Category: Alabama

Life Savers Ministries removes billboard with quote from Adolf Hitler outside Village Mall in Auburn, Alabama

On By A.P.In Adolf Hitler, Alabama, Auburn, Herbert Hoover, Hitler, James Anderegg, Life Savers Ministries1 Comment

A billboard at the Village Mall in Auburn, Ala., features five smiling kids beneath a quote from Adolf Hitler: “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”

According to Lamar Advertising’s Montgomery office, the billboard was rented out by Life Savers Ministries, based in Opelika, Ala.

Hitler’s quote traces back to his speeches of the ’30s, and has historically been tied to the Nazi youth programs.

The billboard went up Friday and will be taken down Tuesday, per LSM’s request.

“We are pulling the billboard and certainly never intended to cause confusion. … Herbert Hoover would have been a far better one to quote when he said, ‘Children are our most valuable resource,'” founder James Anderegg told the Ledger-Enquirer. “We are a children’s organization and had honorable intentions and nothing less.”

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/06/02/3134053/opelika-church-school-rents-billboard.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1

New research shows that psychedelic drugs may help decrease crime

On By A.P.In acid, Crime, Criminal Justice, Drugs, Human Behavior, Johns Hopkins University, Journal of Psychopharmacology, LSD, magic mushrooms, marijuana, MDMA (Ecstasy), Medicine, Psilocybin, TASC, Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities, University of Alabama at BirminghamLeave a comment

lsd

Psychedelic drugs could help to keep ex-offenders out of prison, new research suggests.

U.S. scientists have found that drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms could be used to help reform criminals under community correction supervision.

It has previously been thought that LSD could be used to treat alcohol addiction, but the new research is the first in 40 years to suggest it could be used to stop criminals from re-offending.

Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, collected data about 25,622 people under community supervision between 2002 and 2007.

All study participants were in the Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC) program, for people with a history of drug abuse, including alcohol addiction.

The researchers found that criminals diagnosed with a hallucinogen use disorder were less likely to fail the TASC programme, appear in court and be arrested and imprisoned, compared to those who did not have a history of taking the drugs.

Just one per cent of people on the programme were diagnosed with a hallucinogen disorder, while heavy users of cocaine, cannabis and alcohol were the most common.

‘Our results provide a notable exception to the robust positive link between substance use and criminal behaviour,’ the researchers wrote in their study, which was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

‘They add to both the older and emerging body of data indicating beneficial effects of hallucinogen interventions and run counter to the legal classification as well as popular perception of hallucinogens as categorically harmful substances with no therapeutic potential,’ they added.

The scientists believe that offenders may be especially likely to benefit from LSD treatment as many people become criminals as a result of drug-seeking behaviour and impulsive conduct, often caused by compulsive drug use.

The study took factors such as race, employment, age, history of drug abuse and crimes, as well as gender and education into account.

However, the researchers warned that the findings of the study should not be seen to advocate recreational use of psychedelic drugs.

‘Nevertheless, they demonstrate that, in a real-world, substance-related intervention setting, hallucinogen use is associated with a lower probability of poor outcome,’ they wrote.

They believe the research should be the start of a continued investigation into the use of psychedelic drugs to treat criminals.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2537137/Could-LSD-cut-crime-Psychedelic-drug-help-prevent-criminals-offending.html#ixzz2qK1CX9Vz
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Surprising Diet For Weightlifting Record Setter

On By A.P.In Alabama, Alabama State Powerlifting Championship, buttermilk, cornbread, Demopolis, diet, Exercise, powerlifting, Ray Williams, weightliftingLeave a comment

Next time you need motivation at the gym, think of Ray Williams.

The 6-foot, 361-pound Williams is a junior college football coach from Demopolis, Alabama. Over the weekend at the Alabama State Powerlifting Championship, he broke the U.S. record in the men’s raw 275-pounds-plus division by squatting 860 pounds. That’s right, 860 pounds.

And it gets better. Williams also put up 905 pounds, but that attempt was disallowed because he took a small jab step during the lift. Williams was pretty disappointed with himself because he wanted to see if he could squat 1,000 pounds.

For those wondering how to build bulk and muscle like Williams, the answer is simple: Cornbread and buttermilk.

