Experts: Media May Be Second Prison for Cleveland Abductees

Three women kept captive in a boarded-up Cleveland house for between nine and 11 years will likely face a long road to recovery after their nightmarish ordeal.

The women, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, all went missing between 2002 and 2004, when they were teens, or in Knight's case, 20 years old. The women managed to escape on Monday (May 6). Police told reporters this week that they had found chains and ropes in the house, and that the women were very rarely allowed outside into the backyard. Berry's 6-year-old daughter also escaped from the house. 

Former school bus driver Ariel Castro has been charged with kidnapping and rape in the case.

The women's families told CNN that they were in good spirits upon being reunited with their families, but social scientists warn that the trauma of captivity is not likely to fade overnight — especially as they will have to recover in the public eye, under media pressure. [Understanding the 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors]

"The big challenge that they face is the anticipation that everything is going to be perfect once family members are back together again," said Geoffrey Greif, a professor of social work at the University of Maryland who has studied missing and exploited children.

Recovering from trauma

In fact, Greif said, the women's families have changed in the decades they have been gone. Berry's mother, Louwana Miller, died in 2006 without ever finding out what had happened to her daughter.

 "The family grows, changes in one direction," Greif told LiveScience. "The women change in a different direction, and the issue is to accept the fact that their life trajectories have been very different."

At the same time, the abducted women are likely to suffer with the aftereffects of trauma, said pediatric and adolescent psychologist Carolyn Landis of University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland. This could include post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

"I think of it as somebody who has been through a war," Landis told LiveScience. Symptoms of PTSD could include re-experiencing the trauma, anxiety, nightmares, insomnia and even physical ailments.

Coping in the aftermath

Therapy and possibly medications could help ease PTSD symptoms, Landis said. It's also important that the women face their recoveries individually. The three might face different struggles and different paths despite sharing similar traumas.

Abduction victims often feel guilt and shame, questioning themselves about whether they did enough to escape, Greif said. They might also compare themselves with individuals from other high-profile cases.

"From talking to other people who have been kidnapped and recovered, they sometimes measure themselves against the perception of how high-profile former abducted people do," Greif said. "It can set a bar that may have worked for Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard, but may not work for someone else."

Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped at age 14 from her bedroom in Salt Lake City, Utah, and held for nine months. Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted at age 11 in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and was kept in captivity for 18 years.

Like Berry, Dugard had children in captivity. Berry's child may need psychological help as well, Landis said.

"I would expect that it probably wasn't a wonderful atmosphere, so I'm sure she might have heard or seen things that would not be typical for your normal child," she said. "I would expect she might have symptoms of PTSD as well."

The women's sudden celebrity may also complicate their recovery, Landis said. Dugard's memoir, "A Stolen Life" (Simon & