BU's Brain Injury Team Finds Affliction in Veterans

BU’s Brain Injury Team Finds Affliction in Veterans

Like athletes, soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are showing signs of CTE.

Posted by Janelle Nanos on 5/17/2012 at 11:48AM | No Comments

The recent death of former Patriots linebacker Junior Seau renewed interest in the work being done by Boston University Medical School’s degenerative brain injury research group, particularly when Seau’s family decided it would donate his brain to BU earlier this month. But while BU’s work with athletes tends to make headlines, their research into C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, goes far beyond the playing field.

Just this week, the research team released a study demonstrating that combat veterans exposed to roadside bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq exhibit injuries similar to those seen in athletes with C.T.E. According to their report, mice who experienced simulated bombings developed C.T.E.-like symptoms within two weeks of being within range of the explosion. And side-by-side brain studies of athletes who experienced concussions and soldiers who were in close proximity to blasts showed similar damage in both cases. Continue reading “BU’s Brain Injury Team Finds Affliction in Veterans” »

Synthetic Marijuana Hysteria Hits Massachusetts

Parents are up-in-arms about some new damn thing.

Posted by Casey Lyons on 5/17/2012 at 11:31AM | 1 Comment

joint (Photo by Torben Hansen on Flickr.)

It’s spring. That means if your kids aren’t rifling through your medicine cabinet or slamming Purell hand sanitizer, they’re probably doing something else. And now, that something else is synthetic marijuana, which takes the form of a chemical sprayed on something smokeable. Hey, at least they’re not huffing gas.

Then again, both gas and synthetic marijuana share a few things in common: They’re relatively cheap, anyone can buy them, and you can get them at the corner store. Both are also intended for use as something else. In synthetic marijuana’s case, that’s supposedly as incense. Continue reading “Synthetic Marijuana Hysteria Hits Massachusetts” »

Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee Heritage: Making Everyone Look Bad

... including Scott Brown, most of the media, and Warren herself.

Posted by Chris Vogel on 5/17/2012 at 10:40AM | 10 Comments

New beat: Uncovering the many places Elizabeth Warren has touted her heritage. (Photo by mdfriendofhillary on Flickr.)

When it comes to the whole debate whether Elizabeth Warren has Cherokee blood running through her veins, all parties involved, including Scott Brown and much of the media, has their head up their ass. At the end of the day, the absolute worst that anyone can really say at this point is that Warren’s family may have lied to her and that she believed them — hardly the sin to end all sins.

First, there’s the Globe. Shortly after Brown’s camp of political gremlins floated the question of whether Warren could prove that she was of Native American ancestry — after it came out that Harvard, and then the University of Pennsylvania and the Association of American Law Schools, had listed her as a minority — the Globe gave world-wide credence to Warren’s claims in a story stating that a genealogist at the New England Historic and Genealogy Society had found proof that “Elizabeth Warren has a great-great-great grandmother listed in an 1894 document as a Cherokee.”

Turns out the Globe got it wrong. The paper has issued a correction stating that the document mentioned in the article, “was an application for a marriage license, not the license itself.” Neither the Globe nor the genealogist ever laid eyes on the supposed document. Further, the New England Historic and Genealogy Society now says that it has found no proof whatsoever that Warren is Cherokee.

But here’s the thing: Warren never said that she could prove or document her supposed heritage. Continue reading “Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee Heritage: Making Everyone Look Bad” »

Five Reasons to Leave the House This Weekend

Wine in Nantucket, Franklin Park Zoo's birthday, EarthFest, and more.

Posted by Anne Vickman on 5/17/2012 at 10:00AM | No Comments

What about this isn’t appealing? (Photo used with permission.)

Tipple
16th Annual Nantucket Wine Festival
Really the name speaks for itself: Wine Festival! On Nantucket! The main event, the Grand Tasting, will take place at the Nantucket Yacht Club, where more than 200 wineries will be serving tastes alongside Island Creek Oysters’ incomparable mollusks. The Harbor Gala will feature food from local restaurants and celebrity chefs, wine and food seminars will be plentiful, and three luncheon symposia will begin with a discussion lead by distinguished winemakers, followed by a four-course luncheon. A celebrity chef and winemaker auction dinner will give guests a chance to bid on rare and large-bottle wines, while Executive Chef Bernard Guillas of The Marine Room in San Diego and Executive Chef Frederick Bisaillon of Nantucket’s Brant Point Grill make culinary magic.
$40–$800, Wednesday, May 16 through Sunday, May 20, White Elephant Hotel, 50 Easton St., Nantucket, nantucketwinefestival.com. Continue reading “Five Reasons to Leave the House This Weekend” »

Will Facebook Move Back to Massachusetts?

