[lush]

Meet the Footballer Who Once Brought Down a Plane With a Football Shot
August 19th, 2022*

Roberto Gabriel Trigo, are tired football player from Paraguay, is probably the only man alive who can say that he shot down a small plane with a football.

The legend of the football kick that brought down a plane has been doing the rounds through the locker rooms of Paraguayan football clubs for six decades. Some say it happened during an official game, others that it was during a practice, but they all credit the same man – Roberto Gabriel Trigo. He was 17 years old at the time and playing as a right back for the now-defunct General Genes football club of Asuncion. Annoyed by a small plane flying low over the local football field, Trigo allegedly kicked the ball outwards, hitting the aircraft’s engine and causing it to crash in an open field, just 200 meters away.


Photo: Marcel Strauss/Unsplash

“He always flew over during games or practices and I told him in Guarani (an American language): ‘anive reyu upeicha, because roityta’, which means: ‘don’t do this anymore, or I’m going to hit you with a ball I kick’, andhe was dying of laughter because he was my friend,” Trigo told EFE a few years ago.

The man flying the plane was Alfredo Lird, a big fan of General Genes and a man Trigo knew very well. He had a habit of flying very low over the football field during practices and official games, and they always joked about kicking down his plane. No one actually thought Trigo could do it though, until the day he did.

The former footballer, who turned 80 this year, doesn’t recall every detail from the day he became a legend in his own country, but he does remember that it was February of 1957, during a game against the Presidente Hayes football club.

Lird was flying low, as usual, and after a corner kick by the opposing team, Roberto Gabriel Trigo took the ball low and kicked it upwards in the direction of the small airplane. He didn’t think he would actually hit it, which made seeing it crashing down that much more shocking.

“For a little while the game was stopped. I panicked. They took me and made me drink cold water and they poured it on my head. They told me: ‘don’t worry, nothing happened at all, the pilot is fine’. So I started to calm down,” Trigo recalled.

The footballer learned that Lird had a little boy with him in the plane, but, despite crashing into a nearby open field, both had escaped uninjured. Once things settled down, the game resumed, and Trigo’s team actually won with the score 2 – 0.

“Lird didn’t get angry with me, we were friends and we always joked that at some point I was going to hit him with a ball if he passed over us again with his plane. The problem is that we never thought it would happen actually,” Don Trigosaid.

Trigo’s feat made news headlines in all of Paraguay, and the story of him shooting down a plane with a kicked ball soon became an immortal legend. The General Genes club no longer exists, but everyone still knows about Roberto Gabriel Trigo, the footballer who shot down a plane.

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
SUNDAY AUGUST 21
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You can post as many stories as you like, but you will only get paid for One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can only earn WRZ$ once a day.
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -5)
2:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them short, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
All payments will be made at THE END of the weekly news cycle.
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

Florida woman finds alligator swimming in backyard pool



Sheriff's deputies in Florida responded to a home for a situation that wasn't part of their academy training -- an alligator swimming in a pool.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post that deputies responded to an east Orange County home on Thursday when the homeowner called to report an alligator was swimming in her backyard pool.

A Florida woman says she looked out her window to find an alligator staring back at her, but that was not the worst of it. “I have a 4-foot alligator in my swimming pool,” the woman told Orange County Sheriff’s Office deputies. “Dear God, I woke up, I opened the blinds, and there it is looking at me. ... I’m assuming it’s not going to find its way back out on its own.” It happened Aug. 11 and video posted by the sheriff’s office shows Deputies Jonathan Hill and Janeen Jeffra found the young alligator “just chilling” at the bottom of a pool surrounded by both a fence and a screen. The county is home to Orlando. Hill hadn’t been on an alligator call before and was apprehensive. Among his many questions included whether alligators are fast (they can be when they want).

“They didn’t go over this in the academy,” Hill says in the video, which had been viewed more than 20,000 times as of Aug. 19. “Are you going to scream? Jeffra joked with him. “Did I find a weakness of yours?”

