Hong Kong Protesters Block Roads as Leaders Set Deadline.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-29/hong-kong-protestors-block-roads-as-leader-sets-deadline.html

Protesters continued to block roads in central Hong Kong in the fifth day of pro-democracy demonstrations as leaders warned the standoff would escalate in the coming days if their demands aren’t met.

Crowds swelled to the tens of thousands last night as police largely kept their distance, avoiding the clashes of Sept. 28 that seemed to fuel the demonstrations. By morning, enough people remained in the Admiralty district for key roads to stay blocked as workers commuted by foot and metro. The benchmark Hang Seng Index dipped again, marking its biggest two-day decline since February.

The movement, kick-started by students on Sept. 26, swelled following weekend clashes with riot police who used tear gas to disperse crowds. Student leaders last night said the protests would spread if their demands aren’t met for Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to resign and for the government in Beijing to drop plans to control the 2017 leadership election.

The Hang Seng Index fell 1.4 percent as of 2:10 p.m. local time after yesterday sliding 1.9 percent, the most in almost three weeks.

At a press conference last night, student leaders Joshua Wong, Lester Shum and Alex Chow, who were detained at the start of the protests and then released, called on Leung to respond to their demands by tomorrow or risk an escalation of the standoff.

Digging In

When asked at a press conference today whether he would resign, Leung said that “any personnel changes” would result in the existing election committee choosing his successor, rather than through a vote.

At the briefing, Leung dismissed speculation that the People’s Liberation Army, which was used to crush the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, would be used in Hong Kong. He also indicated that the city was preparing for the protests to last.

“The impact from Occupy Central would not be just three to five days -- it could be quite long,” Leung said, citing the protesters’ road blocks, medical aid centers and supply stations.

The student’s deadline coincides with China’s National Day, when the country celebrates the founding of the Communist Party in 1949. Leung is due to mark the occasion at an 8 a.m. ceremony near where the main protests are being held. The popular firework show over Victoria Harbour for the holiday has been canceled. Thursday is also a holiday in Hong Kong, meaning turnout could swell with school and workplaces shut.

Cheering Crowds

Crowds cheered and made way for a convoy of three trucks and more than 10 motorbikes making food and water drops last night in Admiralty. Ada Chan, 26, a singer and music teacher, said she has slept on the street for the past two nights while still going to work in the day and won’t back down if Leung doesn’t respond to demands.

“I will just keep coming until I have a better answer,” she said. “Some people are calling for C.Y. to get out but to me, I want much more than that,” she said, referring to Leung by the initials he’s popularly known by.

School children in Causeway Bay sat passing round pastries, while one McDonald’s shop ran out of Coca-Cola and Big Macs as queues extended out of the door.

Anna Wong, 26, and her friends brought water, food and plastic wrap to protesters in Causeway Bay, two subway stops to the east, as protesters coordinated supplies using WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook.

“I just want to support the Hong Kong people to fight for democracy and for what they deserve,” she said.

Foods For Liver: 10 Foods For A Healthy And Clean Liver.(4)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/13/foods-for-liver_n_1880715.html

Leafy Greens:

Leafy greens like spinach and lettuce have the ability to neutralize metals, chemicals and pesticides that may be in our foods, and act as a protective mechanism for the liver, Suri says.

6 Foods That Boost Your Mood AND Help You Lose Weight.(6)

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/boost-mood-lose-weight

Stop diet-induced hanger dead in its tracks with these feel-good foods.

Blueberries

Berries get their color from a purple pigment called anthocyanin, which is a mood enhancer, says Young. What's more, all berries are high in fiber and water, so you feel full for a longer period of time when you eat them.

Sponges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

Orange elephant ear sponge, Agelas clathrodes, in foreground. Two corals in the background: a sea fan,Iciligorgia schrammi, and a sea rod, Plexaurella nutans.

The Hemichordata, or Acorn Worms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

In addition to these, the deuterostomes also include the Hemichordata, or acorn worms.Although they are not especially prominent today, the important fossil graptolites may belong to this group.
The Chaetognatha or arrow worms may also be deuterostomes, but more recent studies suggest protostome affinities.

