, with annulment of the PENS Report.

This article is a Truthout original. http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8296-protecting-psychologists-who-harm-the-apas-latest-wrong-turn

 

இரத்த அழுத்தத்திற்கு மருந்தாகும் சீரகம்

மத்தியதர இரத்த அழுத்த நோய் இருப்பவர்களுக்கு திராட்சைப் பழச்சாறுடன், சிறிது சீரகத்தைப் பொடித்து சாப்பிட்டு வர இரத்த அழுத்தம் அதிகரிக்காது. சிறிது சீரகம், நல்லமிளகு பொடித்து எண்ணெயிலிட்டுக் காய்ச்சி, அந்த எண்ணெயத் தலையில் தேய்த்துக் குளித்தால் கண் எரிச்சல், கண்ணிலிருந்து நீர் வடிதல் நீங்கும். அகத்திக்கீரையுடன், சீரகம், சின்னவெங்காயம் சேர்த்து கஷாயம் செய்து அத்துடன் கருப்பட்டி பொடித்திட்டு சாப்பிட்டால் மன அழுத்தம் மாறும். ஆரம்ப நிலை மனநோய் குணமாகும். சீரகம், சுக்கு, மிளகு, தனியா, சித்தரத்தை இவ்வைந்தையும் சேர்த்துத் தூளாக்கி வைத்துக் கொள்ளவும். இதில் இரண்டு சிட்டிகை வீதம் தினம் இரண்டு வேளையாக சாப்பிட்டால் உடல் அசதி நீங்கி, புத்துணர்ச்சி ஏற்படும். சீரகத்தை லேசாக வறுத்து அத்துடன் கருப்பட்டி சேர்த்துச் சாப்பிட்டு வர நரம்புகள் வலுப்பெறும். நரம்புத் தளர்ச்சி குணமாகும். சிறிது சீரகத்துடன், இரண்டு வெற்றிலை, நான்கு நல்ல மிளகு சேர்த்து மென்று தின்று, ஒரு டம்ளர் குளிர்ந்த நீர் பருகினால் வயிற்றுப் பொருமல் வற்றி, நலம் பயக்கும். சீரகத்துடன் மூன்று பற்கள் பூண்டு வைத்து மைய்ய அரைத்து, எலுமிச்சை சாறில் கலந்து குடித்தால் குடல் கோளாறுகள் குணமாகும். ஓமத்துடன் சிறிது சீரகம் இட்டு கஷாயம் செய்து சாப்பிட்டால் அதிக பேதி போக்கு நிற்கும். பெண்களுக்கு ஏற்படும் வெள்ளைப்படுதல் நோய்க்கு சிறிது சீரகத்துடன் சின்ன வெங்காயம் வைத்து மைய்ய அரைத்து, பசும்பாலில் கலந்து குடித்து வர, நல்ல பலன் கிடக்கும். சிறிது சீரகத்துடன் கீழாநெல்லி வைத்து அரைத்து எலுமிச்சை சாறில் சேர்த்துப் பருகி வர கல்லீரல் கோளாறு குணமாகும்.

