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This month an index of global happiness was released, and the results showed that many countries in Latin America were the world’s happiest.Panama, Paraguay, El Salvador,Venezuela, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Costa Rica were all at the top of the survey. Colombiawas ranked 11th, and Mexico and Brazil ranked around 20th.

Experts have suggested many reasons for the results. One includes the ability of Latin Americans to look beyond immediate problems and live life day-by-day, despite what is going on externally. It suggests that constant problems make people adapt and live positively, perhaps because it is difficult to constantly fear the worse and still live a productive life. Other explanations include cultural aspects that teach Latin Americans to keep a positive face on things, even if there are personal problems.

These are both interesting suggestions. The fact that having less might make someone feel as if he has more to be positive about could come from an appreciation for the smaller things in life. This could also be a reason why countries like France andGermany did not do well on the survey: if you are higher up, you will hit the ground harder if you do happen to fall. Regarding a positive attitude, I think the culture of Latin America does not just place a happy face on every situation, as families and close friends do have constant, open, and honest discussions, both positive and negative. It might be that in difficult times the support people get from those around them helps lift everyone in general. Even if negative things do happen, it is the support from families and close friends that makes the negativity more bearable. 

In addition, there is also a culture in Latin America that does not promote negativity with every aspect of life. Being constantly negative may not thrive when a community of open and honest individuals is there for support. There is simply no room to seek out the worst-case scenario when you have so many in your corner.

While not exclusive to Latin America, the culture of family, support, and living a life to spend time with your family, I think, is an important part of Latin American culture that keeps people positive. Being with those close to you and finding other friends and partners that value that way of life is a key part of Latin American culture. That might be the main reason why people remain positive: they are never truly alone. Interestingly, many discussions and documentaries about immigrant groups in the United States show an internal conflict among many who move to the US and who do not wish to lose their support systems in a new culture rooted in individualism. While being motivated and entrepreneurial is valued, a life being with your family, where you are never truly alone, is the basis for many cultures in many parts of the world. Many new Americans frown on the thought that children can detach themselves from their family at 18 years of age. They believe people can only truly thrive as a family.

– Rich Basas is a Latin America blogger and Europe blogger at the Foreign Policy Association. Read the blogs here for both Latin America and Europe.

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Maybe it's because it was Valentine's Day and we were all feeling a bit emotional, but Thursday night's episode of American Idol was certainly one to love.

One thing that made this episode so endearing was its brevity. Essentially, Idol eliminated 35 contestants in one hour — that's more than one elimination every two minutes; more if you factor in commercial time. If they sustained this rate, we could crown the next American Idol by the end of next Wednesday's episode! Sure, we all understand that such high-speed results aren't sustainable but it is important to show appreciation when the producers are efficient with our time by airing a show comprised of content as opposed to filler. So, thank you, American Idol.

There were also a few female contestants who deserve to be thanked for their contribution to such a successful episode. There has been a lot of buzz about the girls being the ones to beat this year but up until Thursday night, no female had really taken to the stage and demanded viewers to take notice of her. No one forced us to all sit back and think, "She could be the one."'

That all changed when 18-year-old Angela Miller sat down at the piano and played the judges an original song called, "You Set Me Free." Angela's performance was so riveting, Keith Urban looked to be on the verge of tears and when she finished all four judges were on their feet. In that one instant Angela became a serious contender in the competition. Of course, she is from the North Shore of Massachusetts after all...we North Shorers have gumption.

Candice Glover, the closest the competition had to a "girl to watch" before Thursday's episode, was also poised to have her moment in the spotlight with her rendition of Alicia Key's, "This Girl is on Fire," which could easily be Candice's American Idol theme song. While Angela's performance of an original song was an extremely tough act to follow, Candice was perhaps the only one who could have pulled it off.

With such strong girls out of the gate, the American Idol judges later made a few decisions that were perplexing, at best. (Johnny Keyser made it through to the top 40? What? If we go down that rabbit hole we'll lose our Valentine's Day glow, for sure.) When Zoanette Johnson spilled onto the stage it was easy to tell that this girl, who was opting to sing a song that "came to her" while she was onstage fooling around with the drum set, was becoming unhinged. And Zoanette did just that when, midway through her bizarro performance, she lost her drumstick and began yelling at the band to slow down the tempo of her song.

But then things really got bizarre.

The judges seemed to be enjoying Zoanette's ridiculous performance – Keith was even on his feet at the end. It was one of those moments where you question everything you thought you knew. Here, you had developed this bond with the new male judge, grown to appreciate not just his shiny locks, crooked grin, and chest tattoo but his obvious passion for music and infectious enthusiasm when - BAM - he pulls the rug right out from under you, leaving you disoriented. "You really liked Zoanette," you inquire at the screen incredulously, realizing that the foundation that you and Keith had begun to develop was already beginning to show signs of strain.

