Spansk läsövning (Cristóbal Colón nació en una zona entre Savona, en Italia, y Mónaco, según el analista/ Deia)

UN EXANALISTA DE LA CIA EMPLEA “MILES DE HORAS” PARA RESOLVER UNO DE LOS GRANDES MISTERIOS DE LA HUMANIDAD

Y Colón nació en la República de Génova Un exanalista de la CIA emplea “miles de horas” para resolver uno de los grandes misterios de la humanidad Un reportaje de Pedro Alonso - Jueves, 28 de Diciembre de 2017 - Actualizado a las 06:09h Cristóbal Colón nació en una zona entre Savona, en Italia, y Mónaco, según el analista. (Deia) 

EN la penumbra [halvdunkel] de la Sala de Lectura de la Biblioteca del Congreso de Estados Unidos, el exanalista de la CIA Peter Dickson ha empleado “miles de horas” intentado desentrañar uno de los grandes misterios de la Humanidad: el origen de Cristóbal Colón. Colón pasó a la historia como el hijo de un humilde tejedor [skräddare; vävare] de la República de Génova que acometió para los Reyes Católicos la épica singladura que condujo en 1492 al descubrimiento de América, pero nadie conoce a ciencia cierta su procedencia. 

El propio descubridor del Nuevo Mundo “eligió vivir en la oscuridad en todo lo relativo a su lugar de nacimiento y familia”, como recuerda su hijo Hernando Colón en la biografía de su padre. Obsesionado con ese enigma [gåta] desde 1991 y bajo la majestuosa [majestätisk] cúpula [kupol] de la Sala de Lectura en la Biblioteca del Congreso en Washington, Dickson ha surcado [plöjt] mares, no de agua salada, como el legendario navegante, sino de documentos antiguos en busca de la verdad.

 “En los años 90 pasé miles de horas y gasté miles de dólares. Durante muchos años, casi viví aquí (...) escarbando” en archivos, comenta en el Edificio Thomas Jefferson, sede central de la biblioteca nacional de facto de Estados Unidos. 

Nacido en 1947, Dickson trabajó durante “más de veinte años” como analista político-militar especializado en la proliferación de armas nucleares para CIA. 

En el más poderoso servicio de espionaje del mundo, Dickson aprendió “la habilidad de ver pruebas que no parecen relacionadas, pero están relacionadas”. Con esa “mente analítica”, el ahora investigador independiente, autor de un libro y varios ensayos sobre Colón, intenta ordenar el galimatías de su vida mediante un infatigable [outtröttlig] rastreo genealógico. 

De entrada, Dickson cuestiona su origen humilde históricamente aceptado: “Eso no tiene sentido”, subraya, porque “el desconocido hijo de un tejedor genovés” nunca podría haberse casado por estatus con Felipa Moniz, una dama de una familia aristocrática vinculada [länkad] a la poderosa Casa de Braganza, que reinó en Portugal de 1640 a 1910. 

Para decepción [besvikelse] de quienes claman que Colón fue italiano, portugués, francés o catalán, el investigador sostiene que “no es nada (de eso) al cien por cien” y que se trata de “un mestizo mediterráneo multicultural con un complejo árbol genealógico”. El exanalista de la CIA apoya la teoría de que el almirante proviene de una zona que abarcaba la costa entre la localidad italiana de Savona y Mónaco, bajo control de la República de Génova. “Puedes ser un ciudadano de la república genovesa -arguye- sin ser un italiano monocultural”. El puzle de la vida de Colón se complica aún más porque “nunca escribe en italiano a los italianos. Les escribe en castellano”, apunta Dickson, al recordar que filólogos han demostrado que “el castellano no es su lengua materna”.

En un reciente ensayo publicado bajo el sugestivo título Colón: El ADN [DNA]  secreto y los misteriosos orígenes del primer icono de América, el investigador se zambulle también en las aguas de la genética como posible respuesta a la eterna incógnita. Dickson aborda la investigación que José Antonio Lorente estudia desde 2003 cientos de muestras de ADN de posibles descendientes del almirante apellidados Colón, Colom o Colombo de España, Francia e Italia.