உடல் நலத்தை பாதுகாக்கும் இசை

தினசரி இசை கேட்பவர்களுக்கு மன அழுத்தம் குறைவதோடு உடல் நலமும், மனநலமும் அதிகரிக்கிறது என்று சமீபத்திய ஆய்வொன்றின் மூலம் கண்டறியப்பட்டுள்ளது. இசை கேட்பதன் மூலம் நேர்மறை எண்ணங்கள் அதிகரிக்கிறது என்றும் ஆய்வாளர்கள் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர். கூடன்பர்க் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தைச் சேர்ந்த மனோதத்துவவியல் துறை பேராசிரியர்கள் மனிதர்களின் மன அழுத்தம் தொடர்பான ஆய்வு ஒன்றை மேற்கொண்டனர். 207 நபர்கள் இந்த ஆய்விற்கு உட்படுத்தப்பட்டனர். அதில் 21 நபர்கள் தாங்களாகவே தேர்ந்தெடுத்த இசையை அரைமணிநேரம் கேட்டனர். இரண்டு வாரங்கள் அவர்கள் தொடர்ந்து இசையை கேட்டனர். அதே எண்ணிக்கையுள்ளவர்கள் இசையை கேட்காமல் வேறு வழிகளில் ரிலாக்ஸ் செய்ய அனுமதிக்கப்பட்டனர். இதில் இசையை கேட்டவர்களுக்கு நேர்மறை எண்ணங்கள் அதிகரித்து இருந்தது. மன அழுத்தத்தை ஏற்படுத்தும் கார்டிசோல் ஹோர்மோன் சுரப்பு குறைவாக இருந்தது. இதேபோல் இசையை கேட்காதவர்களுக்கு மன அழுத்தம் அதிகமாக இருந்தது. இசையானது மனதை லேசாக்குவதோடு உடல் நலத்தையும் பாதுகாக்கிறது என்று ஆய்வாளர்கள் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர். எனவே தினசரி அரைமணி நேரமாவது இசையை கேட்பவர்களுக்கு நேர்மறை எண்ணங்கள் அதிகரிக்கும் என்று ஆய்வாளர்கள் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர்.

கீரைகளின் மருத்துவ குணங்கள்

விலை மலிவான சாதாரணப் பொருட்களிலும், நிறைய பலன்களைப் பெற முடியும் என்பதற்கு சிறந்த எடுத்துக்காட்டு தான் கீரைகள். கீரைகள் தினமும் எடுத்து கொண்டால் மருத்துவரிடம் செல்ல வேண்டிய அவசியம் இருக்காது என்பார்கள் முதியோர்கள். அரைக்கீரை: தினமும் உண்ணத்தக்க கீரைகளில் இது தலையானது. எவ்வகை நோயாளிக்கும் ஏற்றது. கண் பார்வை, இரத்த நாளங்கள், ஜீரண உறுப்புகள் போன்றவற்றை நன்னிலையில் பாதுகாக்கும். பிரசவமான மகளிர்க்கு உடனடி ஊட்டம் அளிக்கும். மணத்தக்காளி: வாய்ப்புண், வயிற்றுப்புண்ணுக்கு சிறந்த மருந்து. மூலநோய், குடல் அழற்சி கட்டுப்படும். குரல் வளம் பெருக்கும். அல்சருக்கு அற்புத மருந்து. வாரம் 2 முறை உண்ணத்தக்கது. பசளைக்கீரை: மலச்சிக்கலை விரட்டும். ஆண்மையைப் பலப்படுத்தும். குளிர்ச்சி தரும். இக்கீரையை ஆஸ்துமா போன்ற நோயுடையவர்கள் கோடை காலத்தில் மட்டுமே உண்ணவும். வெந்தயக்கீரை: வாயுவைக் கண்டிக்கும். கல்லீரலைச் சுறுசுறுப்பக்கும். புரதம், தாதுக்கள், வைட்டமின் சி இதில் ஏராளம். வாரம் 1 முறை உண்டு வர மூட்டுவலி, இடுப்புப் பிடிப்பு போன்றவை நீங்கும். சிறுநீர் கோளாறு அண்டாது. முளைக்கீரை: எவ்வயதினரும், தினமும் உண்ணக்கூடியது. நல்ல பசியைத் தூண்டும். காச நோயின் போது வரும் காய்ச்சலைக் கட்டுப்படுத்தும். அகத்திக்கீரை: வைட்டமின், இரும்புச்சத்து, சுண்ணாம்புச் சத்து நிறைந்தது. விஷங்களை முறிக்கும். கண்பார்வை நரம்புகளுக்கு வலுவூட்டும். கிருமிகளைக் கொல்லும். ஆனால், இதனை வயிற்றுக் கோளாறுடையோர், வயோதிகர் உண்ணலாகாது. மாதம் ஒரு முறையே இது உண்ணத்தக்கது. கரிசலாங்கண்ணி கீரை: கபம், பித்தவாயுவையும் கண்டிக்கும். மூலநோய், நாட்பட்ட கிராணி இவற்றிற்கு மாமருந்து.