Then, as if he had been in tune to your innermost thoughts all along, Keith Urban demonstrates a visceral response to Kree Harrison's genuine - or authentic (Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj are still arguing over whose descriptor was more accurate) - performance. Keith claims that she is one of his favorite voices in the competition and you begin to think you can dismiss the small quarrel over Zoanette, telling yourself that it is insignificant, since even if she did make it through to the live shows, she'd definitely be one of the first to get the boot.

And you could almost believe it, if only you could get the image of Sanjaya Malakar and his "faux-hawk" out of your mind.

After saying goodbye to the odd – but strangely endearing – Kez Ban and hearing Shuba Vedula (a.k.a. Pia Toscano 2.0) belt out a ballad, the judges had narrowed down their pool of girls to 21. Before they could decide on the final 20, they requested that Stephanie Schimel and Rachel Hale sing for them again. For some reason Stephanie opts to send the judges subliminal messages by singing the Phil Phillips song, "Home," which is exactly where they send her. 

Then they invite the remaining 28 boys to take the stage and request to hear a few of them perform before they can make the final cuts. Josh Holiday is one of the contestants who is asked to sing and he gives it his all, almost literally leaving it all on the stage after splitting his pants in a particularly eager lunge. It pays off for Josh but poor David Leathers, Jr. is sent home at the same point in the competition for a second year in a row.

And there you have it, ladies and gentleman, American Idol's top 40. Naming them all at this point would be senseless. Naming contestants this early in the season is like living on a farm and naming your turkeys before November – it's just not a good use of your time. 

Tune in next week when Idol heads to Las Vegas, where the competition is sure to heat up. Ba dum tsh.

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Life in urban South Africa is so synonymous with crime and fear that a 90-acre gated community like Silver Woods Country Estate can seem like a paradise. Sprawling and secure compound living is prized as a crime-free, alternate version of South Africa.

The case of the gun-wielding double-amputee known as the “Blade Runner,” who made history in the recent London Olympics by sprinting on fiber carbon struts instead of legs, has brought a focus to the elite Afrikaner world of the rich and famous that Pistorius inhabited, a world not far from violence yet lived in comfort. 

Today a South African court granted bail to Pistorius at $113,000, saying his fame meant he was not a flight risk. The court said his trial would commence in early June. Family members of Reeva Steenkamp, the girlfriend and victim, were in court for the first time today.

But magistrate Desmond Nair, after initial cheers from Pistorius supporters, said the sprint star may not return to his Silver Woods abode, and must turn over his passport and guns, and eschew alcohol in the runup to the trial.

Silver Woods is protected by high walls, electric fencing, security guards, laser sensors, biometric “thumbprint” locks, all overseen by closed-circuit cameras. Cars of choice at Silver Woods: Jaguars and BMW X5s.

It is a zone of large mansions, huge chandeliers, golf and tennis, servants brought in by special trolley – the kind of place that has mushroomed in post-apartheid South Africa, as mostly whites left South African cities.

Brentwood South

If Pistorius is the OJ Simpson of modern South Africa, Silver Woods is its Brentwood, the high-end Los Angeles suburb formerly inhabited by the US football and movie star found not guilty of killing his wife.

Garth Jager, director of Garnat Properties, the developer behind Silver Woods, said residents of the estate are more aware of crime than the average South African, a powerful assertion considering how crime-conscious the country is.

“They want security more than anything else. They want to build and live in a safe environment,” Jager said.

“One of the biggest perks sold to us is the ability to live in a crime free space. Meaning you can walk, you can run, you can be out at night and not be concerned,” says a former resident of a nearby gated community, Silver Lake, at first wrongly identified by media as the location of the Pistorius home.

“It’s the kind of stuff the average South African yearns for, the ability to do these kind of things and not be concerned about safety issues,” says the resident, who asked not to be named.

Security and safety became prominent issues in bail hearings this week as Pistorius unveiled his version of the killing of Ms. Steenkamp, saying he shot into a closed bath fearing an intruder. In the unstated parlance of South Africa, many analysts argue that Pistorius was alluding to a robber that was likely black.

One consistent fact about the South African security estates: almost all the residents are white.

 “If you drive around as a black person in a car—and I’ll be brutally honest—people wonder why you’re there,” the former resident of Silver Lake says. “Not to justify it but you also have to look at the fact that the affluent of Pretoria are mostly white.”

She said that in her estate, the residents were made up of a combination of South Africans, mostly Afrikaners, and expatriate workers for multinational companies who have offices in Pretoria. 

While some black people, such as the woman interviewed, do live in security estates, they are often a minority of a minority, as most blacks are servants or security guards.

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Cynthia Wachenheim was depressed. She was taking anti-depressant medication. She thought she was a bad mother because her baby boy, 10-month-old Keston, had taken two falls.

She was convinced that she had permanently injured her baby, but doctors who examined him disagreed.

In a 13-page suicide note, according to a police source quoted by the New York Daily News, she refers to postpartum depression. “She thinks she’s a failing mother. On the last page, she refers to postpartum depression. She was supposed to see a therapist, but she blew him off."

