Jaded about the constant politics of politics? Yeah, well me too. I want to like Barack Obama and the Democratic party because I’m a college student, and that’s what we’re supposed to do right? Support the Democratic initiative, raise taxes on the wealthy, yada yada yada. And you can’t not swing left here in New England, the liberal’s stomping grounds.
When I was in high school, I wasn’t much of a partier. I was always happy to have two or three close friends and have that be it, but so what ended up happening was that I never belonged to a big group who threw big parties every weekend. I was never unhappy with this, but I knew the whole time that there was some part of being a teenager that I was missing out on. So, when I got to college, I shifted the paradigm a little bit, made a big group of friends, and went drinking and partying just about every weekend.
1) Gabby Wins Gold….Twice:
The 16-year-old Olympic gymnast made history and became a household name by becoming the first African American woman and first woman of color to win the “Individual All-Around” in woman’s gymnastics. Gabby created an early lead for herself by earning a 15.966 on the vault. She was able to hold her lead throughout the event, earning another high score (15.500) on the balance beam, and managed to score competitively on floor and uneven bars. Gabby, dubbed the “Flying Squirrel”, also took home a gold in the “Women’s Team Final”. Though Gabby struggled in her Balance Beam and Uneven Bars Event finals, Gabby will leave London a double gold medalist and a very wealthy young lady, since companies will be flocking to her with endorsements.
DIY, bro.
I don’t do crafts, I don’t paint, or bedazzle or glue or any of that shit. HOWEVER, with some simple items found around the home I took a 5 buck shirt and made it the coolest piece of clothing I own. In compiling my ideal wardrobe for the day that I am in fact BALLING, I stumbled upon the shirt above.
At the all-star break, the New York Mets were sporting a record of 46-40. Despite losing a series to the floundering Chicago Cubs before entering the break, things were looking up for the Mets. They had seriously outperformed all expectations in the season’s first half. In the beginning of the year, baseball analysts universally predicted the Mets to consistently hold the 4th or 5th place spot in the N.L. East division. But after setting the tone by going undefeated in the first four games of the season, the Mets maintained a record that never dipped below .500 for the entire first half of the season.
Wine.
It seems so mature, so sensible, so much like the nectar that puts hair on our faces, and brings the opposite sex to our mercy (or the same sex). It is treated as the perfect complement to the most delicious bites of food and to know one’s wines is to be of a higher caliber. Real people, real classy folks, they know their wine and they know how to drink it.
But who would expect you or me to know everything there is to know about wine by age 18? Even by 22, that is kind of a stretch. At this point in our lives, whiskey seems more exciting and, most nights, we just want to get drunk for cheap. That being said, the folks here at the Basement Fridge want to give you a few tips to help you out in case you decide that something slightly more respectable than jugs of Carlo Rossi are in order.
1. Know the basics
To be honest, I think wine snobbery is dumb. If someone at school tries to parade their alleged knowledge of wines, hit them in the face. However, it is helpful to know the very basics — especially if you plan on pairing a wine with food. Rieslings and a hearty porterhouse steak don’t work as well together as a zinfandel would. That is because of the fundamental properties of the wine.
Lakers/Clipppers. Heat/Bulls. Jeremy Lin’s first game back at Madison Square Garden. Anthony Davis’ debut. Mark these match-ups on your calender.
A news release on TuftsNow is reporting a study by Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) that has discovered a link between traumatic brain injuries and Alzheimer’s*. Apparently, an enzyme associated with the disease, BACE1, is elevated in brains that have suffered from moderate-to-severe injury. The elevation is caused when the trauma disrupts the proteins necessary to regulate the BACE1 enzyme. The proteins under stipulation are two intracellular trafficking proteins: GGA1 and GGA3. When the amount of these proteins is decreased, BACE1 appears to increase.
The experiment was performed by neuroscientist Giuseppina Tesco, MD, PhD, of TUSM and her research team. They first used living mice and observed what effects a single traumatic brain injury had on the them. This is where they observed the aforementioned rise in BACE1.
“Elevations of this enzyme cause elevated levels of amyloid-beta, the key component of brain plaques associated with senility and Alzheimer’s disease,” said Kendall Walker, PhD, postdoctoral associate in the department of neuroscience at TUSM.
Then, the team studied postmortem samples from the brains of Alzheimer’s victims. Similarly to the mice, these brains saw increased levels of the BACE1 enzyme. With the bridge from BACE1 to amyloid-beta complete, the question of which protein’s disappearance allows for higher levels of BACE1 still remained. To isolate if one or both were the cause, experimenters used a “mouse strain genetically modified to express the reduced level of GGA3 that was observed in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients.” They found that when GGA1 levels returned to normal, BACE1 and amyloid-beta levels were still elevated. These findings suggest that the lack of GGA3 protein is the cause of the rise in BACE1 levels.
“When the proteins are at normal levels, they work as a clean-up crew for the brain by regulating the removal of BACE1 enzymes and facilitating their transport to lysosomes within brain cells, an area of the cell that breaks down and removes excess cellular material,” explained Tesco.
Now, you may ask, where do we go from here? Well, the team hopes their findings will lead to improved medication that will “therapeutically regulate the BACE1 enzyme and reduce the deposition of amyloid-beta in Alzheimer’s patients.”
“Our next steps are to confirm these findings in postmortem brain samples from patients with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injuries,” Tesco added.
A recent attempt was made at a new drug for Alzheimer’s, but it failed in trial experiments. Existing drugs merely fight off symptoms of the disease, but nothing has yet been able to attack the underlying causes. Perhaps the research done by Tesco and her colleagues will eventually pave the way for such a medication.
*A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is not your everyday bump to the head. The most common TBI is a concussion. A TBI is obviously not the only cause of Alzheimer’s disease, which affects 5.1 million Americans today. But, the research has shown that the physiological side effects of serious brain injuries have shed light on some of the biological inner-workings of the disease.
Hopefully you’ve been paying attention to African politics over the past year. If you haven’t, here’s what you’ve been missing: major Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya; famine in Somalia; Zimbabwe’s ongoing currency crisis (in 2008, it is estimated that Zimbabwe’s inflation rate was “6.5 quindecillionnovemdecillion percent” or a 65 with 107 zeros); China’s increased investment in African nations; the continuing manhunt for Joseph Kony; and the creation of the world’s newest country, South Sudan.
My level of excitement listening to the new Purity Ring album was something you’d see in an unhealthy, crazy, and totally-not-at-all-accurate early youtube video. After listening to each track the Canadian band released over the past year, and looking forward to each subsequent release with as much anticipation as humanly possible, I was looking forward to listening to and reviewing their debut album, Shrines.
And it’s truly an incredible album. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to get it for another few days (release date is July 24), but you can find a stream of the album online.
Purity Ring does something very interesting when it comes to music production. They go through with the same production techniques and musical organization as artists like Neon Indian, but they focus much more on the personality of the song, with a bend toward lyricism that you don’t usually find in Electronic music. Don’t get me wrong, I love electronic music, but the lyricism n most is rather… lacking. Artists like Purity Ring and Rhye are what I hope to be the future of this new style of indie-electronic.
As for the album itself, it goes through a bunch of great styles that make it an obvious Purity Ring album. Maybe not a lot of stylistic eclecticism, but a great sound that works. It’s a great piece of music, and while it’s only their debut album, you can tell that they’re going to be releasing some incredible things in the future.
They also just released the music video for their awesome song, “Fineshrine.”
Recommended Tracks: “Lofticries,” “Amenamy,” “Bellspeak.”
Get the album as soon as it drops. Purity Ring is the best.
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Basement Fridge