- Hulu’s ‘Death and Other Details’ Is Intriguing but Countless Characters and Bizarre Clues Cause Confusion: TV Review Variety
- ‘Death And Other Details’ Is A Murder Mystery Like No Other HuffPost
- ‘Death and Other Details’ Review: Mandy Patinkin Stars in a Hulu Mystery Series That’s Too Much of a So-So Thing Hollywood Reporter
- REVIEW: Death and Other Details Is a Witty But Inconsistent Murder Mystery CBR – Comic Book Resources
- ‘Death and Other Details’ Review: Diet Murder Mystery Ensemble Will Have You Begging for the Real Thing IndieWire
Tag Archives: Clues
Fans think Britney Spears’ Instagram clues means she headed to Glastonbury 2023 – NME
- Fans think Britney Spears’ Instagram clues means she headed to Glastonbury 2023 NME
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- Elton John Doesn’t Bring Out Britney at Glastonbury Festival, But Instead Does ‘Tiny Dancer’ With… Brandon Flowers Yahoo Entertainment
- Fans Disappointed After Britney Spears Doesn’t Join Elton John On Stage At Glastonbury ETCanada.com
- Glastonbury 2023: Britney Spears fans react after she doesn’t appear with Elton John NME
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola case: Digital evidence leads to clues in deaths of friends dumped outside LA hospitals by masked men – CBS News
- Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola case: Digital evidence leads to clues in deaths of friends dumped outside LA hospitals by masked men CBS News
- Harrowing text Christy Giles sent husband before she & Hilda Marcela Cabrales’ fatal drugging in suspects’… The US Sun
- Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola death: 5 chilling details about double murders Sportskeeda
- 48 Hours’ shocking finds about two women left for dead by Hollywood producer WEHOville
- Hilda Marcela Cabrales: Architect’s American dream tragically cut short 48 Hours
New Clues To Predict When and Where the Sun’s Next Flare Might Explode
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare in 2014. The solar flare is the bright flash of light on the right limb of the sun. A burst of solar material erupting out into space can be seen just below it. Credit: NASA/SDO
Flashes on the Sun Could Help Scientists Predict Solar Flares
In the blazing upper atmosphere of the Sun, a team of scientists has found new clues that could help predict when and where the Sun’s next flare might explode.
Using data from
They found that above the regions about to flare, the corona produced small-scale flashes – like small sparklers before the big fireworks.
This information could eventually help improve predictions of flares and space weather storms – the disrupted conditions in space caused by the Sun’s activity. Space weather can affect Earth in many ways: producing auroras, endangering astronauts, disrupting radio communications, and even causing large electrical blackouts.
Two images of a solar active region (NOAA AR 2109) taken by SDO/AIA show extreme-ultraviolet light produced by million-degree-hot coronal gas (top images) on the day before the region flared (left) and the day before it stayed quiet and did not flare (right). The changes in brightness (bottom images) at these two times show different patterns, with patches of intense variation (black & white areas) before the flare (bottom left) and mostly gray (indicating low variability) before the quiet period (bottom right). Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/Dissauer et al. 2022
Scientists have previously studied how activity in lower layers of the Sun’s atmosphere – such as the photosphere and chromosphere – can indicate impending flare activity in active regions, which are often marked by groups of sunspots, or strong magnetic regions on the surface of the Sun that are darker and cooler compared to their surroundings. The new findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, add to that picture.
“We can get some very different information in the corona than we get from the photosphere, or ‘surface’ of the Sun,” said KD Leka, lead author on the new study who is also a designated foreign professor at
Artist’s concept of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
For their research, the scientists used a newly created image database of the Sun’s active regions captured by SDO. The publicly available resource, described in a companion paper also in The Astrophysical Journal, combines over eight years of images taken of active regions in ultraviolet and extreme-ultraviolet light. Led by Karin Dissauer and engineered by Eric L. Wagner, the NWRA team’s new database makes it easier for scientists to use data from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on SDO for large statistical studies.
“It’s the first time a database like this is readily available for the scientific community, and it will be very useful for studying many topics, not just flare-ready active regions,” Dissauer said.
The NWRA team studied a large sample of active regions from the database, using statistical methods developed by team member Graham Barnes. The analysis revealed small flashes in the corona preceded each flare. These and other new insights will give researchers a better understanding of the physics taking place in these magnetically active regions, with the goal of developing new tools to predict solar flares.
“With this research, we are really starting to dig deeper,” Dissauer said. “Down the road, combining all this information from the surface up through the corona should allow forecasters to make better predictions about when and where solar flares will happen.”
References:
“Properties of Flare-imminent versus Flare-quiet Active Regions from the Chromosphere through the Corona. II. Nonparametric Discriminant Analysis Results from the NWRA Classification Infrastructure (NCI)” by K. D. Leka, Karin Dissauer, Graham Barnes and Eric L. Wagner, 16 January 2023, The Astrophysical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac9c04
“Properties of Flare-imminent versus Flare-quiet Active Regions from the Chromosphere through the Corona. I. Introduction of the AIA Active Region Patches (AARPs)” by Karin Dissauer, K. D. Leka and Eric L. Wagner, 16 January 2023, The Astrophysical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac9c06
What do your fingernails say about you? – Key signs can reveal clues to your overall health
We may often look past our bruised, ridged or pitted nails.
But these can be warning signs of severe conditions, including arthritis, inflammation and, in extreme cases, cancer.