Svenska Kyrkan

Fler än någonsin lämnar Svenska kyrkan. Under förra årets elva första månader tog över 91 129 personer beslutet att lämna samfundet. Det rapporterar TT. Samtidigt som som tappet är stort valde 8 833 personer att bli medlemmar under 2017, den högsta siffran sedan kyrka och stat skildes åt år 2000.Antalet nya medlemmar domineras troligtvis av invandrare. Förklarar också varför kyrkan är ovanligt vänligt inställd till invandring: man vill kompensera det stora antalet personer som lämnat kyrkan. 

Study: Young male migrants fuel rise in violence in Germany (nyhet?)

The recent influx of mostly young, male migrants into Germany has led to an increase in violent crime in the country, according to a government-funded study published Wednesday.

The study used figures from the northern state of Lower Saxony to examine the impact of refugee arrivals on crime in 2015 and 2016, a period when the number of violent crimes reported increased by 10.4 percent.

The authors concluded that 92 percent of the additional crimes recorded could be attributed to the increase in refugee numbers.

It noted that the demographic composition of the refugee population is a major factor. Young males — whether Germans or migrants — are generally more likely to commit crimes, but also more likely to become victims of violence.

The findings add to the ongoing debate in Germany about how to tackle migrant crime, which has been fanned by a number of high-profile incidents . Parties on the right, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Union bloc, want a tough response and more deportations, while those on the left say more needs to be done to integrate refugees into German society.

"It is true that since 2015 there has been a rise in violent crime that the authors attribute to the arrival of refugees," said Verena Herb, a spokeswoman for the Families Ministry that commissioned the study. "But they also make very clear that refugees aren't generally more criminal than for example Germans."

Herb told reporters in Berlin that the biggest problems seemed to come from young men who see little hope for their futures. Afghans and Syrians were less likely to commit crimes than migrants from North Africa, who stand little chance of receiving permission to stay in Germany, the study found.

"In our view, this shows once more that those who come here mustn't be left to their own devices," she said. "Only that way can we ensure that boredom and frustration don't result in criminal behavior."

The study, led by prominent criminologist Christian Pfeiffer and published by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, says most of the refugees came to Germany from Muslim countries that are "characterized by male dominance" and an acceptance of a "macho culture" that can justify violence.

The lack of women among Germany's refugee population is also seen as an aggravating factor.

"This makes it more likely for groups of young men to emerge among the refugees and they can develop a violent dynamic of their own," the authors wrote, concluding that it makes sense to allow refugees to bring over their families.

The report also notes that people are twice as likely to report crimes if they are committed by people who are different from them, causing some distortion in the crime statistics.

‘Bomb Cyclone’ Ushers In a Deeper Freeze

New York i går

New York i går

Airports shut down, schools closed and cars slid off roads during winter’s first major storm. Officials fear the worst is ahead as temperatures are expected to hit minus 20 in some areas.

España verde

En av mina absoluta favoritplatser på jorden är norra Spanien och då inte minst Baskien.
Bilden ovan (amatörfotograf) visar Ellorio sydost om Bilbao och sydväst om Biscaya-pärlan San Sebastián.

Urkiola (Baskien)

San Sebastian (som jag förärade med en fransk visit
i mitten av oktober.

How Does the Shape of a Head Affect the Brain? Q&A

Q. Did cranial deformation as practiced by the ancient Mayans change or impair brain function?

A. The famous slanted forehead that was apparently a mark of high rank among pre-Columbian Mayans was achieved by various forms of compression of the head in infancy. It is believed by many researchers to have had no significant effect on cranial capacity and how the brain worked, the conclusion of a 1989 study of skulls in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

But there is no direct evidence to support this contention, no large study comparing brain development in living populations that do and do not practice head flattening. An extensive review article in the journal Anthropology in 2003 speculated that the practice of compression had the potential to damage the delicate developing frontal lobe, as is seen in certain conditions.

The authors speculated that such damage could have impaired vision, object recognition, hearing ability, memory, attentiveness and concentration. These factors in turn might have contributed to behavior disorders and difficulty in learning new information.

