Walking and talking while chewing gum — it sounds like the start to a bad joke, but for older adults with mobility challenges, it’s no laughing matter.
“We know that among older people, difficulties performing another task while walking or standing reflect an existing and/or a potential problem concerning both functions, as well as an increased risk of falling,” said professor Jeffrey Hausdorff of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine.
Hausdorff and a team from Tel Aviv University, the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Harvard Medical School have discovered that gentle stimulation of the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (the brain area responsible for dividing attention and executive functions) can reduce the negative impact of standing or walking while at the same time completing an additional cognitive task such as talking on the telephone.
The study included 57 subjects over the age of 70. Each treatment included noninvasive transcranial direct stimulation, using a very low-intensity electric current, for 20 minutes.
There were four groups: sham (no stimulation), stimulation of the cognitive area of the brain, stimulation of a sensory-motor area of the brain, and simultaneous stimulation of motor and cognitive areas.
Immediately upon the conclusion of the treatment, the walking and standing sway of each subject were evaluated, with and without requests to perform a cognitive task at the same time.
Stimulation of the cognitive area of the brain reduced the negative effects of the cognitive task on walking and standing stability by about 50 percent. Stimulation of the sensory-motor area alone did not improve performance.
“Dual tasking that involves walking while simultaneously carrying out a cognitive task, like talking on a cellphone or with a companion, occurs frequently throughout the day,” Hausdorff said. “The concurrent performance of two tasks requires the ability to split attention.”
The researchers hope that their methodology — which is gentle enough to be done at home — will improve seniors’ ability “to perform both tasks simultaneously in a safer manner.”
“We foresee the possibility of combining this type of therapy with exercise and other modes of intervention that can help to improve walking, to enhance thinking, and to reduce the risk of falls. There is evidence that combined therapy could prove to be the most effective solution,” Hausdorff explained.
The research was funded by a grant from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation. The results were published in The Annals of Neurology, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Neurological Association.
National security, drug trafficking and organized crime are controversial issues that Mexico and the United States have to address jointly, and the process usually raises questions about sovereignty and transnational crime.
After 13 years of cooperation under the Merida Initiative, both governments agreed on Oct. 8 to draw up a new joint plan to tackle these problems.
The Bicentennial Understanding comes after 15 years of escalating violence in Mexico and accusations that criminal groups in the country carry weapons trafficked from the United States.
Espléndida reunión de trabajo con Estados Unidos de América :adiós iniciativa Mérida, bienvenido Entendimiento Bicentenario por la Seguridad, Salud Pública y Comunidades Seguras. Nueva etapa en la relacion bilateral. pic.twitter.com/fDctDojB1j
Former presidents George W. Bush, on behalf of the U.S., and Felipe Calderón, on behalf of Mexico, signed in 2007 the so-called Merida Initiative, a bilateral security agreement initially designed to last three years. It has continued to the present, however, and has received more than $3 billion in funding from the U.S. government.
Despite its longevity, the Merida Initiative has had many critics over the years. Taking into account Mexico’s growing violence rate, its detractors wouldn’t call it a success.
“The Merida Initiative was, formally, a bilateral agreement. However, it was really a U.S. unilateral initiative, intending to insert its security priorities on the Mexican agenda,” Fabián R. Gómez, a graduate in public security and specialist in Mexican national security, told Zenger.
“Its objective was to fight head-on against organized crime, transnational threats that could jeopardize the U.S. national security and drug trafficking,” he said.
“Some consider the Merida Initiative a failure because it did not reduce violence or criminal activity in Mexico. On the contrary, the number of homicides and organized criminal groups increased, but now they have a smaller scale,” said Gómez.
En el Diálogo de Seguridad de Alto Nivel entre México y Estados Unidos, manifestamos nuestro ánimo de fortalecer la amistad y la cooperación para el desarrollo con respeto a las soberanías.
Hay condiciones inmejorables para inaugurar una etapa nueva en la relación bilateral. pic.twitter.com/ICs8yGaG1K
Although the U.S. met its goal of neutralizing the most prominent drug lords, Mexico suffered a violence escalation that continues to this day.
