I'm Gina Smith

Japanese man finds woman is living in his closet. (Reuters).

This from Reuters. Very odd news. Do you think it is possible he does actually know the woman but is covering this up for some crazy reason? Could you not really notice someone living in your closet? Notice the similiarity in ages. Strange.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese man who was mystified when food kept disappearing from his kitchen, set up a hidden camera and found an unknown woman living secretly in his closet, Japanese media said Friday.

The 57-year-old unemployed man of Fukuoka in southern Japan called police Wednesday when the camera sent pictures to his mobile phone of an intruder in his home while he was out on Wednesday, the Asahi newspaper said on its Website.

Officers rushed to the house and found a 58-year-old unemployed woman hiding in an unused closet, where she had secreted a mattress and plastic drink bottles, the Asahi said. Police suspect she may have been there for several months, the paper said.

"I didn't have anywhere to live," the Nikkan Sports tabloid quoted the woman as telling police.

Local police confirmed that they had arrested a woman for trespassing, but would not comment further on the case.

Uncontacted Amazon tribe pictured aiming bows at airplane. (CNN)

(CNN) -- Researchers have produced aerial photos of jungle dwellers who they say are among the few remaining peoples on Earth who have had no contact with the outside world.

Indians are photographed during an overflight in May 2008, as they react to the overflight at their camp.

Taken from a small airplane, the photos show men outside thatched communal huts, necks craned upward, pointing bows toward the air in a remote corner of the Amazonian rainforest.

The National Indian Foundation, a government agency in Brazil, published the photos Thursday on its Web site. It tracks "uncontacted tribes" -- indigenous groups that are thought to have had no contact with outsiders -- and seeks to protect them from encroachment.

More than 100 uncontacted tribes remain worldwide, and about half live in the remote reaches of the Amazonian rainforest in Peru or Brazil, near the recently photographed tribe, according to Survival International, a nonprofit group that advocates for the rights of indigenous people.

"All are in grave danger of being forced off their land, killed or decimated by new diseases," the organization said Thursday.

Illegal logging in Peru is threatening several uncontacted groups, pushing them over the border with Brazil and toward potential conflicts with about 500 uncontacted Indians living on the Brazilian side, Survival International said.

Its director, Stephen Cory, said the new photographs highlight the need to protect uncontacted people from intrusion by the outside world.

"These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist," Cory said in a statement. "The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct."

The photos released Thursday show men who look strong and healthy, the Brazilian government said. They and their relatives apparently live in six communal shelters known as malocas, according to the government, which has tracked at least four uncontacted groups in the region for the last 20 years.

The photos were taken during 20 hours of flights conducted between

The Tech Celebrity Quiz ran today.

Click here to see the technology celebrity quiz Dan Tynan and I wrote for Infoworld.

Salamander-inspired therapy helps cure injured vets (CNN)

This is a weird and interesting science story. Click here.

What to do with hate mail in your blog's comments section?

I say, send the love.

gs

Blogging is good for you? (Scientific American)

Friends and I have been blogging since 03, and I have to tell you, none of us have noticed major health improvements. Then again, I have kept a daily journal since I was 10, so maybe that explains my bounding good health! Anyway, below is the SciAm article about blogging I saw today.

(Scientific American) Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

Scientists now hope to explore the neurological underpinnings at play, especially considering the explosion of blogs. According to Alice Flaherty, a neuroscientist at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, the placebo theory of suffering is one window through which to view blogging. As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a “placebo for getting satisfied,” Flaherty says. Blogging about stressful experiences might work similarly.

Flaherty, who studies conditions such as hypergraphia (an uncontrollable urge to write) and writer’s block, also looks to disease models to explain the drive behind this mode of communication. For example, people with mania often talk too much. “We believe something in the brain’s limbic system is boosting their desire to communicate,” Flaherty explains. Located mainly in the midbrain, the limbic system controls our drives, whether they are related to food, sex, appetite, or problem solving. “You know that drives are involved [in blogging] because a lot of people do it compulsively,” Flaherty notes. Also, blogging might trigger dopamine release, similar to stimulants like music, running and looking at art.

The frontal and temporal lobes, which govern speech—no dedicated writing center is hardwired in the brain—may also figure in. For example, lesions in Wernicke’s area, located in the left temporal lobe, result in excessive speech and loss of language comprehension. People with Wernicke’s aphasia speak in gibberish and often write constantly. In light of these traits, Flaherty speculates that some activity in this area could foster the urge to blog.