The deputies considered multiple ways to remove the alligator — including using a trash can — but ultimately decided to call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. FWC sent a licensed trapper who “captured and relocated (the gator) to the St. Johns River,” officials said. (Details of how the trapper got it out of the water were not released.) The pool is surrounded by a fence and is screened in, so it’s a mystery how the alligator got into the water. However, the homeowner suspects it may have crawled under the fence. The alligator qualified for relocation because it was likely just under 4 feet and was not considered a threat. Larger “nuisance” alligators are often euthanized by trappers, the state says. “Alligators less than 4 feet in length are not large enough to be dangerous to people or pets, unless handled,” the FWC says. Florida has an estimated 1.3 million alligators and they live in all 67 counties, resulting in frequent reports of alligators in streets and yards, under cars and in swimming pools.

[ozswede]

Monkey calls 911 and gets police to come to the zoo to investigate

A monkey has caused a massive amount of confusion at a California zoo after police rocked up to respond to a 911 emergency call.

Zookeepers, along with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office, now believe it was a cheeky monkey named Route that placed the call.

Police dispatchers received a call on June 13, which eventually disconnected.

Dispatchers tried to call and text the number back, but received no response, which led to dispatchers sending a squad car to investigate the call.

Police found themselves at Zoo to You, a zoo in Paso Robles, facing down a group of very confused zookeepers who denied calling them.



The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office shared an update of the incident on social media to explain the slightly odd turn of events that followed.

"Deputies were sent to investigate," the social media post reads.

"The address took them to the offices of Zoo to You near Paso Robles. No one there had placed the call."

The post added: "Was someone trying to make us look like a monkey's uncle? [But] then they all realised... it must have been Route the capuchin monkey."

Yes, you read that correctly.

After a bit of head-scratching, police and zookeepers eventually came to the realisation that the zoo’s Capuchin monkey, named Route, had got her hot little hands on a mobile phone.

The phone had been abandoned in a golf cart somewhere on the 40-acre zoo property, which is where Route had apparently found the phone and began to play with it... and inadvertently called police in the process.

"We’re told capuchin monkeys are very inquisitive and will grab anything and everything and just start pushing buttons," the sheriff’s office said


"Oops, sorry everyone."

"And that’s what Route did…just so happened it was in the right combination of numbers to call us."

The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office shared several snaps of the adorable yet troublesome primate, who they met after attending the scene.

Police joked that officers from San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office had seen their 'fair share of monkey business but nothing quite like this'.

"As you can tell from these photos, Route is a little embarrassed by the whole thing," the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said in their Facebook post.

"But you can't really blame her, after all monkey see, monkey do."

[goldie0608]

Police Officers Take a 5-Year-Old Child to Kindergarten to Honor Her Father Who Died on Duty

The girl's father, police detective Sgt. Kevin Stolinsky, died of a heart attack last year while on duty



A 5-year-old girl stepped into her first day of kindergarten last Thursday, accompanied by a group of Tennessee police officers who were her late father's colleagues.

Officers from the La Vergne Police Department arrived at her home on Aug. 8 via 20 motorcycles and five cars to escort Anna Stolinsky to her new school. The heartwarming and heartbreaking gesture was made to honor the girl's father, Sgt. Kevin Stolinsky, who died of a heart attack while on duty last year, TODAY reported.

"I was reading a book and went to tell my Nana, 'The policemen are here!'" Anna said, per the outlet.

Anna's mother Casey Stolinsky was aware of the plan after her brother-in-law, David Stolinsky — also an officer from the department — asked for her permission.

Casey told TODAY she and her daughter later took a ride from Lt. David Durham, the same officer who drove them to the hospital, "the night we got the call [about Kevin]."

"I sat in that same seat," she added.

Upon their arrival at Lancaster Christian Academy in Smyrna, the family was welcomed by a group of officers who were ready to cheer on Anna while she made her way into the school's building.

The police department also shared a video of the precious moment via their Facebook page.

"Today was the first day of kindergarten for Anna Stolinsky, daughter of La Vergne Police Lt. Kevin Stolinsky who passed away on Nov. 12, 2021," they wrote in the caption. "In honor of her father and in support of her family, Anna and her mom were given a police escort to school and then were surrounded by officers from multiple departments as she made her way to the front doors."

"Anna even went back to give each of the officers a high five to thank them for helping her get to school safely," they continued.