According to World Bank data, in 2007, Mexico reached the lowest number of intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants since 1990, with 8,122. After the Merida Initiative’s implementation with its frontal fight against drug trafficking, the rate increased exponentially. At the end of Felipe Calderón’s administration, in 2012, and after his so-called ‘war on drugs,’ there were 22,142 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. The figure escalated and, in 2018, by the end of Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration, it reached 29,071.
Arms trafficking from the U.S. to Mexico increased in parallel, contributing to the rising violence caused by organized crime and drug trafficking. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) designed and executed the 2009 Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed traffickers to buy weapons in America and bring them into Mexico, to track them until they reached the drug cartels.
When someone used one of these weapons to assassinate a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent in 2010, ATF agent John Dodson publicly denounced the operation, sparking a scandal that reached the Barack Obama administration. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s office requested information on the topic from the United States in 2020, claiming that the operation had violated Mexico’s sovereignty.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas attended the Oct. 8 meeting, where Mexican and U.S. officials recognized the need for a new agreement acknowledging both countries’ interests and objectives.
“Through the High-Level Security Dialogue, we are unlocking the full potential of our partnership. As demonstrated today, both the United States and Mexico are committed to cooperating to best protect our citizens, prevent trans-border crime, and pursue criminal networks,” Blinken posted on Twitter.
Through the High-Level Security Dialogue we are unlocking the full potential of our partnership. As demonstrated today, both the United States and Mexico are committed to cooperating to best protect our citizens, prevent transborder crime, and pursue criminal networks. pic.twitter.com/K4EiRJK5IZ
“The Bicentennial Understanding, from the outset, breaks a paradigm. It is no longer a unilateral declaration by the U.S. disguised as a bilateral agreement. The Mexican government has also raised its interests at the table. So, it has a common agenda,” said Gómez.
The meeting’s memorandum proposes changing the focus of the war on drugs. Instead of aiming to capture cartel heads, the goals of the new comprehensive framework, as defined by Blinken, will be to promote community development, create opportunities for young people and fight consumption.
In addition to preventing drug use, the new agreement proposes reviewing the policies targeting drug users. According to the meeting’s memorandum, the current approach is based on substance prohibition and user criminalization, but it has proven ineffective.
“The Mexican government’s vision is no longer to go for the big bosses, but their social base. It wants to take away from them the citizen base which is in one way or another immersed in crime because they lack opportunities or live in conflict zones and are forced to cover up criminal groups,” said Gómez.
Not all opinions on the Bicentennial Understanding are favorable.
“This is the same Mérida Initiative with another name,” Miguel Orozco, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), told Zenger. His party ruled Mexico uninterrupted from 1929 to 2000 and has been the opposition during the Vicente Fox (PAN), Felipe Calderón (PAN) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Morena) administrations.
“López Obrador makes the same mistake for which he criticized Calderón so much. Just as happened with the latter’s administration, it [the new agreement] will bring more violence to Mexico,” Orozco said.
Broadly speaking, the agreement’s changes appear to move in the right direction. However, international experts question both governments’ will to enforce it. Agustín Barrios Gómez, a founding member of the Mexican International Affairs Council, believes both governments are attempting to save face by pretending to work on the new agreement.
“The United States’ stability and national security depend directly on a cooperative and stable Mexico. … The Biden administration does not want to produce a harsher scenario since a non-collaborative Mexican government would be a big problem for Washington,” Barrios Gómez told Zenger.
“What the Biden administration wants to do is damage control. … The true battles for the U.S. government are the midterm elections, where it will face a Republican Party with an identity crisis, and Mexico’s presidential election once López Obrador’s term ends,” he said.
In that sense, the Bicentennial Understanding appears to be a palliative measure. Announcing it “doesn’t mean anything. It does not have an assigned budget; it does not establish cooperation routes beyond the highest officials [of the enforcement agencies], which already existed. … The reality is that it is not a true [agreement] because there is no mechanism to implement it. But at least there is a label that they [both governments] can point to and show that they are working on a cooperation agreement,” he said.
Gómez also believes it is too early to draw conclusions. “It is very premature to speak of the Bicentennial Understanding. We are only seeing the countries’ first proposals, and we have a long way to go. This is going to be a top-level diplomatic issue like we have never seen before. For the first time in history, Mexico is being viewed as a mature country that is going to put its cards on the table and not simply follow the U.S. orders,” he said.
