by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A period of global warming from 53 million to 47 million years ago strongly influenced plants and animals, spurring a biodiversity boom in western North America, researchers from three research museums report in a paper published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Today, the middle of Wyoming is a vast desert, and a few antelope and deer are all you see,” said lead author Michael Woodburne, honorary curator of geology at the Museum of Northern Arizona. “But 50 million years ago, when temperatures were at their highest, that area was a tropical rainforest teeming with lemur-like primates, small dawn horses and a number of small forest rodents and other mammals. In fact, there were more species of mammals living in the western part of North America at that time than at any other time.”

Woodburne and coauthors Gregg Gunnell of the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology and Richard Stucky of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science examined the records of ancient temperatures and information on the fossil plants and mammals that inhabited North America during the Eocene epoch and found that diversity increased and declined with rising and falling temperatures.

The Eocene began about 56 million years ago with a short period of increased warming, when many modern groups of mammals first appeared in North America, probably by emigrating from other areas. The period the researchers studied, called the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO), began about three million years later and included a long-term temperature increase regresarcoupled with a long-term rise in diversity.

During that time, as mean annual temperature warmed from about 60 degrees Fahrenheit to 73 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius to 23 degrees Celsius), vegetation changed, with many new plant forms appearing, and mammal diversity increased from 90 genera to an all-time high of 104 genera, the researchers found.

“This is also the part of the Eocene when we see the most new appearances of mammals due to evolutionary innovation, rather than immigration,” said Stucky, who is curator of paleoecology and evolution at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Some 30 new rodents, carnivores, primates and artiodactyls (the group that includes sheep, goats, camels, pigs, cows, deer, giraffes and antelopes, among others) ­appeared on the scene.

But then, as temperatures declined again, the number of mammal genera dropped to a low of 84, with the complete loss of many mammalian groups that previously were well represented.

Lower temperatures and a dryer climate continued to influence mammal and plant evolution as savanna habitats began to emerge.

Until this research, the consensus among paleontologists who study North American vertebrates was that climate played only a background role in supporting the evolution of mammals during the Paleocene and Eocene (65 million to 35 million years ago) and that only at the end of the Eocene, when Antarctic glaciations began, did Earth’s climate deteriorate enough to cause observable changes in land mammal diversity.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Hugo Chávez

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez denounced that U.S. military bases in Colombia are threatening the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) bloc. Colombia–EE.UU.: El nuevo pacto A letter Chávez addressed to his UNASUR peers was published on Sunday by El Nuevo Diario of Nicaragua.

In his letter, Chavez said everything is part of a political military plan orchestrated by Washington against UNASUR.

He also warned the military bases pose a threat to the region’s natural resources (oil, mining and the Amazonia forest).

According to Chavez, Colombia’s claims to allow the United States use its military bases and deploy troops in the South American nation are a real threat to peace and to Venezuela’s sovereignty.

Chavez’s letter was published on Sunday in several Latin American newspapers, sources from the Venezuelan embassy in Managua said.

Bolivia’s Morales accuses the right

On 13 August the police tentatively concluded that the two bombs that exploded on 12 August were linked. The terrorist attacks come just as the country is starting to gear up for general elections on 6 December. President Evo Morales lost little time in accusing his opponents on the Right of “hiring Peruvian gunmen” to perpetrate the attacks. This was an allusion to the arrest earlier this week of three Peruvians (and 20 Bolivians) with telescopic rifles in Cochabamba.

Castro to Cubans – “Yes, we can!”

On July 26, at a ceremony in Holguín to mark the 56th anniversary of the attack of the Moncada barracks, President Raúl Castro trotted out well-worn symbols of nationalist pride in an effort to urge Cubans to get to work, above all on the land, in order to confront the serious economic crisis facing the country. He insisted that Cubans together must take responsibility for the situation.

A few days later, in an August 1 speech to the national assembly, he was less conciliatory, condemning an “irresponsible attitude of consumption”, stating that “unsustainable spending” which, he said, made some people “impervious to work” would be pared back and warning that Cuba could not “eat socialism” before it had been fully constructed.

Venezuela to expand education

After the enactment of the Education Bill, Venezuela on Sunday enters a new stage in its drive to guarantee Venezuelans from all walks of life free access to education.