DailyMail.com spoke to two dermatologists about the clues in your fingernails that might not be so innocuous.
Dr Shari Lipner, from Cornell University in New York City, told this website that nails can be a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for a severe issue in the body.
She said: ‘It is essential for people to self-examine their nails about once a month, in addition to relying on dermatologists.’
The above graphic highlights six of the nail changes that could indicate a serious problem in the body. They include red streaks suggesting a heart infection, supposed bruises that may actually be cancer, and pitting in nails that could warn of someone suffering arthritis in a few years time
Dr Shari Lipner, a top dermatologist at Cornell University in New York City, and Dr Christine Ko, a dermatologist at Yale, School of Medicine, in Connecticut told DailyMail.com about the little known warning signs that appear on nails
Bruised nails are normally caused by injuries such as shutting your nail in a door. But in very rare cases the bruise does not disappear over time, indicating it may be cancer
Is your bruised nail a sign of cancer?
Many of us end up with bruises under our nails after shutting them in doors or dropping something on our feet.
But if you have one that does not go away, there is a slim chance that this may actually be cancer.
When skin cancer occurs under the nails — medically termed subungual melanoma — it creates a black or dark-colored spot that does not go away.
Dr Christine Ko, a dermatologist at Yale, School of Medicine, in Connecticut told DailyMail.com: ‘Usually people remember trauma causing bruises under the nails.
‘But if you don’t think you did anything to the nail and if the color is spreading under the nail, then that is a bad sign usually.
‘And then also as the nail grows out, a bruise under the nail will usually also grow out underneath the nail so you will see the normal color return near your cuticle as time passes.
‘But for a skin cancer melanoma, even as time passes there is no normal appearing nail color showing through.’
Skin cancers under the nail can also appear as a single dark streak across the nail — like a stripe — that does not disappear. Previously, patients have mistaken it for a strip of paint that they could not wash off.
Skin cancers under the nails are relatively rare, accounting for up to three percent of all skin cancer cases recorded annually in the US annually.
When found early it is highly treatable, but if left the cancer may lead to the digit needing to be amputated or spread to another area of the body.
Red streaks on nails could be early sign of life-threatening heart infection
Some people end up with red streaks on their nails, which look like faint red or brownish lines over part of the nail.
These are normally the result of injuries to the nails, such as hitting them hard against a work surface or into a door.
Red or brownish lines can also appear under nails, which dermatologists say may be warning signs of a heart infection
But they could also be the first warning sign of a life-threatening heart condition, called bacterial endocarditis, where microorganisms infect the heart valves.
Dr Lipner told DailyMail.com: ‘Systemic insults [issues affecting the entire body] can cause small little red to brown lines in the nail and bleeding from the capillaries in the nail bed.
‘This can be due to trauma, but it can also be a sign of a heart condition called bacterial endocarditis.
‘This is an infection in the heart.
‘If left untreated, it can certainly affect the nails. It is not uncommon for the nails to be the first clue.’
The infection happens when bacteria or other germs enter the bloodstream and travel to the heart.
They can then attack the heart valves and cause inflammation in the inner lining of the organ, leaving it less able to pump blood around the body.
Although the nail symptom may be missed, most patients will spot other routine warning signs.
These include chest pain while breathing, shortness of breath, and aching joints and muscles.
There are about 47,000 cases of endocarditis in the US every year, figures suggest.
Nail pitting, splintering or lifting could be an early warning sign of arthritis, dermatologists say. Psoriasis normally affects the skin, but in some cases can only affect nails
Pitted nails could be an early warning sign of arthritis
Pitting, lifting or splintering of nails is often thought to be down to a bacterial or fungal infection.
But dermatologists say in some cases this may also be an early warning sign of arthritis.
The skin can suffer from psoriasis, thought to be caused by the immune system triggering inflammation leading to dry and scaly skin.
Woman, 57, has little toe amputated after ‘black spot’ under nail turned out to be skin cancer
A 57-year-old woman from Texas had to have her little toe amputated after a ‘black spot’ under her nail turned out to be skin cancer.
Yvonne Basil, an executive assistant in Dallas, ignored the mark which was no bigger than a pencil eraser for months believing it was ‘a mole’.
But after the patch grew and a pedicurist raised concerns, she decided to use some leftover spending money to visit a clinic.
Doctors there diagnosed her with advanced acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) — a rare type of skin cancer — in the pinky toe on her right foot, and recommended it was removed before the cancer spread to other areas where it could prove fatal.
Basil said the diagnosis ‘totally took me by surprise’ because she believed being black meant the ‘sun can’t harm’ her skin.
ALM is a rare type of skin cancer, with about 2,000 cases diagnosed in the U.S. annually, but it is more common among people with dark skin.
Its cause is still a mystery to doctors — although the cancer differs from other melanomas because there is no link to sun exposure.
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But this can also spread to the nails, which are sometimes the only area affected.
Dr Lipner said: ‘Psoriasis is an inflammatory disease usually thought of as patients having red plaques on their knees and elbows.
‘But what people don’t know is that the nails can also be affected alone without the skin.
‘It is a very hard diagnosis for many physicians to make.
‘Often you will see these little indentations called pitting, lifting of the nail, crust under the nail, and splintering.
She added: ‘When you have nail psoriasis there is a great chance you also have joint disease, psoriatic arthritis that can hurt the joints, and alert you to arthritis that definitely needs to be treated properly.’
