Snowden mystery deepens: All eyes on airport

MOSCOW (AP) ? Moscow's main airport swarmed with journalists from around the globe Wednesday, but the man they were looking for, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, was nowhere to be seen.

The mystery of his whereabouts only deepened a day after President Vladimir Putin said that Snowden was in the transit area of Sheremetyevo Airport.

There were ordinary scenes of duty free shopping, snoozing travelers and tourists sipping coffee but no trace of America's most famous fugitive. If Putin's statement is true, it means that Snowden has effectively lived a life of airport limbo since his weekend flight from Hong Kong, especially with his American passport now revoked by U.S. authorities.

Adding to the uncertainty, Ecuador's foreign minister said it could take months to decide whether to grant asylum to Snowden and the Latin American nation would take into consideration its relations with the U.S. Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino compared Snowden's case to that of Julian Assange, the founder of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, who has been given asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

"It took us two months to make a decision in the case of Assange, so do not expect us to make a decision sooner this time," Patino told reporters during a visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Snowden, who is charged with violating American espionage laws, fled Hong Kong over the weekend and flew to Russia. He booked a seat on a Havana-bound flight Monday en route to Venezuela, but didn't board the plane. His ultimate destination was believed to be Ecuador.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa shot back at critics on Wednesday, taking special aim at a Washington Post editorial that described him as "the autocratic leader of tiny, impoverished Ecuador" and accused him of a double standard for considering asylum for Snowden while stifling critics at home.

"The shamelessness of the century: Washington Post accuses Ecuador of double standard," Correa said on his Twitter page.

As a contractor for the NSA, Snowden gained access to documents that he gave to the Post and the Guardian to expose what he contends are privacy violations by an authoritarian government.

Correa complained that the international press "has managed to focus attention on Snowden and on those 'wicked' countries that 'aid' him, making us forget the terrible things against the U.S. people and the whole world that he denounced."

An Associated Press reporter entered the transit area where Snowden is purportedly staying by flying from Kiev, Ukraine. It serves both connecting passengers traveling via Moscow to onward destinations and passengers departing from Moscow who have passed border and security checks.

The transit zone unites three terminals: the modern, recently built D and E, and the older, less comfortable F, which dates to the Soviet era. Boarding gates line one side of the transit and departure area, and gleaming duty free shops, luxury clothing boutiques and souvenir stores selling Russian Matryoshka dolls are on the other. About a dozen restaurants owned by local and foreign chains serve various tastes.

Hundreds of Russian and foreign tourists awaited flights on Wednesday, some stretched out on rows of gray chairs, others sipping hot drinks at coffee shops or watching through giant windows as silver-blue Aeroflot planes landed and took off.

An Asian girl, about 10 years old, slept peacefully on her father's lap. A middle-aged mother and her teenage daughter tried out perfume samples at a duty free store, while a woman in a green dress picked out a pair of designer sunglasses. A pilot was buying lunch at Burger King.

Putin insisted Tuesday that Snowden has stayed in the transit zone without passing through Russian immigration and is free to travel wherever he likes. But the U.S. move to annul Snowden's passport may have severely complicated his travel plans. Exiting the transit area would require either boarding a plane or passing through border control, both of which require a valid passport or other documentation.

Hordes of journalists armed with laptops and photo and video cameras have camped in and around the airport, looking for Snowden or anyone who may have seen or talked to him. But after talking to passengers, airport personnel, waiters and shop clerks, the press corps has discovered no sign of the leaker.

Russian news agencies, citing unidentified sources, reported that Snowden was staying at a hotel in the transit terminal, but there was no sign of him at the zone's only hotel, Air Express. It offers several dozen capsule-style spaces that passengers can rent for a few hours to catch some sleep. Hotel staff refused to say whether Snowden was staying there or had stayed there in the past.

"We only saw lots of journalists, that's for sure," said Maxim, a waiter at the Shokoladnitsa diner not far from Air Express, who declined to give his last name because he wasn't allowed to talk to reporters.