All this suggests the deuterostomes and protostomes are separate, monophyletic Lineages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

All this suggests the deuterostomes and protostomes are separate, monophyletic lineages. The main phyla of deuterostomes are the Echinodermata and Chordata.The former are radially symmetric and exclusively marine, such as starfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers.The latter are dominated by the vertebrates, animals with backbones.These include fish,amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

Deuterostomes differ from the other Bilateria, called Protostomes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

Deuterostomes differ from the other Bilateria, called protostomes, in several ways. In both cases there is a complete digestive tract. However, in protostomes, the first opening of the gut to appear in embryological development (the archenteron) develops into the mouth, with the anus forming secondarily. In deuterostomes the anus forms first, with the mouth developing secondarily.In most protostomes, cells simply fill in the interior of the gastrula to form the mesoderm, called schizocoelous development, but in deuterostomes, it forms through invagination of the endoderm, called enterocoelic pouching.Deuterostome embryos undergo radial cleavage during cell division, while protostomes undergo spiral cleavage.

This Woman Is the Most Stylish Athlete Right Now.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/08/this-woman-is-the-most-stylish-athlete-right-now.html

Though she has twice represented the U.S. at the World Championships, middle-distance runner Maggie Vessey hasn’t yet made it to the Olympics, nor become a household name. But the 32-year-old 800-meter champ from Soquel, California, has a very real shot at becoming a fashion-world favorite. During her most recent season (track, not fashion industry), she ditched the standard singlet-and-brief combo for a host of standout looks that sample from the runway in unprecedented ways. In an interview with Runner's World last month, Vessey explained that, after losing a sponsorship with New Balance earlier this year, she began collaborating with L.A. designer Merlin Castell to create chicer gear. "I do want to draw attention to the sport and maybe give people who aren’t necessarily interested in track and field a reason to be interested," Vessey told Runner's World. "But it is a very authentic expression of who I am, and I now have this opportunity to be able to put that out there, be bold, and take a risk."

Foods For Liver: 10 Foods For A Healthy And Clean Liver.(3)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/13/foods-for-liver_n_1880715.html

Beets:
Beets are high in plant-flavonoids, which can improve the overall functions of your liver.

6 Foods That Boost Your Mood AND Help You Lose Weight.(5)

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/boost-mood-lose-weight

Tuna Sandwich

Tuna is high in omega-3's, while whole grains help keep you feeling good, says Young; they prompt the body to release the mood-regulating hormone serotonin, leading to feelings of contentment. Whole grains also promote satiety, so you're less likely to overeat. 

Obama Says U.S. Role in Iraq Not ‘America Against ISIL’.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-28/obama-says-u-s-role-in-iraq-not-america-against-isil-.html

President Barack Obama said U.S. airstrikes in Iraq are an example of the country leading a coalition to aid an ally, not a direct confrontation with Islamic State militants.

“This is not America against ISIL,” Obama, using the administration’s shorthand for Islamic State, said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired yesterday. “This is America leading the international community to assist a country with whom we have a security partnership with, to make sure that they are able to take care of their business.”

The interview was conducted after Obama returned to the White House from the United Nations General Assembly, where he pressed for more nations to fight Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, won a Security Council resolution calling for a crackdown on the flow of foreign fighters, and laid out a U.S. strategy to counter Muslim extremists with force.

“America leads,” Obama said in the interview. “We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world. And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don’t call Beijing. They don’t call Moscow. They call us.”

Obama’s remarks reflect political cross-currents at home, where polls show increased support for U.S. airstrikes to quell the rise of Islamic militants, even as members of his Democratic Party remain wary of long-term military engagements. Obama sought, as he has throughout the last month, to contrast his strategy with the ground wars pursued by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Syria Strikes

The Sept. 26 interview was the first given by Obama since U.S. aircraft and missiles struck targets in Syria in a joint operation with five Arab states.

“Over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned,” the president said, Islamic State was “able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos.”

The initial Syria air attacks targeted Islamic State and areas purported to be aligned with the Khorasan Group, an al-Qaeda affiliate that U.S. officials described as plotting terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Europe. U.S. targets in the ongoing strikes have included oil refineries, an effort to cut off the group’s financing.

Oil Refineries

In the latest strikes, conducted Sept. 27 and 28, aircraft from the U.S., Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates destroyed a tank, armed vehicles, a Humvee, and struck a command-and-control center and four modular oil refineries in Syria owned or controlled by Islamic State forces, according to a statement issued by U.S. Central Command.

Obama said U.S. intelligence officials failed to appreciate the gains made by Islamic State extremists in Syria during the last few years of that country’s civil war.

General Assembly

In his Sept. 24 speech to the UN General Assembly, Obama said the brutal ideology of terrorist groups such as Islamic State must be eliminated.

Obama later led the UN Security Council in its 15-0 vote for a resolution aimed at information sharing and cracking down on the flow of foreign fighters who go into conflict zones and then back to their home countries.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet flies over the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush after conducting strike missions against ISIL targets on Sept. 23, 2014. 

