by the University of Michigan

Thousands of Latinos arrived in Washington, D.C., from many parts of the country to voice their demand for an amnisty for all undocumented immigrants who are exploited and forced to live in the shadow.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.– Brain implants that can more clearly record signals from surrounding neurons in rats have been created at the University of Michigan. The findings could eventually lead to more effective treatment of neurological disorders such as spinal cord injuries and paralysis.

Neural electrodes must work for time periods ranging from hours to years. When the electrodes are implanted, the brain first reacts to the acute injury with an inflammatory response. Then the brain settles into a wound-healing, or chronic, response.

It’s during this secondary response that brain tissue starts to encapsulate the electrode, cutting it off from communication with surrounding neurons.

The new brain implants developed at the University of Michigan are coated with nanotubes made of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), a biocompatible and electrically conductive polymer that has been shown to record neural signals better than conventional metal electrodes.

­U-M resarchers found that PEDOT nanotubes enhanced high-quality unit activity (signal-to-noise ratio >4) about 30 percent more than the uncoated sites. They also found that based on in vivo impedance data, PEDOT nanotubes might be used as a novel method for biosensing to indicate the transition between acute and chronic responses in brain tissue.

The results are featured in the cover article of the Oct. 5 issue of Advanced Materials. The paper is titled, “Interfacing Conducting Polymer Nanotubes with the Central Nervous System: Chronic Neural Recording using Poly(3-4-ethylenedioxythiophene) Nanotubes”.

“Microelectrodes implanted in the brain are increasingly being used to treat neurological disorders. Moreover, these electrodes enable neuroprosthetic devices, which hold the promise to return functionality to individuals with spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases,” said Mohammad Reza Abidian, a postdoctoral researcher working with Professor Daryl Kipke in the Neural Engineering Laboratory at the U-M Department of Biomedical Engineering.

“However, robust and reliable chronic application of neural electrodes remains a challenge,” Abidian said.

In the experiment, the researchers implanted two neural microelectrodes in the brains of three rats. PEDOT nanotubes were fabricated on the surface of every other recording site by using a nanofiber templating method. Over the course of seven weeks, researchers monitored the electrical impedance of the recording sites and measured the quality of recording signals.

PEDOT nanotubes in the coating enable the electrodes to operate with less electrical resistance than current metal electrode sites, which means they can communicate more clearly with individual neurons.

“Conducting polymers are biocompatible and have both electronic and ionic conductivity,” Abidian said. “Therefore, these materials are good candidates for biomedical applications such as neural interfaces, biosensors and drug delivery systems.”

­In the experiments, the Michigan researchers applied PEDOT nanotubes to microelectrodes provided by the University of Michigan Center for Neural Communication Technology (CNCT). The PEDOT nanotube coatings were developed in the laboratory of David C. Martin, now an adjunct professor of materials science and engineering, macromolecular science and engineering, and biomedical engineering. Martin is currently Karl W. Böer Professor and Chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Delaware.

Martin is also a co-founder and chief scientific officer for Biotectix, a University of Michigan spin-off company located in Ann Arbor. The company is working to commercialize conducting polymer-based coatings for a variety of biomedical devices. In previous experiments, Abidian and his colleagues have shown that PEDOT nanotubes could carry with them drugs to prevent encapsulation.

“This study paves the way for smart recording electrodes that can deliver drugs to alleviate the immune response of encapsulation,” Abidian said.

The research is funded by the Army Research Office, the Center for Neural Communication Technology and the National Institutes of Health.

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­by the El Reportero’s news services

Manuel Zelaya

Members of the National Front against the Coup d’Etat in Honduras will start Monday permanent vigil in front of the Congress headquarters until restitution of legitimate President Manuel Zelaya is approved.According to agreements signed on Friday between the constitutional government and the de facto regime, the legislative organization has to decide the statesman’s return, prior consultation to the Justice Supreme Court.

“We will be there until achieving our objective,” said Juan Barahona, leader of the Resistance Front, comprised of union, indigenous, rural, academic groups and other sectors.

People’s organizations denounced the possibility that the Parliament, which backed the June 28 coup, resorts to dilatory tactics to extend putschists’ presence in power.

They still do not know what the Congress voting result will be, but do know that the National Party’s stance is decisive, because it has 54, of the 128 seats in the Legislature and could vote en bloc.

The Liberal Party, to which Zelaya and the de facto regime chief Roberto Micheletti belong, has 62 legislators, but their stances are divided, while the rest of the seats are distributed in three minority parties.

Zelaya asserted that the Congress has a moral obligation to restore the democratic order existing before June 28, although there is always the possibility that they try to evade the accord.

Sandinistas protest U.S. ambassador for criticizing Nicaraguan leader’s re-election bid

The Nicaraguan government accused the United States of applying an “interventionist and destabilizing policy” Thursday after the U.S. ambassador criticized a ruling allowing leftist President Daniel Ortega to seek re-election.

The Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that it “considers unacceptable the intervention of the United States in internal affairs and sovereign decisions,” but added that it wants “relations of understanding, cooperation, and respect with all governments in the world, including the United States.”

