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U.S. FAA says flight personnel alert system not processing updates after outage
Billy Nolen, acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), speaks during the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Aerospace Summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Sept 15, 2022.
Valerie Plesch | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) system that alerts pilots and other flight personnel about hazards or any changes to airport facility services and relevant procedures was not processing updated information, the civil aviation regulator’s website showed on Wednesday.
In an advisory, the FAA said its NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system had “failed”. There was no immediate estimate for when it would be back, the website showed, though NOTAMs issued before the outage were still viewable.
Over 400 flights were delayed within, into, or out of the United States as of Wednesday 5.31 am ET, flight tracking website FlightAware showed. It was not immediately clear if the outage was a factor.
“Technicians are currently working to restore the system,” the website showed. The FAA was not immediately available for further comment.
A NOTAM is a notice containing information essential to personnel concerned with flight operations, but not known far enough in advance to be publicized by other means.
Information can go up to 200 pages for long-haul international flights and may include items such as runway closures, general bird hazard warnings, or low-altitude construction obstacles.
Highly ruminative individuals with depression exhibit abnormalities in the neural processing of gastric interoception
Major depressive disorder is associated with altered interoception — or the ability to sense the internal state of your body. Now, new brain imaging research provides evidence that depressed individuals tend to exhibit “faulty” neural processing of gastric interoception, particularly among those with high levels of rumination. The findings have been published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
“Repetitive negative thinking (RNT), usually referred to as ‘rumination’ in persons who suffer from depression, is a very significant clinical problem,” explained study author Salvador M. Guinjoan, a principal investigator at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research and associate professor at Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center at Tulsa.
“The reason is that when it is severe and persistent, RNT conditions higher chances of depression relapse and is associated with residual symptoms after treatment, is more common in persons who do not respond to treatment, and is even related to suicide. This particular communication refers to one among a series of projects in our lab attempting to understand rumination.”
“In a previous communication, we reported on the fact that high rumination is associated with poor emotional learning abilities,” Guinjoan said. “And one possible mechanism for this to happen was that interoceptive feedback (i.e., information from the body conveying emotion) was faulty in persons with depression.”
The study included 48 depressed individuals who scored high on the Ruminative Responses Scale and 49 depressed individuals who scored low on the scale. People who score high on the scale report that they frequently engage in various types of rumination, such as thinking about their shortcomings, thinking about how alone they feel, and thinking “Why do I always react this way?” The researchers also recruited 27 healthy volunteers, who served as a control group.
To assess the neural correlates of interoceptive awareness, the participants were instructed to selectively attend to the sensations originating from their heart and stomach while the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging technology to monitor their brain activity.
Compared to controls, depressed individuals exhibited reduced central processing of stomach interoceptive information in several brain regions, including the left medial frontal region and insular cortex, perirhinal cortex, and caudate nucleus. This was true regardless of rumination levels.
Depressed individuals with high rumination levels, however, additionally exhibited reduced processing of stomach sensations in the hippocampus, amygdala, and entorhinal cortex. These brain regions play a key role in memory, emotional information processing, and perception.
“We observed that persons with depression have a problem with the central processing of interoceptive information that originated specifically in the gut, in relation to having a greater tendency to ruminate,” Guinjoan told PsyPost. “We hypothesize that in this setting, the interoceptive information provides an insufficient, or faulty, feedback onto the perception and learning of emotions, and this might in turn impede that the highly ruminative person with depression stops his/her repetitive, negatively-laden thoughts.”
The researchers were surprised to find that abnormalities in the neural processing of interoception were limited to the stomach.
“We somehow expected interoceptive abnormalities were going to be more marked in the heart territory,” Guinjoan explained. “But it turned out that interoception from the stomach was more compromised. Looking back, this makes sense as so many people with depression actually present with symptoms referred to the abdomen, including patients who see a primary care doctor or a gastroenterologist because of their abdominal complaints. On the other hand, persons with anxiety seem to focus more on the cardiovascular system.”
