Familiar face picked to lead Ascension | www.toacorn.com … – Thousand Oaks Acorn

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Delkeskamp made senior pastor

ANSWERING THE CALLThe Rev. Timothy Delkeskamp will be installed as senior pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church on March 19. He served as associate pastor of the church for 13 years. The Rev. Timothy Delkeskamp has been called to become the new senior pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church, School and Foundation in Thousand Oaks.

This call to service comes after an 18-month process during which multiple candidates from across the country were interviewed by a call committee and following a congregation-wide vote that took place Feb. 26.

Delkeskamp will be installed during a ceremony at the church Sun., March 19, with reception to follow.

For the past 13 years, he has served as an associate pastor at Ascension.

His duties have included serving as liaison pastor for the school, as well as outreach, worship and adult education.

He is also on the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County.

Delkeskamp was born in Brea, Calif., and raised in Orange County.

He graduated from Cal Lutheran University and has a doctorate from Luther Seminary in Minnesota.

After serving at Mount of Olives Lutheran Church in Mission Viejo, Calif., for five years, he accepted the call to come to Ascension in 2003.

His wife, Chamie, a United Methodist pastor, is Ascension Lutheran Schools religion teacher and coordinator of chapel.

The Delkeskamps have three children.

Ascensions former senior pastor, the Rev. Larry Wagner, retired in 2015 after 38 years at the church.

The Rev. Paul Gravrock has served as interim senior pastor since then.

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Familiar face picked to lead Ascension | http://www.toacorn.com ... - Thousand Oaks Acorn

TD Ameritrade’s DARTs Rebound in February, Client Assets Continue Ascension – Finance Magnates

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TD Ameritrade (Nasdaq:AMTD), one of the largest brokers for retail clients in the United States, has reported its monthly metrics and turnover for February 2017, which saw a slight rebound across key segments, per the latest TD Ameritrade report.

After a largely downtrodden performance in January 2017, volumes rebounded in February despite a lack of major market drivers. For the month ending February 2017, TD Ameritrade underwent an average of 534,000 client trades per day, which reflected a growth of 2.5 percent month-over-month from 521,000 trades per day in January 2017.

The latest volumes reading were also on par with other institutional venues in the US, which cited a generally mixed performance on a month-over-month basis. Outside of speculative positions ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting in March, and with it a likely rate hike, February was devoid of any major volatility.

Over a yearly timetable, February 2017s average daily volumes are higher by a factor of 5.0 percent year-over-year from February 2016. Moreover, TD Ameritrade disclosed its total client assets as of February 28, 2017 at $837.8 billion, which edged higher by 2.6 percent month-over-month from $815.0 billion since January 31, 2017. This figure was much larger when measured against its 2016 counterpart, justifying a gain of 24.0 percent year-over-year from the same period ending February 28, 2016.

Looking at its other figures, TD Ameritrades average spread-based balance managed to maintain a tight consolidation with $119.3 billion in February 2017, virtually unchanged from $120.1 billion in January 2017. Year-over-year the latest figures also grew by 14.0 percent from February 2016.

Finally, the groups average fee-based balances stood at $181.2 billion in February 2017, climbing by a factor of 2.7 percent month-over-month from $176.4 billion in January 2017.

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TD Ameritrade's DARTs Rebound in February, Client Assets Continue Ascension - Finance Magnates

Suspect detained for fire at Jerusalem’s Ascension Church – The Times of Israel

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One person was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of breaking into a landmark Jerusalem church and trying to set it on fire earlier in the day, police said, noting that the incident did not appear to have been a religiously motivated attack.

A guard at the Russian Orthodox Church of the Ascension on Jerusalems Mount of Olives reported that the building had been broken into and damaged, apparently by a fire.

Police confirmed that the door to the church entrance had been broken through and that extensive soot suggested attempted arson.

However, police said it appeared to be motivated by a local dispute. They did not elaborate.

The church, whose 64-meter (210-foot) tower helps to define Jerusalems skyline, is dedicated to the ascension of Jesus to heaven 40 days after his resurrection, even though most Christians believe the Chapel of the Ascension, some 200 meters further west, to be the true spot.

The Church of the Ascension on Jerusalems Mount of Olives. (CC BY-SA 2.0 Alistair/Wikimedia)

There have been several attacks on churches in recent years.

The Church of the Dormition on Mount Zion has been attacked on several occasions by vandals.

In June 2015, the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes sustained major damage after an arson attack by Jewish extremists.

The latter in Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee reopened last month.

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Suspect detained for fire at Jerusalem's Ascension Church - The Times of Israel

Motorcyclist Dies after being Struck by Vehicle in Ascension Parish – Avoyelles Today

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Gonzales, LA Shortly before 11:00 am on March 8, 2017, Troopers from Louisiana State Police Troop A began investigating a two vehicle fatality crash that occurred on LA 940 west of LA 44 in Ascension Parish. The crash took the life of 18 year old Aiden Womack of Gonzales, LA. The initial investigation by State Police revealed that the crash occurred as Womack was operating his 2005 Kawasaki motorcycle eastbound on LA 940. At the same time, 72 year old Hazel Miles of Gonzales, LA was traveling westbound on LA 940 in a 2002 Ford F-150. For unknown reasons, Miles failed to yield and began to make a left turn into the path of Womacks motorcycle. Womack was unable to avoid Miles vehicle and struck the passengers side Womack suffered serious injuries as a result of the crash and was transported to University Medical Center where he was later pronounced deceased. Miles was properly restrained and sustained minor injuries in the crash. Impairment is not suspected to be a factor in this crash but a toxicology sample was taken from both drivers for analysis. This crash remains under investigation and charges are pending. Louisiana State Troopers would like to remind motorist to Watch for Motorcycles. As the spring and summer months approach, more and more motorcyclists will be traveling on Louisiana highways. We ask that motorist take an extra second to look for motorcycles before pulling out, turning, or changing lanes.

Troopers also encourage all riders to take an approved motorcycle safety course. These courses teach safe riding practices and help you apply safe riding strategies that can help reduce your chance of injury should a crash occur. Making good choices while riding a motorcycle, such as never driving while impaired and obeying all traffic laws, can often mean the difference between life and death.

For more information on the Louisiana Motorcycle Safety, Awareness, and Operator Training Program, visit http://www.lsp.org/motorcycle.html

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Motorcyclist Dies after being Struck by Vehicle in Ascension Parish - Avoyelles Today

Ascension Parish School Board awards first bid for flood damage … – The Advocate

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DONALDSONVILLE The Ascension Parish School Board this week approved the apparent low bid of $3.5 million for the renovation of flood-damaged St. Amant Primary School.

Chad Lynch, director of planning and construction for the school district, said the bid, from McInnis Brothers of Minden, came in well under the $4.1 million his office had projected for the project.

Superintendent David Alexander said the St. Amant Primary project is expected to be completed some time in December.

Work on the four other schools that remain closed due to flooding St. Amant High, Lake Elementary, Galvez Middle and Galvez Primary is in the architectural design phase.

Repair work at another school, St. Amant Middle, which received some flood damage but was able to remain open, is out for bid.

In recent weeks, the student bodies of St. Amant High, Lake Elementary and Galvez Primary have returned to their home campuses, where large, temporary classroom buildings have been installed until the school buildings are repaired.

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Galvez Primary School students and faculty returned to their home campus on March 2, in Prai

St. Amant Primary students, who had been attending classes at two host sites, are now reunited at the former location of the River Parishes Community College on La. 22 in Sorrento.

Alexander said it is highly likely that students at the fifth flood-damaged school, Galvez Middle, will be able to return by Monday to their own campus, where temporary buildings have been set up, but the school district won't have the official word on that until the Fire Marshal's inspection, planned for Friday.

In another matter Tuesday, School Board member Robyn Delaney asked that the board's Students and Safety Committee meet to discuss the incident on March 3, when a herbicide being sprayed on sugar cane fields next to Donaldsonville Primary led to a two-hour shelter-in-place order for the primary school, as well as nearby Ascension Head Start and the School Board's central office.

"That school is surrounded on three sides by cane fields," said Delaney. "I want to know if there's more work we can do to make it safe."

DONALDSONVILLE A farmer spraying sugar cane fields with herbicide on a windy Friday mornin

Delaney asked that officials with the Ascension Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security and the Sheriff's Office be invited to the meeting, as well as the administrators of Donaldsonville Primary.

Follow Ellyn Couvillion on Twitter, @EllynCouvillion.

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Ascension Parish School Board awards first bid for flood damage ... - The Advocate

Around Ascension for March 9, 2017 | Ascension | theadvocate.com – The Advocate

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Lego Club

Young builders of all skill levels can take the Lego Challenge or build whatever they like when the Lego Club meets at the Dutchtown Branch of Ascension Parish Library at 10 a.m. Friday.

Legos, along with Duplo Blocks and Mega Bloks for younger children, will be provided. Children should leave their own Legos at home.

Call (225) 673-8699 for details.

St. Elizabeth Hospitals annual Girls Day Out event gets underway Saturday morning in Gonzales. The day of learning, laughing and movement activities for women is slated for 8:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., with sign-in and breakfast at 7:45 a.m.

Cost is $10 and includes continental breakfast, a coffee bar and snacks. Advance registration is required; visit http://bit.ly/2m6H4Ab. Call (225) 621-2906 for details.

The annual Gonzales Memorial VFW Post 3693 beauty pageant scheduled for Saturday has been moved to the Orleans Room on Weber City Road in Gonzales. The pageant begins at 9:30 a.m. and will advance four queens to the state level in the Buddy Poppy, Junior, Teen and Miss categories.

Contestants may enter the pageant at the door the day of the competition. Entry forms are available at facebook.com/VFWpageant. Call Carrie Person at (225) 715-9120 or email vfwpageant@gmail.com for details.