President Hugo Chávez on Saturday signed the bill that had been passed by Parliament early in the morning, despite attempts against it by the opposition, the private school system, the media, and the national Catholic hierarchy.

The bill does not eliminate private schools or prohibit religion teaching, but get it out of the curriculum.

The State can now supervise resources delivered to public universities, a mechanism that does not protect university autonomy and that, according to accusations, favored corruption and embezzled resources.

To guarantee education funds, the law establishes that the State will allot the sector a priority share of the Gross Domestic Product.

Why is Brazil doing so much better than Mexico

The region’s two big economies are facing very different prospects over the next 18 months. Brazil is increasingly confident that it is emerging from the global economic cri­sis while Mexico is far from sure that the worst of its economic crisis is over, despite claims from the government to the contrary. (Latin news and Prensa Latina contributed with this report).

by Dr. Russell Blaylock

Dr. Blaylock’s List of suggestions on wow to reduce the toxic effects of the A/H1N1 Vaccine, is as follows:

1. ­Number one on the list says Dr. Blaylock, is to bring a cold pack with you and place it on the site of the injection as soon as you can, as this will block the immune reaction. Once you get home, continue using a cold pack throughout the day. If you continue to have immune reactions the following day, have cold showers and continue with the cold press.
2. Take fish oil. Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), one of the omega 3 fatty acids found in fish oil supplements, is a potent immune suppressant. If you take high dose EPA you will be more susceptible to infections, because it is a powerful immune suppressant. However, in the case of an immune adjuvant reaction, you want to reduce it. Studies show that if you take EPA oil one hour before injecting a very powerful adjuvant called lipopolysaccharide (LPS), it would completely block the ability of the LPS to cause brain inflammation. Take a moderate dose everyday and more if needed to tame a cytokine storm.
3. <http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/flavonoid.html>Flavonoids are third on the list, namely curcumin, quercetin, ferulic acid and ellagic acid, particularly in a mixture. The curcumin and quercetin20in particular have been found to block the ability of the adjuvants to trigger a long-term immune reaction. If you take it an hour before the vaccination, it should help dampen the immune reactions says Dr Blaylock.
4. Vitamin E, the natural form that is high in gamma-E will help dampen the immune reactions and reduces several of the inflammatory cytokines.
5. An important ingredient on the list is Vitamin C at a dose of 1000 mg, taken four times a day between meals. It is a very potent anti-inflammatory and should be taken in a buffered form, not as absorbic acid, says Dr Blaylock.
6. <http://www.naturalnews.com/002156.html> Also use astaxanthin as it’s an anti-inflammatory. According to Dr Blaylock, fatal reactions to vaccines in aboriginal and African children occurred in those who were deficient in carotinoids, like astaxanthin. It is a good protection against the toxic effects of the vaccine.
7. Likewise, it was found that children who were deficient in zinc had a high mortality rate. Zinc is very protective against vaccine toxicity. (Do not use zinc mixed with copper however, as copper is a major trigger of free-radical generation according to Dr Blaylock).
8. Ensure you avoid all immune-stimulating supplements, such as mushroom extracts, whey protein and <http://www.betaglucan.org/>beta-glucan.
9. Take a multivitamin-mineral daily one that does not contain iron. This multivitamin-mineral is to make sure your body has plenty of B vitamins and selenium. Selenium, said Dr Blaylock, is very important for fighting viral infections and it reduces the inflammatory response to vaccines.
10. Magnesium citrate/malate 500 mg of elemental magnesium two capsules, three times a day. (This was not mentioned during the show, but was posted at Dr Deagle’s website, <http://www.clayandiron.com/news.jhtml?method=viewnews.id=2103>ClayandIron.com).
11. What is very important is vitamin D3, which is the only ‘vitamin’ the body can manufacture from sunlight (UVB). It is a neural hormone, not really a vitamin says Dr Blaylock and helps if you are over-reacting immunologically by cooling down the reaction. Similarly, if you are under-reacting, it helps to boost your immune response. In addition it also protects against microorganism invasion. Black people and those in colder climates are particularly deficient, so they will almost certainly require supplementation. Dr Blaylock recommends that following vaccination it will help to keep the immune reaction under control if: i) All children get 5,000 units a day for two weeks after the vaccine and=2 0then 2,000 a units a day thereafter; ii) Adults get 20,000 units a day after the vaccine for two weeks, then 10,000 units a day thereafter; iii) And with that adults should take 500-1000 mg of calcium a day and children under the age of 12 years should take 250 mg a day, as vitamin D works more efficiently in the presence of calcium.
12. Ensure you avoid all mercury-containing seafood or any other sources of mercury, as the heavy metal is a very powerful inducer of autoimmunity, is known to make people more susceptible to viral infections and will be in H1N1 vaccines.
13. Avoid the oils that significantly suppress immunity and increase inflammation – such as corn, safflower, sunflower, soybean, canola and peanut oils. 14. Drink very concentrated white tea at least four times a day. It helps to prevent abnormal immune reactions.
14. Pop parsley and celery in a blender and drink 8 ounces of this mixture twice a day. Dr Blaylock says the parsley is very high in a flavonoid called apigenin and that celery is high in <http://www.dietaryfiberfood.com/antioxidants/flavonoidantioxidant.php>luteolin. Both are very potent in inhibiting autoimmune diseases, particularly the apigenin, so go and plant some parsley in your garden now.