The departure and transit area is huge and has dozens of small rooms, some labeled "authorized personnel only," where someone could potentially seek refuge with support from airport staff or security personnel. And security forces or police patrolling the area can easily whisk a person out of this area through back doors or corridors.

There are also a few VIP lounge areas, accessible to business-class passengers or people willing to pay $20 per hour. Snowden was not seen in those areas.

Sheremetyevo's press service declined to comment on Snowden's whereabouts.

Hong Kong officials said they allowed Snowden to leave for Moscow because the U.S. government got his middle name wrong in documents it submitted seeking his arrest. Hong Kong immigration records listed Snowden's middle name as Joseph, but the U.S. government used the name James in some documents and referred to him only as Edward J. Snowden in others, Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen said. The U.S. also did not provide his passport number and did not respond to requests for clarification, Yuen said.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks gave a terse update on Snowden, saying he was "well" in a post on Twitter.

WikiLeaks says one of its staffers, Sarah Harrison, is traveling with Snowden, but the statement gave no indication if the update came from her, from Snowden, or from some other source.

WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson did not immediately return a call and a text seeking further comment.

In a conference call with reporters on Monday, Assange said that he was limited in what he could say about Snowden due to security concerns. He denied reports that Snowden was spending his time at the airport being debriefed by Russian intelligence officers.

_____

Yoong reported from Kuala Lumpur. Lynn Berry in Moscow and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-mystery-deepens-eyes-airport-170621319.html

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Problem-solving governs how we process sensory stimuli

June 25, 2013 ? Various areas of the brain process our sensory experiences. How the areas of the cerebral cortex communicate with each other and process sensory information has long puzzled neu-roscientists. Exploring the sense of touch in mice, brain researchers from the University of Zurich now demonstrate that the transmission of sensory information from one cortical area to connected areas depends on the specific task to solve and the goal-directed behavior. These findings can serve as a basis for an improved understanding of cognitive disorders.

In the mammalian brain, the cerebral cortex plays a crucial role in processing sensory inputs. The cortex can be subdivided into different areas, each handling distinct aspects of perception, decision-making or action. The somatosensory cortex, for instance, comprises the part of the cerebral cortex that primarily processes haptic sensations. The different areas of the cerebral cortex are intercon-nected and communicate with each other. A central, unanswered question of neuroscience is how exactly do these brain areas communicate to process sensory stimuli and produce appropriate behav-ior. A team of researchers headed by Professor Fritjof Helmchen at the University of Zurich's Brain Research Institute now provides an answer: The processing of sensory information depends on what you want to achieve. The brain researchers observed that nerve cells in the sensory cortex that con-nect to distinct brain areas are activated differentially depending on the task to be solved.

Goal-directed processing of sensory information

In their publication in Nature, the researchers studied how mice use their facial whiskers to explore their environment, much like we do in the dark with our hands and fingers. One mouse group was trained to distinguish coarse and fine sandpapers using their whiskers in order to obtain a reward. Another group had to work out the angle, at which an object -- a metal rod -- was located relative to their snout. The neuroscientists measured the activity of neurons in the primary somatosensory cortex using a special microscopy technique. With simultaneous anatomical stainings they also identified which of these neurons sent their projections to the more remote secondary somatosensory area and the motor cortex, respectively.

The primary somatosensory neurons with projections to the secondary somatosensory cortex pre-dominantly became active when the mice had to distinguish the surface texture of the sandpaper. Neurons with projections to the motor cortex, on the other hand, were more involved when mice needed to localize the metal rod. These different activity patterns were not evident when mice pas-sively touched sandpaper or metal rods without having been set a task -- in other words, when their actions were not motivated by a reward. Thus, the sensory stimuli alone were not sufficient to explain the different pattern of information transfer to the remote brain areas.