Battleground Louisiana: Civil War Events and Experiences, a six-week series of readings and discussions, begins March 16 at the Gonzales Branch of Ascension Parish Library.

Programs will be held Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. through April 20.

The series is led by Southeastern Louisiana University history instructor Charles Elliott and is offered as part of the Readings in Literature and Culture series sponsored by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

Those interested in committing to the six-week program must register in advance at the library or by calling (225) 647-3955. All participants will receive a set of program books to check out, which requires a current library card.

The Donaldsonville Branch of Ascension Parish Library will host a talk and book signing with local author T.G. Joffrion at 6:30 p.m. March 23.

Joffrion will discuss his latest novel, Return to Sender, about military man turned law enforcement officer Travis Gaspards quest to crack a triple homicide in South Louisiana.

Joffrion is a former member of the State Police SWAT team and was voted Trooper of the Year in 1991. His writing is infused with his years of experience in the field and his upbringing in Bayou Country.

Registration is required and space is limited; call (225) 473-8052.

East Ascension High Schools Class of 1977 is celebrating its 40th class reunion at 6 p.m. Aug. 19 at the Clarion Conference Center in Gonzales.

All East Ascension High graduating classes are invited to join in the celebration, which includes food, a cash bar, dancing and music by Kenny Fife.

Cost is $50 per person in advance or $55 at the door. Email trudybates@yahoo.com or l.rhett.bourgeois@gmail.com for details. Registration forms will be emailed upon request.

Contact Darlene Denstorff by phone, (225) 336-6952 or (225) 603-1996; fax, (225) 644-5851; or email, ascension@theadvocate.com or ddenstorff@theadvocate.com. Deadline: noon Monday.

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Around Ascension for March 9, 2017 | Ascension | theadvocate.com - The Advocate

NASA Funds 133 Projects to Aid Deep Space Exploration – PC Magazine

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Each project will receive funding to support development over the next 2 years before hopefully being ready for use in missions.

NASA is full of brilliant minds attempting to solve all the problems that stand in the way of exploring deep space, visiting Mars, and maybe one day even living on other planets. But there's only so much time in the day and so many people the agency can employ, so NASA also runs the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

Through SBIR, NASA is able to select and help fund research and development of innovative technologies by small businesses that could ultimately benefit the agency. And 133 of those projects from 112 businesses have just been selected to receive Phase II SBIR funding, thought to be worth in the region of $100 million.

The SBIR program consists of three phases. Phase I establishes the feasibility of an idea over the course of six months with up to $125,000 of funding. Phase II allows Phase I projects to be further developed over the course of two years with up to $750,000 of funding. Phase III sees successful Phase II projects commercialized and funding provided from sources outside of the SBIR program.

These 133 selected projects made it through the Phase I feasibility process and now have a real chance to be turned into commercial products. Projects highlighted by NASA from those selected to receive Phase II funding include:

As the lightweight materials technology highlighted above demonstrates, although these projects are focused on benefiting NASA, they also hold the potential to improve other on-Earth industries such as aircraft design.

With Phase II projects receiving two years of support, we'll now have to wait until 2019 to find out how many of the 133 make it and get turned into commercial and space-ready products.

Matthew is PCMag's UK-based editor and news reporter. Prior to joining the team, he spent 14 years writing and editing content on our sister site Geek.com and has covered most areas of technology, but is especially passionate about games tech. Alongside PCMag, he's a freelance video game designer. Matthew holds a BSc degree in Computer Science from Birmingham University and a Masters in Computer Games Development from Abertay University. More

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NASA Funds 133 Projects to Aid Deep Space Exploration - PC Magazine

Future Tense Newsletter: Space Exploration Isn’t Just About Scientific Discovery – Slate Magazine (blog)

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U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet pose for pictures during a press conference at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome on Nov. 16.

Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images

Greetings, Future Tensers,

Nothing gets me in the spirit of International Womans Day quite like reading two accomplished female leaders on the future of space exploration. Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, and Ellen Stofan, the former chief scientist of NASA, continue our March Futurography unit on the New Space Race by exploring the role of competition and collaboration in space endeavors. Elkins-Tanton writes that the purpose of space exploration is more than just scientific discoveryits about inspiration. She warns that if India or China beats the U.S. to Mars, it would be akin to a military defeat. Stofan says that we wont get to our next big space milestone without international collaboration, writing, When you are exploring space, going it alone has never been, and will never be, an option.

On a more terrestrial note, WikiLeaks has released thousands of new documents detailing the CIAs hacking capabilities. The document dump shows the CIAs ability to hack smartphones, computers, and smart TVsnot just your AOL email accounts. (Im looking at you, Vice President Pence.)

Other things we read this week while testing our reading comprehension before trolling the comments section:

Sent from my iPhone, Emily Fritcke For Future Tense

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.

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Future Tense Newsletter: Space Exploration Isn't Just About Scientific Discovery - Slate Magazine (blog)

How Barack Obama ruined NASA space exploration – The Hill (blog)

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One of the tasks that President Donald TrumpDonald TrumpDem super PAC runs ads against 'Trumpcare' Alyssa Milano on Trump: 'Removing him will be up to' women Wash. judge upholds fines for faithless electors MORE has before him, along with revamping immigration and trade, repealing and replacing ObamaCare, and rebuilding the military, is restoring Americas space exploration program to its former glory. Press reports suggest that the administration is looking at an early return to the moon, using commercial partnerships.

To understand the task that the president and whomever he chooses as NASA administrator have before them, it is useful to look back on how profoundly and adroitly President Barack ObamaBarack ObamaTrump administration will hold anti-ISIS strategy session with allies: report Pence, not Trump, plans Ky. healthcare pitch Pence dodges on whether he believes Obama wiretapped Trump Tower MORE crippled the space agencys efforts to send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit. When Obama came into office, he did what a number of other presidents have done to determine their goals for NASA: he formed a presidential commission to study the space agency and come up with some recommendations.

The Augustine Commission, so named after its chairman former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, returned with a set of recommendations some months later. The commission found that the program then in existence, Project Constellation, was not executable under any reasonable budget. The program, started by President George W. Bush, had been underfunded and had faced technical challenges for years. The commissions offered two alternatives. The first was Moon First, which would have focused Americas efforts on a return to the moon. The second was Flexible Path, which would have sent American astronauts to every destination besides the moonthe asteroids, the moons of Mars, and so on. Both options would lead to the holy grail of space exploration enthusiasts, a mission to Mars.

The kicker was that both options would cost an extra $3 billion a year for NASA to execute. For the Obama administration, which was not shy about spending money in areas that it cared about, this price tag was too dear to bear.

The governments response was formulated in secret. The results of these private deliberations were rolled out in the 2011 budget request that was released in February 2010.Project Constellation would be canceled, root and branch. Instead, NASA would conduct studies of heavy-lift rockets, deep-space propulsion, and other technologies that it was said, in the fullness of time, would make exploring space cheaper and easier.

Congress, which had not been consulted, reacted with bipartisan fury. The Obama administration made two critical errors. It had not consulted with Congress or anyone else when it developed its plans to kill Constellation. The White House also blatantly pulled a bureaucratic dodge that was apparent even to a first-term member of the House from the sticks. To kill a popular program, one studies it to death. Nowhere in the Obama plan was there a commitment to send astronauts anywhere. Clearly, the White House had no intention of doing space exploration. President Obama had expressed an antipathy to American exceptionalism, and nothing speaks to that quality than American astronauts exploring other worlds.

When Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, Gene Cernan, the last man on the Moon, and Jim Lovell, the hero of Apollo 13,sent an open lettercondemning the cancellation of Constellation, President Obama knew he had a problem on his hands. So, with Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin in tow as a political prop, Obama went down to the Kennedy Space Center to makehis big space announcement. We would go to Mars, sometime in the next 30 years and visit an Earth-approaching asteroid before that. We would not go back to the moon because we had already been there.

Of course, Obama was no more interested in exploring space than he was before. The Journey to Mars, as NASA eventually called it, was set so far into the future, the mid-2030s, as to be meaningless. Mars was the bright, shiny object to distract people from the vacuous nature of Obamas space policy.

Congress mandated the development of the Orion spacecraft and the heavy-lift Space Launch System, with designs meticulously spelled out to deny NASA any wiggle room to play slow walk games. These bits of hardware will be available around the end of the decade along with commercial vehicles.

Obama wasted eight years that might have been spent getting Americans beyond low Earth orbit. The Journey to Mars has been the ObamaCare of space exploration--expensive, unsustainable, and not designed to do what it is alleged to do. Part of the mandate of the current president to make America great again will be to turn that situation around and America back toward the stars.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has just published a political study of space exploration entitledWhy is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?He blogs atCurmudgeons Corner.Follow him at@MarkWhittington

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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How Barack Obama ruined NASA space exploration - The Hill (blog)

FSU researchers take big step forward in nanotech-based drugs – Florida State News

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Steven Lenhert, associate professor of biological science

Nanotechnology has become a growing part of medical research in recent years, with scientists feverishly working to see if tiny particles could revolutionize the world of drug delivery.

But many questions remain about how to effectively transport those particles and associated drugs to cells.

In an article published today in Scientific Reports, FSU Associate Professor of Biological Science Steven Lenhert takes a step forward in the understanding of nanoparticles and how they can best be used to deliver drugs.

After conducting a series of experiments, Lenhert and his colleagues found that it may be possible to boost the efficacy of medicine entering target cells via a nanoparticle.

We can enhance how cells take them up and make more drugs more potent, Lenhert said.

Initially, Lenhert and his colleagues from the University of Toronto and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology wanted to see what happened when they encapsulated silicon nanoparticles in liposomes or small spherical sacs of molecules and delivered them to HeLa cells, a standard cancer cell model.