“Crime is a multidimensional phenomenon. As long as we do not understand that there are different fronts — prevention, addiction treatment, social inclusion and the creation of alternatives for people who engage in crime — frontal combat is useless,” he said.
Translated by Gabriela Alejandra Olmos; edited by Gabriela Alejandra Olmos and Kristen Butler
NASHVILLE, Tenn., –Impact100 Nashville, an organization that empowers women to make transformative changes in their community, announces today it has selected eight semi-finalists to compete for two grants of $101,500 each. The semi-finalists are the following local nonprofit organizations: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee, Bridges of Williamson County, End Slavery Tennessee, Mending Hearts, Inc., Nashville Conflict Resolution Center, Native American Indian Association of Tennessee, Our Place Nashville and Tennessee Kids Belong. Impact100 Nashville members will select the grant winners during their virtual Voting Event and Celebration on Thursday, November 4, 2021, at 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. CST.
Impact100 Nashville is a women’s giving circle that was founded in 2014 and has awarded $570,000 to worthy causes in the community since its inception. Impact100 Nashville is one of more than 60 chapters in different cities across the United States. The basic structure for each chapter is simple—at least 100 women each donate $1,000, forming $100,000 grants that are given annually to deserving nonprofit organizations within their community. Individual chapters of Impact100 Global have collectively granted more than $105 million to fund local nonprofits in their communities.
“The collective impact we have on our community is directly related to the number of women who get involved with our powerful organization,” said Michele Herlein, chairwoman, Impact100 Nashville. “We are accepting members for 2022 and welcome women who are interested in using our collective financial and social power to make a difference in the community. With 203 women this year we are giving away two grants over $100,000. Next year we want to give away $300,000.”
Impact100 Nashville’s 2020 grant was awarded to the Raphah Institute, a nonprofit that helps communities heal from social harm by confronting and solving its root causes. Grant funding helped the organization effectively strengthen its program that focuses on using restorative practices as an alternative for resolving felony cases in juvenile court.
“This grant has created the opportunity for us to significantly increase the number of people we serve through our restorative justice diversion program,” said Travis Claybrooks, founder, and CEO, Raphah Institute.
Impact100 Nashville’s 2021 grant winners will be announced during their virtual Voting Event and Celebrationon Thursday, November 4, 2021, at 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. CST. Members and guests are welcome to attend this online event and may register here.
A team of six sci-fi cosplayers have raised their game to the next level by building a life-size replica of the spacecraft flown by Luke Skywalker, a character from the popular movie franchise “Star Wars.”
They had originally tried to reproduce the Razor Crest, the spaceship flown by the Mandalorian from the hit TV series of the same name, but their prototype was destroyed by bad weather back in April 2021.
Ayaal Federov, 29, said in an interview to discuss the new X-Wing starfighter that “construction of the ship took three months” after they started building it in July.
He joked that he would happily go to space to return Russian actress Yulia Peresild, to Earth if she needed a lift. Peresild was sent as part of a film crew to the International Space Station to shoot a feature film.
The longtime cosplayer and his friends first decided to create the Razor Crest spaceship replica after watching the first season of “The Mandalorian,” which is part of the “Star Wars” universe.
Federov and his friends had planned to make a fan-fiction video featuring both ships.
“We planned the X-Wing during the construction of the Razor Crest and thought it would be very cool if the Mandalorian met Luke Skywalker in our fan video,” said Federov.
The replica of the Razor Crest spaceship from “The Mandalorian” spin-off TV series, built by Ayaal Fedorov and his friends in Russia. (Ayaal Fedorov/Zenger)The replica of the Razor Crest spaceship from “The Mandalorian,” a “Star Wars” spin-off TV series, built by Ayaal Fedorov and his friends in Russia. (Ayaal Federov/Zenger)
Building the Razor Crest allowed the team to gain experience, making the construction of the second ship much easier. “This time, we took into account all the mistakes [from] the first ship, and everyone knew what to do,” said Federov. “We started with the skeleton of the ship and began to strengthen it.”
The ship is made of different materials, including wood, fiberboard, Styrofoam, glass, metal and plastic.
“In addition to the ship, we also made a Luke Skywalker suit for the pilot, as well as a C-3PO and an R2-D2. We did the whole process at the same time,” said Federov.
Introducing the people on his team, he said, “Vanya is responsible for the installation, while Kolya, Ivan, Dima and Arsen are responsible for the costume and the construction of the ship.”