“I’ve always been a big dude,” Williams told the website 70sbig. “And one thing my grandma brought us up on was cornbread, collard greens, good down-home southern food — it’s always been a staple of my diet.”

Making Williams’ feat all the more impressive was the fact that this was just his second powerlifting meet.

“I like it,” Williams told AL.com of powerlifting. “Just the fact that no one can say I’m big for no reason. Now, I can put my bigness to use. Plus I’ve always been just naturally strong, and I can refine that through powerlifting.”

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/training-day/201302/man-produced-crazy-record-breaking-squat

Is there a squadron of Spitfires buried in Birmingham?

On By A.P.In Birmingham, Castle Bromwich, David Cundall, England, Great Britain, Harry Bramwell, Matt Queenan, Ministry of Defence, RAF museum, spitfire, War Office, world war 2, WWIILeave a comment

spitfire-3_2412152b

Matt Queenan, 83, believes there could be well-preserved Spitfires lying in crates dug deep into the ground, potentially underneath houses.

He claims he is one of a team of workmen who buried them in 1950, greasing them up and encasing them in boxes under instructions from the War Office.

He has now spoken of the secret mission for the first time in public, after 36 of the iconic planes were found in Burma. The aircraft, discovered by aviation enthusiast David Cundall, are expected to soon be repatriated 67 years after being “lost”.

One of the Spitfires is due to go on display in Birmingham shortly.

Mr Queenan, a former bareknuckle boxer, said: “You don’t need to go all the way to Burma to find Spitfires. There are plenty buried here in Birmingham.”

He claims the operation was carried out in a hangar in Castle Bromwich, near to where the aircraft were built during the Second World War.

After being told to bury them by War Office official Harry Bramwell, the labourers “covered them in greased” before they were “boxed up”, he alleges.

A spokesman for the RAF museum conceded the claims could not be ruled out, while the Ministry of Defence said it was “highly improbable”.

Mr Queenan said: “It was December. We got picked up by Harry Bramwell from outside the Labour Exchange in the city centre.

“We covered the planes in grease and they were boxed up. We were told they were going to be buried.

“I think they were buried nearby, close to the Chester Road, but I don’t know where.

“There could be houses over them or anything now because it was all fields in them days.”

A spokeswoman for the RAF Museum, in London, said Mr Queenan’s claims could not be ruled out.

“It is possible, but we just do not know,” she said. “Many of them would have been disposed of in the local area through scrapyards. The RAF didn’t keep records once they had been handed over to someone else to take care of.

“It’s unlikely, but it could have happened.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “It is highly improbable Spitfires were buried in Birmingham in the 1950s. We have no evidence of it.”

Earlier this year, 62-year-old David Cundall found 36 Spitfires in Burma, after spending 15 years and more than £10,000 searching.

“They were just buried there in transport crates,” Mr Cundall said. “They were waxed, wrapped in greased paper and their joints tarred. They will be in near perfect condition.”

The aircraft will be returned to Britain after Prime Minister David Cameron intervened in favour of their repatriation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9732585/Is-there-a-squadron-of-Spitfires-buried-in-Birmingham.html

Scientists discover gene that controls striping pattern on cats

On By A.P.In Alabama, Cats, Cheetah, DNA, gene, Greg Barsh, HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology, Huntsville, King cheetah, Leslie Lyons, National Cancer Institute, Nature, Science, Stanford University, UC DavisLeave a comment

Scientists say they’ve found the gene that sets the common tabby pattern – stripes or blotches.

It’s one of several genes that collaborate to create the distinctive design of a cat’s coat, and it’s the first of the pattern genes to be identified.

Cats with narrow stripes, the so-called “mackerel” pattern, have a working copy of the gene. But if a mutation turns the gene off, the cat ends up with the blotchy “classic” pattern, researchers reported online last week in the journal Science.

It’s called “classic” because “cat lovers really like the blotched pattern,” said one of the authors, Greg Barsh. He works at both Stanford University and the HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology in Huntsville, Ala.

The research team, which included scientists from the National Cancer Institute, examined DNA from wild cats in California to identify the gene.

They also found that a mutation in the same gene produces the blotches and stripes of the rare “king” cheetah, rather than the spots most cheetahs have.