The initial goal was to test the toxicity of silicon-based nanoparticles and get a better understanding of its biological activity.

Silicon is a non-toxic substance and has well-known optical properties that allow their nanostructures to appear fluorescent under an infrared camera, where tissue would be nearly transparent. Scientists believe it has enormous potential as a delivery agent for drugs as well as in medical imaging.

But there are still questions about how silicon behaves at such a small size.

Nanoparticles change properties as they get smaller, so scientists want to understand the biological activity, Lenhert said. For example, how does shape and size affect toxicity?

Scientists found that 10 out of 18 types of the particles, ranging from 1.5 nanometers to 6 nanometers, were significantly more toxic than crude mixtures of the material.

At first, scientists believed this could be a setback, but they then discovered the reason for the toxicity levels. The more toxic fragments also had enhanced cellular uptake.

That information is more valuable long term, Lenhert said, because it means they could potentially alter nanoparticles to enhance the potency of a given therapeutic.

The work also paves the way for researchers to screen libraries of nanoparticles to see how cells react.

This is an essential step toward the discovery of novel nanotechnology based therapeutics, Lenhert said. Theres big potential here for new therapeutics, but we need to be able to test everything first.

Other researchers contributing to the work are Aubrey Kusi-Appiah, Lida Ghazanfari and Plengchart Prommapan from Florida State University; Melanie Mastronardi, Chenxi Qian, Ken Chen and Geoffrey Ozin from the University of Toronto; and Christian Kubel from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Interested in learning more? Read about this work in Lenherts own words.

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FSU researchers take big step forward in nanotech-based drugs - Florida State News

Researchers take big step forward in nanotech-based drugs – Phys.org – Phys.Org

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March 8, 2017

Nanotechnology has become a growing part of medical research in recent years, with scientists feverishly working to see if tiny particles could revolutionize the world of drug delivery.

But many questions remain about how to effectively transport those particles and associated drugs to cells.

In an article published today in Scientific Reports, FSU Associate Professor of Biological Science Steven Lenhert takes a step forward in the understanding of nanoparticles and how they can best be used to deliver drugs.

After conducting a series of experiments, Lenhert and his colleagues found that it may be possible to boost the efficacy of medicine entering target cells via a nanoparticle.

"We can enhance how cells take them up and make more drugs more potent," Lenhert said.

Initially, Lenhert and his colleagues from the University of Toronto and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology wanted to see what happened when they encapsulated silicon nanoparticles in liposomesor small spherical sacs of moleculesand delivered them to HeLa cells, a standard cancer cell model.

The initial goal was to test the toxicity of silicon-based nanoparticles and get a better understanding of its biological activity.

Silicon is a non-toxic substance and has well-known optical properties that allow their nanostructures to appear fluorescent under an infrared camera, where tissue would be nearly transparent. Scientists believe it has enormous potential as a delivery agent for drugs as well as in medical imaging.

But there are still questions about how silicon behaves at such a small size.

"Nanoparticles change properties as they get smaller, so scientists want to understand the biological activity," Lenhert said. "For example, how does shape and size affect toxicity?"

Scientists found that 10 out of 18 types of the particles, ranging from 1.5 nanometers to 6 nanometers, were significantly more toxic than crude mixtures of the material.

At first, scientists believed this could be a setback, but they then discovered the reason for the toxicity levels. The more toxic fragments also had enhanced cellular uptake. That information is more valuable long term, Lenhert said, because it means they could potentially alter nanoparticles to enhance the potency of a given therapeutic.

The work also paves the way for researchers to screen libraries of nanoparticles to see how cells react.

"This is an essential step toward the discovery of novel nanotechnology based therapeutics," Lenhert said. "There's big potential here for new therapeutics, but we need to be able to test everything first."

Explore further: New method to diagnose cancer

An international group of scientists has created a new approach to the diagnostics of breast cancer with the help of nanoparticles of porous silicone.

(Medical Xpress) -- New technology being developed at Florida State University could significantly decrease the cost of drug discovery, potentially leading to increased access to high-quality health care and cancer patients ...

Nanoparticles are being studied as drug delivery systems to treat a wide variety of diseases. New research delves into the physical properties of nanoparticles that are important for successfully delivering therapeutics within ...

Nanoparticles are particles that are smaller than 100 nanometers. They are typically obtained from metals and, because of their tiny size, have unique properties that make them useful for biomedical applications. However, ...

Lomonosov Moscow State University researchers, in collaboration with German colleagues, have applied silicon nanoparticles to diagnose and cure cancer. For the first time, scientists have demonstrated the ability of particles ...

A nanoparticle-based drug delivery system that can sense and respond to different conditions in the body, as well as to an externally applied magnetic field, could enhance doctors' ability to target drugs to specific sites ...

Rice University's latest nanophotonics research could expand the color palette for companies in the fast-growing market for glass windows that change color at the flick of an electric switch.

Cage-like compounds called clathrates could be used for harvesting waste heat and turning it into electricity. UC Davis chemists just discovered a whole new class of clathrates, potentially opening new ways to make and apply ...

A single cell can contain a wealth of information about the health of an individual. Now, a new method developed at MIT and National Chiao Tung University could make it possible to capture and analyze individual cells from ...

The most complex crystal designed and built from nanoparticles has been reported by researchers at Northwestern University and confirmed by researchers at the University of Michigan. The work demonstrates that some of nature's ...

The darkest form of ultraviolet light, known as UV-C, is unique because of its reputation as a killer of harmful organisms.

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have 3D printed a lifelike, functional blood vessel network that could pave the way toward artificial organs and regenerative therapies.

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Trump sends B-1 and B-52 NUCLEAR BOMBERS to Korea as WW3 looms – Daily Star

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THE US has deployed nuclear bombers to the Korean peninsula as tensions with North Korea grow.

GETTY

North Korea and the US have been locked in a bitter feud which has threatened to spark World War 3.

Ruthless leader Kim Jong-un fired off four ballistic missiles in a chilling warning to Donald Trump on Monday morning.

But the US president is sending in B-1 and B-52 bombers which are built to carry nuclear bombs in a show of force against the Hermit Kingdom.

GETTY

As innocent people starve in gulags, Kim Jong-un allows tightly controlled press trips to show a version of North Korea most citizens wouldn't even recognise. Happy, prosperous, developed: check out these pictures and see

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A man smokes a cigarette in a bar

The joint exercises will continue without a halt. It is a purely defensive annual drill

F-35B stealth fighters the most advanced aircraft in the world will also arrive in South Korea next week.

Dastardly dictator Kim oversaw the rocket launch himself and aimed the projectiles at US bases, with missiles landing in Japanese waters.

In response, both South Korea and the US have been taking part in operation Foal Eagle, where air, naval and land units take part in military drills.

GETTY

The operation has been condemned by Kim, who described Foal Eagle as a "rehearsal for invasion".

China has urged both nations to stop the war drills, to prevent further aggravating the tubby tyrant.

But South Korean defence ministry spokesman, Moon Sang-gyun, denied the Chinese request.

Since 2008, photographer Eric Lafforgue ventured to North Korea six times. Thanks to digital memory cards, he was able to save photos that was forbidden to take inside the segregated state

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Taking pictures in the DMZ is easy, but if you come too close to the soldiers, they stop you

He said: "The joint exercises will continue without a halt. It is a purely defensive annual drill."

The allies will also start a command exercise, Key Resolve, to run drills on cyber attacks.

Trump is considering plans to assassinate Kim or launch air strikes on nuke factories.

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Trump sends B-1 and B-52 NUCLEAR BOMBERS to Korea as WW3 looms - Daily Star

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Inside the Psychedelic Underground – RollingStone.com

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How some doctors are risking everything to unleash the healing power of MDMA, ayahuasca and other hallucinogens

How some doctors are risking everything to unleash the healing power of MDMA, ayahuasca and other hallucinogens

Dr. X is a dad. Appropriately boringly at 4:37 p.m. on a national holiday, he is lighting a charcoal grill, about to grab a pair of tongs with one hand and a beer with the other. His kids are running around their suburban patio, which could be anywhere; Dr. X, though impressively educated now, grew up poor in a town that is basically nowhere. Like most Americans, he is a Christian. Like a lot of health-conscious men, he fights dad bod by working out once or twice a week, before going into his medical practice.

Somewhat less conventionally, two hours ago, he was escorting a woman around his yard, helping her walk off a large dose of MDMA. He's the one who'd given it to her, earlier in the morning, drugging her out of her mind.

This would be psychedelic-assisted therapy, the not-new but increasingly popular practice of administering psychotropic substances to treat a wide range of physical, psychological and psycho-spiritual concerns. "Some people stagger out" of the room in Dr. X's home that he uses for these "journeys," as sessions are called in the semiofficial parlance. Some have to stay for hours and hours beyond the standard five or so, crying or waiting to emotionally rebalance, lying on a mattress, probing the secrets, trauma, belief or grief buried in their subconscious. Dr. X recalls a patient who was considering a round-the-clock Klonopin prescription for anxiety; she reluctantly decided to try a journey instead. On the "medicine," she spent seven hours unraveling ballistically, picturing herself dumping sadness out of her chest into a jade box that she put a golden heart-shaped lock on and tossed into the sea. She'd been skeptical going in, but after it was over, Dr. X says, "She was so angry that it was illegal."

Because Dr. X's hallmark treatment an MDMA session or two, then further journeys with psilocybin mushrooms if called for is, absolutely, illegal. MDMA is a Schedule I controlled substance. Psilocybin is as well. Exposure could get his medical license suspended, if not revoked, along with his parental rights, or freedom. "This should be a part of health care, and is a true part of health care," he says in his defense. The oversimplified concept behind MDMA therapy, which causes intense neurotransmitter activity including the release of adrenaline and serotonin (believed to produce positive mood), is that it tamps down fear, allowing people to interact with and deal with parts of their psyche they otherwise can't. Psychedelics in general are thought to bring an observational part of the ego online to allow a new perspective on one's self and one's memories, potentially leading to deep understanding and healing.