A Syrian man inspects the rubble of a destroyed building following U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in northern Syria, on Sept. 25, 2014.

The Deuterostomes and the Protostomes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

 Genetic studies have considerably changed our understanding of the relationships within the Bilateria. Most appear to belong to two major lineages: the deuterostomes and the protostomes, the latter of which includes the Ecdysozoa, Platyzoa, and Lophotrochozoa. In addition, there are a few small groups of bilaterians with relatively similar structure that appear to have diverged before these major groups. These include the Acoelomorpha, Rhombozoa, and Orthonectida. The Myxozoa, single-celled parasites that were originally considered Protozoa, are now believed to have developed from the Medusozoa as well.

The Bilateria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

The remaining animals form a monophyletic group called the Bilateria. For the most part, they are bilaterally symmetric, and often have a specialized head with feeding and sensory organs. The body is triploblastic, i.e. all three germ layers are well-developed, and tissues form distinct organs. The digestive chamber has two openings, a mouth and an anus, and there is also an internal body cavity called a coelom or pseudocoelom. There are exceptions to each of these characteristics, however — for instance adult echinoderms are radially symmetric, and certain parasitic worms have extremely simplified body structures.

The Dendrogrammatidae.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

A new family of animals, the Dendrogrammatidae, was discovered in Australian water. Further DNA tests is required, but scientists suspects they could represent a whole new phyla, possible descendants of the Ediacaran fauna.

Ctenophora and the Cnidaria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

Among the other phyla, the Ctenophora and the Cnidaria, which includes sea anemones, corals, and jellyfish, are radially symmetric and have digestive chambers with a single opening, which serves as both the mouth and the anus.Both have distinct tissues, but they are not organized into organs.There are only two main germ layers, the ectoderm and endoderm, with only scattered cells between them. As such, these animals are sometimes called diploblastic.The tiny placozoans are similar, but they do not have a permanent digestive chamber.

Economy in U.S. Grew 4.6% in Second Quarter, Most Since 2011.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/economy-in-u-s-expanded-4-6-in-second-quarter-most-since-2011.html

The U.S. economy expanded in the second quarter at the fastest rate since the last three months of 2011 as companies stepped up investment and households boosted spending.

Gross domestic product grew at a revised 4.6 percent annualized rate, up from a previous estimate of 4.2 percent, Commerce Department data showed today in Washington. The increase matched the median forecast of 81 economists surveyed by Bloomberg and followed a 2.1 percent decline in the first three months of the year.

Busier assembly lines at the nation’s factories and job growth that’s kept Americans spending indicate companies are a bit more upbeat about the prospects for demand. As the world’s largest economy and labor market improve, Federal Reserve policy makers are debating how much longer to keep interest rates near zero.

“We definitely see momentum,” in the U.S. economy, said Brittany Baumann, an economist at Credit Agricole CIB inNew York, which correctly forecast GDP. “Consumer spending should benefit from strengthening labor conditions and improved financial conditions,” while business investment should also continue, she said.

Forecasts for second-quarter GDP, the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S., ranged from gains of 3.4 percent to 5 percent, according to the Bloomberg survey. The estimate is the third and final for the quarter.

Fed’s Yellen

“The labor market has yet to fully recover,” Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said at a press conference after a monetary policy meeting concluded Sept. 17. “There are still too many people who want jobs but can’t find them.”

Fed policy makers are debating how much longer to keep interest rates near zero as they approach their goals for full employment and stable prices. Central bank officials tapered monthly bond buying to $15 billion last week in their seventh consecutive $10 billion cut, staying on course to end the program in October.

Today’s report also showed price pressures remain limited. A measure of inflation, which is tied to consumer spending and strips out food and energy costs, climbed at a 2 percent annualized pace compared with 1.2 percent in the prior quarter.

Foods For Liver: 10 Foods For A Healthy And Clean Liver.(2)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/13/foods-for-liver_n_1880715.html

Grapefruit:

Eating or drinking grapefruit juice can help your liver flush out carcinogens and toxins. This fruit is also high in both vitamin C and antioxidant properties.

6 Foods That Boost Your Mood AND Help You Lose Weight.(4)

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/boost-mood-lose-weight

Stop diet-induced hanger dead in its tracks with these feel-good foods.

Cherry Tomatoes

These are rich in the phytonutrient lycopene, which helps slow the accumulation of inflammatory compounds tied to bad moods and feelings of sluggishness, says Young. Because these poppers are also bite-sized and low-cal, they keep you on track with your weight-loss plans.