About 7.5million Americans have psoriasis, figures suggest, with up to 40 percent having nail changes.
For those that have changes in their nails, up to 80 percent also go on to develop arthritis.
In some cases, the nail changes can appear years before the arthritis, according to a study in the journal Reumatologia.
Lines? You could be washing your hands too often
Lines, or vertical ridges, on the nails which look a bit like tiny thin stripes are something that a lot of us notice later in life.
In fact, Dr Ko told DailyMail.com that this was one of the main reasons that patients come to her clinic.
But while the condition — known as onychorrhexis — is a natural sign of aging, it can also indicate too much hand washing or being overzealous with the hand sanitizer.
Dr Ko told DailyMail.com: ‘What is happening is the nail is growing irregularly along it, so thicker in some areas and thinner in others in an undulating pattern, [causing the ridges].
Ridges on nails could be a normal sign of aging, doctors say. But they could also be a sign of irritation caused by over-zealous washing
‘It is normally just an age-related change, around our late 40s or so.’
But she added they could also be a sign of washing the hands too much, with irritation to the nail surface from harsh soap leading to the ridges.
‘Using a lot of hand sanitizer gels will also cause nails to become more brittle and more ridged appearing, like happened with my own,’ she added.
Hand washing and sanitizers became a mainstay of many bars, restaurants and offices during the Covid pandemic, as people feared catching the virus.
They remain ubiquitous across many businesses today, but using them too often could pose a danger to hands.
Other symptoms of using them too much include excessive skin dryness, and removing healthy oils and bacteria that protect against infection — leaving the hand open for disease.
Having brittle nails that crack, chip or split easily may be a warning sign of a poor diet
Brittle nails may indicate a poor diet
As nails become more ridged they may also start to be more brittle, raising the likelihood that they will chip, split and peel.
While this can also be a sign of aging, experts say this can similarly be a sign of issues caused by a poor diet — such as an iron deficiency.
Dr Ko said: ‘A very poor diet, like anorexia or not eating anything, then that leads to brittle nails that don’t go well.
‘[But] in the western developed world with a reasonable diet there is generally not going to be that kind of effect on nails.’
He added: ‘To get around that I just ask people if they are pretty much eating well usually. I also tell them to take biotin and multivitamins if concerned, it will not harm them but will ensure they are getting enough.’
The American Osteopathic College of Dermatology (AOCD) says that brittle nails could also be a sign of a thyroid problem.
In this, the thyroid gland no longer produces enough of its hormone for the body prompting the symptoms most Americans notice including tiredness, sensitivity to the cold, weight gain, constipation and depression.
But the drop can also lead to slower nail growth and more brittle nails, the college said.
Having clubbed nails could be a warning sign of a lung problem
Clubbed nails could indicate a lung problem
Having nails that are clubbed could be a warning sign that the lungs or heart are not working properly, medics say.
The lack of oxygen in the blood supply or problems with circulation can lead to more blood collecting in the extremities of the body, such as the tips of the fingers.
This causes them to enlarge, and leads to finger nails curving over the sides of the digits — or clubbed nails.
The Mount Sinai medical system says lung cancer is the most common cause of clubbed fingernails.
But it can also be triggered by heart defects in the body, a lung infection like bronchitis or a lung abscess affecting the organ.
Many Americans with lung cancer or an infection, however, are likely to also notice the other symptoms.
These include coughing that gets worse over time, chest pain, shortness of breath and coughing up blood.
Nail clubbing, although a symptom, occurs in only about five to 15 percent of people who have lung cancer, according to a study in the National Library of Medicine.
About one in 16 Americans are diagnosed with lung cancer in their lifetime, with approximately 130,000 people dying from the disease annually.
What do your fingernails say about you? Key signs can reveal clues to your overall health
We may often look past our bruised, ridged or pitted nails.
But these can be warning signs of severe conditions, including arthritis, inflammation and, in extreme cases, cancer.
DailyMail.com spoke to two dermatologists about the clues in your fingernails that might not be so innocuous.
Dr Shari Lipner, from Cornell University in New York City, said nails can be a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for a severe issue in the body.
She said: ‘It is essential for people to self-examine their nails about once a month, in addition to relying on dermatologists.’
The above graphic highlights six of the nail changes that could indicate a serious problem in the body. They include red streaks suggesting a heart infection, bruises that may actually be cancer, and pitting in nails that could warn of someone suffering arthritis in the future
Dr Shari Lipner, a top dermatologist at Cornell University in New York City, and Dr Christine Ko, a dermatologist at Yale, School of Medicine, in Connecticut told DailyMail.com about the little-known warning signs that appear on nails
Bruised nails are normally caused by injuries such as shutting your nail in a door. But in very rare cases the bruise does not disappear over time, indicating it may be cancer
Is your bruised nail a sign of cancer?
Many of us end up with bruises under our nails and think nothing of it.
But if you have one that does not go away, there is a very slim chance it’s a sign of cancer.
When skin cancer occurs under the nails — medically termed subungual melanoma — it creates a black or dark-colored spot that does not go away.
Dr Christine Ko, a dermatologist at Yale, School of Medicine, in Connecticut, told DailyMail.com: ‘Usually people remember trauma causing bruises under the nails.
‘But if you don’t think you did anything to the nail and if the color is spreading under the nail, then that is a bad sign usually.