Last year, the officers also showed their respects to Anna by presenting an American flag to her at Kevin's memorial service, per Daily News Journal.

While reflecting on his late brother's time as an officer, David noted that Kevin "was doing what he loved."

"He was supporting families of police officers," David explained. "He was encouraging families of police officers. That's the family business."

[Fatima99]

Airport Pigs Help Keep the Skies Safe



They didn’t get badges or uniforms, but they did receive a generous meal allowance. Near Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, 20 pigs joined a six-week pilot program designed to reduce the number of goose strikes at the busy international hub. The pigs were allowed to settle in a two-hectare sugar-beet field between two of the airport’s runways. The hope was they’d eat up any plant life that appeals to geese and, by their presence, would intimidate other birds in the area, too.

Collisions between birds and aircraft are a nagging problem in aviation—in 2020, there were 150 avian strikes at Schiphol—and these incidents can have serious consequences. Fortunately, the pig patrol appears to have been a success: no bird strikes were recorded during their stay. The airport is currently assessing whether to make the pigs a permanent feature of its overall safety program.

In a pickle with Pickleball… Sport of the Future Injury?

It’s all fun and games till you strain your Achilles’ tendon, herniate a disc or do a face-plant in the Kitchen.


A 2019 study counted 19,000 pickleball injuries in 2017, with 90 percent of them affecting people 50 and older.

During a recent pickleball match, Nish Nadaraja, 50, made a quick lunge for the ball. It was just a few feet away, but Mr. Nadaraja, an entrepreneur in Northern California, said he felt his feet tangle and he began falling to the pavement “in slow motion.” He still hoped to brace himself with his knees and make a play with his paddle.

Nope. “I face-planted,” he said.

The pain was mild and Mr. Nadaraja played through it, although his wife (and doubles opponent) thought he should have rested. “I did need antibiotics,” he conceded.

It was another wound stemming from a national sensation that shares a name with a snack or a sandwich topping but that is proving a bit more hazardous than sometimes advertised. As a flock of middle-aged players migrate from tennis or start fresh with an easy-to-learn sport, the aches are defying the game’s low-impact reputation.

Pickleball injuries were on the rise even before the pandemic. One analysis, published in 2019 in The Journal of Emergency Medicine, estimated that there were 19,000 pickleball injuries in 2017, with 90 percent of them affecting people 50 and older.

View: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/20/health/pickleball-sports-injury.html

[PennySerenade]

Swiss artist sculpts sprawling model castle on dried riverbank



SAUBRAZ, Switzerland (Reuters) - Swiss artist Francois Monthoux's annual project to build clay sculptures on the banks of Switzerland's Toleure river has sprawled into a captivating castle complex this year as the drought afflicting Europe allows him to extend his dream world.

Monthoux began this year's project with modest ambitions six weeks ago but the drought allowed him to build an entire city of spires.

Now he has mixed feelings: he wants it to rain, but is sad at the thought of his dream world disappearing when it does.

"I imagine the life of the people walking under the arches, under the bridge, looking at the monuments, looking at the city," said Monthoux, who works with clay from the dried bed of the Toleure river in the Vaud canton in western Switzerland.

"So, I enter a bubble, and I become a dreamer ... I see their world being created under my fingers," he added.



Monthoux, a nature lover, says he is sad to see plants dying all around him and "it would be a catastrophe" if an enduring drought meant he could keep going with the project for years. At the same time, he knew from the outset it was temporary.

"Of course, I'm a little bit sad, because I'm sad that the form I gave to the matter will disappear," he said.

Visitors to the sculpture are enjoying it while it lasts.

"I don't have words to say what I feel, because it's ... it's just sublime," said Heidi Butty, a Vaud resident.

[Governor3]

Killer whales are 'attacking' sailboats near Europe's coast. Scientists don't know why
Ester Kristine Storkson was asleep on her father's small yacht earlier this month, sailing off the coast of France, when she was violently awakened.

Scrambling on deck, she spotted several orcas, or killer whales, surrounding them. The steering wheel swung wildly. At one point, the 37-foot sailboat was pushed through 180 degrees, heading it in the opposite direction.

They were "ramming the boat," Storkson says. "They [hit] us repeatedly ... giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack."