Learning and Memory.

http://jedismedicine.blogspot.in/2012/05/mentoring-phantoms.html

In 2004, Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa and his team at Picower 
Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT discovered how the neurons make the needed proteins.  "There is a direct activational signal from the synapse to the protein synthesis machinery," says Tonegawa.  An enzyme called mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) provides a molecular switch that turns on increased synthesis of a large number of proteins…"Very limited cues are sufficient to trigger a chain reaction that permits us to become aware of the rich and detailed content of a memory," Tonegawa says.  "This phenomenon is called pattern completion because it reflects cellular processes accompanying memory retrieval in which activation of a pattern of cellular connections harboring memory is completed by very limited input."

So with all these connections it is estimated that the human brain has 2.5 petabytes of storage capacity

Humans have the capacity to learn not by dogma but by metaphors and storifying concepts. Our memories can store 7-digit information for about 30-seconds and no more. If that is so, how do we remember data from long ago like the Pledge of Allegiance, “America the Beautiful” or for that matter Lincoln’s Gettysburg address or in the soft twilight of a rested evening, the words of Wordsworth pertaining to “Daffodils?”

Fourier Pattern.

http://www.rewiring-neuroscience.com/348/

Vision is the senior sense. The much newer ability to hear probably mimiced the pattern established by its older sibling. Incoming sound must be depicted as a Fourier pattern in order to gain access to a neuronal memory machine originally evolved for thinking in pictures.

We can guess that the machinery already in place for image recognition was ported over — tinkered into place — and made to work. This suggests speech recognition in the brain happens in the frequency domain. In effect, sounds become images in the frequency domain, that is Fourier patterns. They are matched to sonic Fourier images from memory. Multiple comparators we have styled as Fourier flashlights or projectors are set up and constantly running short film strips — dictionaries this time — in parallel. The system is massively parallel, multitasking and, as in the visual system, memory anticipates reality. Incoming words are recognized almost instantaneously.

Thoughts.

http://www.neuralmachines.com/concepts/thoughts.html

A thought is created by the orderly synapse of neurons firing in a sequence and in parallel synchronization forming a coherent synaptic wave of energy. It is this neural energy which was released by the interaction of electro-chemical synapses that gives rise to the currents of awareness we feel in our mind.

If you visualize brain waves constantly sweeping over the circuit loops in our neural cortex, you can see how synapses generate the "state of awareness" with each loop of energy moving through the circuit pathways. Our model of how neurons work, the form or function of these neural elements, is based on the analogy of state machines with real neurons. We let the state machine populate data structures such as binary trees. In our model, we imagine traversing through linked list and binary tree structures as in the propagation of real neural synapses through layers of neural circuitry.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.~ Albert Einstein

http://jedismedicine.blogspot.in/2012/05/mentoring-phantoms.html

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.~ Albert Einstein

Rote memory lasts the same way, however it may be devoid of the logic of its basic tenet. However, rote memory if unused, the connections decay and the whole rote gets lost. Similarly unrepeated or unused memory falls into a similar trap. It is the “Aha!” moment that lasts, which is affixed to a story. 

The recall is an imagined event told in the form of a story. It is easier to remember a man sitting atop a steeple during a flood, or the imagery of the Challenger catastrophe or the “Kiss” on Armistice Day.

Draghi’s Trillion-Euro Pump Finds Blockage in Spain: Euro Credit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-25/draghi-s-trillion-euro-pump-finds-blockage-in-spain-euro-credit.html

Mario Draghi’s plan to channel as much as 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) into the euro region’s economy is running into a blockage: some companies in the countries hardest hit by the debt crisis don’t want the money.

“We’re getting calls from lenders every day,” said Miquel Fabre, 34, whose family-run beauty products firm Fama Fabre employs 43 people in Barcelona. “They can see that they’ll benefit from a loan because we’re doing good business and will return the money. Whether it’s in our interest as well is a different question.”

Many small and medium-sized businesses are wary of the offers from banks as European Central Bank President Draghi prepares to pump more cash into the financial system to boost prices and spur growth. The reticence in Spain suggests demand for credit may be as much of a problem as the supply.

The monthly flow of new loans of as much as 1 million euros for as much as a year -- a type of credit typically used by small and medium-sized companies -- is still down by two-thirds in Spain from a 2007 peak, according to Bank of Spain data. The total stock of loans is almost 470 billion euros below the 2008 record of 1.87 trillion euros, the figures show.

Spanish bonds rose for a third day yesterday, with 10-year yields dropping to 2.11 percent, after further evidence that Draghi may have to resort to buying government debt to get cash into the economy. The ECB’s latest attempt to funnel money through the financial system with a targeted-loans offer, known as TLTRO, was shunned by banks on Sept. 18.