Still other researchers suggest that the diverging

conclusions can be attributed to how the skull measurements

are done. The compression may have affected the shape of the face more than the brain itself, they said.

Questions of general interest will be answered, but requests for medical advice cannot be honored and unpublished letters cannot be answered individually.

STRANGE CLOUDS ARE CIRCLING ANTARCTICA:

NASA's AIM spacecraft is monitoring a vast ring of noctilucent (night-shining) clouds circling Antarctica. These strange clouds, formed at the edge of space by ice-frosted specks of meteor smoke, may be linked through recently discovered teleconnections to cold weather patterns in the USA. Visit today's edition of spaceweather.com for images and more information.

Riksdagsledamöter - phu

Pavel Gamov, Hanna Wigh och Margareta Larsson 

(bilden) har bildat en ny politisk grupp.

SD och de andra riksdagspartierna är nog

glada över att inte i sina led behöva dras 

med åtminstone Gamow och Wigh.

Gamov till exempel skulle

helst passa i ett cirksutält

som clown.

Nu också utanför Göteborg

Mässlingsutbrottet har  spridits utanför Göteborgsområdet. En kvinna från Västsverige har insjuknat när hon varit på besök i Örnsköldsvik. Under vistelsen i Örnsköldsvik ska hon ha träffat ett 20-tal personer. Det finns inget som tyder på att någon av dessa har smittats, rapporterar SVT Västernorrland. 

Min kommentar: Invandrare och andra som kommer resandes in i vårt land måste hälsoundersökas. Varför är detta inte självklart?

A diet of fiber-rich foods, such as fruits and vegetables, reduces the risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and arthritis. Indeed, the evidence for fiber’s benefits extends beyond any particular ailment: Eating more fiber seems to lower people’s mortality rate, whatever the cause.

That’s why experts are always saying how good dietary fiber is for us. But while the benefits are clear, it’s not so clear why fiber is so great. “It’s an easy question to ask and a hard one to really answer,” said Fredrik Bäckhed, a biologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

He and other scientists are running experiments that are yielding some important new clues about fiber’s role in human health. Their research indicates that fiber doesn’t deliver many of its benefits directly to our bodies.

Instead, the fiber we eat feeds billions of bacteria in our guts. Keeping them happy means our intestines and immune systems remain in good working order.

In order to digest food, we need to bathe it in enzymes that break down its molecules. Those molecular fragments then pass through the gut wall and are absorbed in our intestines.

(More in NYT)

Recreational Pot Is Officially Legal in California

OAKLAND, Calif. — Retail cannabis shops in California
 opened their doors on Monday for the first time,
 inaugurating what proponents say will become the
world’s largest market for legalized
 recreational marijuana.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Retail cannabis shops in California opened their doors on Monday for the first time, inaugurating what proponents say will become the world’s largest market for legalized recreational marijuana.

A customer, right, at the dispensary
purchased more than $1,000
worth of products

What about drinking is associated with shorter life in poorer people?

Citation: Rehm J, Probst C (2018) What about drinking is associated with shorter life in poorer people? PLoS Med 15(1): e1002477. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002477

Published: January 2, 2018

Copyright: © 2018 Rehm, Probst. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Abbreviations: SES, socioeconomic status

Provenance: Commissioned; not externally peer reviewed

Income inequalities and the role of risk factors

Income inequalities and associated health consequences—in particular, premature mortality—are a major public health problem in the 21st century [1]. Poorer people die earlier, and they die in part of different causes of death. While the differential distributions of risk factors by socioeconomic status (SES) contribute to the inequality in premature mortality, these distributions alone do not seem to be able to fully explain mortality differences [2]. Thus, a lot of current research focuses on interactions between SES and risk factors and between different risk factors within socioeconomic strata.