‘And then also as the nail grows out, a bruise under the nail will usually also grow out underneath the nail so you will see the normal color return near your cuticle as time passes.
‘But for a skin cancer melanoma, even as time passes there is no normal-appearing nail color showing through.’
Skin cancers under the nail can also appear as a single dark streak across the nail — like a stripe — that does not disappear. Patients sometimes mistake these marks for a strip of paint or ink mark.
Skin cancers under the nails are relatively rare, accounting for up to three percent of all skin cancer cases recorded annually in the US annually.
When found early, they are highly treatable.
Red or brownish lines can also appear under nails, which dermatologists say may be warning signs of a heart infection
Red streaks could be early sign of heart infection
Some people end up with red streaks on their nails, which look like faint red or brownish lines over part of the nail.
These are normally the result of injuries to the nails, but they are worth keeping an eye on.
Doctors warn the marks could be the first warning sign of a life-threatening heart condition called bacterial endocarditis, where microorganisms infect the heart valves.
Dr Lipner told DailyMail.com: ‘Systemic insults [issues affecting the entire body] can cause small little red to brown lines in the nail and bleeding from the capillaries in the nail bed.
‘This can be due to trauma, but it can also be a sign of a heart condition called bacterial endocarditis.
‘This is an infection in the heart.
‘If left untreated, it can certainly affect the nails. It is not uncommon for the nails to be the first clue.’
The infection happens when bacteria or other germs enter the bloodstream and travel to the heart.
They can then attack the heart valves and cause inflammation in the inner lining of the organ, leaving it less able to pump blood around the body.
Although the nail symptom may be missed, most patients will spot other routine warning signs.
These include chest pain while breathing, shortness of breath, and aching joints and muscles.
Figures suggest that there are about 47,000 cases of endocarditis in the US every year.
Nail pitting, splintering or lifting could be an early warning sign of arthritis, dermatologists say. Psoriasis normally affects the skin, but in some cases can only affect nails
Pitted nails linked to arthritis
Pitting, lifting or splintering of nails is often thought to be down to a bacterial or fungal infection.
But dermatologists say in some cases this may also be an early warning sign of arthritis.
The skin can suffer from psoriasis, thought to be caused by the immune system triggering inflammation leading to dry and scaly skin.
About 40 percent of people with psoriasis also have arthritis, rising to 80 percent when psoriasis reaches the nails.
Dr Lipner said: ‘Psoriasis is an inflammatory disease usually thought of as patients having red plaques on their knees and elbows.
‘But what people don’t know is that the nails can also be affected alone without the skin.
‘It is a very hard diagnosis for many physicians to make.
‘Often you will see these little indentations called pitting, lifting of the nail, crust under the nail, and splintering.
She added: ‘When you have nail psoriasis there is a great chance you also have joint disease, psoriatic arthritis that can hurt the joints, and alert you to arthritis that definitely needs to be treated properly.’
About 7.5million Americans have psoriasis.
In some cases, the nail changes can appear years before the arthritis, according to a study in the journal Reumatologia.
Ridges on nails could be a normal sign of aging, doctors say. But they could also be a sign of irritation caused by over-zealous washing
Lines? You could be washing your hands too often
Lines, or vertical ridges, on the nails, which look a bit like tiny thin stripes, are something that a lot of us notice later in life.
In fact, Dr Ko told DailyMail.com that this was one of the main reasons that patients come to her clinic.
But while the condition — known as onychorrhexis — is a natural sign of aging, it can also indicate too much hand washing or being overzealous with hand sanitizer.
Overwashing can cause excessive skin dryness and removes healthy oils and bacteria that protect against infection.
Dr Ko told DailyMail.com: ‘What is happening is the nail is growing irregularly along it, so thicker in some areas and thinner in others in an undulating pattern, [causing the ridges].
‘It is normally just an age-related change, around our late 40s or so.’
But she added they could also be a sign of washing the hands too much, with irritation to the nail surface from harsh soap leading to the ridges.
‘Using a lot of hand sanitizer gels will also cause nails to become more brittle and more ridged appearing, like happened with my own,’ she added.
Hand washing and sanitizers became a mainstay of many bars, restaurants and offices during the Covid pandemic, as people feared catching the virus.
They remain ubiquitous across many businesses today, but using them too often could pose a danger to hands.
Having brittle nails that crack, chip or split easily may be a warning sign of a poor diet
Brittle nails indicate a poor diet
As nails become more ridged, they may also become more brittle, raising the likelihood that they will chip, split and peel.
Experts say this can similarly be a sign of issues caused by a poor diet — such as an iron deficiency.
Dr Ko said: ‘A very poor diet, like anorexia or not eating anything, then that leads to brittle nails that don’t go well.
‘[But] in the western developed world with a reasonable diet there is generally not going to be that kind of effect on nails.’
He added: ‘To get around that I just ask people if they are pretty much eating well usually.
‘I also tell them to take biotin and multivitamins if concerned, it will not harm them but will ensure they are getting enough.’
The American Osteopathic College of Dermatology (AOCD) says that brittle nails could also be a sign of a thyroid problem.
In this, the thyroid gland no longer produces enough of its hormone for the body prompting the symptoms most Americans notice, including tiredness, sensitivity to the cold, weight gain, constipation and depression.
But the drop can also lead to slower nail growth and more brittle nails, the college said.