The replica is 12.5 feet (3.8 meters) tall, 46 feet (14 meters) long and 33 feet (10 meters) wide.
A replica of the X-wing Starfighter from “Star Wars” was built in Sakha, Russia. (Ayaal Fedorov/Zenger)
Federov is undaunted by the thought that the ship may prove difficult to move, noting that even though it means the team cannot participate in various sci-fi events, “We can still show our work to the world.”
He also hinted that they might organize their own cosplay festival, noting that his love affair with cosplay began when he was 11 years old, when he designed a knight’s costume after watching “A Knight’s Tale,” featuring Heath Ledger.
Federov, who comes from the city of Yakutsk in Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, said earlier this year that he wanted to build the Razor Crest “because no one in the world had built such a ship before.”
He said the entire project to build the X-Wing, along with costs for equipment and storage, came to about $5,600 (400,000 rubles), comparing the flurry of activity in the workshop to that of an anthill.
Work on the project started in November 2020, when Federov began scanning the Internet for pictures of the ship from different angles.
“Everything was important to me: the front, the back and the side views; the color of the ship; the details. It was especially difficult to find the layout of the cockpit. To do this, I took screenshots of the ship while watching the series. I printed all this and hung it on a wall.”
However, the project stalled due to financing issues. Federov sold his car and spent all of his savings on the construction materials and garage space, but it still was not enough.
To complete the project, Federov’s fans and various sponsors came to the rescue.
The interior of the replica of the Razor Crest spaceship from “The Mandalorian” spin-off TV series. (Ayaal Fedorov/Zenger)
He even managed to find a suitable hangar in which to store the spaceship, which was no easy task, given that temperatures in Yakutsk average minus 41.8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 41 degrees Celsius) around this time of year.
“The most challenging task for us was building the engine. It was necessary to make the engines as light as possible so that during installation, the ship’s frame could withstand the load,” said Federov.
The young men eventually used a crane to transport the nearly finished replica from the hangar to a hill, where the final touches were made to the spaceship over four days in temperatures of minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 degrees Celsius).
“It feels like we’re in the show right now, fixing the Mandalorian’s ship,” said Federov. “I am inspired by people who work on films, coming up with costumes for filming, constructing entire cities, but the audience does not even know who these people are.”
Stunning underwater gardens are part of a project by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology to save coral reefs from destruction by increasing their survivability and growth.
Corals face threats on multiple fronts, with overfishing and coral bleaching dealing especially heavy blows to reefs across the world.
In search of a solution, Cody Clements and Mark Hay at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found that planting a diverse group of coral species together improves coral growth. Their study, published in the journal Science Advances, noted that this strategy is especially important in the early stages of a reef’s recovery following large-scale coral loss.
“Corals are the foundation species of [marine] ecosystems, providing habitat and food for numerous other reef species. Negative effects on corals often have cascading impacts on other species that call coral reefs home. If biodiversity is important for coral performance and resilience, then a ‘biodiversity meltdown’ could exacerbate the decline of reef ecosystems that we’re observing worldwide,” said Clements.
Coral reefs occupy less than one percent of the world’s oceans, but approximately 25 percent of marine fish species inhabit them for some part of their lives, making them immeasurably important to the world’s ecosystems.
Around 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs died in the past 20 years, and over 90 percent are expected to perish by 2050, according to the United Nations Development Program.
Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency has reported that the Caribbean has lost 80–90 percent of its coral cover.
During the bleaching event of 2015–2016, 93 percent of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was affected by bleaching, with 316 reefs of 911 studied experiencing “extreme bleaching,” according to the Australian Research Council.
“The frequency of these big bleaching and heating events that are killing off corals has increased fairly dramatically over the last 20–30 years,” said Hay. “There are hotspots here and there where coral reefs are still good, but they’re small and isolated in general.”
Clements and Hay traveled to Mo’orea, French Polynesia, in the tropical Pacific Ocean, where they planted coral gardens, made up of diverse corals, on underwater tables. The researchers evaluated the survival rates of the corals as they grew and interacted with each other, as well as the importance of mutualism versus competitive interactions among them.