"I told my dad, 'I'm not thinking clearly, so you need to think for me,'" the 27-year-old Norwegian medical student says. "Thankfully, he is a very calm and centered person, and made me feel safe by gently talking about the situation."

After about 15 minutes, the orcas broke off, leaving father and daughter to assess the damage. They stuck a GoPro camera in the water, she says, and could see that "approximately three-quarters of [the rudder] was broken off, and some metal was bent."

For any vessel, losing steering at sea is a serious matter and can be dangerous in adverse conditions and some sailboats have had to be towed into port after orcas destroyed their rudders. Fortunately, the Storksons had enough of their rudder left to limp into Brest, on the French coast, for repairs. But the incident temporarily derailed their plan to reach Madeira, off northwest Africa, part of an ambitious plan to sail around the world.

There is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild. Still, two boats were reportedly sunk by orcas off the coast of Portugal last month, in the worst such encounter since authorities have tracked them.

The incident involving the Storksons is an outlier, says Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research, a cetacean research group based in Spain. It was farther north -- nowhere near the Strait of Gibraltar, nor the coast of Portugal or Spain, where other such reports have originated.

That is a conundrum. Up to now, scientists have assumed that only a few animals are involved in these encounters and that they are all from the same pod, de Stephanis says.

"I really don't understand what happened there," he acknowledges. "It's too far away. I mean, I don't think that [the orcas] would go up there for a couple of days and then come back."

These encounters — most scientists shun the word "attack" — have been getting the attention of sailors and scientists alike in the past two years, as their frequency seems to be increasing. Sailing magazines and websites have written about the phenomenon, noting that orcas seem to be especially attracted to a boat's rudder. A Facebook group, with more than 13,000 members, has sprung up to trade personal reports of boat-orca encounters and speculation on avoidance tactics. And, of course, there are no shortage of dramatic videos posted to YouTube.

Scientists don't know the reason, but they have some ideas
Scientists hypothesize that orcas like the water pressure produced by a boat's propeller. "What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," de Stephanis says. So, when they encounter a sailboat that isn't running its engine, "they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder."

Even so, that doesn't entirely explain an experience Martin Evans had last June when he was helping to deliver a sailboat from Ramsgate, England, to Greece.

About 25 miles off the coast of Spain, "just shy of entering the Strait of Gibraltar," Evans and his crew mates were under sail, but they were also running the boat's engine with the propeller being used to boost their speed.

As Evans was on watch, the steering wheel began moving so violently that he couldn't hold on, he says.

"I was like, 'Jesus, what's this?'" he recalls. "It was like a bus was moving it. ... I look to the side, and all of a sudden I could just see that familiar white and black of the killer whale."

Evans noticed "chunks of the rudder on the surface."

Jared Towers, the director of Bay Cetology, a research organization in British Columbia, says "there's something about moving parts ... that seem to stimulate them."

"Perhaps that's why they're focused on the rudders," he says.

The population of orcas along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts is small and de Stephanis believes that the damage to boats is being done by just a few juvenile males.

If a small number of orcas is involved, they may simply outgrow the behavior, de Stephanis says. As the young males get older, they will need to help the pod hunt for food and will have less time for playing with sailboats.

"This is a game," he speculates. "When they ... have their own adult life, it will probably stop."

Towers says such "games" tend to go in and out of fashion in orca society. For example, right now in a population he studies in the Pacific, "we have juvenile males who ... often interact with prawn and crab traps," he says. "That's just been a fad for a few years."

Back in the 1990s, for some orcas in the Pacific, something else was in vogue. "They'd kill fish and just swim around with this fish on their head," Towers says. "We just don't see that anymore."
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/20/11179935 ... ler-whales
----------
I'm beginning to wonder how many days in a row I can post new stories of large marine animals attacking - Gov

[lush]

Potato Chip Maker Launches Hilarious Finger Washing Machine
August 18th, 2022*

Lays, the world’s bestselling potato chip brand, recently launched a limited edition miniature washing machine for oily fingertips.