எலும்புகளை வலுவாக்கும் பீர்

வயதான காலத்தில் பெண்களுக்கு ஏற்படும் ஆஸ்டியோபோரோசிஸ் பாதிப்பில் இருந்து பெண்களுக்கு பீர் பாதுகாப்பு அளிப்பது தற்போது தெரியவந்துள்ளது. கேம்பிரிட்ஜ் பல்கலைக்கழக ஊட்டச்சத்து மற்றும் ஆரோக்கியம் குறித்த ஆய்வு பிரிவினர் ஜொனாத்தன் போவெல் தலைமையில், எலும்பின் வலுவுக்கும் பீர் குடிப்பதற்கும் இடையே உள்ள தொடர்பு குறித்து ஆய்வு நடத்தினர். இதில் பீரில் உள்ள எத்தனால் எலும்புக்கு ஆரோக்கியமளிப்பதும், அதில் உள்ள சிலிகான் புதிய எலும்புகளின் ஆரோக்கியமான வளர்ச்சிக்கு உதவுவதும் தெரியவந்துள்ளது. இதுகுறித்து வெளியிடப்பட்டுள்ள தகவல் வருமாறு: மதுபானத்தை மருந்தாக எடுத்துக் கொண்டால் உடல் ஆரோக்கியமாக இருக்கும் என்பதை பல தொடர் ஆய்வுகள் வலியுறுத்தி வருகின்றன. இதன் தொடர்ச்சியாக மேற்கொள்ளப்பட்ட புதிய ஆய்வில், பீரில் உள்ள சத்துகள் எலும்புக்கு வலு சேர்ப்பது உறுதியாகி உள்ளது. குறிப்பாக வயதான காலத்தில் பெண்களை தாக்கும் ஆஸ்டியோபோரோசிஸ் பாதிப்பில் இருந்து பீர் பாதுகாக்கிறது. பீரில் உள்ள எத்தனால் மற்றும் சிலிகான் பெரும்பாலான தாவர பயிர்களிலும் காணப்படுவதாகும். குறிப்பாக அவரை, மொச்சை உள்ளிட்ட தானியங்களில் அதிக அளவில் இந்த சத்து உள்ளது. இது எலும்பு தேய்மானத்தை தடுப்பதுடன் புதிய எலும்புகள் ஆரோக்கியமாக வளரவும் உதவும். பெண்களின் ஈஸ்ட்ரோஜன் சுரப்பியில் சிலிகான் கலப்பு இருக்கும். ஈஸ்ட்ரோஜன் அளவு மாதவிடாய் காலங்களில் பாதிப்படையும். அந்த நேரத்தில் மாத்திரை, மருந்துகள் வாயிலாக இந்த சுரப்பியின் குறைபாட்டை ஈடுசெய்வது மிகமிக அவசியம். கவனிக்காமல் விடும் பட்சத்தில் எலும்புகள் நலிவடைந்து ஆஸ்டியோபோரோசிஸ் உட்பட பல்வேறு பாதிப்புகளை ஏற்படுத்தும். இத்தகைய சமயங்களில் பீரை தினமும் சிறிதளவு மருந்தாக எடுத்துக் கொள்ளலாம் என வலியுறுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது. உணவுகளில் இருந்து கிடைக்கும் சிலிகான் அளவைவிட பன்மடங்கு அதிகமாக பீரில் இருந்து கிடைப்பதே இதற்கு முக்கிய காரணமாக கூறப்படுகிறது. பெண்களுக்கு தினமும் 8 மில்லிகிராம் அளவு சிலிகான் அவசியமாகிறது. இந்த தேவை குறைந்த அளவு பீரில் இருந்து எளிதாக கிடைக்கும். மாதவிடாய் நிற்கும் பெண்களுக்கு இது ஒரு வரப்பிரசாதம் என்றே கூறலாம். அவர்கள் தினமும் ஒரு டீஸ்பூன் என்ற அளவில் பீர் அருந்துவது எலும்புகளின் ஆரோக்கியத்துக்கு வலு சேர்க்கும் என்று தெரிவிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.