The study, “Attenuated interoceptive processing in individuals with major depressive disorder and high repetitive negative thinking“, was authored ny Heekyeong Park, Stella M. Sanchez, Rayus Kuplicki, Aki Tsuchiyagaito, Sahib S. Khalsa, Martin P. Paulus, and Salvador M. Guinjoan.
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Individuals With Schizophrenia and Social Anhedonia Show Altered Neural Processing for Social Reward Anticipation
Summary: People with schizophrenia and social anhedonia exhibit altered neural processing for social reward processing, leading to impaired social interaction and social dysfunction.
Source: Chinese Academy of Science
Patients with schizophrenia and individuals with social anhedonia have been shown to exhibit impaired social reward processing that ultimately leads to impaired social interaction and social dysfunctions.
However, most of the previous studies on social reward anticipation in schizophrenia spectrum disorders were limited to behavioral design. It remains unclear whether the putative neural processing for social reward anticipation has been altered in both individuals with schizophrenia and individuals with social anhedonia.
Recently, a research team led by Dr. Raymond Chan from the Institute of Psychology (IP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have conducted a study to specifically examine the underlying neural mechanisms of social reward anticipation in these populations.
The study was published in European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience on Oct. 28.
The researchers recruited 23 individuals with schizophrenia and 17 healthy controls, as well as 37 individuals with social anhedonia and 50 healthy controls to complete the social incentive delay imaging task while they were undertaking MRI brain scans.
They found that individuals with schizophrenia exhibited hypo-activation of the left medial frontal gyrus and the negative functional connectivities (FCs) with the left parietal regions.
However, individuals with social anhedonia exhibited the hyper-activation of the left middle frontal gyrus when anticipating social reward.
Moreover, individuals with schizophrenia showed strengthened cerebellum-temporal FCs, whilst social anhedonia individuals showed strengthened FCs in left frontal regions.
These findings suggest that both individuals with schizophrenia and with social anhedonia exhibit altered neural processing for social reward anticipation, and such neural activities show a weakened association with real-life social network characteristics.
The study advances our understanding on the neural underpinnings of social motivation in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
About this mental health research news
Author: Li Yuan
Source: Chinese Academy of Science
Contact: Li Yuan – Chinese Academy of Science
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Closed access.
“Altered neural mechanism of social reward anticipation in individuals with schizophrenia and social anhedonia” by Yi-jing Zhang et al. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Abstract
Altered neural mechanism of social reward anticipation in individuals with schizophrenia and social anhedonia
See also
Altered social reward anticipation could be found in schizophrenia (SCZ) patients and individuals with high levels of social anhedonia (SA).
However, few research investigated the putative neural processing for altered social reward anticipation in these populations on the SCZ spectrum.
This study aimed to examine the underlying neural mechanisms of social reward anticipation in these populations.
Twenty-three SCZ patients and 17 healthy controls (HC), 37 SA individuals and 50 respective HCs completed the Social Incentive Delay (SID) imaging task while they were undertaking MRI brain scans.
We used the group contrast to examine the alterations of BOLD activation and functional connectivity (FC, psychophysiological interactions analysis). We then characterized the beta-series social brain network (SBN) based on the meta-analysis results from NeuroSynth and examined their prediction effects on real-life social network (SN) characteristics using the partial least squared regression analysis.
The results showed that SCZ patients exhibited hypo-activation of the left medial frontal gyrus and the negative FCs with the left parietal regions, while individuals with SA showed the hyper-activation of the left middle frontal gyrus when anticipating social reward. For the beta-series SBNs, SCZ patients had strengthened cerebellum-temporal FCs, while SA individuals had strengthened left frontal regions FCs. However, such FCs of the SBN failed to predict the real-life SN characteristics.
These preliminary findings suggested that SCZ patients and SA individuals appear to exhibit altered neural processing for social reward anticipation, and such neural activities showed a weakened association with real-life SN characteristics.
Doctor: Fetterman has ‘auditory processing disorder’ symptoms, but no work limits
Fetterman and his aides have often mentioned this condition. He has relied on closed-captioning in interviews with the press and will do so again during a debate next week against Republican nominee Mehmet Oz.