In the suicide note, Mrs. Wachenheim explains to her husband that she knows that by taking her own life and her child's life, by jumping out the window of their eighth floor condo, she will be seen as "evil."

Wachenheim, a legal researcher on child care leave from her $122,000 a year job at the Manhattan State Supreme Court system, died March 13 in the fall. But her body cushioned the fall for Keston. He survived with only a bruise on his cheek.

The New York Times writes that "Ms. Wachenheim’s leap was a jarring twist in the life of a highly educated, socially conscious woman who had been active in a women’s group in her synagogue, B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side, and, according to her college class notes, had been a coordinator for a Harlem tutoring program."

Her sad demise also raises real questions about awareness of postpartum depression and suicide.

The New York State Health Department says that while as many as 20 percent of new mothers may suffer from postpartum depression, it's rare for new moms — perhaps one or two for every 1,000 — to be diagnosed with "postpartum psychosis," which may cause suicidal or homicidal thoughts. The NYHD says that the disorder has a five percent suicide rate and a four percent infanticide rate.

"If the condition is interfering in any way with the woman's ability to do what she needs to do, it might be serious. Do not be afraid to ask if the woman has had suicidal ideation or is obsessed with thoughts of harming herself or her baby. A gentle way to ask this is "some women have thoughts of harming themselves or their baby. Does this happen to you?"

Recognizing suicidal thoughts is one of the primary goals of research into suicide notes being conducted by an Ohio hospital.

The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has collected more than 1,300 suicide notes.

John Pestian, the hospital's director of computational medicine, is working with a team using computer algorithms to analyze the language in each note, look for key phrases and patterns, in order to create a tool that can help mental health workers recognize those considering suicide and prevent it, according to Cincinnati.com.

In a recent clinical trial at Children’s, Pestian’s team tested the algorithm by asking a series of questions to 30 young people with suicidal tendencies and 30 in a control group. “We wanted to know if the computer could tell, by listening to recordings of what they said, which ones are suicidal, and which ones aren’t,” Pestian said.

The computer was 93 percent accurate — identifying those with suicidal tendencies over the control group — while humans were right slightly more than 50 percent of the time with the same groups.

While the tragic case of Cynthia Wachenheim points out the need for more research and greater awareness, there are many other statistics that also highlight the scope of the problem.

Every 14 minutes in the United States, someone dies by suicide.

"Despite several years of trying to prevent a rise in the number of military suicides, the Pentagon reported last week that, for the first time in a generation, more active — duty soldiers killed themselves last year than were killed in a war zone,"according to The Christian Science Monitor on Feb. 5, 2013. "The Army also saw a record in the number of confirmed or suspected suicides — 349 — among both active and nonactive military personnel. This was a 16 percent increase over 2011 despite the end of a U.S. role in Iraq and a decline of troops in Afghanistan."

And during the U.S. recession from 2008 to 2010, the U.S. suicide rate rose four times faster than in the eight years before the economic downturn, according to a study in the British medical journal the Lancet.

Not too surprisingly, John Pestian, the Ohio researcher, says "loss of hope" is the common denominator in suicide notes. The next step in his research is a larger scale experiment. Then, creation of a computer program that can be used in clinical settings, which is about two years away, he says.

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Claudio Miranda never let having little stop him from dreaming big.

He was raised by immigrant parents in the favela (squatter settlement) Jardim Ângela in São Paulo, Brazil, which – along with two neighboring communities – was chillingly referred to as the "triangle of death" by locals for its high homicide rates. In 1990 the United Nations named Jardim Ângela the world's most dangerous neighborhood.

It was a community wearied not only by violence but by its own self-image, Mr. Miranda says. "Something that worries me in the favela is that people do not dream much," he says. "People dream of a car, a house. Of course you need these. But these things do not bring happiness."

Miranda dreamed that his neighbors, especially young ones who fell into drug abuse, would have a place to reimagine themselves creatively through music, video production, art, performances, and education.

Today, his home swarms with kids playing musical chairs, teens filming and editing music videos, and older neighbors sitting in on English classes. He calls his project Favela da Paz – Favela of Peace.

"In a place that used to be so dark and inhumane, and so devoid of light – I say light in a spiritual sense – what they brought was a respite, a bit of hope," says Ruth Andrade, a former environmental development manager at Lush cosmetics who is now self-employed. She has both donated to Favela da Paz personally and arranged for institutions to give it funds.

Miranda traveled a long, difficult road to become a benefactor to his community. He started working at age 9, chasing tennis balls at the country club where his father was a lifeguard. He never finished high school, instead taking on a series of jobs to support his family. He substituted as a tennis partner for club members who practiced alone. He worked as a courier between offices in São Paulo. He set pins in a bowling alley.

"I was really little, but I was already asking, 'Why don't we have a pool, a tennis court?' So I would take the leftover balls and bring them home to host a tennis championship," Miranda says.