Having clubbed nails could be a warning sign of a lung problem
Clubbed nails could indicate a lung problem
Medics say that having clubbed nails could be a warning sign that the lungs or heart are not working properly.
The lack of oxygen in the blood supply or problems with circulation can lead to more blood collecting in the body’s extremities, such as the tips of the fingers.
This causes them to enlarge and leads to fingernails curving over the sides of the digits — or clubbed nails.
The Mount Sinai medical system says lung cancer is the most common cause of clubbed fingernails.
But it can also be triggered by heart defects in the body, a lung infection like bronchitis or a lung abscess affecting the organ.
Many Americans with lung cancer or an infection, however, are likely to also notice the other symptoms.
These include coughing that gets worse over time, chest pain, shortness of breath and coughing up blood.
Nail clubbing, although a symptom, occurs in only about five to 15 percent of people who have lung cancer, according to a study in the National Library of Medicine.
About one in 16 Americans are diagnosed with lung cancer in their lifetime, with approximately 130,000 people dying from the disease annually.
Intel’s 13th-Gen Announcements Give Us 5 Clues About Future Laptops
Welcome to CES, where Intel routinely drops a boatload of new processors. Periodically, we’ll also see some important capability upgrades to go with them as well. 2023 is one of the lower-key years, and after plowing through the details surrounding all 40-plus new choices, I’ve concluded that Intel’s latest 13th-gen announcements can be pretty much summed up in five key points.
Read more: CES 2023 Live Blog: LG Shows Off First Wireless OLED TV, Fridge With LED Doors
Only a few laptop CPUs promise significant speed gains
That’s because the Core i9-13980HX, i9-13950HX, i9-13900HX and i7-13850HX — the premium CPUs intended for gaming and CPU-intensive graphics (like rendering) — have double the efficient cores (E cores) to hit a total of up to 24 cores and support faster DDR5 memory than 12th-gen offerings. The rest just have tweaks and optimizations, which allow for a gentle bump in clock speeds and battery life. For Chromebooks, the Core i3 N series updates to the latest hybrid P core/E core architecture, which means you may experience notable performance improvements in higher end Chromebooks as well.
You’ll be able to overclock with any of the HX processors, which you were previously only able to do with the HK versions. All SKUs shown support CPU, GPU, and memory overclocking. Intel’s Iris Xe integrated graphics will also be able to take advantage of a new Endurance Gaming setting, intended to extend battery life while gaming. It does this by kicking in Intel’s XeSS upscaling and capping the frame rate at 30fps, for all your desperation gaming needs.
The company highlighted laptops from the usual suspects — Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Asus and Razer — as partners for 13th-gen HX series laptops.
You’ll likely see a quick jump to 13th-gen based offerings
The new laptop CPUs and supporting chipsets can generally drop right into the existing motherboards and have the same power and cooling requirements. It’s always a faster manufacturing switchover when companies don’t need to significantly redesign the hardware.
Intel
Desktops toddle on
Intel launched its flagship 13th-gen desktop CPUs in September, leaving the mainstream, low power (for all-in-ones and other compact desktops) and inexpensive chips for CES, as it usually does. They’re not terribly interesting, since they, too tend to be variations on last year’s theme. One bright spot is that Intel’s bringing Bluetooth LE audio to desktops via motherboards which use its Killer Wireless modules.
Read more: Best Desktop PCs
Evo expands beyond Intel graphics
Intel’s Evo program is its marketing imprimatur for laptops which meet specific criteria that highlights all the wunnerful things you can get when you put Intel inside. These types of programs — AMD Advantage is another — usually require that the laptops incorporate all the latest and greatest hardware the sponsoring company makes. So it’s notable that Intel now allows laptops with third-party discrete graphics (in other words, Nvidia and AMD) to qualify, in addition to its own Arc graphics. Also, with noting: Of the laptops launching at CES, I don’t remember any incorporating Intel Arc discrete graphics that I heard about prior to the show.
Previously announced features will begin to roll out
The 13th-gen Core chips support the current 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 data transfer technology, as did the 12th-gen processors, but with some improvements on the laptop processors that aren’t on the desktop equivalents. First, they support DisplayPort 2.1 video for running dual 4K monitors at 60 frames per second, and second, their USB speeds are doubled to 20Gbps. (The latest version of that technology, USB 4, will reach 80Gbps and 120Gbps in some conditions when it arrives as soon as this year.)
Other features include Intel’s Unison, which lets iPhone or Android devices send and receive texts, view and transfer photos, videos and files and more with your PC or laptop. We’ll also see the Engineered for Evo compatibility program expanding to Bluetooth mice, keyboards and Wi-Fi access points, and Intel’s addition of Bluetooth LE Audio (for better, less battery sucking headphone operation) to its Killer Wireless modules. Some laptops will also start to incorporate Intel’s Movidius vision processing unit, which Windows can use for improving videoconferencing experiences.
You can expect a lot more laptop, desktop and component PC news at CES 2023, much of it built around these Intel chip announcements.
The best laptops in every category
Newly Identified Neuromarker Reveals Clues About Drug and Food Craving
Summary: Researchers have identified neural biomarkers associated with food and drug cravings. The findings could help pave the way for new treatments for addiction.
Source: Yale
Craving is known to be a key factor in substance use disorders and can increase the likelihood of future drug use or relapse. Yet its neural basis—or, how the brain gives rise to craving—is not well understood.