Creative Conceptual Photography Ideas

Kutiya Mein Meri Aao Baba - Shirdi Sai Baba Bhajan [Saipedia.com].flv

MIT Predicts That World Economy Will Collapse By 2030

By Rebecca Boyle

Crowds and Haze in Shanghai Jeremy Vandel via Flickr

Forty years after its initial publication, a study called The Limits to Growth is looking depressingly prescient. Commissioned by an international think tank called the Club of Rome, the 1972 report found that if civilization continued on its path toward increasing consumption, the global economy would collapse by 2030. Population losses would ensue, and things would generally fall apart.

The study was — and remains — nothing if not controversial, with economists doubting its predictions and decrying the notion of imposing limits on economic growth. Australian researcher Graham Turner has examined its assumptions in great detail during the past several years, and apparently his latest research falls in line with the report’s predictions, according to Smithsonian Magazine. The world is on track for disaster, the magazine says.

The study, initially completed at MIT, relied on several computer models of economic trends and estimated that if things didn’t change much, and humans continued to consume natural resources apace, the world would run out at some point. Oil will peak (some argue it has) before dropping down the other side of the bell curve, yet demand for food and services would only continue to rise. Turner says real-world data from 1970 to 2000 tracks with the study’s draconian predictions: “There is a very clear warning bell being rung here. We are not on a sustainable trajectory,” he tells Smithsonian.

Is this impossible to fix? No, according to both Turner and the original study. If governments enact stricter policies and technologies can be improved to reduce our environmental footprint, economic growth doesn’t have to become a market white dwarf, marching toward inevitable implosion. But just how to do that is another thing entirely.

[Smithsonian]

How It Works: World’s Fastest Elevator

The first commercial passenger elevator, installed by Otis Elevator Company in 1857, climbed 40 feet a minute. The elevators that Mitsubishi Electric are installing in China’s 2,000-foot-tall Shanghai Tower travel 59 feet a second. When construction is complete in 2014, the elevators will whisk passengers straight from the basement-level entrance to the observation deck near the top of the tower, a 1,855-foot journey, in less than a minute.

MOTOR

Like Otis’s original elevator, the new Mitsubishi will move by way of a pulley. The car hangs from one end of a set of high-intensity steel cables, and a 13-ton counterweight hangs on the other. A 310-kilowatt motor at the top of the elevator shaft raises and lowers the car by turning the pulley.

BRAINS

A central computer determines when and in what order to dispatch elevators to pick up passengers. The goal is to minimize users’ wait time while preventing any two elevators from running side by side, which would produce wind noise and excess pressure in the shaft.

AERODYNAMICS

Aluminum covers at the top and bottom of the elevator car reduce air resistance and wind noise at high speeds.

VIBRATION DAMPING

Elevators travel on two sturdy steel rails, but they can still jiggle slightly at high speeds. The rollers that guide the elevator along the rails automatically counteract shaking. Accelerometers attached to the car sense when it sways slightly, and then electromagnetic actuators inside the rollers nudge the car minutely in the opposite direction.

PRESSURE MANAGEMENT

The rapid change in atmospheric pressure on the nonstop ride to the basement from the 119th floor can cause an uncomfortable pressure imbalance in passengers’ ears. A fan removes air from the descending car to precisely tune the pressure to mitigate this effect, which is not as pronounced on the way up.

EMERGENCY BRAKES

During normal operation, a disc brake stops the main pulley mechanism. But if the system detects a car that is moving too quickly, it triggers a mechanism at the base of the car to grip the rails, halting it within 50 feet. To protect against the 1,800ºF heat generated during an emergency stop, engineers coated the brakes with heat-resistant ceramic.

Story by Lauren Aaronson
Illustration by Kevin Hand

Karuna Moorthiye - Shirdi Sai Baba Tamil Song by Rahul

Brain imaging study finds evidence of basis for caregiving impulse

MRI brain scan

Distinct patterns of activity-- which may indicate a predisposition to care for infants -- appear in the brains of adults who view an image of an infant's face -- even when the child is not theirs, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and in Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Seeing images of infant's faces appeared to activate in the adult's brain circuits that reflect preparation for movement, speech, and feelings of reward.

The findings raise the possibility that studying this activity will yield insights into caregiving behaviour, but also in cases of child neglect or abuse.