Even as he worked menial jobs, Miranda experienced a creative urge when he saw anything – even old tin cans and buckets – that could be used to make music. With friends he formed a band called Poesia Samba Soul. It creates upbeat, groovy tunes that tell nuanced stories about life in the favela, including one about a teen with a large Afro who has trouble finding work after employers interview him, and another about a boy who enters drug trafficking thinking it is the "easy" route, but later learns it is the hardest, in Miranda's words.

"Music educated us," he says.

Miranda began giving music lessons to kids in his family home. (Miranda plays a number of instruments, including the clarinet, saxophone, drums, and guitar, in addition to being a vocalist.)

"I had 40 drumming students and only one drum," says Miranda of his early classes.

One of his students was Raphael Barbosa da Silva. He came to Miranda already burdened by traumatic experiences: From his home in Jardim Ângela Mr. Barbosa had witnessed a massacre at a bar, in which nearly a dozen people were killed. A family friend was left a paraplegic from the incident. While he was still a child, drug traffickers imposed a curfew that kept residents trapped indoors after dark.

Barbosa happened into a course Miranda offered on video editing. There was one computer and one camera for 25 students. Nonetheless he learned how to use the computer, and eventually Miranda asked him if he would film and edit a clip for Poesia Samba Soul.

"It was my first job. For me it was special. I saw that ... I could make videos," Barbosa says. "Favela da Paz is a group of people who want to make a difference, who want to do something to help not just our community but also São Paulo and Brazil using art and video, using culture. That is the most precious thing we have to offer. We are trying to make dreams come true."

Miranda's dream took root when he and his partners fashioned a top-quality sound studio on a floor of the family home his father donated to them. They used discarded items like concrete posts and foam to fashion acoustic insulation. Trash was repurposed to decorate it: A globe-shaped chandelier is made of white plastic cups; a broken microphone, which dangles from the ceiling, holds a single light bulb.

Dozens of bands now record in the studio each month. "Music is very attractive," says Miranda, who sees his project offering youths alternatives to drugs and violence. "A lot of people came to the project that were in crime. They wanted to record music, try out their dream."

The studio costs about $10 an hour to use; the price would be as much as four times higher elsewhere. The funds, in turn, support free Favela da Paz courses. "My idea was always a project that generates income to sustain itself. The music generates that," Miranda says. "We need to be self-sustaining."

In 2010, Miranda officially established Favela da Paz, an umbrella term for the studio and the music, video editing, and graffiti artwork courses that he and his partners teach. They also hold events in the community, such as music festivals and holiday parties.

"He is one of the few people who puts on activities in this area," says Quinho Herculan, who brought his two children to a Sunday party thrown by Miranda, providing a cheery atmosphere right next to an alley used by drug traffickers, a scene that would have been hard to imagine during Jardim Ângela's tougher days.

Some 50 children and their parents played Simon Says and painted on a long tarp set up on Miranda's garage door. A German graphic design student who volunteers at Favela da Paz cleaned up after the kids and poured drinks for them while Miranda distributed goodie bags.

"They are contributing to the community with what they have gained over time," Mr. Herculan says of Miranda and the other volunteers at Favela da Paz.

Community leaders like Miranda are helping residents learn how to assert their rights, Ms. Andrade says. "It's what we call in Portuguese jogo de cintura, which is having your way with things, which is knowing where you stand and using that to achieve your aim.

"They have the same access to drug dealers as they do to the police. They have what I like to call 'earned social power,' " she adds. "They have such a great understanding of the social network that they can use it in their favor ... to keep the kids out of the hands of the drug dealers and almost to build a state of truce."

Jardim Ângela has become significantly safer since it received its troubling UN designation 23 years ago. Community policing efforts have brought better relations and reduced crime, though violent flare-ups between drug traffickers and police are still commonplace.

Miranda walks a delicate line between the two sides. He needs to speak with both traf-fickers and police before hosting public events, asking the former to not sell drugs and the latter to not carry out armed raids against traffickers while the event takes place.

"Those who make art are respected by all sides in the community," Miranda says. "With time, other residents, not just us, learned that they can negotiate space here."

The courses and events at Favela da Paz offer a better alternative for youths in a community where drugs and crime are still rampant. Miranda's ultimate goal is to get young people to think imaginatively about their futures.

"We want people to pass through here," Miranda says, "and then go their own ways."

He cites the case of Barbosa, who now is applying to college to pursue his dream of making documentary films.

"A 15-year-old does not have their mind formed yet. My mind took shape here," Barbosa says. What Favela da Paz teaches, he says, is to have "the intuition of doing something for your neighbor and not for yourself."

• To learn more, go to http://bit.ly/FavelaDaPaz (in Portuguese).

Help kids through music

UniversalGiving helps people give to and volunteer for top-performing charitable organizations worldwide. Projects are vetted by Universal Giving; 100 percent of each donation goes directly to the listed cause.

Here are three groups selected by UniversalGiving that aid youths. Two are music education programs. The third provides an opportunity to volunteer:

• SAEP-USA provides after-school music lessons to township children in South Africa. Project:Give $30 to provide music lessons to township children.