In a new study, researchers from Yale, Dartmouth, and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) have identified a stable brain pattern, or neuromarker, for drug and food craving. Their findings were published in Nature Neuroscience.
The discovery may be an important step toward understanding the brain basis of craving, addiction as a brain disorder, and how to better treat addiction in the future, researchers say. Importantly, this neuromarker may also be used to differentiate drug users from non-users, making it not only a neuromarker for craving, but also a potential neuromarker that may one day be used in diagnosis of substance use disorders.
For many diseases there are biological markers that doctors can use to diagnose and treat patients. To diagnose diabetes, for example, physicians test a blood marker called A1C.
“One benefit of having a stable biological indicator for a disease is that you can then give the test to any person and say that they do or do not have that disease,” said Hedy Kober, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and an author of the study. “And we don’t have that for psychopathology and certainly not for addiction.”
To determine if such a marker could be established for craving, Kober and her colleagues—Leonie Koban from CRNS and Tor Wager from Dartmouth College—used a machine learning algorithm. Their idea was that if many individuals experiencing similar levels of craving share a pattern of brain activity, then a machine learning algorithm might be able to detect that pattern and use it to predict craving levels based on brain images.
For the study, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data—which offer insight into brain activity—and self-reported assessments of craving from 99 people to train and test the machine learning algorithm.
The fMRI data was collected while the individuals—who identified themselves as either drug users or non-users—viewed images of drugs and highly palatable food. The participants then rated how strongly they craved the items they saw.
The algorithm identified a pattern of brain activity that could be used to predict the intensity of drug and food craving from fMRI images alone, the researchers said.
The pattern they observed—which they dubbed “Neurobiological Craving Signature (NCS)”—includes activity in several brain areas, some of which previous studies have linked to substance use and craving.
However, the NCS also provides a new level of detail, showing how neural activity within subregions of these brain areas can predict craving.
“It gives us a really granular understanding of how these regions interact with and predict the subjective experience of craving,” said Kober.
The NCS also revealed that brain responses to both drug and food cues were similar, suggesting that drug craving arises from the same neural systems that generate food craving. Importantly, the marker was able to differentiate drug users from non-users based on their brain responses to drug cues, but not to food cues.
“And these findings are not specific to one substance because we included participants who used cocaine, alcohol, and cigarettes, and the NCS predicts craving across all of them,” said Kober. “So, it’s really a biomarker for craving and addiction. There’s something common across all of these substance use disorders that is captured in a moment of craving.”
Wager also points out that emotional and motivational processes that might seem similar actually involve different brain pathways and can be measured in different ways.
“What we’re seeing here is likely not a general signature for ‘reward,’” he said, “but something more selective for craving food and drugs.”
In addition, the NCS also offers a novel brain target to better understand how food and drug craving might be influenced by context or by emotional states. “For example,” said Koban, “we can use the NCS in future studies to measure how stress or negative emotions increase the urge to use drugs or to indulge in our favorite chocolate.”
Kober notes that while the NCS is promising, it needs further validation and is not yet ready for clinical use. That is likely a few years down the road. Now, she—along with her team and collaborators—are working to understand this network of brain regions more deeply and see if the NCS can predict how those with substance use disorders will respond to treatment.
That, she said, would make this neuromarker a powerful tool for informing treatment strategies.
“Our hope,” said Kober, “is that the brain, and specifically the NCS as a stable biological indicator, might allow us to not only to identify who has a substance use disorder and to understand the variance in people’s outcomes, but also who will respond to particular treatments.”
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About this addiction research news
Author: Press Office
Source: Yale
Contact: Press Office – Yale
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“A neuromarker for drug and food craving distinguishes drug users from non-users” by Hedy Kober et al. Nature Neuroscience
Abstract
A neuromarker for drug and food craving distinguishes drug users from non-users
Craving is a core feature of substance use disorders. It is a strong predictor of substance use and relapse and is linked to overeating, gambling, and other maladaptive behaviors.
Craving is measured via self-report, which is limited by introspective access and sociocultural contexts. Neurobiological markers of craving are both needed and lacking, and it remains unclear whether craving for drugs and food involve similar mechanisms.
Across three functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (n = 99), we used machine learning to identify a cross-validated neuromarker that predicts self-reported intensity of cue-induced drug and food craving (P < 0.0002).
This pattern, which we term the Neurobiological Craving Signature (NCS), includes ventromedial prefrontal and cingulate cortices, ventral striatum, temporal/parietal association areas, mediodorsal thalamus and cerebellum.
Importantly, NCS responses to drug versus food cues discriminate drug users versus non-users with 82% accuracy. The NCS is also modulated by a self-regulation strategy. Transfer between separate neuromarkers for drug and food craving suggests shared neurobiological mechanisms.
Future studies can assess the discriminant and convergent validity of the NCS and test whether it responds to clinical interventions and predicts long-term clinical outcomes.
How will Brittney Griner face readjust to life here? Former detainees offer clues.
“When you’re watching these things play out and time drags on, you know exactly how that feels,” said Buchanan, 43, who lives in Alexandria, Va. After a person’s release, she added, “what happens is everyone thinks that everything’s going to be fine from now on, because you got through it; you survived. It’s the honeymoon phase. What sets in is what I call ‘surviving survival.’”