Scientists’ understanding about the neurobiology underlying therapeutic writing must remain speculative for now. Attempts to image the brain before and after writing have yielded minimal information because the active regions are located so deep inside. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown that the brain lights up differently before, during and after writing, notes James Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin. But Pennebaker and others remain skeptical about the value of such images because they are hard to duplicate and quantify.

Most likely, writing activates a cluster of neurological pathways, and several researchers are committed to uncovering them. At the University of Arizona, psychologist and neuroscientist Richard Lane hopes to make brain-imaging techniques more relevant by using those techniques to study the neuroanatomy of emotions and their expressions. Nancy Morgan, lead author of the Oncologist study, is looking to conduct larger community-based and clinical trials of expressive writing. And Pennebaker is continuing to investigate the link between expressive writing and biological changes, such as improved sleep, that are integral to health. “I think the sleep angle is one of the more promising ones,” he says.

Whatever the underlying causes may be, people coping with cancer diagnoses and other serious conditions are increasingly seeking—and finding—solace in the blogosphere. “Blogging undoubtedly affords similar benefits” to expressive writing, says Morgan, who wants to incorporate writing programs into supportive care for cancer patients.

SF Mayor Newsom condemns CA clerks who won't marry gays. (Reuters)

It's the law here. Upheld by the Supreme Court. So why are some San Diego clerks refusing to marry same-sex couples? Newson wants to know and he isn't happy. Excerpt below.

By Adam Tanner and Mary Milliken

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose fight to allow same-sex weddings won California court approval last week, expressed outrage on Thursday that San Diego County may allow some clerks to decline to wed homosexuals.

A split California Supreme Court ruled a week ago that the state's law barring gays from marrying was unconstitutional and opened the way to such weddings starting in mid-June. The decision came after Newsom forced the issue before the courts by briefly allowing gays to marry in 2004.

On Wednesday, San Diego County Clerk Gregory Smith said he would consider allowing clerks to bow out of processing such marriages if they had moral or religions objections.

"I was pretty shocked about all that, candidly, and pretty outraged," Newsom told Reuters in an interview.

"This is a civil marriage that civil servants have a responsibility to provide, so for civil servants on religious grounds to start passing judgments, they, I think, are breaking the core tenet of what civil service is all about."

"I've got very strong religious beliefs. So now, all of a sudden, I don't have to do certain things, even though that's my responsibility as mayor?"

The latest flap showed that gay marriage remains very contentious in the nation's most populous state even after the legal decision cleared the way to make California only the second U.S. state to allow gays to marry after Massachusetts.

The legal fight could also continue. Late on Thursday, a group opposing gay marriage filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to rehear the case. 

When will it end? Moyers on carcinogen that lobbyists insist is fine to eat. Who made them scientists? Yet we're eating it!

From today's Truthout.org. Don't miss this upcoming special on PBS. Details at truthout.org.

There may be a potentially dangerous chemical leaching into our food from the containers that we use every day. Bill Moyers Journal and Expose: America's Investigative Reports examine why, even though studies show that the chemical Bisphenol A can cause cancer and other health problems in lab animals, the manufacturers, their lobbyists, and US regulators say it's safe. Also on the program, Jeffrey Toobin, one of the most recognized legal journalists in the country, discusses what the Supreme Court might look like if John McCain is elected president. And Bill Moyers on honoring our veterans this Memorial Day.

Says Horace about death and your awareness of it.

"Now is the time to drink and dance. Feel free to stamp the earth now, Fancy food should be laid out on couches of the gods." Horace (65-8 BCE)

This comes from the rhyming translation of Homer by Len Krisak.

A bull literally ran through their living room!

Here's an odd story from Reuters today.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German family were stunned when a rampaging bull burst through the back door of their house, charged around the living room, and then left by the front door.

"The animal basically did a tour of the hall, the kitchen and the living room before leaving the building," said Paul Kemen, a spokesman for police in the western city of Aachen on Monday. "It came in the back and went out the front."

None in the family were injured, but the bull laid waste to furnishings, causing an estimated 10,000 euros ($15,600) of damage, police said. The bull left after the owner of the house opened the front door for it.

The red-brown Limousin bull was part of a herd of cattle that had escaped from a farmer and overrun a section of the nearby town of Monschau. A huntsman later shot the animal.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Matthew Jones)