These underwater gardens are part of a project to save coral reefs from destruction by increasing their survivability and growth. (Cody Clements, Georgia Tech/Zenger)
“We’ve done the manipulations, and the corals should be competing with each other, but in fact, they do better together than they do on their own,” said Hay.
“We are still investigating the mechanisms causing this surprising result, but our experiments consistently demonstrate that the positive interactions are overwhelming negative interactions in the reef settings where we conduct these experiments,” said Hay. “That means when you take species out of the system, you’re taking out some of those positive interactions, and if you take out critical ones, it may make a big difference.”
According to Hay, this study is unique from other similar ones as it was conducted in the real world and not in a lab.
“We do all of our experiments in the real world. We’re not as interested in whether it can happen, but whether it does happen,” he said.
The gardens were made on tables with Coca-Cola bottle caps embedded in them. The scientists then cut open the bottles at the neck and glued corals into the upturned bottle necks, which allowed them to screw the coral samples into any table they chose and mix species accordingly.
The corals could also be weighed every few months in this way, giving the researchers accurate data on growth rates.
Researchers found that planting multiple species of coral together, but not too many species, was key to improving growth and survivability in a coral garden in Mo’orea, French Polynesia. (Cody Clements, Georgia Tech/Zenger)
The results showed that corals benefited from increased biodiversity “up to a point,” according to Clements.
“Corals planted in gardens with an intermediate number of species, three to six species in most cases, performed better than gardens with low, or one, species, or high, as in nine, species. However, we still do not fully understand the processes that contributed to these observations.
“We need a better mechanistic understanding of how diversity influences these processes to predict how biodiversity loss will impact corals, as well as how we may be able to harness biodiversity’s positive influence to protect corals,” said Clements.
U.S. space agency NASA has big plans for sending astronauts on years-long voyages to Mars, but living in space for extended periods of time can exact a heavy price on the astronauts’ brain function, scientists say.
A study of five Russian cosmonauts who spent time on the International Space Station (ISS) uncove⁠red evidence not only of the well-known effects of space travel, such as muscle atrophy, but also of brain damage.
Researchers at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg analyzed blood samples taken from the cosmonauts before and after their terms on board the ISS orbiting nearly 250 miles above the Earth. Each cosmonaut spent an average of 169 days circling the globe. Their mean age was 49.
Expedition 63 Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner is helped out of the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft just minutes after he, Roscosmos cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy landed in a remote area in Kazakhstan on Oct. 22, 2020. The trio had returned after serving 196 days onboard the International Space Station. Scientists have now uncovered evidence that cosmonauts spending long periods of time in space experience impaired brain function. (NASA/GCTC/Denis Derevtsov)
“This is the first time that concrete proof of brain-cell damage has been documented in blood tests following space flights. This [problem] must be explored further and prevented if space travel is to become more common in the future,” said study co-author Henrik Zetterberg, who teaches neuroscience at the university.
“To get there, we must help one another to find out why the damage arises. Is it [due to] being weightless, changes in brain fluid or stressors associated with launch and landing, or is it caused by something else? Here, loads of exciting experimental studies [involving] humans can be done on Earth,” Zetterberg said.
Brain function following prolonged exposure to microgravity has never been assessed before, according to the study published in the journal JAMA Neurology. However, other adverse effects on the body of spending long periods in space have been known for many years. These include loss of bone mass, altered bacterial intestinal flora and deteriorated vision.
Deep-space travelers can be exposed to significant levels of dangerous radiation, according to NASA. They also face the risk of visual impairment intracranial pressure syndrome, also known as spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome. This syndrome causes elevated pressure within the brain and alters the flow of blood and cerebrospinal fluid. Doctors have reported a swelling of the optic disk, leading to impaired vision for months or years.
In this handout image supplied by NASA, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov is helped out of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft just minutes after he, NASA astronaut Christina Koch, and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, landed their Soyuz MS-13 capsule in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, on February 6, 2020, in Kazakhstan. Koch returned to Earth after logging 328 days in space — the longest spaceflight in history by a woman — as a member of Expeditions 59-60-61 on the International Space Station. Skvortsov and Parmitano returned after 201 days in space where they served as Expedition 60-61 crew members onboard the station. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)
The cosmonauts being studied gave blood samples 20 days before their departure as well as one day, one week and about three weeks after returning. The scientists analyzed the samples for five biomarkers for brain damage: neurofilament light chain (NfL), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), total tau (T-tau) and two amyloid beta proteins.