The Democratic nominee’s “hearing of sound such as music is not affected. His communication is significantly improved compared to his first visit assisted by speech therapy, which he has attended on a regular basis since the stroke,” writes Chen. Fetterman has acknowledged that he sometimes stumbles over his words.
The letter marks the most detailed information Fetterman’s campaign has provided from a doctor since an early June letter explaining that surgery conducted 17 days earlier to install a defibrillator was to treat a previously undisclosed diagnosis of cardiomyopathy, and not for atrial fibrillation as the campaign originally claimed.
Chen writes that Fetterman’s vital signs, such blood pressure, heart rate and pulse oximetry, were normal. All of his bloodwork, including cholesterol and liver function, were also normal, Chen writes. Fetterman has no strength or coordination difficulties or cognitive impairments. His remaining issue, Chen writes, is auditory processing.
Oz has attacked Fetterman for not releasing more detailed medical records or making his doctors available for interviews with the press.
Chen writes that he’s consulted with Fetterman’s neurologist and cardiologist. Fetterman takes “appropriate medications to optimize his heart condition and prevent future strokes.” Fetterman is “well and shows strong commitment to maintaining good fitness and health practices. He has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office,” Chen writes.
Fetterman won the Democratic nomination days after his May stroke without fully disclosing the extent of his physical condition. He revealed more than two weeks later that he had been diagnosed in 2017 with cardiomyopathy that decreased the amount of blood his heart could pump and had failed to take his medications and follow up with a doctor.
Oz has released three letters written by his doctor from this year and recent years that describe his health as “excellent.”
Behrmann Meat and Processing Inc. Recalls Various Ready-to-Eat Meat Products Due to Possible Listeria Contamination
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2022 – Behrmann Meat and Processing Inc., an Albers, Ill. establishment, is recalling approximately 87,382 pounds of various ready-to-eat (RTE) meat products that may be adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. FSIS expects there to be additional product labels added in the near future and urges consumers to check back frequently to view updated labels.
The various RTE meat items were produced from July 7, 2022, to Sept. 9, 2022. The list of products and product codes for the RTE meat products that are subject to recall can be found here and includes all package sizes for all products with the affected lot codes. Available labels for the RTE meat products can be found here.
The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST 20917” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These items were shipped to retail locations and wholesale distributors in Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri.
The problem was discovered through product and environmental testing performed by FSIS and the establishment, which identified Listeria monocytogenes in the processing environment and in products produced by the establishment.
There have been no confirmed reports of illness or adverse reactions due to consumption of these products. Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider.
Consumption of food contaminated with L. monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily affects older adults, persons with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women and their newborns. Less commonly, persons outside these risk groups are affected.
Listeriosis can cause fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms. An invasive infection spreads beyond the gastrointestinal tract. In pregnant women, the infection can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, premature delivery or life-threatening infection of the newborn. In addition, serious and sometimes fatal infections in older adults and persons with weakened immune systems can occur. Listeriosis is treated with antibiotics. Persons in the higher-risk categories who experience flu-like symptoms within two months after eating contaminated food should seek medical care and tell the health care provider about eating the contaminated food.
FSIS is concerned that some product may be in consumers’ pantries, refrigerators, or freezers. Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.
FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to verify recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to make certain that the product is no longer available to consumers. When available, the retail distribution list(s) will be posted on the FSIS website at www.fsis.usda.gov/recalls.
Media and consumers with questions regarding the recall can contact Connie Haselhorst, VP Operations, Behrmann Meat and Processing Inc., at (618) 248-5151 or connie@behrmannmeats.com.
Consumers with food safety questions can call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or live chat via Ask USDA from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. Consumers can also browse food safety messages at Ask USDA or send a question via email to MPHotline@usda.gov. For consumers that need to report a problem with a meat, poultry, or egg product, the online Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System can be accessed 24 hours a day at https://foodcomplaint.fsis.usda.gov/eCCF/.