As an internal-medicine specialist, Dr. X doesn't have any patients who come to him seeking psychotherapy. But the longer he does the work, the more "I'm seeing that consciousness correlates to disease," he says. "Every disease." Narcolepsy. Cataplexy. Crohn's. Diabetes one patient's psychedelic therapy preceded a 30 percent reduction in fasting blood-sugar levels. Sufferers of food allergies discover in their journeys that they've been internally attacking themselves. "Consciousness is so vastly undervalued," Dr. X says. "We use it in every other facet in our life and esteem the intellectual part of it, but deny the emotional or intuitive part of it." Psychedelic therapy "reinvigorated my passion and belief in healing. I think it's the best tool to achieving well-being, so I feel morally and ethically compelled to open up that space."

Currently legally we're in the midst of a psychedelic renaissance. New York University, the University of New Mexico, the University of Zurich, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Alabama and the University of California-Los Angeles have all partnered with the psilocybin-focused Heffter Research Institute, studying the compound for smoking cessation, alcoholism, terminal-cancer anxiety and cocaine dependence; the biotech-CEO-founded Usona Institute funds research of "consciousness-expanding medicines" for depression and anxiety at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since 2000, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit based in Santa Cruz, California, has been funding clinical trials of MDMA for subjects with PTSD, mostly veterans, but also police, firefighters and civilians. In November, the FDA approved large-scale Phase III clinical trials the last phase before potential medicalization of MDMA for PTSD treatment. MAPS, which has committed $25 million to achieving that medicalization by 2021, also supports or runs research with ayahuasca (a concoction of Amazonian plants), LSD, medical marijuana and ibogaine, the pharmaceutical extract of the psychoactive African shrub iboga. The organization is additionally funding a study of MDMA for treating social anxiety in autistic adults, currently underway at UCLA Medical Center. Another study, using MDMA to treat anxiety in patients with life-threatening illnesses, has concluded.

"If we didn't have some idea about the potential importance of these medicines, we wouldn't be researching them," says Dr. Jeffrey Guss, psychiatry professor at NYU Medical Center and co-investigator of the NYU Psilocybin Cancer Project. "Their value has been written about and is well known from thousands of years of recorded history, from their being used in religious and healing settings. Their potential and their being worthy of exploration and study speaks for itself."

Optimistic insiders think that if all continues to go well, within 10 to 15 years some psychedelics could be legally administrable to the public, not just for specific conditions but even for personal growth. In the meantime, says Rick Doblin, MAPS' executive director, "there are hundreds of therapists willing to work with illegal Schedule I psychedelics" underground, like Dr. X. They're in Florida, Minnesota, New York, California, Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New England, Lexington, Kentucky. "Hundreds in America," he says, though they're "spread out all over the world."

As within any field, underground practitioners vary in quality, expertise and method. Some are M.D.s, like Dr. X, or therapists, and some are less conventionally trained. They don't all use the same substances, and don't necessarily use just one. Some work with MDMA or psilocybin or ayahuasca, which has become trendy to drink in self-exploration ceremonies all over the country; others administer 5-MeO-DMT, extracted from a toad in the Sonoran Desert, or iboga or ibogaine, which, according to the scant research that exists, may be one of the most effective cures for opiate addiction on the planet but may also cause fatal heart complications.

Underground psychedelic therapists are biased toward their preferred medicines, and those they think work best for particular indications. But they are united by true belief. "People that are involved are risking their careers, their freedom, in order to help others achieve a certain emotional freedom, and they disagree with prohibition," says Doblin. "The fact that people are willing to do these therapies at great personal risk says something about what they think the potential of these drugs actually is to enhance psychotherapy."

There are limitations. Psychedelics aren't for everyone. Or at all foolproof. Nary a researcher or provider, under- or aboveground, fails to point out that some pre-existing conditions make them inappropriate for use, and that though the dangers don't rise nearly to the level of drug-war -mythology (iboga/ibogaine is the major exception), adverse outcomes do happen. The toxicity of -ayahuasca is on par with codeine though codeine causes many thousands more deaths per year. Psilocybin's is even less. Some studies have found brain damage in chronic Ecstasy users, but in 2010, researchers at Harvard Medical School studied a large sample of Mormons who used Ecstasy which the LDS Church was late to ban but no other drugs or alcohol, and failed to find cognitive consequences; safety studies of the dosages used in MDMA therapy have found no evidence of neurotoxicity or permanent changes in serotonin transporters. LSD does not stay in your body forever (its half-life is a matter of hours). But behaviorally, people on Ecstasy have died from heatstroke, or drinking too much or not enough water at raves; there have been assaults and even a murder at ayahuasca ceremonies for foreigners in Peru, which has seen a massive tourism boom around the substance's popularity. Probably the most common concern, the specter of "freaking out" during or long after a bad trip, has yet to happen in any of the clinical trials though it's not unusual for subjects to have tough experiences in their journeys. Dr. Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral science at UCLA, who has conducted studies with MDMA, ayahuasca and psilocybin, says that's a function of screening, preparation and expert support. "This is serious medicine with a capital M," he says, "and if you don't watch yourself and you don't pay attention to the essential basics, you could be in for a very difficult time."

Even under the best of circumstances, the process catalyzed by psychedelic therapy is often far from painless. "It's definitely not that people just get blissed out and it gets better," says Dr. Michael Mithoefer, the lead clinician on the MDMA trials in Charleston, South Carolina (others are ongoing in Boulder, Colorado; Canada; and Israel). "It makes the healing process possible, not easy." When you take 125 milligrams of pure MDMA, enough to nearly immobilize you, and someone invites you to take a look at your deepest self, "it is a destabilizing agent," Dr. X cautions. But it's purposefully so. "It opens us," he says. "Sometimes the medicine can stabilize someone in a difficult situation. Sometimes it stirs up madness, so they can process that. Some people feel rejuvenated and ready to go back into their lives, but other people feel frazzled, spent, fragmented. I've had a few people say, 'That shattered who I thought I was.'"

Limitations and challenges aside, the evidence so far still makes researchers cautiously optimistic that psychedelics hold potential for great healing and change. If they're right, medicalization could address the deficits in treatment options for afflictions trauma, depression, anxiety, addiction that collectively impact millions of Americans, and ultimately shape our world. "If we move forward and understand that these substances should only be used under optimal conditions," says Grob, "it will have a positive impact on an individual, family, collective and societal level." In aboveground clinical trials like his, subjects routinely report that psychedelic therapy is among the top five most important experiences of their lives, akin to the birth of a child.

We've been here before: From the 1950s to the early Seventies, more than 40,000 cases of psychedelic treatment were studied in 1,000 different papers in the medical literature, covering everything from addiction to PTSD to OCD to antisocial disorders and autism. Despite encouraging results, says Grob, the "wild, uninhibited enthusiasm of the Sixties" contributed to some bad recreational outcomes that gave legislators ammunition to ban psychedelics from research for decades. But as the above-ground movement has again been picking up steam, so is the underground. More positive studies get published; more patients and doctors read them; more underground success stories spread through word of mouth. "The secret is out," says Grob, and, perhaps combined with depression and opiate overdoses at all-time highs, skyrocketing civilian and veteran suicide rates, and trends toward personal optimization and wellness, demand is increasing. Researchers at NYU, UCLA and Johns Hopkins all stressed that they cannot and do not ever work with people in the underground, but some of them admired the willingness of certain health care professionals to act, however illegally, on their belief that sometimes healing can't wait and that psychedelics are imperative to it. "I respect that in them," NYU's Guss says. "I really do. I've become a member of the most established establishment. And so in a way, we're isolated from all the wisdom and knowledge in the underground community." That vast, uncollected experience contains details about the medicines' potential and pitfalls, challenges and inconsistencies the variety of ways psychedelics might wholly, drastically change a life. "I'm very interested to learn," Guss says, "what underground psychedelic psychotherapists have to teach us."

My first introduction to underground psychedelic therapy was when, years ago, a doctor told me my vagina was depressed. I'd gone in for a pelvic exam because something felt wrong; at the follow-up appointment, when my test results were all negative and my answers to her hundred questions about the post-traumatic stress disorder I was in treatment for were all related to sexual threats and reporting on sexual violence, she said my genitals were just fucking bummed out.

This was San Francisco, and I did a lot of yoga; but even I rolled my eyes at the idea that my privates had an emotional disorder. I was very intrigued, however, when the doctor said she knew a therapist who could heal years of trauma in one five-hour swoop, so long as I had the secret password. The doctor gave me the number for that therapist who worked with MDMA.

I never called. I moved across the country. Years later, I was on vacation on the coast when my husband went out for a run, and I stayed behind and may or may not have contemplated suicide.

OK. I did. In the car, on the road, running an errand, I thought about driving off the edge of a cliff into the brilliant, crashing Pacific.

Yes, I had a history: the PTSD, with concomitant major depressive disorder, suicidal thoughts. On my official paperwork, I was technically permanently disabled, but I had been doing much better working, going to karaoke, having a life. I had backslides and big episodes, but if my "issues" were not exactly handled, they were at least on a general upswing thanks to years of constant treatment. But then, the night before my drive, I had started yelling in a restaurant, feeling that I was spiraling out of control but unable to stop myself from making a scene. Now, having coaxed my car away from the cliff edge and back to the hotel, I lay facedown and screamed into the pillows. I called a local therapist and begged for an emergency appointment. As I lay there in her office, in the fetal position, I wondered aloud if I should try MDMA therapy.

Weirdly (or magically, as would later be obvious), she happened to have the number of another therapist who worked with it.