Alcohol use is a major risk factor for premature mortality [3], globally and particularly in high- and middle-income countries, and the lower the age cutoff for the definition of premature mortality, the more important the impact of alcohol [4]. Specifically for alcohol use, evidence seems to indicate an overproportional impact in lower socioeconomic strata: despite higher rates of abstention in lower socioeconomic strata, alcohol-attributable mortality has been found to be higher, and this fact has been labelled the “alcohol harm paradox” by some researchers [5]. Riskier drinking patterns among drinkers of low SES, cumulative and interactive effects of other risk factors that cluster in people of low SES, and interactive effects between SES and alcohol use have been postulated as potential mechanisms underlying the increased mortality risk of people of low SES. However, empirical research on interactions between SES and alcohol use in relation to mortality or on 3-way interactions between SES, alcohol use, and other risk factors has been rare.

SES, alcohol use, and cardiovascular mortality

In this regard, the paper of Degerud and colleagues in this week’s PLOS Medicine promises to become an important piece of the puzzle given its focus on cardiovascular mortality [6], globally the leading cause of death. Using a large population-based sample in Norway, they analyzed not only the associations between alcohol use and cardiovascular mortality by SES but also specifically the interaction between SES and alcohol use indicators. They found a significant interaction for drinking frequency and SES, but only a main effect for frequency of heavy drinking occasions with a nonsignificant interaction. Thus, the study observed that while heavy episodic drinking was associated with an elevated risk of cardiovascular mortality irrespective of SES, a moderate frequency of alcohol use was associated with more protective effects in the high compared with low or middle socioeconomic strata, and the protective effect of moderate drinking on cardiovascular mortality was not significant for people of low SES.

The lack of a significant interaction effect between heavy drinking occasions and SES on cardiovascular mortality comes as a surprise, as the drinking pattern of occasional heavy drinking has been suspected to be one of the main reasons for the differential effect of alcohol use in different socioeconomic strata. Three reasons may have contributed to this finding by Degerud and colleagues [6]: firstly, the sample size for many categories of higher frequency of heavy drinking was small; secondly, all alcohol use variables were measured only once in lifetime, and measurement of patterns of drinking is considerably less reliable than measurement of drinking status; and thirdly, the authors included systolic blood pressure, a variable on the causal pathway from alcohol use to cardiovascular events [7], as a potential confounding variable, thus reducing the effect size of the alcohol effect and decreasing the odds of finding an interaction effect.

Implications for policy

Substance use in general and alcohol use in particular have been key to recent reversals of life expectancy [8] in high- and middle-income countries, and widening mortality inequalities play a key role here. For instance, Case and Deaton [9] showed that the decreasing life expectancy in middle-aged non-Hispanic whites in the United States was associated with increases in mortality inequalities in key causes of death such as poisoning, suicide, and liver cirrhosis. Life expectancy stagnates for the US as a whole, and again, substance use in lower socioeconomic strata seems to play a key role [10,11]. As in the paper of Degerud and colleagues [6], the same level of substance use was linked to higher mortality risks in individuals of lower SES compared to those of higher SES.

One main implication of this phenomenon states that it is not appropriate simply to extrapolate from risks associated with alcohol use in higher-income populations to address lower-income populations in which the impact of alcohol use is largest. As a consequence, alcohol policy measures not only need to be effective and cost-effective but also need to contribute to a reduction of health inequalities in alcohol-attributable mortality. Again, research on the impact of different alcohol policy measures on inequality needs to be specifically conducted; at this point, minimum unit pricing seems to be a measure that promises to reduce inequalities, albeit mainly based on mathematical modelling rather than on empirical evidence [12]. Theoretically, all measures that reduce the affordability of alcohol could be named here as promising. However, history of the recent decades has shown that affordability of alcohol has increased in almost all parts of the world (certainly in high- and middle-income countries) despite the implementation of more national alcohol policies [4]. In other words, different alcohol policy measures need to be implemented in the future guided by new empirical evidence.