Software maker Vincle Internacional de Tecnologia y Sistemas SA is also shunning bank funding for its expansion in Latin America next year. The firm will dig into its own funds to provide the 250,000 euros needed to open an office in Colombia and hold off extra investments until the new business generates can pay for them, said deputy general manager Hector Recio.

Funding Costs

“Funding ourselves enables us to be independent,” said Recio, whose Barcelona-based company counts Danone and Novartis AG (NOVN) as clients. “Spending money they didn’t have led many companies to close down in Spain. We prefer a more sustainable approach.”

Wary Banks

“Demand for funding has dropped because the costs remain high for small companies and the conditions hard to meet,” said Carlos Ruiz, economics director at Cepyme, a federation of Spanish SME groups.

And even at those prices, some of the supply proves illusory. Juan Ramon Gomez, 41, says he knocked on four doors to find a bank willing to lend him 3,000 euros to buy an air-conditioning unit for an office rental business in Madrid that has been profitable since January.

“Many banks are calling to offer loans,” Gomez said. “That doesn’t mean they’re actually going to grant them. Banks are still extremely wary of not being paid back. They’re not trusting anyone.”

Back in Barcelona, Fabre says his company has about 2 million euros of bank credit lines to cover needs in between orders and sales only. It’s ruled out funding investments with other money than re-invested profits.

“We’re not interested in borrowing money to expand,” said Fabre, whose company was founded by his grandfather in 1946. “Demand is too limited to make it worth the risk of using someone else’s money.”

Shoppers in Barcelona, Spain.

Eating also helps: Here are 10 fresh foods that keep your liver healthy:(1)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/13/foods-for-liver_n_1880715.html

Garlic:
Garlic helps your liver activate enzymes that can flush out toxins. It also has a high amount of allicin and selenium, two natural compounds that aid in liver cleansingsays holistic nutritionist Hermeet Suri.

6 Foods That Boost Your Mood AND Help You Lose Weight.(3)

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/boost-mood-lose-weight

Stop diet-induced hanger dead in its tracks with these feel-good foods.

Greek Yogurt

High-protein foods, such as Greek yogurt, can spur the creation of life-is-good brain chemicals like dopamine and norepinephrine and also rev up our energy levels and alertness, says Young. Luckily, this is also a golden food for helping with weight loss: Researchers at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville found that people who ate 18 ounces of Greek yogurt daily while cutting total calories lost more weight and more belly fat than those who skipped the creamy treat.

Lung Cell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

A newt lung cell stained with fluorescent dyes undergoing the early anaphase stage of mitosis.

Sponges (Porifera).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

The sponges (Porifera) were long thought to have diverged from other animals early.They lack the complex organization found in most other phyla.Their cells are differentiated, but in most cases not organized into distinct tissues.Sponges typically feed by drawing in water through pores.Archaeocyatha, which have fused skeletons, may represent sponges or a separate phylum.However, a phylogenomic study in 2008 of 150 genes in 29 animals across 21 phyla revealed that it is the Ctenophora or comb jellies which are the basal lineage of animals, at least among those 21 phyla. The authors speculate that sponges—or at least those lines of sponges they investigated—are not so primitive, but may instead be secondarily simplified.

Groups of Animals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

Ctenophora, Porifera, Placozoa, Cnidaria and Bilateria

Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the Porifera and Ctenophora diverged before a clade (ParaHoxozoa) that gave rise to the Bilateria, Cnidaria and Placozoa.Another study based on the presence or absence of introns suggests that Cnidaria, Porifera and Placozoa may be a sister group of Bilateria and Ctenophora.A December, 2013, study,and a June, 2014, study both concluded, using entirely distinct methodologies, that the cladogram of animals is:

	Choanoflagellata
Animal	Ctenophora    Porifera Placozoa Cnidaria Bilateria

Some suggest Animals appeared as early as 1 billion years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

Some paleontologists suggest that animals appeared much earlier than the Cambrian explosion, possibly as early as 1 billion years ago.Trace fossils such as tracks and burrows found in the Tonian period indicate the presence of triploblastic worms, like metazoans, roughly as large (about 5 mm wide) and complex as earthworms.During the beginning of the Tonian period around 1 billion years ago, there was a decrease in Stromatolite diversity, which may indicate the appearance of grazing animals, since stromatolite diversity increased when grazing animals went extinct at the End Permian and End Ordovician extinction events, and decreased shortly after the grazer populations recovered. However the discovery that tracks very similar to these early trace fossils are produced today by the giant single-celled protist Gromia sphaerica casts doubt on their interpretation as evidence of early animal evolution.