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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS the disease is most likely a neuroendocrine disorder, or another type of diabetes," said senior author Suzanne de la Monte, a neu- ropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of pathology at Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island. The researchers also offered an explana- tion for the acetylcholine deficiency that is linked to dementia and has long been recognised as an early abnormality in Alzheimer's. They found that insulin and IGF-I stimulate the expression of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), the enzyme responsible for making acetylcholine. This discovery shows a direct link between insulin and IGF-I deficiency and dementia. "We're able to show that insulin impair- ment happens early in the disease. We're able to show it's linked to major neuro- transmitters responsible for cognition. This work ties several concepts together, and demonstrates that Alzheimer's disease is quite possibly a type three diabetes," said Professor de la Monte. (Source: Lifespan, November 30, 2005, http://www.lifespan.org/news/2005/1 1/RIH_ Alzheimer_11_30_05.htm) commands, these peculiarities make brain- waves ideal for security applications. "You could use a sound or music or childhood memory as your pass," Thorpe said. "You could even flash someone an image to help them remember their passthought," she said. Thorpe must still prove that people can reproduce clear, concise signals over and over. "Often, unconscious thoughts, maybe a song in the back of your mind, may blur a signal. There's a lot going on in people's heads," she said. (Source: Agence France-Presse via Physorg.com, December 14, 2005, hittp:/www. physorg.com/news9034.html) installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These readings will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites. Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank. (Source: The Independent, UK, 22 December 2005) DEVELOPING NATIONS UNITE AGAINST USA AND EU Or hundred and ten countries are now united in the G110, a grouping of the world's middle and lower income develop- ing nations. These countries ask for one thing, and one thing only: that the USA and the EU practise what they preach. The USA and European Union claim to represent free and fair trading practices, and they speak about the importance of the market-based economy in the capitalist model. What they practise is something entirely different: namely, cloistered and interventionist trading practices which pro- tect their own markets against those coun- tries trying to compete with them. It is the antithesis of the capitalist-monetarist model, which proves clearly that the model has been flawed from the outset. After complaining for decades about the controlled economy and State intervention EVERY CAR JOURNEY TO BE MONITORED IN THE UK Be is to become the first country in the world to record the movements of all vehicles on the roads. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years. With a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any jour- ney a driver has made over several years. The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automati- cally to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station fore- courts. By March 2006, a central database BRAINWAVE ACCESS TO BANK ACCOUNTS AND HOMES Candin researchers hope soon to be able to use brainwaves to unlock doors and get access to bank accounts, making it possible to do away with key cards, PIN numbers and a litany of other security tools that allow people to retrieve bank money, access computer data or enter restricted buildings. "A user would simply think their pass- word," said Julie Thorpe, a researcher at Carleton University in Ottawa, who hopes to develop the first biometric security device to read the mind to authenticate the user. Her idea, yet to be proved viable for commercial application, assumes that brainwave signals, like fingerprints, vary slightly from person to person, even when they think alike. "Everyone's brainwave signal is a bit different, even when they think about the same thing. They're unique, just like fin- gerprints," she told AFP. A user would only have to think up a different password and save it on a computer, Thorpe said, describing what would become the world's first changeable biometric security tool. Whereas slight differences in brainwave patterns have created difficulties for researchers trying to build universal tools that could translate thoughts into computer NEXUS +7 "Mum, I'm worried. Do you think one day the world's oceans won't rise?" FEBRUARY — MARCH 2006 www.nexusmagazine.com