Researchers found that concentrations for three biomarkers — NFL, GFAP and the amyloid beta protein Aβ40 — were significantly elevated after the cosmonauts’ return. While peak readings did not occur simultaneously among the five travelers, the biomarker trends did increase broadly over time.
The researchers also conducted an MRI once the cosmonauts returned. Clinical tests of their brain functions showed differences that were linked to their assignments in space, but these links could not be studied in detail.
The research team is planning further studies in cooperation with various space research institutes. “If we can sort out what causes the damage, the biomarkers we’ve developed may help us find out how best to remedy the problem,” Zetterberg said.
A new study has found large amounts of toxic materials including copper and lead in the North Atlantic, potentially poisoning fish that eventually end up on dinner plates.
A research team led by the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom and the Marine Biological Association learned that paint flakes could be one of the most abundant types of microplastics in oceans and that they carry large quantities of highly toxic copper, iron and lead.
The antifouling or anticorrosive properties of these chemicals are a concern to scientists who believe they could pose a threat to sea life when consumed.
“Through a range of surveys conducted across the North Atlantic Ocean, scientists estimated that each cubic meter of seawater contained an average of 0.01 paint flakes,” the University of Plymouth said in a statement.
The experts estimate that this makes paint flakes the second most abundant material in the ocean after microplastics, which largely come from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces.
A microscopic paint flake, measuring around 320μm in diameter, collected during a survey in the Southern North Sea. (Andrew Turner, University of Plymouth/Zenger)
“Paint particles have often been an overlooked component of marine microplastics, but this study shows that they are relatively abundant in the ocean,” Andrew Turner, the study’s lead author and an associate professor in environmental sciences at the University of Plymouth, said.
“The presence of toxic metals like lead and copper pose additional risks to wildlife.”
Fish, turtles and birds can easily mistake microplastics for food.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report that the average person likely consumes negligible amounts of microplastics.
The University of Plymouth team analyzed the paint particles with X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry. It revealed that their composition is consistent with the paint used on the hulls and other parts of ships that sail through the region.
“We now know that plastics are everywhere and that most organisms are likely ingesting them; however, there is less known about how harmful this ingestion might be,” said Dr. Clare Ostle, the coordinator of the Pacific Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) Survey at the Marine Biological Association and co-author of the study. “This study has highlighted that paint flakes are an abundant form of microplastic that should not be overlooked, particularly as some may have toxic properties.”
Paint flakes also appeared to be more densely distributed around the shelf seas of northwest Europe than in the open, or more remote, ocean environments, the study found.
During the chaos following the police-involved deaths of George Floyd and Duante Wright, Jamal James and his Circle Of Discipline have been a source of refuge and hope for many in his native Minneapolis, Minnesota.
James’ community engagement started years earlier but became more focused amid community protests and racial unrest in the wake of the killings of the two black men — Floyd in May 2020, and Wright in April of this year.
Jamal James (right) won a unanimous decision over title challenger Abel Ramos at the Minneapolis Armory in April 2018, with several youths from the Circle Of Discipline watching from ringside. (Premier Boxing Champions)
James, the current WBA welterweight champion, lives and trains in the neighborhood where Floyd died at the hands of police, and near Brooklyn Center where a police officer shot Wright.
Former officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced in June to 22½ years for Floyd’s death. Former officer Kim Potter, who fatally shot Wright after mistaking her gun for a Taser, is scheduled to go to trial Nov. 30.
Wright, 20, was a friend of James’ younger brother, Xavier.
“My little brother’s best friend got killed by the police officer who said she thought she was reaching for her Taser,” said James. “Talking to my little brother, I could hear the pain in his voice because he [Wright] had just helped my brother move into his apartment. Everybody was angry and frustrated, and I felt the same way. There’s a lot of healing that needs to take place.”
James trained amid unrest in the Minneapolis streets, winning his last fight in August 2020 in Los Angeles n a 12-round unanimous decision over Thomas Dulorme to earn his crown.
“Dulorme was three months after George Floyd’s killing, which was right down the street from where I live and where I do my roadwork,” said James. “I literally go to the coffee shop across the street [from where the killing occurred]. My grandmother had passed away while I was training for the fight, which was my first fight back in 13 months in the middle of the COVID pandemic.