The therapist who gave me the second referral said she had a client with whom she'd been working for years who had done a journey. The difference in that patient's suffering, she said, was like night and day. When I called the number, the woman who answered said we needed to meet in person, and when we did, she mentioned that my struggle was why the wait for MDMA to become widely available was untenable. She said, in a stunning lack of expectation management, that she could help me massively more, in a few sessions, than all my years and dollars of hard therapeutic work had combined.

So after one more conversation, I showed up nervous, but excited, but desperate on a Monday morning (as scheduled) with an empty stomach (as directed) to a charming room with a couch at one end and a bed at the other. After we did something like a prayer, I took the see-through capsule of white powder and retired to the bed with the journal I was encouraged to bring while the therapist went out on the deck to give me space. I'd been told that the journey with psychedelics truly starts beforehand, the moment you decide to do it, and I had indeed been struggling extra since then. Waiting for the medicine to come on was no exception.

The Journey. 9:35 a.m.

I'm full of grief, and gratitude, and terror. I've been extra wound up and tight, extra untouchable, since we put this on the calendar. My body must be gripping and tensing in preparation to let go....

9:55 is when the doubt sets in. About the pointlessness, the uselessness, the futility of this endeavor. A moment ago, I was envisioning lots of purple tears. I'm like, let's just go read a newspaper and drink some tea somewhere.

This is when the therapist, who had come back inside, told me I was higher than I realized, and to lie down and let it ride.

I hadn't anticipated tripping, or time-travel. But there were movies of my life, and visits with loved ones. The therapist had turned on jangly guitar music, which struck me as lame at first, but soon became the most beautiful, dynamic composition I'd ever heard because: Ecstasy. I breathed deep with my eyes closed and a hand on my chest. I cried, often, as I rewitnessed my life. My therapist said very little. She had said before that our collective job was to trust my intuition. I went back to the scenes where my PTSD started. In one of them, I revisited a remote, bleak room where a stranger cornered me. I watched the scenario which, in reality, I had escaped physically unscathed play out with an alternate ending. But I didn't get overpowered and raped, which is what I'd always assumed was so scary about it. Instead, the stranger stepped forward and, in one swift move, landed his hands in a death grip around my throat.

Several times, the scene replayed. Repeatedly, I watched myself get strangled.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh, I could see, suddenly. This isn't just a rape issue, as I'd been working through it in therapy for years. This is also a murder issue.

For weeks after the journey, every man I walked past triggered an automatic but definitive and elated! voice inside me that said: That guy's not gonna kill you! Down the sidewalk in a city, that guy's not gonna kill you, and that guy's not gonna kill you. If I had realized at the conscious level that I thought they would, I would have stopped leaving the house. No wonder I was always exhausted. After the journey, I stepped down the street with wild new energy. Seeing, finally, the ultimate fear of that moment, my feared choking death, was sort of terrible, I guess, but not really, it wasn't, because: Ecstasy. And as soon as I acknowledged it and saw it through, the moment lost its quiet, powerful rule over my system.

For some people, an MDMA journey ends after a few hours. They sit up and start talking. They drink the water and eat the snack given to them, and talk for a bit as the medicine wears off. And then they leave.

I had to be pulled out of mine. Whether because I have a genetic variation that makes people more sensitive to MDMA or because I am "a very intense person," around 2 p.m. the therapist had to shake me; it was time to get ready to go my husband was scheduled to pick me up, and the therapist had another appointment coming. She had me sit up and eat and drink and try to rejoin the present. When I left some half an hour later, I was cheerful and articulate, but still tripping. My husband, in utter bewilderment over how to handle me, took me to a nearby hotel, as planned. Later, we tried to go eat in a restaurant. I babbled, pleasantly at first, but then, about eight hours after my journey began, everything turned twitchy and dark. I called the therapist frantically and asked her if most people, post-journey, felt like every single thing in their entire lives needed to be burned down immediately, and she said no, not really, but that my job in any case was to "do nothing, very slowly."

In the clinical trials of MDMA for PTSD, the protocol is to keep patients overnight. The sessions typically there are three, spaced a month apart last at least eight hours, because that's sometimes when the heaviest processing will only begin to kick in, particularly for patients who have a history of dissociation, or severe detachment from reality which I do. My MDMA therapist, who had been doing journeys for a long time, had never happened to see a person quite like me, but for people like me, researchers say, it's not unheard of for the journey to get ugly at around the time I was in the middle of a dinner date.

But I didn't happen to know any of that.

That night, I ran, fleeing from the hotel into the rural darkness, alone. I had total conviction that every facet of my existence was a mistake. I was engulfed in panic. I had no idea what to do with myself, except for one specific thing, as the clear message of it kept ringing over and over in my head, and that message was: GET. DIVORCED.

It's harder to integrate if you have a life: a company, a house, a wife," Dr. Y explains to a patient during a phone session one day. Dr. Y, who looks younger than his middle age, paces and stretches while he talks to the man, many states away, who recently started therapy after he lost his relationship, lost his job and moved three of the top five stressful life events, psychologists say. Dr. Y is a psychiatrist, which means he has the ability to prescribe medications, but in this session, this patient's third, he instead asks whether the patient is feeling open to taking ayahuasca after having read all the literature Dr. Y assigned last time. He wants to be sure the man is fully aware of the "integration" process, which could be less charitably called "picking up the pieces of inner-personal land mines," that may follow. Half of Dr. Y's patients enact a major life change after ayahuasca. "Probably a quarter," he says, strongly consider a breakup or divorce.

Dr. Y considers about 90 percent of his patients to be fit for ayahuasca. The one out of 10 he believes it isn't right for could include people with a history of psychosis, mania or personality disorders, but more often it is those who don't have the support necessary for integration, or aren't ready to be led through symptom management while they're weaned off antidepressants. That's required by most knowledgeable practitioners: Like MDMA and psilocybin, ayahuasca increases serotonin in the body, and there's a risk of serotonin poisoning if it's taken with certain medications. Dr. Y's patient today doesn't have any of these contraindications. And Dr. Y believes the patient is strong enough to sort through his psychological contents as long as the patient also thinks he's ready, which he says he is after airing some hesitations ("You know," he says, "once you pull back a layer, there's no going back, and you can't unsee or unfeel what you saw"). Dr. Y will send him referrals to vetted, reputable providers in his preferred city. "Three nights [in a row] is better than two, and two is definitely better than one," he tells him. First night, drink ayahuasca, open up; next night, dive deeper in. Layers of self-discovery. The soul as a somewhat coy onion. Sometimes, the peeling of it with ayahuasca involves experiencing your own death. Dr. Y gives the patient instructions for the month leading up to his journey: no other drugs, no alcohol, no sex. No reading news, no violent TV; reduce stress, meditate, find quiet. And, in the final week, no meat, no spice, no fermented foods. "The cleaner you go in," Dr. Y, who himself has experienced hundreds of ceremonies, tells the man, "the more impactful the ceremony." Whatever happens, during or after, Dr. Y will be available.

There are downsides to doing things underground. In addition to the obvious threat of arrest, more risks are created at every step of the psychedelic-therapy process by illegality, providers say. There can be difficulty with something as basic as finding and ensuring clean compounds: MAPS helped run an MDMA testing program, and half of the pills sent in didn't contain any MDMA at all; there have been reports of some shamans spiking ayahuasca with a more toxic hallucinogenic plant to intensify the trip. The best-cared-for patient is still disadvantaged by the general lack of cultural wisdom and support around the treatment. Even good providers aren't as knowledgeable as they could be. Once a year, there is a secret conference that brings together 50 to 100 underground practitioners at a revolving location. "Information gets shared, and people learn new things," says one regular attendee. Another participant recalls lectures on practicalities like the best and most therapeutic doses, how to screen for patients with borderline personality whom many believe are not compatible with psychedelics and how different music and sounds impact sessions. But not nearly all the world's practitioners are there. And none of the minutes or findings can be published.

Plus, not every underground patient gets care as elaborate or expert as Dr. Y's. Some don't receive the preparation or follow-up they may need, because they can't afford it, or because in an underground, patients don't have the luxury to be picky about their providers; they may have to take anyone whose number they can manage to get their hands on, and it can be hard for laypeople to adequately vet providers anyway. An M.D. who used to administer psychedelics (he prefers not to say which) for depression and anxiety (and who, when I tell him he'll have a secret identity like Batman asks if he can be Dr. Batman) doesn't provide underground psychedelic treatment anymore because it started to feel too threatening to his legitimate practice, but in extreme cases he still refers opiate addicts to underground providers who work with ibogaine. "I know quite a few people who do that," he says. "But I only trust two of them. Out of about 10. These are nurses, or respiratory therapists people that know how to resolve an emergency." Outside of that, there's "a whole subculture" of more amateur iboga and ibogaine therapists, Dr. Batman says. "It's a movement that's driven by addicts helping other addicts. I don't think that's good, per se."

It would be best, in Dr. Batman's opinion, for people to get iboga-based addiction treatment in a reputable clinic outside the country. According to one such center in Mexico, one in 10 patients needs some medical care, one in 100 needs serious medical intervention, and, even in the hospital-like setting, people do occasionally die. But not everyone has the money to travel to the best treatment. "It's very difficult for me to make that referral" to the underground for such a risky compound, Dr. Batman says. But sometimes his concern that someone will join the nearly 100 Americans who die of opioid overdose every day overrides his hesitation.

Even for comparatively safer MDMA and psilocybin, says Dr. X, "the fact that we have to do this and hide and send people back to their lives, versus doing it at an inpatient facility," where patients could stay for more integration, is less than ideal.