Stunning Image of Supernova Remnant Processed by New Australian Supercomputer
Within 24 hours of accessing the first stage of Australia’s newest supercomputing system, researchers have processed a series of radio telescope observations, including a highly detailed image of a supernova remnant.
The very high data rates and the enormous data volumes from new-generation radio telescopes such as ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder) need highly capable software running on supercomputers.
This is where the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre comes into play, with a newly launched supercomputer called Setonix – named after Western Australia’s favorite animal, the quokka (Setonix brachyurus).
ASKAP, which consists of 36 dish antennas that work together as one telescope, is operated by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO; the observational data it gathers are transferred via high-speed optical fibers to the Pawsey Centre for processing and converting into science-ready images.
In a major milestone on the path to full deployment, we have now demonstrated the integration of our processing software ASKAPsoft on Setonix, complete with stunning visuals.
Traces of a dying star
An exciting outcome of this exercise has been a fantastic image of a cosmic object known as a supernova remnant, G261.9+5.5.
Estimated to be more than a million years old, and located 10,000-15,000 light-years away from us, this object in our galaxy was first classified as a supernova remnant by CSIRO radio astronomer Eric R. Hill in 1967, using observations from CSIRO’s Parkes Radio Telescope, Murriyang.
Supernova remnants (SNRs) are the remains of powerful explosions from dying stars. The ejected material from the explosion plows outwards into the surrounding interstellar medium at supersonic speeds, sweeping up gas and any material it encounters along the way, compressing and heating them up in the process.
The galactic supernova remnant G261.9+5.5. (Wasim Raja/CSIRO; Pascal Elah/Pawsey)
Additionally, the shockwave would also compress the interstellar magnetic fields. The emissions we see in our radio image of G261.9+5.5 are from highly energetic electrons trapped in these compressed fields. They bear information about the history of the exploded star and aspects of the surrounding interstellar medium.
The structure of this remnant revealed in the deep ASKAP radio image opens up the possibility of studying this remnant and the physical properties (such as magnetic fields and high-energy electron densities) of the interstellar medium in unprecedented detail.
Putting a supercomputer through its paces
The image of SNR G261.9+05.5 might be beautiful to look at, but the processing of data from ASKAP’s astronomy surveys is also a great way to stress-test the supercomputer system, including the hardware and the processing software.
We included the supernova remnant’s dataset for our initial tests because its complex features would increase the processing challenges.
Data processing even with a supercomputer is a complex exercise, with different processing modes triggering various potential issues. For example, the image of the SNR was made by combining data gathered at hundreds of different frequencies (or colors, if you like), allowing us to get a composite view of the object.
But there is a treasure trove of information hidden in the individual frequencies as well. Extracting that information often requires making images at each frequency, requiring more computing resources and more digital space to store.
While Setonix has adequate resources for such intense processing, a key challenge would be to establish the stability of the supercomputer when lashed with such enormous amounts of data day in and day out.
Key to this quick first demonstration was the close collaboration between the Pawsey Centre and the ASKAP science data processing team members. Our teamwork enabled all of us to better understand these challenges and quickly find solutions.
These results mean we will be able to unearth more from the ASKAP data, for example.
More to come
But this is only the first of two installation stages for Setonix, with the second expected to be completed later this year.
This will allow data teams to process more of the vast amounts of data coming in from many projects in a fraction of the time. In turn, it will not only enable researchers to better understand our Universe but will undoubtedly uncover new objects hidden in the radio sky. The variety of scientific questions that Setonix will allow us to explore in shorter time frames opens up so many possibilities.
This increase in computational capacity benefits not just ASKAP, but all Australia-based researchers in all fields of science and engineering that can access Setonix.
While the supercomputer is ramping up to full operations, so is ASKAP, which is currently wrapping up a series of pilot surveys and will soon undertake even larger and deeper surveys of the sky.
The supernova remnant is just one of many features we’ve now revealed, and we can expect many more stunning images, and the discovery of many new celestial objects, to come soon.