“When the city was burning, smoke was coming in through the windows, and you could hear the shots being fired and there was teargas. People were breaking into all sorts of businesses, looting, vandalizing. There were a lot of different things happening at once, but my goal was to win a title, so life has to go on. We had to stay focused in order to come back with that title.”
Drawing on his experiences in both the ring and life, James has been a longtime mentor of youngsters at the Circle Of Discipline, a nonprofit community-outreach center offering life lessons, activities and stability for inner-city youths. During periods of social unrest, the Circle Of Discipline’s venue serves as a food bank and refuge.
“Our building was right off of Lake Street where all the buildings were being torn down [after they were set afire during protests over Floyd’s death], but nobody touched our facility,” said James. “Our board and staff had a meeting about how and what we could do to help make things a little more positive, so we did a food drive and organized business cleanups. It was great to see random people in the community showing up to help.”
“When I’m in the ring, I want these kids to see that I put it all on the line so that they’re willing to find that extra strength in life,” said WBA welterweight champion Jamal James. (Premier Boxing Champions)
James’ mother took him to the Circle Of Discipline boxing gym as a 5-year-old to channel the youngster’s aggression and temper and to keep him off the streets. James met Shankara Frazier, who would later become his stepfather, along with stepbrother and co-trainer Adonis Frazier, who remains in James’ corner.
“One time a kid who was more experienced than Jamal got the better of him, and Jamal jumped the boy, took his headgear off and tried to choke the kid,” said Frazier.
Jamal would whine and complain about doing certain things,” said Shankara Frazier. “I would tell him to cut that whining out, not so much for the purpose of learning boxing, but to get Jamal to understand at that age what work ethic and discipline was about. He could hardly hold his arms up when he had the big gloves on.”
At 10-years-old, James began an amateur career comprising more than 150 fights, a No. 1 ranking at 141 pounds by USA Boxing, and a runner-up finish in the 2009 national Golden Gloves competition.
James made his professional debut in May 2010 with a third-round TKO of Justin Danforth, taking the nickname “Shango” from his grandfather, Aldric Peter Nelson, who founded the Minneapolis-based world-beat band Shangoya in the early 1970s. “Shango” is also the name of the African god of fire, lightning and thunder.
“When you grow up in a tough neighborhood, you encounter all kinds of crazy situations. I’ve watched my father deal with a lot of guys who were deep into gangs or guys who’ve come from real broken homes,” said James. “Their fathers may have been abusive or their mothers just really didn’t care about them. They were out acting wild in the streets, and they really just changed their lives around.”
Many of those kids were ringside at the Minneapolis Armory to watch James fight there four times: winning a 10-round unanimous decision over title challenger Abel Ramos in April 2018; a second-round knockout of Mahonry Montes in August 2018; a sixth-round stoppage of Janer Gonzalez in February 2019; and a 10-round unanimous decision over former champion Antonio DeMarco in July 2019.
The 6-foot-2 James (27-1, 12 KOs) makes the initial defense of his crown on Oct. 30 against Radzhab Butaev (13-0, 10 KOs), a 27-year-old Russian he’ll face at Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas.
“When I’m in the ring, I want these kids to see that I put it all on the line so that they’re willing to find that extra strength in life. Boxing is one of those perfect things that draws kids in,” said James. “Because it’s really going to test how strong you think you are, mentally and physically. They’ve got all that extra energy, and they don’t know what to do with it, but they still have a warrior-type heart.”
James credits one of the armory’s owners, Rich Richardson, for his assistance in organizing events there.
“A lot of young men and women we serve come from low income communities,” said James. “One of my favorite trips was to take them on a tour of the armory with some of their parents who came along as chaperones. They were given a rundown of what it’s used for and what it takes to run a business like that.”
Celso Ramirez met James as a 6-year-old, when his father brought him to the Circle Of Discipline. Now 24, Ramirez is 7-1-1 (7 KOs) having competed professionally at 145¼ to 152¾ pounds.
“I was coming home with black eyes after being bullied in school, and my father wanted me to learn how to defend myself,” said Ramirez. “I met Jamal on the first day, and he was gentle and welcoming to me. He taught me that boxing’s not forever, so now I have my own business, Chana Lawn And Snow, doing lawns and snow removal.”