References

1. 1.Marmot M. The health gap: the challenge of an unequal world. Lancet. 2015; 386:2442–4. pmid:26364261
   • View Article
   • PubMed/NCBI
   • Google Scholar
2. 2.Stringhini S, Carmeli C, Jokela M, Avendaño M, Muennig P, Guida F, et al. Socioeconomic status and the 25 x 25 risk factors as determinants of premature mortality: a multicohort study and meta-analysis of 1.7 million men and women. Lancet. 2017; 389(10075):1229–37. pmid:28159391
   • View Article
   • PubMed/NCBI
   • Google Scholar
3. 3.Rehm J, Imtiaz S. Alcohol consumption as a risk factor for global burden of disease. A narrative review. Subst Abuse Treat Prev Policy. 2016; 11(1):37. pmid:27793173
   • View Article
   • PubMed/NCBI
   • Google Scholar
4. 4.World Health Organization. Global status report on alcohol and health. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 2014.
5. 5.Bellis MA, Hughes K, Nicholls J, Sheron N, Gilmore I, Jones L. The alcohol harm paradox: Using a national survey to explore how alcohol may disproportionately impact health in deprived individuals. BMC Public Health. 2016; 18(16):111.
   • View Article
   • PubMed/NCBI
   • Google Scholar
6. 6.Degerud E, Ariansen I, Ystrom E, Graff-Iversen S, Høiseth G, Mørland J, et al. Life course socioeconomic position, alcohol drinking patterns in midlife, and cardiovascular mortality: Analysis of Norwegian population-based health surveys. PLoS Med. 2018;15(1): e1002476.
   • View Article
   • PubMed/NCBI
   • Google Scholar
7. 7.Roerecke M, Kaczorowski J, Tobe SW, Gmel G, Hasan OSM, Rehm J. The effect of a reduction in alcohol consumption on blood pressure: A systematic review and meta-analysis of trial data. Lancet Public Health. 2017;2: e108–e120.
   • View Article
   • PubMed/NCBI
   • Google Scholar
8. 8.Rehm J, Anderson P, Fischer B, Gual A, Room R. Policy implications of marked reversals of population life expectancy caused by substance use. BMC Med. 2016; 14:42. pmid:27001105
   • View Article
   • PubMed/NCBI
   • Google Scholar
9. 9.Case A, Deaton A. Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015; 112(49):15078–83. pmid:26575631
   • View Article
   • PubMed/NCBI
   • Google Scholar
10. 10.Imtiaz S, Probst C, Rehm J. Substance use and population life expectancy in the United States: Interactions with health inequalities and implications for policy. Drug Alcohol Rev. in press.
11. 11.Shiels MS, Chernyavskiy P, Anderson WF, Best AF, Haozous EA, Hartge P, et al. Trends in premature mortality in the USA by sex, race, and ethnicity from 1999 to 2014: An analysis of death certificate data. Lancet. 2017; 389(10073):1043–1054. Epub 2017 Jan 26.
    • View Article
    • PubMed/NCBI
    • Google Scholar
12. 12.Holmes J, Meng Y, Meier PS, Brennan A, Angus C, Campbell-Burton A, et al. Effects of minimum unit pricing for alcohol on different income and socioeconomic groups: A modelling study. Lancet. 2014; 383(9929):1655–64. pmid:24522180
    • View Article
    • PubMed/NCBI
    • Google Scholar

Running may be the single most effective exercise to increase life expectancy, according to a new review and analysis of past research about exercise and premature death. The new study found that, compared to nonrunners, runners tended to live about three additional years, even if they run slowly or sporadically and smoke, drink or are overweight. No other form of exercise that researchers looked at showed comparable impacts on life span.

The findings come as a follow-up to a study done three years ago in which a group of distinguished exercise scientists scrutinized data from a large trove of medical and fitness tests conducted at the Cooper Institute in Dallas. That analysis found that as little as five minutes of daily running was associated with was associated with prolonged life spans.

After that study was released, the researchers were inundated with queries from fellow scientists and the general public, says Duck-chul Lee, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University and a co-author of the study. Some people asked if other activities, such as walking, were likely to be as beneficial as running for reducing mortality risks.

High-mileage runners wondered if they could be doing too much, and if at some undefined number of miles or hours, running might become counterproductive and even contribute to premature mortality,

And a few people questioned whether running really added materially to people’s life spans. Could it be, they asked rather peevishly, that if in order to reduce your risk of dying by a year, you had to spend the equivalent of a year’s worth of time on the trails or track, producing no discernible net gain?