• Asia America Initiative helps provide arts education in impoverished communities. Project:Help buy musical instruments for students living in war zones.

• Amizade empowers youths through educational courses, vocational training, academic support, and recreational activities. Project: Volunteer to help at-risk kids in Brazil’s Amazon region.

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Is McDonald’s about to offer all-day breakfast, borrowing a page from Denny’s, Jack in the Box, and IHOP?

Could be.

The question is getting some big buzz because McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson said he’s entertaining the idea.

And, well, when this mega restaurant chain is involved, it’s also because there are a lot of people out there who might like to order a McMuffin or a Sausage Burrito at noon or at dinner time.

But for those who might be salivating at the thought, don't hold your breath.

Mr. Thompson, the company’s chief executive officer, didn’t bring the topic up on his own. It came up when he was asked during a CNBC interview Friday:

“Yes we would consider it,” was his reply.

He followed up by saying the company needs to focus on making the most of its existing menu, that it offers all-day breakfast in some global markets, and that it’s looking into “innovative” ways of expanding breakfast hours.

So all-day breakfast is on the company's radar. But it’s been that way for some years now.

Marketing blogger Joseph Yi, at RewardMe.com, recently explained why it might not be in McDonald’s best interest to make pancakes and other items available all day: “The Law of Scarcity states that when a person perceives that something ... they want is in limited quantity [then] the value of the object will be greater than if it were to be abundant.”

Maybe McDonald's could sell more Egg McMuffins by offering them all day, Mr. Yi says. But in the process, it might lose some cachet as the go-to place in the realm of hot fast-food breakfasts. It would give customers less reason to visit a restaurant by 10:30 a.m. (or 11 a.m. in some places).

That doesn’t mean McDonald’s won’t make the all-day plunge. But it may explain why it hasn’t happened yet, and why Thompson didn’t answer the question with a simple “yes” or “I’m lovin’ it.”

Thompson did say the company is trying to be faster on its feet regarding business opportunities.

The company reported a rise in earnings for the latest quarter, but weak revenue growth disappointed investors.

At the company’s innovation center near Chicago, Thompson said “we socialize” ideas that are emerging from markets all around the world. Those include everything from menu options to delivery methods and how to use things like mobile apps and social media to connect with customers.

Globally, breakfast items are a big opportunity.

In a recent conference call with investment analysts, Thompson pledged to “feature even more compelling new products in the United States especially in our four key growth categories of chicken, premium beef, breakfast and beverages.”

He cited breakfast item Egg White Delight, as well as premium McWraps and a Blue Berry Pomegranate Smoothie, as promising menu additions.

Thompson dropped another intriguing hint: He said offering home or workplace delivery is a "big, big opportunity."

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DEAL ISLAND, Md. (AP) — John Franklin Riggs swam for hours to reach help for his family, including two children, after their boat capsized in a storm.

Riggs climbed rocks along the shoreline in the dark and knocked on the door of the first house he saw early Wednesday.

"He came to the right house," said Angela Byrd, whose dog's barking awakened her. She found 46-year-old Riggs outside, soaking wet and barefoot.

"He said, 'I've been swimming since sundown; I need help,' " she told the Daily Times (http://delmarvane.ws/1br0g0C).

Byrd called 911 and rescuers were soon on their way to the 16-foot Carolina Skiff that capsized near Deal Island, southwest of Salisbury on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Life jackets saved the boaters' lives, Sgt. Brian Albert of the Maryland Natural Resources Police said.

A Maryland State Police helicopter hovered above the boat as firefighters from Deal Island, Mount Vernon and Fairmount in Somerset County and Westside in Wicomico County pulled alongside. The U.S. Coast Guard also was on the scene, Albert said.

Contessa Riggs of Washington said she clung to the boat for five hours with her 3-year-old son, Conrad Drake; her 70-year-old father, a retired commercial waterman also named John Riggs, and his 9-year-old granddaughter, Emily Horn, a fourth-grader visiting from the San Francisco Bay area.

"I've never been so happy to see search boats in my life," she said Wednesday by telephone. "It took him five hours to swim ashore. He had to stop and grab a crab pot buoy and rest, then swim.

"We clinged to the side of the boat and got stung by sea nettles in the dark," she said.

Riggs' 9-year-old niece, Emily, calls Riggs a "real hero." She added that the next time the family goes fishing, "I'll go if the water is really shallow."

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An expedition down to the Atlantic depths has confirmed for the first time that the lionfish, an invasive species, is living there. The expedition verifies anecdotal evidence that the predatory animal is eluding eradication and imperiling native fish.

“This data has confirmed for us that we have a problem there,” said Stephanie Green, lead scientist on the project and a post-doctoral associate at Oregon State University’s Hixon Lab, noting that researchers are still investigating the exact scale of the issue. “This is the first time we’ve had a look at what the problem is in deep depths – it’s the next frontier in this study.”

Scientists have traced the lionfish, native to the Indo-Pacific and the first exotic fish to invade the Caribbean, to the aquarium trade between oceans in the 1980s. The fish were likely released into the ocean near southern Florida. 

