Gallup: Gay marriage stance could cost Obama among independents (Los Angeles Times)

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Celebs Weigh In on TIME?s Breastfeeding Cover

Actress Mayim Bialik, who is pro-attachment parenting, also Tweeted that she was "being bombarded" to give her thoughts on the topic.

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Richard Prior on Hecklers, Mini-Giant Gundam Fights, and the Botany of Desire [Video]

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WATCH: 'Fifty Shades of Grey Mother's Day Ad on 'SNL'

Saturday Night Live always makes sure the Mother's Day episode is extra-special, and this year's did not disappoint. Even SNL couldn't help but reference the popularity of the best-selling erotic romance Fifty Sahdes of Grey.

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Christopher Meloni on True Blood: First Look!

And little bit of law (& order) is coming to True Blood.

Former SVU star Christopher Meloni has joined the cast of this HBO hit for its upcoming fifth season, coming on board as a character named Roman who is part of the much-talked-about-but-never-actually-seen vampire Authority.

On season five, this ruling sect will be very much talked about and seen, as Stephen Moyer's Bill and Alexander Skarsgård's Eric team up to try and take it down.

Get your first look below at Meloni in this new role, and then visit our friends at TV Fanatic for a slew of season five photos, along with True Blood spoilers that reveal clues about what's to come this summer...

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Etihad Airways takes stake in Aer Lingus

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) ? Fast-growing Etihad Airways has taken a nearly 3 percent stake of Aer Lingus as part of a strategy to build closer bonds with the Irish carrier, the Abu Dhabi-based airline said Tuesday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. But it appears part of a wider Etihad effort to seek shares in smaller carriers to gain a possible edge in its rivalries with Gulf carriers Emirates and Qatar Airways.

Etihad said Tuesday the 2.987 percent stake in Aer Lingus reflects a "desire to forge a commercial partnership with the Irish national carrier."

Etihad in recent months has bought large stakes in Airberlin and Air Seychelles in a bid to challenge Emirates and Qatar Airways. Etihad operates 10 flights a week from its Abu Dhabi hub to Dublin.

The head of Qatar Airways, however, said the carrier is not currently looking to acquire another airline.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar al-Baker said the airline is focused on building its own business, and doesn't want to take on the financial problems of restructuring a weaker carrier. Al-Baker was in Dubai for a travel expo.

State-owned Qatar Airways competes for long-haul international passengers with Dubai-based Emirates airline and Etihad Airways.

"Qatar Airways is not interested in an acquisition at this time," al-Baker said before Etihad's deal was announced. "We do not just acquire loss-making entities because we are going to get it at a very good price and take advantage of their difficulties."

He said Qatar Airways would only be interested in well-run, promising airlines that are unable to find needed cash. Qatar Airways already has stake in the Luxembourg-based freight carrier Cargolux.

"We are not in this business of restructuring. We are in the business of making money," he said.

Last month, Etihad said its sales jumped 28 percent to $989 million in the first quarter of the year as it pushed ahead with its rapid expansion.

In February, Aer Lingus reported a strong growth in profits for 2011 despite the country's economic downturn. The Dublin-based carrier says in a statement Tuesday its full-year net profit rose 66 percent to euro71.2 million ($95.6 million). Sales rose 6 percent to euro1.29 billion ($1.73 billion).

Reports have linked Etihad to Air Lingus in the past. While not commenting directly on a tie-up with the Irish carrier, Etihad has expressed an interest in pursuing further acquisitions to expand its reach. The carrier also suggested its minority stake buy could be the start of a deeper partnership.

"Etihad Airways believes a possible partnership could produce significant commercial benefits for both airlines," Etihad said in a statement announcing the deal. Etihad executives were not immediately available to comment further.

Etihad has been flying to Dublin since 2007. It operates a premium lounge and an engineering maintenance facility at the Irish airport.

Etihad also holds nearly 30 percent German carrier Airberlin and 40 percent of Air Seychelles.

Associated Press

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Bilingualism fine-tunes hearing, enhances attention

Public release date: 30-Apr-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Wendy Leopold
w-leopold@northwestern.edu
847-491-4890
Northwestern University

Dual language speakers better able to encode basic language sounds and patterns

A Northwestern University study that will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides the first biological evidence that bilinguals' rich experience with language in essence "fine-tunes" their auditory nervous system and helps them juggle linguistic input in ways that enhance attention and working memory.

Northwestern bilingualism expert Viorica Marian teamed up with auditory neuroscientist Nina Kraus to investigate how bilingualism affects the brain. In particular, they looked at subcortical auditory regions that are bathed with input from cognitive brain areas. In extensive research, Kraus has already shown that lifelong music training enhances language processing, and an examination of subcortical auditory regions helped to tell that tale.

"For our first collaborative study, we asked if bilingualism could also promote experience-dependent changes in the fundamental encoding of sound in the brainstem -- an evolutionarily ancient part of the brain," said Marian, professor of communication sciences in Northwestern's School of Communication. The answer, according to their study, is a resounding yes.