Let’s face it, there are few things in the world more addictive than potato chips, but if there’s one thing everyone hates about them – apart from getting us fat – it’s the grease they leave on our fingertips. You need to have napkins on hand, lick your fingertips (yuck!), or get up from that comfortable sofa and wash up when you’re done stuffing your face. Well, thanks to a rather ingenious marketing campaign, potato chip enthusiasts now have another option – a miniature washing machine designed specifically to clean oily fingertips.



It sounds dumb, and it kind of is. After all, who needs a fingertip washing machine? But the cool factor is definitely there as well. The concept itself is interesting, but the fact that they made this contraption look like a classic washing machine was pure genius.

All you have to do is press the on/off button, put your oily fingertip into the machine through the laundry door and wait for the magic to happen. Although not as advanced as a modern watching machine, this little thing features a clever induction system that sprays atomized alcohol when it detects your fingertip inside the washing machine. The alcohol comes from a refillable tank at the bottom of the mini washing machine.



The Lays fingertip washing machine measures 15 cm in height, 11 cm in width, and features a USB Type-C charging port.

The fingertip washing machine recently went viral on Japanese social media, with countless people expressing interest in it, either as a collector’s item, or just for fun. Unfortunately, only five such devices will be made available, and not commercially, but through a special lottery. It’s unclear whether people from outside Japan can participate for a chance to win one.

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
MONDAY AUGUST 22
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You can post as many stories as you like, but you will only get paid for One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can only earn WRZ$ once a day.
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -5)
2:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them short, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
All payments will be made at THE END of the weekly news cycle.
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

NOTE: THE RECAP AND REWARDS WILL BE DONE LATER

[Fatima99]

Lost parrot returns home after seven years



Tom Woodford suspected that he would never see his bird Charlie again when he flew out of an unlocked door of his home in August 2015.

After years of fruitless searching, Woodford was reunited with the parrot after spotting an appeal from an animal charity earlier this month.

Tom, who hails from Guernsey, told The Sun newspaper: "I saw the picture and straight away I knew it was him. He looked exactly the same. I couldn't believe it."

Tom and his wife Angela had been scouring Facebook groups for any sign of the bird and he is hugely relieved that the parrot has found his way home.

He said: "I can't tell you the relief I felt.

"Charlie is like family and all these years we've wondered where he could be and what's happened to him. He's a lovely bird, and we always hoped someone would find him."

[ozswede]

A moose calf took a dip in Christina's pool: "Really awesome"

Christina Hallerdt, 67, and her granddaughter Amanda were surprised to say the least when they went outside to empty the wading pool.

A wandering moose calf had jumped into the water and was taking a cooling dip.

- Amanda thought it was really exciting, says Christina.



It wasn't just Christina Hallerdt, 67, and granddaughter Amanda who needed to cool off during the weekend's extreme summer heat. When they both went out to the wading pool in their garden in the Stockholm suburb of Tyresö, it was already occupied.

- We were going to go down and rinse the pool and refill it when we saw the moose. We went back inside and up to the balcony again and sat and watched the moose for probably half an hour, says Christina Hallerdt.

She took the opportunity to snap a few photos of the large animal enjoying the cooling water.

- Once it got up and turned around before it settled down again, says Christina.



Granddaughter Amanda was overjoyed when she looked at the bathing animal.

- She thought it was really exciting, says Christina.

However, neither Christina nor Amanda dared to leave the safe vantage point on the balcony.

- We didn't dare go near the moose, she says and continues: I thought it looked big. After half an hour the moose left the pool and then we saw that the mother was standing outside in the bushes.

The unusual photos of the moose bathing were posted on Christina's Facebook and many of her friends appreciated them.

- There were many who answered happily and wrote that "the moose probably also needs to cool off", she says.

Although Christina has seen some moose roaming the area before, this incident stands out.

- It was really cool, she says.

Scientists Finally Provide Relief For Depression By Locating Exact Target for Deep Brain Stimulation



Although it was a small study on 10 patients, researchers at the University of Texas Health–Houston were able to achieve something long out of reach, locating the G-spot where brain stimulators can make a real difference for depression patients.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) resulted in metabolic brain changes over the 12 months following implanting of the device, making it a strong potential therapy for treatment-resistant depression, according to the new study.

“This is something that people have been trying to do for a long time, but we have not always been very successful with using DBS for psychiatric illnesses,” said first author Christopher Conner, MD, PhD, a former neurosurgery resident at UT-Houston and current fellow with the University of Toronto.