“Genetic work has showed that the whole invasion began from a few releases,” said Dr. Green.

Divers have been relatively successful at removing lionfish from Florida’s shallow coral reefs, and there have been various efforts in the region to drive up dinner-table demand for the fish. The Reef Environmental Education Foundation Fund sells a cookbook devoted to lionfish recipes, as well as a list of local restaurants that serve lionfish. Conferences on the invasive species have ended with tastings of lionfish cuisine.

But deep-sea dives to the depths that the lionfish has now claimed are not possible, and humans have not been able to remove them. That raises concern that the fish might use the deep sea as a base from which to retake the shallower water.

“There’s some concern that the lionfish might be using a deep-sea refuge,” said Green, noting that further study is needed to confirm that hypothesis.

The effect of the lionfish, venomous fish that plumes like a Japanese fan, is well known in the shallower Atlantic, but its impact on the deep sea is less well known. The animal is what is known as a gape-limited predator, which means that the fish is limited in food consumption by the size of its mouths. The fish, growing up to 47 cm in length, can consume predators up to half its size, which puts about 70 percent of the fish population within their gulp. Studies have shown that at least 40 species of fish have dropped in number since the lionfish was introduced to their Atlantic environment, Green said.

“There is strong evidence that the lionfish is having negative effects on the native population,” she said. “We don’t see any signal that anything is controlling lionfish population.”

As big fish tend to live longer, the lionfish also reproduce more efficiently than do smaller fish: one female lionfish can spawn some two million eggs per year; the eggs are bundled in gelatinous blobs of some 12,000 to 15,000 eggs and distributed throughout the ocean. That means that the invasive lionfish population has grown in disproportionate number relative to native fish deep in the Atlantic.

And a separate study released this week from UNC Chapel Hill also suggested that a lack of native predators in the Atlantic has further boosted the lionfish’s disproportionate growth: Nothing is down there to eat them.

Researchers are now investigating possible solutions to the lionfish problem, including creating deep sea traps that could nab the large fish, said Green. Scientists are also hoping to catch one of the fish – using mounted suction cups – in the deep environment to better understand the changing ecosystem there.

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Shunichi Tanaka, the head of the Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan, and the country’s chief nuclear regulator announced on Wednesday, that the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, has been leaking contaminated water into the ocean for the two years since the accident that saw three of the plants six reactors suffer a meltdown.

The problem stems from the fact that ground water is leaking into the basement of the damaged reactors, and becoming contaminated, and whilst that water is being pumped out and stored in huge tanks on site, the inflow has not yet been stopped, meaning that ever more ground water enters the basement and becomes contaminated.

Tanaka explains that neither his staff, nor those working for the plant’s operator have discovered where the leaks are coming from, and therefore have not been able to stop them. (Related article: Chernobyl at Sea? Russia Building Floating Nuclear Power Plants)

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the power plants operator, has constantly denied that any of that water has been leaking into the Ocean, but in the last few days it has switched its position and finally admitted that it can’t actually say for sure that the water is not leaking into the sea. 

Tepco has also admitted that the amounts of radioactive cesium, tritium, and strontium detected in groundwater around the plant has been growing, making the job of sealing the leaks even more urgent. Cesium and Strontium are especially dangerous to humans.

Tanaka claims that the evidence that the water is reaching the sea is overwhelming. “We’ve seen for a fact that levels of radioactivity in the seawater remain high, and contamination continues — I don’t think anyone can deny that. We must take action as soon as possible. (Related article: Climate Policy Spells Turn Around for Exelon)

That said, considering the state of the plant, it’s difficult to find a solution today or tomorrow. That’s probably not satisfactory to many of you. But that’s the reality we face after an accident like this.”

For some time now experts have worried that the plant has been constantly continuing to leak radiated material into the ocean, and these latest announcements have only helped to confirm those suspicions.

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Here's how the mouse would tell it: I padded into a room and was shocked. Then I tiptoed into a different room. I was shocked there, too.

But only of those mouse memories is real. The other is the invention of MIT scientists. But to the mouse, both the memories are just as true.

A team of scientists under Susumu Tonegawa at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created false memories in mice, a feat that puts renewed attention on the foibles of human memory, an unreliable resource often called upon as a final arbiter in critical, sometimes life-or-death, situations, including trials that hinge on eyewitness statements.

“Our data demonstrate that it is possible to generate an internally represented and behaviorally expressed fear memory via artificial means,” the authors write in the paper, published in Nature.

But where those engrams are in the brain has been unclear: are those engrams spread across the brain, forming a brain-wide network of memory creation, or are engrams stored in just one region?

That region, researchers have proposed, could be the hippocampus, a small area shaped like a ram’s horn and tucked snugly at the brain’s bottom-middle. To prove that engrams are localized to the hippocampus would require showing that it was possible to generate memories from just the activation of specifically targeted hippocampal cells.