The researchers found that the experience of bilingualism changes how the nervous system responds to sound. "People do crossword puzzles and other activities to keep their minds sharp," Marian said. "But the advantages we've discovered in dual language speakers come automatically simply from knowing and using two languages. It seems that the benefits of bilingualism are particularly powerful and broad, and include attention, inhibition and encoding of sound."

Co-authored by Kraus, Marian and researchers Jennifer Krizman, Anthony Shook and Erika Skoe, "Bilingualism and the Brain: Subcortical Indices of Enhanced Executive Function" underscores the pervasive impact of bilingualism on brain development. The article will appear in the April 30 issue of PNAS.

"Bilingualism serves as enrichment for the brain and has real consequences when it comes to executive function, specifically attention and working memory," said Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor at Northwestern. In future studies, she and Marian will investigate whether these results can be achieved by learning a language later in life.

In the study, the researchers recorded the brainstem responses to complex sounds (cABR) in 23 bilingual English-and-Spanish-speaking teenagers and 25 English-only-speaking teens as they heard speech sounds in two conditions.

Under a quiet condition, the groups responded similarly. But against a backdrop of background noise, the bilingual brains were significantly better at encoding the fundamental frequency of speech sounds known to underlie pitch perception and grouping of auditory objects. This enhancement was linked with advantages in auditory attention.

"Through experience-related tuning of attention, the bilingual auditory system becomes highly efficient in automatically processing sound," Kraus explained.

"Bilinguals are natural jugglers," said Marian. "The bilingual juggles linguistic input and, it appears, automatically pays greater attention to relevant versus irrelevant sounds. Rather than promoting linguistic confusion, bilingualism promotes improved 'inhibitory control,' or the ability to pick out relevant speech sounds and ignore others."

The study provides biological evidence for system-wide neural plasticity in auditory experts that facilitates a tight coupling of sensory and cognitive functions. "The bilingual's enhanced experience with sound results in an auditory system that is highly efficient, flexible and focused in its automatic sound processing, especially in challenging or novel listening conditions," Kraus added.

###

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[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 30-Apr-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Wendy Leopold
w-leopold@northwestern.edu
847-491-4890
Northwestern University

Dual language speakers better able to encode basic language sounds and patterns

A Northwestern University study that will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides the first biological evidence that bilinguals' rich experience with language in essence "fine-tunes" their auditory nervous system and helps them juggle linguistic input in ways that enhance attention and working memory.

Northwestern bilingualism expert Viorica Marian teamed up with auditory neuroscientist Nina Kraus to investigate how bilingualism affects the brain. In particular, they looked at subcortical auditory regions that are bathed with input from cognitive brain areas. In extensive research, Kraus has already shown that lifelong music training enhances language processing, and an examination of subcortical auditory regions helped to tell that tale.

"For our first collaborative study, we asked if bilingualism could also promote experience-dependent changes in the fundamental encoding of sound in the brainstem -- an evolutionarily ancient part of the brain," said Marian, professor of communication sciences in Northwestern's School of Communication. The answer, according to their study, is a resounding yes.

The researchers found that the experience of bilingualism changes how the nervous system responds to sound. "People do crossword puzzles and other activities to keep their minds sharp," Marian said. "But the advantages we've discovered in dual language speakers come automatically simply from knowing and using two languages. It seems that the benefits of bilingualism are particularly powerful and broad, and include attention, inhibition and encoding of sound."

Co-authored by Kraus, Marian and researchers Jennifer Krizman, Anthony Shook and Erika Skoe, "Bilingualism and the Brain: Subcortical Indices of Enhanced Executive Function" underscores the pervasive impact of bilingualism on brain development. The article will appear in the April 30 issue of PNAS.

"Bilingualism serves as enrichment for the brain and has real consequences when it comes to executive function, specifically attention and working memory," said Kraus, Hugh Knowles Professor at Northwestern. In future studies, she and Marian will investigate whether these results can be achieved by learning a language later in life.

In the study, the researchers recorded the brainstem responses to complex sounds (cABR) in 23 bilingual English-and-Spanish-speaking teenagers and 25 English-only-speaking teens as they heard speech sounds in two conditions.

Under a quiet condition, the groups responded similarly. But against a backdrop of background noise, the bilingual brains were significantly better at encoding the fundamental frequency of speech sounds known to underlie pitch perception and grouping of auditory objects. This enhancement was linked with advantages in auditory attention.

"Through experience-related tuning of attention, the bilingual auditory system becomes highly efficient in automatically processing sound," Kraus explained.

"Bilinguals are natural jugglers," said Marian. "The bilingual juggles linguistic input and, it appears, automatically pays greater attention to relevant versus irrelevant sounds. Rather than promoting linguistic confusion, bilingualism promotes improved 'inhibitory control,' or the ability to pick out relevant speech sounds and ignore others."

The study provides biological evidence for system-wide neural plasticity in auditory experts that facilitates a tight coupling of sensory and cognitive functions. "The bilingual's enhanced experience with sound results in an auditory system that is highly efficient, flexible and focused in its automatic sound processing, especially in challenging or novel listening conditions," Kraus added.

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

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