But all these are risks that people who feel they need psychedelic therapy are willing to take. Nigel McCourry, a 35-year-old Iraq War veteran who participated in a MAPS MDMA study, was so transformed by the PTSD treatment that he was determined to get it for one of his fellow Marines. "This is my Marine battle buddy," he says. "He needed help." It took a lot of searching and ultimately traveling to another state to find an underground therapist, whom neither Marine knew, and McCourry was acutely aware of how difficult the process could be: For up to a year after his own treatment began, he says, "It was really wild. I had all of these emotions coming up out of nowhere. I would cry at random times. I had to give myself so much space to be able to let that out. I would be crying and I had no idea what I was crying about. It was just really intense."

As a subject in the clinical trial, McCourry underwent three 90-minute preparatory sessions prior to dosing, another long integration session the morning after, a phone call every day for a week, and additional 90-minute sessions every week between the three journeys. His friend didn't have the money or opportunity for nearly that kind of support. But he took the journey anyway. In their infantry unit, 2/2 Warlords, "guys are consistently committing suicide," McCourry says. "I think [MDMA therapy] is really our best shot at solving the veteran suicide crisis."

Elizabeth Bast, a 41-year-old artist and mother, also felt like she was out of options when she and her husband, Joaquin Lamar Hailey (better known as street artist Chor Boogie), flew to Costa Rica to get iboga therapy at a healing center after Hailey relapsed into an old heroin addiction that both of them felt was going to kill him. When he felt he needed a booster dose six months later, they turned to an underground provider closer by, in the States. Iboga "was crucial," Bast says. "It saved his life." The couple have started organizing and facilitating treatment trips for addicts to other countries (the drug is illegal in less than a dozen). But there are a lot of others they can't help. Since Bast wrote a book about their experience, "I get inquiries every day: 'My brother's dying, and I can't get out of the country.' We would love to support that. But it's too risky."

Psychedelic medicalization isn't without its own potential problems. There is squabbling in the underground community about whether it would provoke too much regulation over who can administer medicines, and who can take them and how; or whether it would lead to corporatization, or a boom in licensed but low-quality providers of substances that are so intense. Even now, in the aboveground in other countries, "There are places where it's done that are very unprofessional," says Ben De Loenen, executive director of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education Research and Service (ICEERS), which provides resources for users and potential users of ayahuasca and iboga. UCLA's Grob has been called by patients who've suffered severe, persistent anxiety for months after a psychedelic-therapy experience, which he says tends to be the result of bad preparedness, ethics, or practices of providers. There are also questions about sustainability. As both deforestation of the Amazon and popularity of ayahuasca increase, shamans have had to trek deeper into the jungle to find the plants that compose it. The increasing popularity of 5-MeO-DMT, called "the Toad" for its origins in the venom sacs of an amphibian which are milked, the liquid then dried and basically free-based (smoking it is necessary; swallowing it can be fatal) has led to incidences of people stealing onto Native American reservations to find the frog, leaving empty beer bottles and trash in their wake. If the broader culture ever accepted the species as the path to healing or enlightenment, one can surmise how long it might survive.

Guss, the NYU researcher, sees a future where psychedelic therapy is the specialty of highly and appropriately trained professionals and a robust field of scientific inquiry. For now, there's the underground, some developing countries and the Internet. ICEERS offers tips for vetting practitioners, as well as free therapeutic support to people in crisis during or after ceremonies. MAPS has published a manual for how to do MDMA-assisted psychotherapy on its website, downloadable by anyone.

"Putting out info about how we do the therapy is more likely to contribute to safety than anything else," says Doblin. On the dark Web, sellers of iboga and ibogaine thrive. There were a thousand people on the wait list for MAPS' most recently completed MDMA trial. "People are desperate," Doblin says. "People are doing this."

Personally, my integration after MDMA was brutal. Though I eventually returned to my hotel room that first night, my state didn't improve. I didn't sleep, lying next to my husband, garnering every ounce of willpower to keep from saying that I was leaving, immediately and forever; my husband didn't sleep either, blanketed in my agitation. For weeks, we found ourselves on the floor, or in bed, one or both of us crying as he asked if I still wanted to be married and I didn't know; and I didn't know, for that matter, what my personality was (callous? Funny? Was I funny? If so, was I really, or just performing?) or whether I was bisexual like I always thought or strictly gay. My moods swung from extreme openness and optimism to utter despair and stunned confusion. One day, I spent hours indulging a rich and specific fantasy about filling a bathtub with hot water, downing the years-old bottle of Ativan from when I was first diagnosed, and slitting my forearms from wrist to elbow. Later, in an entirely different temperament, I saw the plan in my Journey Journal and recognized it as active suicidal ideation; if someone had taken the notebook to the police, they could have legally committed me to an institution against my will.

From the beginning, my MDMA therapist had recommended more than one journey. Next time, she said in one of our multiple follow-up integration sessions, I'd stay all night. I agreed that another journey was in order, but I happened to talk to someone who mentioned an underground therapist with a different practice and whom I got a good feeling from when we talked, and so, three months after the first journey, in a dark and silent room with three other people after nightfall, concerns about my family history of schizophrenia thoroughly discussed and considered, I drank ayahuasca.

On the first night of the two-night ceremony, sitting on the "nests" we each built with yoga mats and sleeping bags on the floor, I was nervous again. But less than last time. After drinking about an ounce of the thick sludge, I lay down. There were the initial sparkles and shooting stars behind my eyes, and after a while, as the facilitators started singing ancient songs they say come from the plant and help it work a vision of myself as a five-year-old appeared. There was a suggestion at a history, something bad that happened that I didn't remember; I did not like the direction it was going in; I also thought it was bullshit. The visions stopped. Instead, an abject, suffocating rage came over me, and I lay there in it for five hours thinking about getting in my car and driving away and wishing everyone else in the room would fucking die.

The next night, after a long, raw and still-irate day in the house, the first vision that showed up was five-year-old me again pissed. She wouldn't talk to me, however much I tried to coax her. I knew I had to get her to engage, which over the course of seven hours involved recognizing that I hated myself, that my self-hatred was my best and most reliable friend, and that my self-hatred would never die until I appreciated how it had protected me; when I did, and it did, I gave it a Viking funeral in the vision and in reality cried harder than I ever had in my life. Then I just had to reckon with shame. I sensed the five-year-old had brought it, actually, not me, but no matter, I assured her: I was the goddamn adult here, and I was going to take care of it. There was suffering and writhing and grief and nausea. I threw up, twice, prodigious quantities of black liquid, once so hard into a bucket that it splashed up all over the bottom half of my face.

A few inches away from me, a woman, who'd recently been in a car accident that put her in the hospital and in a wheelchair for a time, lay perfectly still and silent; a few inches from her, a man gnashed his teeth at visions of his abusive parent. At the other end of the room, another participant relived the night of his father's suicide. In the vision, as in real life, he was unable to stop him from slipping out into the garage to do it. But this time, when the man discovered his father's body and cut him down from the rope, he didn't falter under the weight and drop him, as he did when he was a teenager. This time, he had the strength of his adult self, and when he caught him, he held him. Suspending his own sense of horror and failure, and the calling of the police, and the screams of his mother, he got to hold him for a very long time.

In November, the results of two large studies showed that the majority of cancer patients who received one dose of psilocybin experienced lasting recovery from depression and anxiety. In February, a paper in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that "experience with psychedelic drugs is associated with decreased risk of opioid abuse and dependence." Medical-journal papers about ayahuasca suggest it can treat addiction, anxiety and depression, and change brain structure and personality. So far in the MDMA PTSD trials, zero participants haven't improved at all, and more than 80 percent have recovered to an extent that they don't qualify as having PTSD anymore. Estimates for the effectiveness of other PTSD treatments range as high as 70 percent but as low as 50 percent. The number is somewhat contentious, but even "if you think it's only 25 percent" for whom conventional treatments don't work, says Mithoefer, the lead clinician on the trials in Charleston, "that's still millions of people a year in the United States alone." All the participants in the trials had previously tried medication or therapy, usually both; as a cohort, they'd had PTSD for an average of 19 years.

But "ultimately, the decision to reschedule [psychedelics from Schedule I substances] is not a scientific one," points out NYU's Guss. "It's a governmental one. We may be able to prove safety and efficacy. But there still may be governmental legislative reasons that rescheduling doesn't move forward."

Psychedelic use has been opposed and persecuted by authorities for centuries, both in Europe and in the New World. Among those reasons, believers believe, is the fear that widespread smart psychedelic use could foment societal upheaval. That's not unlike the belief in the Sixties but we know more now about what psychedelics do and how to optimize them. "We didn't have as much data then as we do now," says Dr. Dan Engle, a board-certified psychiatrist who consults with plant-medicine healing centers worldwide. "And we didn't have as many of the safeguards as we have now." He envisions "the psychedelic renaissance as a cornerstone in the redemption of modern psychiatric care." Now, thanks to brain imaging, researchers can see that far greater "brain-network connections light up on psilocybin compared to the normal brain. More cross-regional firing. That's what the brain actually looks like on the 'drugs' that we've been using for hundreds if not thousands of years."

This has helped make psychedelics particularly popular in Silicon Valley, where a drive toward self-actualization meets the luxury of having the resources to pursue it. California, where Berkeley-born chemist Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin synthesized and distributed MDMA to therapists for decades before it was prohibited, has long been at the front of the movement; today, Doblin estimates, the state doesn't have quite the majority, but probably 40 percent of underground psychedelic therapists in the nation. Last year, California Sunday Magazine reporter Chris Colin profiled Entrepreneurs Awakening (EA), a company that arranges Peruvian ayahuasca sojourns primarily for tech and startup CEOs. The customers, says owner Michael Costuros, are "supersuccessful type-A people who use it to be better at what they do."