Leslie Lyons, a cat geneticist who studies coat color traits at the University of California, Davis, but didn’t participate in the new work, agreed that the research has identified the tabby’s stripes-versus-blotches gene. She noted that mysteries remain, such as just what genetic machinery gives a tabby spots.

Texas man texts about danger of texting while driving just before he plunges off cliff

On By A.P.In Alabama, Cell Phone, Chance Bothe, Texas, textingLeave a comment

A college student from Texas believes he is lucky to be alive after a terrible crash. He was texting and driving when his truck flew off of a cliff.

Chance Bothe’s truck plunged off of a bridge and into a ravine. One of the last things he typed indicated what almost happened to him.

He wrote, “I need to quit texting, because I could die in a car accident.”

After the crash, Chance had a broken neck, a crushed face, a fractured skull, and traumatic brain injuries. Doctors had to bring him back to life three times . Now, 6 months later, he’s finally able to talk about what happened.

“They just need to understand, don’t do it. Don’t do it. It’s not worth losing your life,” he said. “I went to my grandmother’s funeral not long ago, and I kept thinking, it kept jumping into my head, I’m surprised that’s not me up in that casket. I came very close to that, to being gone forever.”

Chance’s father said, if he had a child just learning to drive, he would disable texting and Internet on their phone.

As of August 1st, drivers in Alabama will face a $25 fine the first time they are caught texting behind the wheel.

New study shows that getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night significantly increases risk of stroke

On By A.P.In Alabama, Birmingham, Health, obstructive sleep apnea, Stroke, University of Alabama at BirminghamLeave a comment

Getting a good night’s rest continues to be of utmost importance to your health. New data from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham shows too little sleep can increase the risk for stroke symptoms in people with a healthy body-mass index who are at low risk for obstructive sleep apnea and have no history of stroke.

The study, being presented June 11, 2012, at the SLEEP 2012conference in Boston, looked at self-reported sleep data from 5,666 people ages 45 and older who were followed up to a three-year period. In people with a low risk for obstructive sleep apnea and a BMI of 18.5 to 24.99, which is considered optimal, there was a four-time greater risk of stroke symptoms in participants who had fewer than six hours of sleep per night, compared to participants in the same BMI range who got seven to eight hours of sleep per night. The study found no association between short sleep periods and stroke symptoms among overweight and obese participants.

“We adjusted for many possible factors that could explain this increase, including hypertension, high cholesterol, sleep disordered breathing and being overweight or obese,” explains Megan Ruiter, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a UAB post-doctoral fellow in the Division of Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine.

“Despite controlling for other known stroke risk factors, we still found the association between sleeping less than six hours and reporting stroke symptoms, like sudden body weakness or numbness or deficits in vision,” says Ruiter. “These participants may be late in the development of a stroke. It is possible they may have had a stroke but it was not verified with a physician.”

Sleep specialist Susan Harding, M.D., who was not involved with this study, says these findings do not surprise her.

“Short sleep duration is already associated with cardiovascular death and other cardiovascular related events,” says Harding, director of UAB’s Sleep/Wake Disorders Center. “What is different with this study is that it specifically looked at people who are at a normal weight, which means they are less likely to have diabetes — which is a stroke risk factor — and found they are still at increased risk of stroke symptoms.”

The study also found a differential risk according to racial group.

“We find that sleep duration might partially explain the relationship between ethnic differences in stroke symptoms,” Ruiter adds. “African-Americans had a greater prevalence of short sleep, and they were more likely to have stroke symptoms.”

Ruiter notes that sleep duration was self-reported by participants, making it a limitation of the study, as recall accuracy can vary.

“We need to see if sleep duration is related to actual stroke events. It would be great to learn more about what it is about sleep duration. Is it actually sleep fragmentation, or perhaps the perception of your sleep and the factors that contribute to its quality rather than sleep duration itself? These are all really important factors that are modifiable through behavioral treatment,” says Ruiter.

Data used for this study comes from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study, led by George Howard, DrPH, of the UAB School of Public Health. REGARDS enrolled 30,239 people ages 45 and older between January 2003 and October 2007, and it continues to follow them for health changes. The study is funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

http://www.uab.edu/news/latest/item/2483-sleep-debt-hikes-risk-of-stroke-symptoms-despite-healthy-bmi