2005-12-15T03:57:00.000-08:00

Alzheimer's Could Be Diabetes-like Illness, Study Suggests

By Steven Reinberg

Could Alzheimer's be a form of diabetes?

That's the tantalizing suggestion from a new study that finds insulin production in the brain declines as

Alzheimer's disease

"Insulin disappears early and dramatically in Alzheimer's disease," senior researcher Suzanne M. de la Monte, a neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of pathology at Brown University Medical School, said in a prepared statement.

"And many of the unexplained features of Alzheimer's, such as cell death and tangles in the brain, appear to be linked to abnormalities in insulin signaling. This demonstrates that the disease is most likely a neuroendocrine disorder, or another type of diabetes," she added.

2005-06-14T02:40:00.000-07:00

Payments on Paper

Africa as a continent has a stigma it has to pull away from, the stigma is that of corrupt practices. Nigeria is known for its corruption and shady deals. African leaders have large amounts of money in their accounts while the average citizen remain mirred in a difficult position. There are proposals and ideas about how to eliminate corruption in some African countries. One is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The initiative is designed to increase transparency in countries rich in mineral resources and depend on mineral resource payments for a large portion of their budgets. According to the plan payments for signature bonuses, royalties, mineral taxes are to be made public by both the government and the mineral explorers. The plan is important because of the "resource curse" mineral based economies tend to have low growth rates, high poverty rates and increase in corruption. The more you dig into the ground the more likely you are going to pull up the ghost of Crassus than that of modern leader.
Participants. http://www.eitransparency.org/participants.htm
EITI website http://www.eitransparency.org/index.htm
Brief article on EITI
http://www.society.guardian.co.uk/environment/story/0,14124,1501206,00.html

My thoughts. Create think tanks in government and private universities. The think tanks will have access to all government accounts and expenditures. The think tanks will monitor where funds go and the effectiveness of those funds over a period of time so as to ascertain which programme is working and which is not. If our governments put our money where their mouth is then we have to know the success/results of their projects.
A think tank is needed to create an independent body of thought. According to the open society there are six main ways the civil society can partake in the budget process.
A. Simplyfing and disseminating budget information. B. Identify and set priorities. C. Influencing revenue policies. D. Identifying trends and providing projections. E. Highlighting best practicies. F. Tracking revenues and expenditures.

NTEX

Alzheimer's Could Be Diabetes-like Illness, Study Suggests

Payments on Paper