"These things are so powerful," says Eric Weinstein, managing director at Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's investment firm in San Francisco, "that they can get into layers of patterned behavior to show folks things that they could change and could do differently. And the brain has probably been playing with these ideas in the subconscious. This entire family of agents is extraordinary, as they appear to be very profound, unexpectedly constructive and surprisingly safe. Most people who take these agents seem to discover cognitive modes that they never knew even existed." Weinstein has been considering trying to put together a series of opposite-land "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" public-service commercials, in which other Silicon Valley luminaries and scientists like himself a Ph.D. mathematician and physicist out themselves as having "directed their own intellectual evolution with the use of psychedelics as self-hacking tools."

But even for the super-high-functioning, psychedelic use isn't just about optimizing. It also, Costuros says, makes them better people: "What I've seen consistently happen is CEOs become a people-centric, people-focused person." After well-administered and integrated psychedelics, "we're not gonna see the kind of Donald Trump entrepreneurs that are only about extracting value." After an ayahuasca journey with EA, an arms magnate left his multimillion- dollar company to build an art and music residency program. Chris Hunter, the 38-year-old inventor of caffeinated malt-liquor beverage Four Loko, went into his trip with EA's Costuros as a regular former Ohio State University fraternity brother from Youngstown and came out a new man. "Why are you such a dick?" he says he asked himself on ayahuasca. "What if you approached masculinity in a different way instead of being dominant and overseeing the women in your life, you came from the other side, underneath, fully supporting and lifting women up?" Ayahuasca users whom UCLA's Grob has researched in other countries "have become better partners to their spouses, better parents to their children, better children to their parents, better employees, better employers, just more responsible overall, bringing a higher level of ethical integrity to everything they do," he says.

It's possible that psychedelics could transform a wide array of people. Clinical trials have included subjects across demographic categories, including soldiers and conservatives and the elderly and people who've never taken drugs at all before. Some of Dr. X's patients most definitely do not vote Democrat. But the people who have access to psychedelic treatment underground (or overseas) do tend to have something in common: They are usually well-off. "If I could do it legally, I would not turn away anyone for treatment, if I could be aboveground and I could get them to supportive services [afterward]," Dr. X says. Because of the necessary secrecy and lack of outside support now, he considers it irresponsible to provide journeys to anyone without the time and resources to also pay for integration sessions. (McCourry had to pay for the first journey of his Marine friend, who didn't have any money; they had to find a wealthy benefactor to cover the next two.) Clients are also mostly white as are providers. "Sentencing for middle-class white people is a hell of a lot friendlier than for minorities and poor people," Dr. X says. "It's a tragedy that people with the most vulnerability, who need it most, we can't do it with them."

Doblin, for his part, speculates that the DEA hasn't cracked down on underground psychedelic therapists because they have more pressing priorities than those trying to heal a select few of the rich, the traumatized and the addicted. It's also one thing for psychedelics to be popular with millionaires and some Nobel laureates and business celebrities you'd never believe, Costuros maintains and the hip participants of the estimated 120 ayahuasca ceremonies that take place in New York City and the Bay Area every weekend. But who knows what might unfold if psychedelic therapy were available to people for whom the status quo doesn't work so well?

It's unclear if the current presidential administration, which includes some extremely drug-unfriendly members, will alter or slow the course of possible medicalization. For the time being, the researchers soldier on, and the underground grows. This year, K., a therapist with a traditional practice in an Appalachian state, administered her first MDMA journey with a client (with two additional medical professionals on hand for safety); the client, who'd still needed occasional suicide watch stemming from symptoms of complex PTSD despite 16 years of therapy, had brought her the MAPS manual, downloaded off the Internet. "I'm trained to provide the best care to my clients in a way that's ethical," K. says, "so if research is backing up that things that are now illegal are really helpful with little to no side effects, especially compared with psychiatric medications, which have a ton of side effects, then it's something I'm open to." When dosed, K.'s client, S., talked through a childhood of severe abuse and torture "but none of it was terrifying," S. says. "I talked in detail about a lot of horrific shit that happened. Then I said: The thing is, all those things are over, and I know they're over, and my body knows that everything is going to be OK."

For Silicon Valley's Weinstein, the success stories show the importance of advocating for broader access. "If we don't legalize, study and utilize these plants and other medicines, people who could be saved will die," he says. "Families will break apart. Parents will continue to bury depressed children who might have been saved by these miraculous agents. Can we bring ourselves to ask if a single professionally administered flood dose of legalized ibogaine could have saved Prince from opioid addiction? Some of these agents are anti-drug drugs...and we are still against them. I definitely would like to attack the idea that any of this makes any sense."

So I'd done an underground MDMA session, and a weekend of illegal ayahuasca ceremonies.

The integration, as the months went on, seemed to go a bit smoother.

After ayahuasca, I still had good and bad days. The process was still intense but less earthshaking, either because I'd done the first big, tough layer of processing post-MDMA, or because the journey was different, or I was getting used to being unsettled, or all of the above. Or maybe the smoother time was a little reprieve, since something more shattering was about to happen.

After all the months, all the pieces that had been stirred up were not quite connected. I felt I needed one more sitting with the therapist and the psychedelic that at that point felt right. So I settled into a nest on a little patch of floor, again, in the same house as last time, but in a large, high-ceilinged living room full of moonlight coming in through the windows, and I whispered into a cup of ayahuasca a plea for wholeness, and drank it.

The vision is about me, as a five-year-old. Again.

Psychedelics, they say, will not give you what you want. But they will give you what you need.

I'm shocked to encounter the child again, but ready to see what she shows me this time. The child remembers; I remember, though the realization is slow, and the acceptance is slower.

When I thought I cried the hardest in my life the last time I drank ayahuasca, I was wrong.

I cannot (and would not) begin to encompass, in a brief space, what happens in the next long hours, and the next day, and the next night. The second night, the facilitators have to end the ceremony without me. They bless and blow smoke and perfume on the others because after so many hours, they're done, but I'm still deep in it. They take turns staying with me and singing. It goes on for so long, with so much shaking and sickness, that to be kind to my nervous system, my facilitator, who in her day job cares for homeless children, puts me in a bathtub of hot water.

I hyperventilate, for a long time, until I don't. I remember the bathtub-suicide fantasy. The facilitator is sitting next to me, on the floor, putting a soaked hot washcloth against my face, my neck, on my head. I tell her about the fantasy, and that I have come to know, in this bathtub, that I am not going to kill myself.

For a second she thinks I mean I won't kill myself in her bathtub, rather than in general. Then when she gets it, the two of us laugh about what a drag that would be for her, if I killed myself here, on drugs in her house, both of us joking about it: me, naked, her, trying to help me save my life.

We're laughing, but this moment is a big deal, and we know it. I am not healed. But I am whole. I can go ahead and get divorced if that turns out to be the right thing, but not because I was violated too many times to bear intimacy. There will be many more spectacularly challenging, professionally supported months of working through the terror and pain imprinted on my body when it was tiny, powerless under adult darkness and weight, but one of the end results has already arrived. The too-many years of my life where I sometimes actively, and maybe always a little bit passively, thought about killing myself are over.

But what has changed, people keep asking me, since the journeys. In my life, what difference did it make?

Every single thing is different, I tell them. Because I was splintered before, but now: I'm here.

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Inside the Psychedelic Underground - RollingStone.com

First Look: 2017 Giant Trance 1 – Singletrack

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As one of the current staples of the Giant lineup, the Trance has been a common sight on trail heads everywheresince it was first rolled outto the global riding market in 2005. Slotting in between the Anthem XC race bike, and the long travel Reign, the Trance was initially launched as one of the firstmodels from Giant to feature the then brand new Maestro suspension design.

With a virtual pivot suspension design that employed two links to suspend the rear swingarm, the Maestro conceptcame about in response to Santa Cruzs VPP and Dave Weagles dw_link. The promise of Maestro was to deliver an efficient pedalling platform without having to resort to clever rear shocks and lockout dials. In the case of the early Trance, thedual-link design delivered 100mm of rear wheel travel in a sturdy package built for all-day trail riding.

Overthe past decade, the Trance has gone on to become one of the most popular models that Giant sells, and one of the most well-recognised full suspension bikes in the world. In that time, the Trance has gone through several redesigns to increase rear wheel travel, which along with improvements to the frame construction andgeometry, hasseenitbecome amore capable machine.

For 2017 though, the Trance has gone through its biggest chance yet. Adopting new standards such as Boost hub spacing and the Trunnion rear shock mount, Giant has undertaken a wholesale redesign of both the Anthem and Trance platforms. A refined version of the Maestro suspension design has been ushered in, along with new geometry and a frame that is purportedly lighter and stiffer overall.

To put those claims to the test, Ive been riding anew Giant Trance 1to see if this is the Taiwanese brandsbesttrail bike yet.

The heart of the new Giant Trance is the reworked Maestro suspension design. Overall, the arrangement remains very similar to the original Maestro architecture, with two struts joining the one-piece swingarm to the front end. Those struts consist of a small link around the bottom bracket and a rocker link that drives the rear shock. Travel sits at 140mm on the rear.

The welded alloyswingarm features a flushBoost 148x12mm thru-axle that requires a 6mm hex key for installation and removal. Post-mount brake tabs will allow the rear calliper to bolt on directly with 160mm rotors, or (as our test bike features) an adapter to work with a larger 180mm rotor.

The lower link extends from the chain stay yoke over the PF92 press-fit bottom bracket shell, where it meets the lower shock eyelet. The beauty of this design is that the link and the shock share a pivot point, which reduces the number of moving parts on the Maestro linkage. All-up including the shock mounts, there are five pivots, all of which rollon sealed cartridge bearings.

The big change over the previous generation Trance is the change to a new Metric shock size that features Trunnion mounting. The Trunnion mount skips the traditional DU bush of a regular shock, and instead allows for the rocker to attach to the shock on the side of the shock body, where it rotates on two cartridge bearings instead. The result is less stiction for a smoother starting stroke and thusly, a more supple suspension feel. The other advantage that the Metric-sized shock provides is a smaller package for the same given stroke, so theres moreflexibility for the designers when engineering the front triangle.