Wasim Raja, Research scientist, CSIRO and Pascal Jahan Elahi, Supercomputing applications specialist, Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, CSIRO.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Epstein-Barr may play a role in some long COVID; coronavirus can impair blood sugar processing by organs
By Nancy Lapid
(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review.
Epstein-Barr virus may play role in some long COVID cases
COVID-19 may reactivate a common virus that lurks unseen in most people, and that effect might increase patients’ risk of certain long-lasting symptoms, according to preliminary findings from a study. More than 90% of adults have been infected with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Most remained asymptomatic, but some developed mononucleosis as adolescents or young adults.
Among 280 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infections, including 208 with long COVID, researchers found that at four months after diagnosis, fatigue and problems with thinking and reasoning were more common in study participants with immune cells in their blood showing signs of recent EBV reactivation. These signs of reactivation were not linked with other long COVID findings such as gastrointestinal or heart and lung problems, however. And EBV itself was not found in patients’ blood, which suggests any reactivation likely is transient and happens during acute COVID-19, Dr. Timothy Henrich of the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues reported on medRxiv https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.21.22276660v1 ahead of peer review.
The findings do not prove that EBV reactivation caused patients’ symptoms, Henrich said. And even if it did, “There are likely many other causes of long COVID symptoms such as persistent SARS-CoV-2 virus in tissues over time and a dysregulated immune system that may arise from viral persistence,” he said. “Further study of various tissues is urgently needed, as are studies that follow participants from the time of acute infection to months or years thereafter.”
SARS-CoV-2 can impair blood sugar processing by organs
Infection with the coronavirus impairs the activity of multiple genes involved in the body’s chemical processes, including blood sugar metabolism, and for the first time researchers have seen these effects not just in patients’ respiratory tract but elsewhere in the body.
Japanese researchers analyzed blood and tissue samples from patients with mild or severe COVID-19 and from healthy volunteers, evaluating the “expression” – or activity levels – of genes that control the so-called insulin/IGF signaling pathway, which in turn affects many body functions necessary for metabolism, growth, and fertility. “The results were striking,” study leader Iichiro Shimomura of Osaka University said in a statement. “Infection with SARS-CoV-2 affected the expression of insulin/IGF signaling pathway components in the lung, liver, adipose tissue, and pancreatic cells.” The resulting disruptions in blood sugar metabolism likely contribute to COVID-19’s effects on organs, the researchers said.
The changes, which they attribute in part to the immune system’s inflammatory response to the virus, were more pronounced in patients with severe COVID-19, they reported in the journal Metabolism https://www.metabolismjournal.com/article/S0026-0495(22)00114-7/fulltext. In test tube experiments, dexamethasone – which is known to benefit hospitalized patients with COVID-19 – helped relieve the adverse effects of the virus on the genes.
The new findings might be a clue to why some patients develop metabolic complications during or after COVID-19, such as insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and new onset of diabetes, the researchers said.
New data support 5 days of isolation plus 5 days of masking
A new study supports current guidelines that call for a five-day isolation period for COVID-19 infections followed by five days of strict masking to help prevent transmission from cases that remain culture positive, researchers said.
Boston University School of Medicine researchers collected daily nasal swabs for at least 10 days from 92 vaccinated college students and staff infected with the Delta or Omicron variants of the coronavirus for analysis with PCR and with the kind of rapid-antigen tests that are available for home use. Among these young and otherwise healthy adults, only 17% still tested positive after five days, and no one was infectious beyond 12 days after symptom onset, the researchers reported in Clinical Infectious Diseases https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciac510/6614634. The results were similar regardless of variant or vaccine booster status, and negative rapid antigen tests were very reliable, according to the report.
While rapid antigen testing “may provide reassurance of lack of infectiousness… a full 10 days is necessary to prevent transmission from the 17 percent of individuals who remain culture positive after isolation,” study leader Dr. Tara Bouton said in a statement.
Click for a Reuters graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3c7R3Bl on vaccines in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
There’s a Strange New Discovery About The Brain Structures Involved in Reading Skill
Our ability to look at abstract symbols and map them onto sounds is one of the key skills for becoming a competent reader. In the academic world, this is known as phonological processing, and this skill can vary from person to person, with conditions like dyslexia making it more difficult for some.