The experience of Griner, a celebrity whose arrest for cannabis possession became a high-profile geopolitical standoff, is different from those of many other Americans wrongfully imprisoned or held hostage abroad. But no matter the circumstances, she is now a member of a small club nobody wants to join, former detainees say, bound by the common experience of stolen freedom and an often turbulent reacquaintance with it.
As this unusual society has grown, some of its members have formed advocacy organizations supporting hostages and their families. Some have become foreign policy activists. Some retreat from the public eye. Some rely on each other privately.
“What links us all together is having your freedom and human rights taken away from you in an instant,” said Sam Goodwin, who was imprisoned in Syria for two months in 2019 and has found fellowship with other former hostages.
Goodwin, 34, had lunch recently with Buchanan, whom he considers a friend. He also met in Washington this month with Jorge Toledo, one of six Americans and a permanent U.S. resident released from imprisonment in Venezuela in October.
Goodwin was arrested by Syrian forces while near the end of a quest to visit every country in the world — Syria was No. 181 of 193. He spent one month in solitary confinement and was dragged to court four times, he said. He had no idea anyone was helping him until, 62 days later, Lebanese intermediaries helped secured his release and he was taken to Beirut — and confronted with his elated parents and a sea of cameras.
A day later, Goodwin was back in his childhood bedroom in St. Louis. High school friends, who had seen him on the news, stopped by. The sight of trees delighted him after two months of seeing little but concrete. The presence of his four siblings and parents comforted him.
Captivity deepened his perseverance and gratitude, Goodwin said, and gave him a new life focus: He is now a doctoral student studying the Syrian conflict at Johns Hopkins University and is affiliated with the nonprofit Hostage Aid Worldwide. He doesn’t lead with his arrest in Syria on a first date. But it pours out when meeting other hostages.
“I feel totally comfortable asking them any questions, because I’m coming at it from a place of having a similar experience: ‘Hey, I get it, I’m just curious: What was your food like?’” Goodwin said. “I get that question a lot, but I ask it coming from a different place.”
“What unites us is that we have a place to take our stories,” Buchanan said. “And we’re not freaks to each other.”
Reentry was different for Buchanan, who was rescued by Navy SEALs. In poor health after months sleeping in the desert without her prescription medication, she initially spent time at a military hospital in Italy, participating in a Defense Department reintroduction program that she said “incrementalized” the process. She saw her husband for an hour on her first day of freedom, and just a bit longer the second, in a protocol to avoid overwhelming her.
Soon that support ended, and Buchanan was in Portland, Ore., where her immediate family had rented a house to escape the media masses. Furniture felt great — she remembers turning down a walk just to savor sitting in a chair. She was also seized with urges to run along a river, though she’d never been a runner, captivated by the Pacific Northwest beauty.
Then Buchanan unexpectedly became pregnant, a difficult experience that made her again feel hostage — this time, to her body and pregnancy-related sickness. Anxiety took over her life. She and her husband returned to their work in Nairobi, but she did not feel she could continue.
A decade later, Buchanan is a public speaker, podcaster, publisher and a volunteer with the organization Hostage US. She still thinks daily about her captivity, which she said forced her to rebuild her identity.
“To a lot of us who this happens to, we would all say the same thing: You’re in these places because you’re doing something or working in something you really love,” she said. “And now you don’t have that, so who are you?”
Toledo, 61, is at the beginning of that process. He spent nearly five years in captivity in Venezuela as one of the “Citgo six” — a group of oil and gas executives wrongfully imprisoned by the Nicolás Maduro regime in 2017.
When five of them were released in October as part of a prisoner exchange, they flew to a military base in San Antonio where they reunited with their families out of the public eye. Like Buchanan, Toledo spent 10 days in a military program designed to help detainees adapt, something he said was invaluable.
Toledo, an avid runner before his detention, used to visualize runs during his years in prison. At the base, he rose early and logged just one kilometer before his legs felt weak. But being outdoors, breathing fresh air and seeing the sunrise was almost indescribable. “It was a transition from dreaming into reality,” he said. “Sometimes you ask yourself: ‘Is this for real or is it another dream?’”
When he returned home to a Houston suburb, daily tasks were a source of stress. Driving for the first time “felt like jumping with a parachute,” he said. Making paella, once a relaxing ritual he carried out by memory, felt like a challenge that stirred feelings of insecurity. He finds himself using humor to avoid depressing others, joking to friends that prison had changed him by teaching him new skills: cleaning toilets, washing clothes, doing dishes.
Although he has been free only two months, Toledo said he has decided to begin advocating for other hostages. He has spoken with families of Americans being held in Iran and China and met with other former hostages and detainees, including Goodwin. He hopes Griner, too, will go through a reentry program.
“Investing these few days of your life is going to make this transition better,” he said.
Joshua Fattal, one of three Americans detained by Iranian border guards while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border in 2009, describes his return after more than two years in Iran’s notorious Evin prison in categories.
Fattal said he had to get used to not being imprisoned — he recalls locking himself out of his apartment, because “I hadn’t had to deal with keys for years — everyone else had the keys.” He had to adjust to being in his home country, where for some time he expected strangers to speak a foreign language. Then there was the media spectacle and the realization that his harrowing personal experience had been swept up in large political narratives.
Fattal, 40, stayed connected with his fellow prisoners, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, and found some healing through writing a book with them. That allowed him to categorize his experiences as “stories” — the time he played volleyball with a guard, the day he was sentenced to eight years in prison, he said.