Ortega’s supporters protested outside the U.S. Embassy in Managua, the capital, Thursday, and called for U.S. Ambassador Robert Callahan to be declared “persona non grata” for criticizing last week’s Supreme Court ruling.

­Colombia-U.S. base deal triggers fresh spat with Venezuela

The Colombian government is poised to sign a contentious military-base accord with the US before the end of this week, the defense minister, Gabriel Silva, revealed after a trip to Washington. The Venezuelan government – the most outspoken critic of the accord – expressed its displeasure by engaging in a tangentially related spat over the repatriation of eight Colombians killed by an armed group on Venezuelan soil earlier this month. It also sent two protest notes to Colombia: one in response to incendiary comments by Silva about alleged drug flights out of Venezuela; the other, related to the arrest in Venezuela of two alleged agents from the Colombian secret police (DAS) accused of spying.

Is Brazil fuelling the perceived South American arms race?

Increased arms purchases by South American countries have prompted much talk about an arms race in the region Ñ something all the governments involved strenuously deny. What is undeniable is that arms acquisitions have become part and parcel of regional geopolitics: Brazil and Venezuela have been competing with donations of surplus military hardware as instruments of political influence, and Brazil has been successfully turning into an important supplier of advanced defense equipment. (Latin News, Prensa Latina, and Associated Press contributed to this report.)

by Erick Galindo

Luis Gutiérrez

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Thousands of Latinos came from throughout the United States Oct. 13 to add their voices to the national clamor for immigration reform. “We came to fight for the reform President Obama promised us and nothing has happened since he’s been in office,” Newark, N.J., construction worker Jose Gregorio expressed his concern to Weekly Report.

Gregorio, from Honduras, in the United States on a work permit, has been in the process of securing his permanent residence visa.

­Despite a series of delays, Gregorio remains hopeful that he will be approved and even that immigration reform is forth coming.

Busloads of activists came to the nation’s capital from as far away as California, joining hundreds more who live in surrounding areas to meet with members of Congress. The pre-dominantly Hispanic crowd rallied on the west lawn of the Capitol in support of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-III.), who shared with them the basics of a bill he plans to introduce to the House.

While jumping the gun on the White House, which has charged Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) with preparing an Administration bill, Gutierrez did not set a date for his, stating that health care and energy reform must come first.

Also hailed by the crowd was Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) who delivered his pep talk in Spanish. As co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Grijalva is expected to be influential in the debate. Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.) was also on hand to offer her support.

But Gutierrez was the star of the show as members of the crowd compared him to President John Kennedy.

He said that learning English would be required under his bill, but that it would provide a path to citizenship that did not include huge penalties or require immigrants to return to their home countries for a period of time. “We’re going to learn English so well, we will be able to write novels and poetry,” he told the receptive crowd in English and Spanish.

The bill would also require background screenings and ensure border security.

Gutierrez also said that the current U.S. policy splits families who have U.S.-born relatives and asked for a moratorium of rids and firings while the country waits for reform. Hispanic Link.

by Marvin Ramírez

Elvita Flamenco is taken by paramedics to the hospital after having been hit with a gun during the robbery of her jewelry. (photo by Marvin Ramírez)

It was the end of a semi-warm afternoon, and the beginning of a cool night at approximately 6 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 23.

Elvita Flamenco, owner of Elvita’s Jewelry, who was accompanied with her daughter Sandy Flamenco and surrendered by several storeowners with whom she shares the facility, had just bought a supply of gold goodies to prepare for her Christmas season sales, which would pay up for the lost in business during this year’s ill economy.

It was just about an hour short to go home, when the peace and tranquility were interrupted by two black-hooded men with their faces covered, brandishing guns, and ordering every one to stay still at the facility.

­“Don’t move,” said the men several times while pointing their gun at everyone around him, while one of them jumped over the counter at Elvita’s Jewelry, and started grabbing what he could.

With the bravery of a warrior, the older Flamenco threw herself over the one armed man who was rapidly filling a up container with everything he could, while the other kept everyone else from moving.

As she hang against the armed robber, the other one came at his rescue by hitting  Flamenco with his gun, being able to stop the robbers from taking a bigger loot.

Following the struggle, which sent Flamenco to the fl oor, and the robbers with a small amount of jewelry, thee two man went running toward 22nd Street and headed on foot on Capp to get lost from a determined merchant next door who followed the men in his car. He lost site of them at Capp and 24th Street. Flamenco, who was taking to the hospital in ambulance, got a three stitches wound in her head.

Back in July, La Guadalupana Jewelry, just three stores away from Elvita’s, was hit by possibly the same gunmen and just more recently, and Tere’s Jewelry on 22nd at Mission Street, was also visited by robbers, although they were unable to take anything. JJ Jewelry on 24th Street, was another jewelry store hit days after. All these robberies happened at almost the same time in the day.

­The police statement to the merchants was, according to Jorge Linares of La Guadalupana, “there is only so much the police can do… you need to find yourself your own protection.”

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