In a new study, a team of researchers tested two supposedly opposing hypotheses on how brain structures relate to reading skill, and rather strangely, found some support for both.
The human brain is naturally asymmetrical, and some of the structures on the left side are thought to be involved in language processing; according to the hypothesis called ‘cerebral lateralization’, the more asymmetry here, the better one’s reading ability.
On the other hand, it might also be that the presence of asymmetries in the left part of the brain simply reinforces the traits needed to read – what the team calls the ‘canalization hypothesis’. By that token, having more asymmetry just puts you in the average reading skill range.
It now appears that depending on the level of analysis – whether across the entire brain hemisphere or in specific regions – both hypotheses have merit.
Specifically, the team found that reading ability did indeed increase with greater asymmetry in the left hemisphere, but only when looking at the most asymmetric structure, essentially taking into account the hemisphere as a whole.
Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from previous research to identify asymmetrical structural differences in the brains of over 700 children and adults.
While similar to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures metabolic activity, MRI scans draw a map of the brain by revealing anatomical structures.
Participants had also been asked to perform reading ability tests, including ones that required them to sound out pseudowords: made-up words which involve a heightened degree of processing because our brains are not conditioned to them – this is called phonological decoding.
Once researchers had determined levels of brain asymmetry, they found that when a person’s most asymmetric left hemisphere brain region was considered, greater asymmetry was associated with better performance in the pseudoword reading task.
“Leftward asymmetry in the size of the superior temporal gyrus, in particular, is classically thought to reflect leftward hemispheric organization for language, which, when disrupted, contributes to poor reading skills according to a cerebral lateralization hypothesis,” the team wrote in the paper.
Under the cerebral lateralization hypothesis, each lobe of the brain is specialized in its ability to do the heavy lifting in specific cognitive tasks. The left side is generally associated with processes related to language, but previous research has suffered from having small sample sizes, and findings that also show activity in the right hemisphere when people perform language-based tasks.
If true, it’s still not clear that the functional differences between the hemispheres depend on their structural differences, but specific regions on the left side of the brain are reliably larger than those same regions on the right.
Meanwhile, the team also found that if certain specific brain regions were more exaggerated in their structural differences between the two lobes, the person was more likely to fall within the average reading ability range.
This fits in line with the canalization hypothesis, which can be visualized as a needle moving along the groove of a record, whereby it maintains a predetermined trajectory. In the case of language processing and reading, protective genetic mechanisms would kick in to develop the necessary brain asymmetries.
Because these mechanisms are reliably expressed, phonological processing is typically constrained within a normal range. The absence of these asymmetries would allow for the unconstrained expression of impaired or elevated abilities.
“Our findings indicate that, at a population level, structural brain asymmetries are related to the normal development of a speech sound processing ability that is important for establishing proficient reading,” says lead author Mark Eckert from the Medical University of South Carolina.
Strangely, performance in the pseudoword reading task was not related to asymmetries in regions of the left hemisphere that are known to be important for specific language functions. This leaves an open question for exactly how these structural asymmetries, at larger scales, affect people’s reading abilities.
“Cerebral lateralization and canalization hypotheses may both have validity but at different scales of cerebral organization and function,” the team concludes.
“A greater degree of asymmetry within the left hemisphere may allow for more efficient phonological processing, perhaps due to greater hemispheric specialization.”
The study was published in the journal PLOS Biology.
Chris Rock takes to comedy mic, still processing Oscars slap
BOSTON (AP) — Chris Rock received several standing ovations before he told one joke Wednesday at his first comedy show since Will Smith slapped him in the face onstage at the Oscars.
Rock only briefly addressed the slap to the sold out crowd in Boston, saying he was “still kind of processing what happened.”
“Other than the weird thing, life is pretty good,” Rock said midway through his first of two sets. The nighttime performances came just three days after Smith smacked the comedian for making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, while presenting an Academy Award.