by the University of Michigan

Nicaraguan painter Raúl Barrios, shows to El Reportero one of his paintings made on the trunk of a tree in the city of Managua. (photo by Marvin Ramirez)

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— With school days just around the corner, a University of Michigan researcher has some advice for parents who want to increase their children’s academic success.

“If you want your kids to do well in school, then the amount of education you get yourself is important,” says Pamela Davis-Kean, a psychologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). “This may mean that parents need to go back to school.”

“A growing number of large-scale, long-term studies now show that increasing parental education beyond high school is strongly linked to increasing language ability in children. Even after controlling for parental income, marital status, and a host of other factors, we find that the impact of parental education remains significant.”

Davis-Kean, who is also affiliated with the U-M Psychology Department, directs the ISR Center for the Analysis of Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). She is co-editor of the July 2009 issue of the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal presenting research sponsored by the Center that employs multiple perspectives to analyze the impact parents have on their children’s educational attainment.

One of the studies in the special issue examines the long-term effects of parental education on children’s success in school and work, beginning when children are eight years old and extending until they are age 48.

Another study examines how language skills and school readiness of three-year-olds are positively affected when mothers return to school.

“In every case, we’ve found that an increase in parental education has a positive impact on children’s success in school,” says Davis-Kean. “And this impact is particularly strong when parents start with a high-school education or less.”

“These findings may be reassuring to parents at a time when many are unemployed or worried about future job prospects,” Davis-Kean says. “They clearly show that in terms of the effect on children’s achievement, it’s more important for parents to get a good education than to get a high-paying job. Of course, the more education you have, the more likely it is that you’ll find a good job, so an increase in education is often leads to an increase in income.”

The reasons behind the power of parental education are not yet fully understood, but researchers think it’s more than just providing a model that children want to imitate. More education might mean that parents are more likely to read to their children, suggests Davis Kean. Or it could be that parents who are in school need to be more organized in order to get everything done, so they tend to create a more structured home environment, with dinner and bed-time occurring at regular times, for example. This kind of predictable, structured environment has a positive impact on child development, many studies have shown.

Creating a more structured environment for children – as opposed to giving them lots of free time – has been getting something of a bad reputation lately, Davis-Kean notes. But she believes that for the vast majority of U.S. children, the value of free time has been exaggerated.

“There’s this idealistic, nostalgic idea that free time gives children a chance to go out and play, and just experience nature,” she says. “But in reality, in today’s world where both parents are likely to be employed outside the home, what free time means for most kids is sitting in front of the TV, playing video games, and generally being bored with no stimulation.

“What’s really valuable for children is being engaged in activities that are supervised by adults. When kids are unsupervised, you see an increase in injuries. And ­summer down-time also has negative infl uences on school achievement in the fall.”

So parents who are going to school themselves should not worry about the effects of arranging more supervised activities for their children, according to Davis-Kean.

­­by the El Reportero’s news services

Alvaro Uribe

The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) met in Quito on August 10. Its official agenda went all but unreported as it was hijacked by the debate over Colombian-U.S. military bases.

Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe had spent the previous week on a peripatetic tour of South America in an endeavor to, if not drum up support, win understanding for the accord with the U.S.