In February, James spoke to the Minneapolis Public School District’s Counselor and Coordinator gathering, which “serves all grade levels with a vision to make all students college and career-ready,” said George Terry Jr., an assistant principal at Nellie Stone Johnson Community School in North Minneapolis.
“We invited Shango to speak to our high school seniors across the district about his journey in boxing and how he has managed to overcome adversity and reach his dreams of becoming a championship boxer. Jamal spoke to staff and students about the Circle Of Discipline’s mission to empower underrepresented community members by providing greater access to opportunities,” said Terry, the area’s Gear Up College and Career Coordinator at the time.
“I can see his passion for working with underrepresented youth and why he’s a role model for the city of Minneapolis and the sport of boxing. I think it is important for our students to dream big like Jamal because they too can accomplish their goals with discipline and hard work.
“I would love to see Jamal come out to Nellie Stone Johnson and speak with my younger students and families so his story and success can inspire them. We also have a room in our building with a heavy bag that students can use to blow off some steam.”
Jamal James (left) defeated Thomas Dulorme by unanimous decision in August 2020 to earn the WBA’s vacant welterweight title. (Premier Boxing Champions)
James hopes to relocate the Circle Of Discipline to a new location in November, in a facility paid for by fundraisers and grants.
“With the new location closer to the University of Minneapolis, we’ll have a main gym area with much more space, nice, new equipment, an upstairs area with a conference room, computers, an arts and craft area and a library with more books. They’ll have to do their schoolwork before working out.
“Next door to us, they’re opening a music studio, and we’re hoping to form a partnership with them as well. We do a leadership group every Saturday teaching life lessons like creating a budget, saving money, having good credit and forming good relationships,” said James.
“I’d like to get two or three more 15-passenger vans so that we can transport young men and women living in tough neighborhoods because some parents don’t have cars, and riding the bus can be dangerous going home at night. We want to both bring in guest speakers and take them out to places to see people doing things in real life, and hopefully, once a year, we can take them on a trip out of the country. It’s very rare that some of them get out of the city or state, let alone out of the country.”
A 74-year-old man who lost his left leg in an accident “felt like a big wind was behind” him, “pushing” him down the road as he walked with the help of an experimental exoskeleton that controls itself with artificial intelligence (AI).
Stan Schaar was one of a half-dozen lower-limb amputees participating in a study by a University of Utah team led by Professor Tommaso Lenzi at the Bionic Engineering Lab. Using strong battery-powered electric motors and embedded microprocessors, the exoskeleton wraps around the wearer’s legs, giving an amputee a chance to walk with less effort.
Amputation above the knee involves removing leg muscles during surgery, thereby reducing mobility and quality of life of amputees. “The consequence of this, even though you have the ability to move your hip, is your abilities in walking are quite impaired,” Lenzi said, adding that strength and range of motion are also affected.
Because prosthetic legs cannot replicate a human leg entirely, above-knee amputees must make greater exertion while using their remaining limb and muscles to compensate. Featuring a lightweight electromechanical actuator connected to the user’s thigh above the amputation, Lenzi team’s device aims to make walking feel natural. The device, which weighs a little more than five pounds, is composed of carbon-fiber, plastic composites and aluminum.
Electronics, microcontrollers and sensors use advanced control algorithms in the exoskeleton’s AI to assist “how the person moves,” study co-author Dante Archangeli said. The actuator can be swapped between the right and left of the waist harness for either leg and can restore much of the wearer’s sensation of walking on two healthy legs.
Unlike the powered suits of Hollywood movies, the exoskeleton just gives the user enough extra power for walking. Lenzi likened it to motorized bicycles that give riders help pedaling uphill. “It’s equivalent to taking off a 26-pound backpack. That is a really big improvement,” Lenzi said. With the exoskeleton, users’ metabolic rate is nearly identical to that of an able-bodied person.
Amputee Schaar said using the exoskeleton felt similar to his human leg. On first use, he felt as if his muscles were fused to the exoskeleton, helping him to relax and move forward. “I could probably walk for miles with this thing on because it was helping my muscles move,” Schaar said.
Lenzi said the exoskeleton may be on the market in two years. A grant from the U.S. Department of Defense funded its development for military veterans, and Lenzi received another grant earlier this year from the National Science Foundation for improvements to the device.
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