"These adults have no children of their own. Yet images of a baby's face triggered what we think might be a deeply embedded response to reach out and care for that child," said senior author Marc H. Bornstein, PhD, head of the Child and Family Research Section of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the NIH institute that collaborated on the study.

While the researchers recorded participants' brain activity, the participants did not speak or move. Yet the researchers explained that their brain activity was typical of patterns preceding such actions as picking up or talking to an infant. The activity pattern could represent a biological impulse that governs adults' interactions with small children.

From their study results, the researchers concluded that this pattern is specific to seeing human infants. The pattern did not appear when the participants looked at photos of adults or of animals—even baby animals.

Along with Dr Bornstein, the research was carried out by first author Andrea Caria, PhD, of the University of Tuebingen in Germany; Paola Venuti of the Department of Cognitive Science of the University of Trento in Italy; Gianluca Esposito of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama, Japan; researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and Eberhard Karls University, in Tuebingen, Germany.

Their findings appear in the journal NeuroImage.

To collect the data, the researchers showed seven men and nine women a series of images while recording their brain activity with a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. In the scanner, participants viewed images of puppy and kitten faces, full-grown dogs and cats, human infants and adults.

When the researchers compared the areas and strength of brain activity in response to each kind of image, they found that infant images evoked more activity than any of the other images in brain areas associated with three main functions:

• Premotor and preverbal activity - The researchers documented increased activity in the premotor cortex and the supplemental motor area, which are regions of the brain directly under the crown of the head. These regions orchestrate brain impulses preceding speech and movement before movement occurs.
• Facial recognition - Activity in the fusiform gyrus—on each side of the brain, about where the ears are—is associated with the processing of information about faces. The researchers said that the activity the researchers detected in the fusiform gyrus may indicate heightened attention to the movement and expressions on an infant's face.
• Emotion and reward - The researchers said that activity deep in the brain areas known as the insula and the cingulate cortex indicated emotional arousal, empathy, attachment, and feelings linked to motivation and reward. Other studies have documented a similar pattern of activity in the brains of parents responding to their own infants.

Participants also rated how they felt when viewing adult and infant faces. They reported feeling more willing to approach, smile at, and communicate with an infant than an adult. They also recorded feeling happier when viewing images of infants.

The researchers contend that the findings suggest a readiness to interact with infants that previously has been only inferred only from parents. Such brain activity in nonparents could indicate that the biological makeup of humans includes a mechanism to ensure that infants survive and receive the care they need to grow and develop.

However, signs of readiness to care for a child that appears in the brains of some or even most adults do not necessarily mean the same patterns will appear in the brains of all adults, Dr. Bornstein said. "It's equally important to investigate what's happening in the brains of those who have neglected or abused children," he said. "Additional studies could help us confirm and understand what appears to be a parenting instinct in adults, both when the instinct functions and when it fails to function."

Provided by the National Institutes of Health

"Brain imaging study finds evidence of the basis for caregiving impulse." March 16th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-brain-imaging-evidence-basis-caregiving.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

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Nuclear Submarine Base, USSR.

Now A Museum.

Balaklava, in Ukraine, can even today be remembered for having been one of the secret places in Russia that was extremely famous for its Nuclear Submarine Base. The place witnessed a huge underground submarine base and amazing docks, in USSR, and this was functional till 1996 when the last Russian submarine left Ukraine. But the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 compelled the Russian Army to leave the place.

The entire town was involved at the Base at that time. The people of Balaklava, worked so dedicatedly at the Base, that it was hard for any outsider to intrude into the place or visit the town without going through a tremendous chain of investigations and identification processes. As a matter of fact, even the family members or the relatives of the workers were scrutinized completely.

As mentioned earlier that the base was active till 1991, the operations were carried after until 1993 when the decommissioning process started, and the low yield torpedoes and the Russian warheads were removed from the place.

Post 1996, the whole Submarine Base, the Cannel System, and the small Museum that displays the old warheads, weapons, deep inside the hillside, are all open to visitors. The place have become more of a tourist spot, for the history lovers, situated 10km south east of Sevastopol on the Black Sea Coast.

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