Rock didn’t mention Smith or Pinkett Smith by name at his show in Boston. Wearing all white, he seemed to be almost embarrassed by the multiple ovations he received. As the applause carried on for minutes — with fans yelling “I love you, Chris!” — the comedian appeared to be getting emotional, a guest seated near the stage told The Associated Press.
“How was your weekend?” Rock joked before getting into his set.
Ticket prices skyrocketed after Smith took to the awards stage and slapped Rock on live TV, but the comedian made clear he wasn’t going to talk at length about it Wednesday.
“If you came to hear that, I’m not … I had like a whole show I wrote before this weekend,” Rock said.
He spent much of the night skewering celebrities and politicians. Among them were the Duchess of Sussex, the Kardashians, as well as President Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and former President Donald Trump.
Outside the venue, a fan showed off a T-shirt featuring the “G.I. Jane” logo and Pinkett Smith’s face. Another had a shirt he made that showed Smith’s face and displayed a crude joke about the couple’s relationship.
At least one person yelled during the show that Rock should sue Smith.
Rock’s joke at the Oscars was about Jada Pinkett Smith’s buzzed haircut: “Jada, I love you. ‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it,” Rock said, comparing Pinkett Smith to Demi Moore’s “G.I. Jane” character, who had a buzz cut in the 1997 film.
Smith promptly stood up from his seat at the front of the venue and took to the stage, slapping Rock across the face before sitting back down and yelling at Rock to keep his wife’s name out of his mouth.
Pinkett Smith has spoken publicly about her diagnosis of alopecia, which can cause baldness.
Within an hour, Smith won best actor, receiving a standing ovation. During his five-minute acceptance speech, Smith talked about defending his family and apologized to the academy. A day later, Smith issued an apology to the comedian, to the academy and to viewers at home, saying he was “out of line” and that his actions are “not indicative of the man I want to be.”
Pinkett Smith responded Tuesday with a graphic on Instagram that read: “This is a season of healing and I’m here for it.” She offered no further comment.
George Guay, a 24-year-old fan from Boston who grew up on “Everybody Hates Chris,” said he bought a ticket after Rock was slapped by Smith.
“He’s the most popular celebrity so I want to be here,” Guay said before the show, adding that he hoped Rock would open with a response to the situation. “I just want a good show.”
Afterward, some fans were a little disappointed he did not address the controversy more directly. But they also said they could see from his body language that he wasn’t sure how to do it.
“As soon as I saw him, his mood was a little bit shocked,” said Dave Henriquez, a 48-year-old musician from Newton, Massachusetts. “I got that it was weighing on him.”
Erin Ryan, a 33-year-old teacher also from Newton who was with Henriquez, said she felt Rock wanted to perform his act, “not make the standup about the one incident.”
Kathryn West-Hines, a 50-year-old Pilates instructor from Malden, Massachusetts, said she came away with even more respect for Rock. “I thought it was amazing, classy,” she said, adding that he wasn’t going to let “what happened Sunday” take away his shine.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences condemned Smith striking Rock. Its board of governors met Wednesday to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Smith for violations of the group’s standards of conduct. The academy said it had asked Smith to leave the ceremony after hitting Rock, but he refused to do so.
This was not the first time Rock had made a joke at Pinkett Smith’s expense. When he hosted the 2016 Oscars, some people boycotted the ceremony over the #OscarsSoWhite group of nominees, including the Smiths. Said Rock then: “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited.”
Wanda Sykes, who co-hosted the Oscars with Amy Schumer and Regina Hall, said she felt physically ill after Smith slapped Rock. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres scheduled to air April 7, Sykes also said letting Smith stay and accept his award should not have happened.
The drama overshadowed some historical wins at an Oscars. The deaf family drama “CODA” became the first film with a largely deaf cast to win best picture. For the first time, a streaming service, Apple TV+, took Hollywood’s top honor, signaling a profound shift in Hollywood and in moviegoing. Wins for Ariana DeBose of “West Side Story,”Troy Kotsur of “CODA” and Jane Campion, director of “The Power of the Dog,” all had made history.