In a previous paper, published last year in Nature, the MIT team had begun to prove that point, showing that mice would freeze in fear if scientists artificially reactivated the brain cells associated with a previous experience with electric shocking.

This latest paper, published in Science, builds on that previous work. First, the researchers placed mice in a chamber unfamiliar to the rodents, which were left to explore the space un-shocked. While there, the team labeled neurons in the CA1 region of the mice’s hippocampus with channelrhodopsin-2, a protein that activates neurons when stimulated with light.

The next day, the mice were introduced to a new room. There, the mice were shocked in their feet – and at the same time, the team activated the neurons that had been activated in making the memory of the previous space.

On the third day, the mice were returned to the original room, where the animals froze in terror: the mice had associated the second room’s shock with the visit to the first room, in effect creating an apocryphal memory of a shock delivered in the first room. And the team had been able to identify the specific cells that make up part of an engram for a particular memory and then target those cells to reactive it.

When placed back into the second room, the mice froze similarly. That showed that the two memories were equally real to the mice, though inly one was true.

“Whether it’s a false or genuine memory, the brain’s neural mechanism underlying the recall of the memory is the same,” says Susumu Tonegawa, a professor of biology and neuroscience and co-author on the paper, published in Science, in a release.

Since human memories are more complex than mice memories, the authors said the technology is a long way from the sci-fi applications of memory inducement as imagined in the movies Total Recall or Inception. Still, the research does have bearing on how much confidence should be placed in human memory, which is notoriously often little more than fiction-making, in high stakes situations. And it also opens the floodgates to further research on memory-making that tackles the nuances of how memories, wily-little things, are made, and re-made, and made again.

“Now that we can reactivate and change the contents of memories in the brain, we can begin asking questions that were once the realm of philosophy,” said Steve Ramirez, a graduate student at MIT and a co-author on the paper, in a release. “Are there multiple conditions that lead to the formation of false memories? Can false memories for both pleasurable and aversive events be artificially created?

“These are the once seemingly sci-fi questions that can now be experimentally tackled in the lab,” he said.

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Fifty years ago, hundreds of thousands of people descended on our nation's capital to demonstrate for civil rights. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his powerful 'I have a dream' speech at theLincoln Memorial. Here are ten things you might not have known about the March on Washington and King's remarks.

1. Where it may have started

The roots of the march dated back more than two decades. In 1941, A. Philip Randolph, president of both the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Negro American Labor Council, had proposed along with other black leaders staging a 100,000 person march on Washington to protest segregation in the armed forces and discrimination in defense industries. To prevent the march, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order outlawing racial discrimination in wartime industries.

2. JFK request

On June 22, 1963 – just two months before the scheduled march – President John F. Kennedymet with civil rights leaders at the White House and expressed deep reservations about a mass rally in the nation’s capital. He told them he needed their help in getting his civil rights legislation passed, saying “we want success in the Congress, not a big show on the Capitol."

3. Size and scope

The march was the largest ever held in Washington up to that time, with 250,000 participants, about one quarter of whom were white.

4. Part of history

Twenty-one charter trains carrying African Americans from around the country pulled into Washington on the morning of the march, and at one point buses filled with marchers flowed through the Baltimore tunnel at the rate of 100 per hour, according to prominent civil rights historian Taylor Branch. One African American roller skated to the march from Chicago, while another, an 82-year-old, rode his bicycle from Ohio.

5. Stage presence

Some of the most memorable parts of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech – including the ‘I Have a Dream” segment – were not in the original draft. He ad-libbed them on stage. Gospel singerMahalia Jackson, who was sitting behind him on the dais, admonished King to “tell them about the dream, Martin.” Mr. Branch has written that it isn’t known if King heard her admonition but that he later said he had forgotten the rest of the speech and took up the first string of oratory that came to him.

6. Top ranked

In 1999, a group of 137 academics voted the “I Have a Dream” speech the top public address of the 20th century.

7. Award winner

King was named Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1963 and won the Nobel Peace Prize the next year.

8. Peaceful protest

Despite widespread fear among whites and the mainstream press that the marchers would foment mayhem – “The general feeling is that the Vandals are coming to sack Rome,” one headline in the Washington Daily News said – police recorded only four march-related arrests, all of them white people.

9. Women's fight, too

Female civil rights activists pressed the organizers of the march to allow women a more prominent role on the dais, but only one, Daisy Bates, a leader in the fight to integrate public schools in Arkansas, was allowed to speak. She got 142 words.

10. Blazing two trails

Separate routes were laid out for male and female civil rights leaders, with the men marching down Pennsylvania Avenue and the women down Independence Avenue.

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J.K. Rowling recently appeared in a video which aired on “Good Morning America” to celebrate the 15th anniversary of her “Harry Potter” series.

During the clip Rowling reveals that the character she misses the most from her years of writing the "Potter" books is wise wizard Albus Dumbledore. If he could meet any real person, says Rowling, it should be his author.

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There's little to laugh about when it comes to Syria, but when it comes to understanding what's happening there, some of the best analysis comes in the form of a joke.