Posted by daily feed on 5/17/2012 at 8:20AM | No Comments

Will Facebook Move Back to Massachusetts? First it was Menino, and now House Speaker Robert DeLeo is trying to bring a little Facebook love back to our neck of the woods. (Read DeLeo’s open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, asking him to consider ramping up his presence on the East Coast, or, you know, move back entirely.) Peter Cohan calls it “… a cleverly-timed way to get attention for a mind-bogglingly stupid idea.” [Forbes]

Massachusetts High School Students Rank Dead Last for Daily Exercise. Here’s a scary finding for a state that loves coming in first and cracking the top 10 on rankings and listicles: Massachusetts is the worst in the nation with the lowest percentage of high schoolers who get the recommendation of 1 hour of moderate-to-vigorous exercise each day. We rank 33rd for percentage of children who are obese. [WBUR]

Comcast Adds Skype Services Because Free Isn’t Good Enough. Starting today in Boston and Seattle (and in eight other metros by the end of the week), you can to add Skype services to your Comcast account. For $9.95 per month. And a $10 set-up fee. To talk to your loved ones in all their 40-inch LCD/LED/Plasma/whatev glory from your sofa. PASS. [Engadget]

Rhode Island EDC Head Resigns Over 38 Studios. It’s not clear whether Keith Stokes, head of Rhode Island’s Economic Development Corporation, submitted his resignation or was asked to resign. [Providence Journal]

MIT Names Rafael Reif as Successor to Susan Hockfield. Reif, MIT’s provost, has been at the school since 1979. “I cannot tell you that this is a dream come true because it’s a dream I never dared to imagine.,’’ he said at yesterday’s press conference. [Boston.com]

Comcast Adds Skype Services Because Free Isn’t Good Enough

Posted by daily feed on 5/17/2012 at 8:02AM | No Comments

Starting today in Boston and Seattle (and in eight other metros by the end of the week), you can to add Skype services to your Comcast account. For $9.95 per month. And a $10 set-up fee. To talk to your loved ones in all their 40-inch LCD/LED/Plasma/whatev glory from your sofa. PASS. [Engadget]

Will Facebook Move Back to Massachusetts?

Posted by daily feed on 5/17/2012 at 7:09AM | No Comments

First it was Menino, and now House Speaker Robert DeLeo is trying to bring a little Facebook love back to our neck of the woods. (Read DeLeo’s open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, asking him to consider ramping up his presence on the East Coast, or, you know, move back entirely.) Peter Cohan calls it “… a cleverly-timed way to get attention for a mind-bogglingly stupid idea.” [Forbes]

Massachusetts High School Students Rank Dead Last for Daily Exercise

Posted by daily feed on 5/17/2012 at 6:47AM | No Comments

Here’s a scary finding for a state that loves coming in first and cracking the top 10 on rankings and listicles: Massachusetts is the worst in the nation with the lowest percentage of high schoolers who get the recommendation of 1 hour of moderate-to-vigorous exercise each day. We rank 33rd for percentage of children who are obese. [WBUR]

MIT Names Rafael Reif as Successor to Susan Hockfield

Posted by daily feed on 5/17/2012 at 6:02AM | No Comments

Reif, MIT’s provost, has been at the school since 1979. “I cannot tell you that this is a dream come true because it’s a dream I never dared to imagine.,’’ he said at yesterday’s press conference. [Boston.com]

John Henry and Tom Werner Have a Liverpool Problem

You think it's bad here? Across the pond, it's all-out chaos.

Posted by Jason Schwartz on 5/16/2012 at 12:18PM | 6 Comments

A gate outside of Liverpool’s stadium displaying the team slogan, which in the context of this story, rings conveniently ironic.

You think John Henry and Tom Werner have problems here? Well, yeah, they do, but at least we’ve reached a temporary calm, with the Red Sox winning five in a row and Mr. Fried Chicken McGolf, Josh Beckett, hurling seven shutout innings en route to a win last night. Meanwhile, over in England, where Henry and Werner own the storied soccer team, Liverpool FC, all chaos has broken loose.

It seems that for all the money Henry and Werner have poured into Liverpool — they’ve spent $165 million in player transfers since buying the team in late 2010 — not all their big money players have performed (stop me if this sounds familiar). Liverpool just finished a disappointing English Premier League season, coming in eighth place. Now the status of the manager, Kenny Dalglish, a Liverpool legend back in his playing days, is up in the air. The Guardian reported that, with rumors swirling about his job security, Dalglish requested a meeting with Henry and Werner to clear things up. The Fenway Sports Group owners said, Ok, but on one condition: you have to fly to Boston to talk to us. Continue reading “John Henry and Tom Werner Have a Liverpool Problem” »