Impaired communication in the brain

According to Fritjof Helmchen, the activity in a cortical area can be transmitted to remote areas in a targeted fashion if we have to extract ('filter') specific information from the environment to solve a problem. In cognitive disorders such Alzheimer's disease, Autism, and Schizophrenia, this communi-cation between brain areas is often disrupted. "A better understanding of how these long-range, inter-connected networks in the brain operate might help to develop therapies that re-establish this specific cortical communication," says Helmchen. The aim would be to thereby improve the impaired cognitive abilities of patients.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/6nHYw75gbPc/130625121151.htm

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An expansive physical setting increases a person's likelihood of dishonest behavior

June 24, 2013 ? A new study from researchers at leading business schools reveals that expansive physical settings (e.g. having a big desk to stretch out while doing work or a large driver's seat in an automobile) can cause individuals to feel more powerful, and in turn these feelings of power can elicit more dishonest behavior such as stealing, cheating, and even traffic violations.

"In everyday working and living environments, our body postures are incidentally expanded and contracted by our surroundings -- by the seats in our cars, the furniture in and around workspaces, even the hallways in our offices -- and these environments directly influence the propensity of dishonest behavior in our everyday lives," said Andy Yap, a key author of the research who spearheaded its development during his time at Columbia Business School.

The study states that while individuals may pay very little attention to ordinary and seemingly innocuous shifts in bodily posture, these subtle postural shifts can have tremendous impact on our thoughts, feelings and behavior. Building on previous research that expansive postures can lead to a state of power, and power can lead to dishonest behavior, the study found that expanded, nonverbal postures forced upon individuals by their environments could influence decisions and behaviors in ways that render people less honest. "This is a real concern. Our research shows that office managers should pay attention to the ergonomics of their workspaces. The results suggest that these physical spaces have tangible and real-world impact on our behaviors" said Andy Yap.

The research includes findings from four studies conducted in the field and the laboratory. One study manipulated the expansiveness of workspaces in the lab and tested whether "incidentally" expanded bodies (shaped organically by one's environment) led to more dishonesty on a test. Another experiment examined if participants in a more expansive driver's seat would be more likely to "hit and run" when incentivized to go fast in a video-game driving simulation.

To extend results to a real-world context, an observational field study tested the ecological validity of the effect by examining whether automobile drivers' seat size predicted the violation of parking laws in New York City. The field study revealed that automobiles with more expansive driver's seats were more likely to be illegally parked on New York City streets.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/jr5oOmq2d9k/130624133145.htm

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Ecuador says it has received asylum request from Snowden

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said on Sunday that former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden had asked Ecuador for asylum.

"The Government of Ecuador has received an asylum request from Edward J. #Snowden," Patino, who is on an official visit to Vietnam, said on Twitter.

Patino did not give additional details.

WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson confirmed that Snowden had requested asylum in Ecuador. The anti-secrecy website had earlier said it helped Snowden find "political asylum in a democratic country".

Ecuador has given political asylum to the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who has spent more than a year holed up at Ecuador's embassy in London.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has said Assange is right to fear he might be sent from Sweden, where he is accused of sexual assault, to the United States to face charges over WikiLeaks' publication in 2010 of secret U.S. cables.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia in Quito and Kevin Liffey in London; writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ecuador-says-received-asylum-request-snowden-164825938.html

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88% What Maisie Knew

All Critics (73) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (64) | Rotten (9)

The film is touching, filled with taste and care, but not enough to avoid being coy and sentimental.

On the surface, this indie does sound like standard-issue material, but its dynamics are far more complex than its simple exterior.

What Maisie Knew gives the audience a ground-eye view of its mesmerizing title character, a plucky, charismatic New Yorker who navigates downtown bars and building lobbies with the street savvy of a pro.

The result is a film that deeply engages us on multiple levels. Not only do we wonder what Maisie knows and how she knows it, we want to get this seedling to a place where she won't have to be transplanted every day.

It's a study of human nature, not at its worst, but at its most typically pathetic, and it goes to show that the more things don't change, the more they stay lousy.