The Trance 1 is the top-spec model in the alloy range, and so it receives a tidy suspension packagefrom Fox. Theres a Performance Elite Fox Float rear shock,which comes complete with an EVOL air can and 3-way adjustable compression damping. To complement the 140mm of rear wheel travel, Giant has specd a Fox 34 Float fork up front with 150mm of travel.

Cockpit components come from the Giant stable in the form of a Contact SL Trail handlebar that measures 750mm wide, and a Contact stem that runs at a 60mm length for the Extra Small, Small, and Mediumframe sizes, and 70mm for the Large and Extra Large frame sizes. Interestingly, this is the same bar and stem setup as found on the shorter-travel Anthem XC bike. My plan is to trythe Trance with a slightly wider bar and a shorter stem to see howits handling plays with a more fashionable cockpit setup.

Braking on the Trance 1 is handled by Shimano Deore XT stoppers, with 180mm Ice Tech rotors front and rear. Note the KaBolt setup on the Fox 34 fork, which Giant has specd instead of the standard QR15 quick-release lever.

Shimano has also been called on for the drivetrain on the Trance 1, with a slick 111 setup delivering a wide range of gears thanks to the larger11-46t cassette. The 32t chainring uses Shimanos new narrow-wide tooth profile, and the Shadow Plus rear derailleuruses a direct-mount hanger to keep shifting crisp.

Since first building up the Trance 1, Ive made a couple of changes to the spec for riding our local trails. The Schwalbe tyres have been pulled off to make way for more aggressive (and wider) Maxxis Minion tyres. Theres a 2.4in DHR II on the rear, which uses the 3C MaxxTerra rubber compound and EXO reinforced sidewalls.

To match the rear Minion DHR II, theres a Minion DHF on the front that measures 2.5in wide. Both Minions are the new Wide Trail (WT) size, which is ideally suited to the newer crop of rims that are running broaderinternal rim widths.

On the note of the wheelset, its a good-looking carbon fibre numbers from Giant. Called the TRX 1, the wheelset features28 straight-pull Sapim Laser/Race spokes per wheel, and theyre lacedto lovely CNC machined hub shells packed withDT Swiss internals. The rims are tubeless ready, and blue rim tape is included in the box with the bike from new. Setting tyres up tubeless is easy as pie, and the seal is very secure between tyre and rim.

Before taking the Trance 1 off road, I stripped the wheels down and put them on the scales because Im a nerd like that. For the pair, the complete wheelset without tape and valves weighs in at just 1649 grams, which is pretty svelte for a carbon trail wheelset, and a few grams lighter than claimed. Nice!

One other change Ive made to the stock spec is the addition of a Wolftooth ReMoteto activate the Giant Contact SL Switch-R dropper post. With a CNC machined construction and a broad, textured paddle, the Wolftooth ReMote is a welcome addition to the Trance 1s ergonomics, and is available witha standard bar clamp, or in versions that are compatible with either Shimano or SRAM brake levers.

The Trance 1 frame itself is constructed from Giants own hydroformed alloy blend called ALUXX-SL. The tubes all receive heavy shaping to create some stunning lines that rival that of the carbon versions. The welded areas are broad and chunky, as isthe stout tapered head tube and the 92mm wide press-fit bottom bracket.

All cables route internally through the front triangle,with the rear brake hose and derailleur cable exiting at the base of the downtube. These then run externally on the rear swingarm, while the dropper post line runs internally all the way through and up into the seat tube.

With the new carbon fibre rocker link, the lines on the back end of the Trance have been massaged to be even cleaner, with smooth lines running from front to back. Its certainly a good looking piece of kit, and its a great example of therecent advances in alloy construction techniques. Interestingly, you can also get a Trance Advanced 2 for nearlythe same price as this bike here, so consumers have a choice of whether they want the better build kit with the alloy frame, or the carbon frame with a cheaper build kit.

Over the coming months, Ill continue to put the Trance 1 through a variety of riding conditions and trail types to see where this 140mm travel trail bike really shines. Well also be using the Trance to test out multiple components, including the Maxxis Minion tyres and a few other items that youll read about in the near future.

In the meantime, you can head to Giant Bicycles website for more information about the 2017 range.

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Cyberpunk Hacking Game "Darknet" For PlayStation VR Arrives … – COGconnected (press release)

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Archiact today announced that Darknet, a cyberpunk hacking game, is now available on PlayStation VR (PSVR) for $14.99 USD. In celebration of its launch, COGconnected is giving away codes on Twitter. Just retweet and follow us on Twitter for a chance to win.

Check out the launch trailer below:

Darknet is an incredibly deep strategy/puzzle game that was built from the ground-up for virtual reality. In Darknet gamers become elite hackers, contracted to retrieve data from the worlds most secure networks. Players dive into the net, install viruses, inject code, and hack their way through cybersecurity in an experience inspired by a classic cyberpunk vision of the future.

Darknet for PSVR gives players a virtual window to a hidden digital world. The title received incredible industry accolades when it was previously released on Oculus Rift and Gear VR, and has been refined and tailored for PSVR boasting several new improvements. This includes full audio integration added to the PlayStation 4 Dualshock controller, art enhancements to the UI and main menu, as well as all-new PlayStation trophies for players to earn.

Source: Press Release

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Cyberpunk Hacking Game "Darknet" For PlayStation VR Arrives ... - COGconnected (press release)

WGS Systems Launches Tactical Management System (TMS) after Inauguration Success – Heliweb Magazine (press release) (registration) (blog)

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Heliweb Magazine (press release) (registration) (blog)
WGS Systems Launches Tactical Management System (TMS) after Inauguration Success
Heliweb Magazine (press release) (registration) (blog)
TMS, developed by WGS Systems, was used by the USPP to provide coordinated eyes in the sky and eyes on the ground for the federal law enforcement agency in charge of enforcing the laws around many of the United States most significant national ...

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WGS Systems Launches Tactical Management System (TMS) after Inauguration Success - Heliweb Magazine (press release) (registration) (blog)

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MacroPoint Integrates Load Tracking with Oracle TMS – Heavy Duty Trucking

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MacroPoint has announced a partnership with Eminent Global Logistics, an Oracle PartnerNetwork member, to integrate its load tracking platform with Oracle Transportation Management solutions.

MacroPoints core understanding of our market, its base of carriers, reputation for quality and its commitment to customer service and innovation, make it the right choice for us as an integration partner, said Mark Kissell, vice president of logistics solutions North America at Eminent Logistics. The ability of the MacroPoint load tracking solution to provide real time location and status updates fits perfectly with our need to enable OTM to proactively identify problems that impact freight movements.

Eminent Global Logistics is one of the largest integrators of Oracle Supply Chain Cloud applications in North America, according to MacroPoint. It solves transportation related challenges and helps companies save money and improve service in transportation and logistics.

EDI communications with carriers tend to be batched and not real time so shippers cannot use that information to effectively manage exceptions when loads are late or off schedule, said Kissell. Leveraging the power of MacroPoint within Oracle solutions means not using a generic mapping engine that could provide inaccurate location data, but instead having the ability to look at accurate load status for specific carriers and specific routes in real time.

Eminent offers a suite of solutions to help large and small customers manage and maximize their investment in Oracle Transportation Management, and works with shippers to enable capabilities like MacroPoint load tracking with their Oracle solutions.

The need for the MacroPoint load tracking solution in Oracle OTM was driven by shippers that are increasingly requiring that capability, said Dave Halsema, executive vice president of MacroPoint. Under this new partnership, we look forward to working with Eminent Global Logistics to enable a valuable integration for customers using the accuracy and capabilities of our freight tracking solution.

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MacroPoint Integrates Load Tracking with Oracle TMS - Heavy Duty Trucking

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Stryker Corporation named one of Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For for seventh consecutive year – Yahoo Finance

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Kalamazoo, Michigan - March 9, 2017 - Stryker Corporation (SYK) announced today that it has been named one of Fortune`s 2017 100 Best Companies to Work For in its 20th annual survey of top-rated workplaces in the United States. The list recognizes companies that have exceptional workplace cultures. This is the seventh consecutive year Stryker has been named to the list, and the company was ranked #19 out of 100. The full list and related stories are available at http://beta.fortune.com/best-companies/.

"We are thrilled once again to be named to Fortune`s 100 Best Companies to Work For," said Katy Fink, Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer. "This recognition speaks to what makes us special-it`s about the people! We are honored to work with great people who are driven, ethical, caring and humble. They live our mission and values every day, and they are the reason that Stryker is one of the best places to work."

Stryker is one of the world`s leading medical technology companies and,together with our customers, we are driven to make healthcare better. The Company offers a diverse array of innovative products and services inOrthopaedics, Medical and Surgical,and Neurotechnology and Spine that help improvepatient and hospital outcomes. Stryker is active in over 100 countries around the world. Please contact us for more information atwww.stryker.com.

Stryker is one of the world`s leading medical technology companies and,together with our customers, we are driven to make healthcare better. The Company offers a diverse array of innovative products and services inOrthopaedics, Medical and Surgical,and Neurotechnology and Spine that help improvepatient and hospital outcomes. Stryker is active in over 100 countries around the world. Please contact us for more information atwww.stryker.com.

Contacts

For investor inquiries please contact: Katherine A. Owen, Stryker Corporation, 269-385-2600 or katherine.owen@stryker.com

For media inquiries please contact: Yin Becker, Stryker Corporation, 269-385-2600 or yin.becker@stryker.com

This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Stryker Corporation via GlobeNewswire HUG#2086600

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Stryker Corporation named one of Fortune Magazine's 100 Best Companies to Work For for seventh consecutive year - Yahoo Finance