More recently, he said, he has been able to revisit the feelings underlying those stories, with the help of psychedelic-assisted therapy, “in a safe and meaningful way.”
Fattal, now the executive director of the Center for Rural Livelihoods in Oregon, said that although he doesn’t actively associate with other former hostages, he feels kinship with others who have been imprisoned.
Although millions of people are incarcerated in the United States, “it’s just such an unknown to middle-class, mainstream America,” said Fattal, who recently met a man who had been released from an American prison. “I don’t know his experience, but I know it’s a real thing that every day is different. … You can’t just sum it up as one thing.”
Alex Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh have offered occasional glimpses into their experience. The two Alabama veterans volunteered to fight in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. Their unit was ambushed on their first mission in eastern Ukraine, they previously told The Washington Post. Russian forces held them for 104 days, until their release in a prisoner exchange in September.
The men grew close in captivity. But they have approached their return in different ways, said Dianna Shaw, Drueke’s aunt, who serves as a spokesperson for both.
Huynh has sprinted toward normalcy. The 27-year-old is deep in wedding planning and got a job at the Walmart where his fiancee works, Shaw said, as the couple fixes up the home they will share. He is thinking about finishing his college degree.
Drueke, 40, who used to live in a trailer on family land with his dog, Diesel, now has found more comfort staying at his mother’s house, Shaw said, as he wrestles with irregular sleep and an overactive mind. Never one for fruit, he now eats it often, Shaw said, craving the vitamins he did not get on a diet of moldy bread and occasional meat stew.
Drueke, searching for ways to pivot his experience into something tangible and positive, has met with U.S. military officials. He wants to help them better understand of how prisoners of war are treated, which could inform training. But both men, who suffered abuse and malnourishment at the hands of their captors, struggle with fatigue and irritability, Shaw said.
The lessons of a long and twisting road back home may be instructive for Griner, Shaw said, as another family learns to cope with a new normal.
“You have limitations, and you got to give yourself grace,” she said.
Goodwin said he has little doubt that Griner’s reentry — with all the resources at her disposal — will probably be wholly distinct from his. But he has realized through connections with other former prisoners that many elements are likely to be the same.
“There’s this high when you come home, but how do you deal with it for the rest of your life?” Goodwin said. For him, he said, “the network really helps.”
A newly unsealed affidavit details the clues that led investigators to the suspect in Delphi teen girl killings
CNN
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A .40 caliber unspent round that was found near the bodies of two teen Indiana girls was tied to suspect Richard Allen, who was arrested last month in connection with the killings, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The affidavit, unsealed by a judge on Tuesday, helps shed light on how investigators narrowed in on Allen and arrested him more than five years since the February 2017 slayings of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14. Allen is charged with two counts of murder and has pleaded not guilty.
The two girls went for a hike along Delphi Historic Trails in February of that year but never showed up at a previously arranged time to meet Libby’s dad, police previously said. Their bodies were found the next day in a wooded area near the trail, about a half mile from the Monon High Bridge where they’d been dropped off, according to authorities.
A grainy video of a man walking and a garbled voice recording were among the scant clues authorities publicized over the years.
Investigators believe the evidence they gathered shows that Allen is the man seen on a video from Liberty’s phone who forced the girls down a hill and that he led them to the location they were killed, according to the affidavit.
Among that evidence are interviews with witnesses who were at the area the teens set out to hike in during a day off from school on February 13, 2017, as well as the video from Libby’s phone. The video shows a man in a dark jacket and jeans walking behind the girls and then telling them, “Guys, down the hill,” according to the affidavit.
The two girls were dropped off in the area just before 1:50 p.m. that day, the affidavit says. The video shows they encountered the man at the Monon High Bridge at 2:13 p.m.
A witness told investigators she had seen a man heading away from that bridge later “wearing a blue colored jacket and blue jeans and was muddy and bloody,” and appeared to have gotten in a fight, the affidavit says. The man was traveling on a road adjacent to the crime scene, and investigators were able to determine that took place shortly before 4 p.m.
Another witness told investigators she noticed an oddly parked vehicle at an old Child Protective Services building. A tip that came in to investigators had also referenced a vehicle parked at that building that “appeared as though it was backed in as to conceal the license plate.” Investigators believe the description of that vehicle matched one of two vehicles that Allen owned in 2017, the affidavit says.
When Allen spoke with an officer in 2017, he admitted he was on the trail for roughly two hours, the affidavit says. In a subsequent interview in October 2022, Allen told authorities he had gone out there to “watch fish,” that he was wearing jeans and a black or blue jacket and also said he owns firearms which were at his home, according to the affidavit.
“On October 13th, 2022, Investigators executed a search warrant of Richard Allen ‘s residence,” the affidavit says. “Among other items, officers located jackets, boots, knives and firearms, including a Sig Sauer, Model P226, .40 caliber pistol with serial number U 625 627.”
According to the document, investigators found a .40 caliber unspent round less than two feet away from one of the bodies, and between the two victims.
Lab results confirmed the unspent round had been cycled through Allen’s Sig Sauer, the affidavit says. When Allen was questioned about that result, he denied knowing their victims or having any involvement in their killings, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit does not make any reference to any other participants in the girls’ killings, despite Carroll County Prosecutor Nick McLeland recently saying in court that he had “good reason to believe that Richard Allen is not the only actor in this heinous crime.”