“But this PET study shows that we’re altering how the brain is functioning long term and we are starting to change the way brain starts to organize itself and starts to process information and data.”

For years, DBS has been used to treat patients suffering from movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, tremor, and dystonia—but also has been studied as a possible treatment for patients with treatment-resistant depression.

In DBS, electrodes are implanted into certain brain areas, where they generate electrical impulses to affect brain activity.

However, finding what part of the brain needs to be targeted to treat depression long term has been challenging.

The new method targets the superolateral branch of the medial forebrain bundle (MFB), which is linked to reward and motivation.

“We targeted a bundle of fibers that leave this small area in the brainstem to travel to other areas throughout the brain,” Conner said. “The PET scans indicated that this small target area has very diffuse downstream effects. It’s not one single effect because there’s not one single area of the brain linked to depression. The whole brain needs to be changed and through this one small target, that’s what we were able to do.”

Researchers performed an initial PET scan before the DBS procedure on the 10 patients in the study for a baseline image. They performed additional PET scans at six and 12 months to assess changes after treatment. Scans of 8 of the 10 patients showed a response.

“A responder to the treatment means that your depression potentially decreases at least 50%; you’re feeling much better,” said co-author João de Quevedo, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School. “So, for patients with severe chronic treatment-resistant depression, decreasing our symptoms by half is a lot.”

“It’s the difference between being disabled to being able to do something. Correlating with the PET image changes, our patients reported that their depression lessened after the treatment.”

De Quevedo, who is director of the Treatment-Resistant Depression Program, published the paper this week—with co-authors Dr. Jair Soares, MD and Albert J. Fenoy, MD—in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

When visiting New York City…
Mistakes Tourists Make While Visiting New York City

Locals share the faux pas they often see visitors committing in the Big Apple.



New York, New York, is consistently the most-visited city in the United States ― and for good reason. The Big Apple is home to iconic skyscrapers, top-notch restaurants and shops, and endless opportunities to experience art and entertainment.

But with tens of millions of tourists each year, it’s only inevitable that people make their fair share of mistakes while exploring NYC. We asked locals to share some of the most common faux pas they’ve observed.

From boarding the wrong subway car to sticking to only one borough, here are 17 mistakes tourists often make while visiting New York ― and some advice for avoiding these errors during your travels.


Staying In Times Square

“I think a big mistake tourists make is staying in the Times Square area. It’s so crowded and you don’t have good options of restaurants or coffee shops, as most of them are touristy. You end up missing out on many good hidden gems and seeing the part of New York that’s the most chaotic and dirty.” ― Gabriella Zacche, entrepreneur and lifestyle influencer

“I think the most common mistake tourists make when visiting NYC is staying in Midtown/Times Square. There’s so much to see and do in New York, and Midtown ain’t it.” ― Jeremy Cohen, photographer


Overscheduling

“When I first moved to NYC and the times I visited prior to my move, I always had a packed schedule. It was filled with events, sightseeing and plans with family and friends. A common mistake I see tourists make is not leaving three to four hours of free time to truly explore the best part of NYC, which is spontaneity. Pick a neighborhood of choice and walk aimlessly, people-watch, ask for recommendations from the locals (store owners, bartenders) and then check it out. Keep hopping around and see where the day or night takes you.” ― Krity Shrestha, content creator


Standing In The Middle Of The Sidewalk

“Don’t stand in the middle of the sidewalk. I see SO many people do this, and it drives me nuts! NYC sidewalks are like highways. When you’re sitting in the middle of the road, you’re blocking traffic. It helps New Yorkers (and makes you look like less of a tourist) if you can pull off to the side to look at your phone, figure out directions, etc.” ― Chantilly, blogger at Chantilly Songs


Boarding The Empty Car On A Packed Subway

“As someone who grew up in Brooklyn, there are some things that locals know about the subway that I see tourists do often. One of the biggest mistakes: If a train is packed but one train car is empty ― there is likely a reason why, and you should avoid that car at all costs.” ― ShaunMara Begley, blogger at Shaunie and the City


View more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mistakes ... ea95894fbe