Unasur heads of state failed to reach a consensus over the thorny issue, which they agreed to discuss at a special summit in Argentina at a later date. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, meanwhile, once again ratcheted up the tension with Colombia, indulging his taste for sabre-rattling: “the winds of war have started to blow,” he said.

by Erick Galindo

WASHINGTON, D.C.— After 220 years on the outside looking in, Hispanics are celebrating the arrival of their first initiate to the U.S. Supreme Court. By a comfortable 68-31 majority, the U.S. Senate confirmed Aug. 6 President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, an appellate court judge from New York, as an Associate Justice.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. administered the constitutional oath in a private ceremony Aug. 8. That was repeated in the Court’s East Conference Room with some five dozen Sotomayor family and close friends as witness. The formal investiture will take place exactly one month later at a special sitting of the nine member Court.

The former litigator, of Puerto Rican background, has dominated public attention for weeks, including four days of sometimes acrimonious hearings in June, in which she answered questions that often focused on a remark she made 10 years ago at the University of California-Berkeley during a speech suggesting one’s personal experiences and outlook can affect decision-making on the bench.

Sotomayor’s personal and legal positions on abortion, gun ownership and eminent domain, and her tenure on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund were areas of intense scrutiny.

She answered 17 questions in reference to her now-famous “wise Latina” speech, which her detractors claimed implied that she was not without bias. Each time, she affirmed she would uphold the Constitution and precedent. Once citing ‘’empathy” as a desirable quality, she avoided suggesting it as a qualification for judgeship.

Shortly after the Senate vote, President Obama than ked its members “for giving Judge Sotomayor a thorough and civil hearing in a timely manner so she can be fully prepared to take her seat when the Court’s work begins this October.” The president added he was pleased with the margin of her support.

The vote was strongly partisan. All 31 opposing votes came from Republicans. Nine GOP members supported it.

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) was not present to vote, but he previously expressed his support for confirmation. Kennedy is convalescing after surgery for a brain tumor.

The Republican opposition drew criticism in many Latino circles over how race, ethnicity and gender issues drew more attention than did judicial qualifications. Other speculation centered on whether a wall was going up between the Republican Party and Hispanics.

“That so many from one party were reluctant to recognize Judge Sotomayor’s impressive qualifications will be something our community is likely to remember,” said David Lizarraga, chairman of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Democrats accused Republicans of ignoring the judge’s substantial record. Minutes before the full Senate vote, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont urged Republicans to vote their ~conscious.” He denounced any suggestion that Sotomayor’s ethnicity or gender would play any role in her rulings, and called the insinuation “demeaning to women and all communities of color.”

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund president Thomas Saenz agreed with Senate Democrats, saying, “Her eminent qualifications and wise committee testimony shattered a glass ceiling. This tremendous accomplishment is marred only by the fact that so many senators chose to elevate partisanship and political pandering over principle. History – and the fast-growing community of Latino voters – will judge these senators harshly.”

Both Hispanic senators, Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), voted in favor of confirmation.

“This is a moment at which a young Latina, sitting in an elementary school classroom, will fully understand that anything is possible in this amazing country,” Menendez stated.

Organizations throughout the country held confirmation parties. In Washington, D.C., rallies on the day before the Senate vote were held as major Hispanic organizations came together to show PMsolidarity.

“It is a date that will quickly take hold in the memories of millions of Hispanic Americans of all ages and backgrounds,” National Council of La Raza President Janet Murgufa said. “Finally, our community has representation on the highest court in the land. For that reason and many others, this vote matters to Latinos and it matters to our country.”

The Supreme Court was formally established in 1789. Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said that the vote against Sotomayor was a stance against Obama and an indicator of possible obstacles for future court nominees. Republicans cited Sotomayor’s perceived bias against gun rights as a major factor in their votes. With a pending gun-rights case on the Court’s docket, Sotomayor refused to state a specific opinion on the matter, saying only that the Court had recognized the right to bare arms as an individual right.

­Libertarian Party spokesman Donny Ferguson called the confirmation “a defeat for individual property and gun rights.”

Several key pro-gun senators voted in favor of confirmation.

Among them were Democrats Mark Warner, Virginia; Tim Johnson, South Dakota; Max Baucus, Montana; and Republicans Lamar Alexander, Tennessee, and Lindsey Graham, South Carolina. All have an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association.