Intimate, unnerving and entirely addictive.

This is a film that deals in subtle details, and its value lies in the way the filmmakers draw out small moments of surprise or truth from the familiar scenario.

It's far from the first story of a child dealing with the consequences of parental break-up -- but it may be one of the best.

The worthwhile subject matter becomes trivialized.

A wonderful modernized re-telling of the 1897 Henry James short story.

It's an intimate, well-acted and nuanced film that provides a fresh angle on an all-too-familiar struggle.

Onata Aprile is never showy and always authentic, a rare find in a child actor. In fact, she is one of the most self-possessed actors I've seen of any age.

A movie that's much easier to admire than to actually enjoy, no matter how well done or acted.

Onata Aprile's short career should blossom as people react to her subtle performance here.

Despite the big-name adults around her, it's the unknown Onata Aprile who is the star of this movie.

Gazing on Maisie, you want to know what she knows. That you can't is at once your dilemma and your opportunity, what adults must engage in order to be adults.

Despite a sensitive, mature performance from Onata Aprile as Maisie, the girl remains withdrawn and opaque throughout. In telling this sad story from her perspective, it never quite plugs in to what Maisie felt.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/what_maisie_knew_2012/

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Pelosi's defense of NSA surveillance draws boos (The Arizona Republic)

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Findings emphasize importance of vitamin D in pregnancy

June 22, 2013 ? Pregnant women pass low levels of vitamin D on to their babies at almost three times the extent previously thought, according to new research carried out at London's Kingston University.

While current studies suggest that around a fifth (19 per cent) of a newborn baby's supply or deficiency of vitamin D comes directly from its mother, experts from Kingston's School of Life Sciences have discovered that the figure is, in fact, almost three times as high at 56 per cent. The results have been revealed using a new measuring technique, developed in the laboratories at Kingston, which is able to examine eight different forms of vitamin D in greater detail for the first time.

The study, just published in Nutrition Journal, focused on 120 samples taken from 60 Greek mothers and their babies. The research was conducted with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Although the Mediterranean nation enjoys more hours of sunshine than the United Kingdom, the research revealed that many of the mothers had low levels of vitamin D, suggesting that what they ate was an equally important source.

Professor Declan Naughton, who headed the Kingston University research team, said the findings made it more important than ever that mothers-to-be received the key nutrient not only through sunlight but also through foods such as oily fish. "The impact that mothers deficient in vitamin D have on their babies' levels is a much bigger problem than we thought," Professor Naughton said. "Maintaining good supplies during pregnancy is clearly of vital importance for both mothers' and babies' long term health."

Lack of the vitamin in pregnant women has been linked to diabetes and increased rates of caesarean section births, while babies can be smaller than average. In children, the deficiency can cause rickets -- a soft bone disease.

Vitamin D plays an important role in maintaining good levels of calcium and phosphate which help form healthy bones and teeth. The two main forms are vitamin D3, which primarily comes from sunlight, and D2 which is found in a small number of foods including egg yolk, mushrooms, farmed salmon, mackerel, sardines and fortified bread and cereals. Processes in the body convert the vitamin into what is known as the circulating form -- the type commonly measured in routine blood tests -- followed by the active form -- the type that promotes calcium absorption, cell growth and immunity.

Professor Naughton and his team found that the type of vitamin D commonly measured in blood tests was not as reliable an indicator of vitamin D activity as other strands. They went on to discover that two epimer forms, previously thought to be unimportant, influenced levels in babies. "This shows the need for more accurate measurement to assess levels of vitamin D as well as the need to look more closely at its different forms," Professor Naughton said.

Further clinical studies would be required to examine the effectiveness of vitamin D supplements in pregnant women to see whether particular factors made it difficult for them to absorb the nutrient, Professor Naughton added.

The research forms part of wider investigations being conducted by Professor Naughton and his team into vitamin D's role in conditions including Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/eecPir_52FI/130622154450.htm

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