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It's often said that the only permanent thing is change, and that old saw apparently applies to the composition of the typical American family.

A study released today by Zhenchao Qian, a professor of sociology at The Ohio State University, shows a number of troubling trends: a decline in marriage (young people are delaying marriage longer than ever, and permanent singlehood is increasing), a rise in divorce and remarriage (the "marriage-go-round"), and a rise in adult children living with their parents for economic reasons.

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Most troubling is a polarizing divide that means white people, the educated, and the economically secure have much more stable family situations than minorities, the uneducated, and the poor. Viewed against a background of widening gaps between the haves and have-nots in America, this is a particularly stark divide.

In a release on the study, which is based on census data and the 2008-2010 American Community Survey, Qian said that “there is no longer any such thing as a typical American family", although the study makes a caveat – immigrant families may come closest, with relatively low rates of divorce and remarriage, and low rates of cohabitation.

The key question is: if the typical American family is going the way of the passenger pigeon, does it really matter?

The answer seems to be: yes. Households headed by married couples lead to better educational and social outcomes for their children. (Whether that's causal - married parents lead to better outcomes - or correlated - stably married parents have other qualities that help their kids thrived - is open for debate.)

A New York Times story looking at the skyrocketing rate of birth outside of marriage among women under 30 (now over 50 percent of such births) pointed up one of the key differences between marriages and cohabitating couples:

Almost all of the rise in nonmarital births has occurred among couples living together. While in some countries such relationships endure at rates that resemble marriages, in the United States they are more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages. In a summary of research, Pamela Smock and Fiona Rose Greenland, both of the University of Michigan, reported that two-thirds of couples living together split up by the time their child turned 10.

The research, in aggregate, says that things are changing for the American family, and quickly. There may be ways for the government to address the trend: increased financial benefits for getting and staying married, for example, or a macro-effort to actively battle rising economic inequality, but systematic change will be a long hard fight. The research seems to suggest that such a fight is worth the effort.

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Kenyan officials said Saturday they had tightened security across the country in the wake of a terrorist attack that has underscored the challenges Kenya faces as it tries to rein in the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab group next door in Somalia.

The attack on Nairobi's upscale Westgate shopping mall killed at least 39 people and wounded about 150. It has left many citizens fearing for their security as the military and police continued to battle gunmen more than 10 hours after the attack began, and rekindled memories of recent grenade attacks on churches, public places, and police installations that Kenyan officials have blamed on the terrorist group. 

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Imagine it's a Saturday afternoon and you need to get a little work done. You head down to your favorite local coffee shop, grab a hot cup of coffee, open your laptop, and log in to Facebook. But this time, you’re not procrastinating: you’re accessing WiFi.

Facebook and Cisco announced a partnership on Wednesday that would offer free WiFi to customers if they check in to a business on Facebook. The business would then be able to access anonymous data from their customers’ Facebook accounts, allowing them to better understand their target audiences, and potentially run more ads on Facebook.

The program was developed by Meraki, a small cloud-based WiFi based company acquired by Cisco in 2012. The idea behind the program is to give Facebook access to small-business ad revenue, while giving businesses the opportunity to understand their audience better, connect Cisco to a growing mobile audience, plus keep customers connected to WiFi (and their online friends). 

Privacy is a big concern with this new WiFi option, but businesses and Facebook will not track customers’ online activity or individual information. The business will get general demographic information such as age, gender, location, and interests, which Facebook hopes business will use for targeted advertising on Facebook. Eric Tseng, head of Facebook’s WiFi initiative, also told TechCrunch customers will have the option to keep their check-ins private, and set up an automatic check-in for frequently visited locales. For those without Facebook or leery of the privacy Facebook promises, there will be a login option requiring a password, per usual.

The idea was field-tested at a 25 businesses in the San Francisco area that saw their check-in rate jump three times the normal amount. Currently, it is open to any business that uses Cisco as their WiFi router. Will this translate to more advertising for these businesses, ad money for Facebook, or a barrage of check-ins on Facebook timelines? It remains to be seen. But for anyone who has tripped over a jumbled numbers-and-letters password, it is likely a welcome option.

But this is hardly the only new feature Facebook is rolling out. On Sunday, Facebook showed off a new function of Graph Search, which allows users to search their timelines for status updates, photo captions, check-ins and comments, according to a blog post on the company’s website. Searchers can even look for posts in a certain time-frame (so if there is anything from your early days of Facebook you would prefer to be unsearchable, now is the time to double-check your privacy settings). Facebook says this is “slowly” rolling out to a small group of users, but will continue to be released as kinks are worked out.

Facebook also announced a change to its new Home app Thursday, to include posts from Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr, and Instagram. Facebook Home is an app that sets Facebook content and navigation to your smart phone’s home screen. Now, users can set the home screen to show posts from any of the above social networks, with the ability to quickly share that content to their Facebook timeline.  Currently this will be available on Facebook for Android Beta, and rolled out as testing continues. 

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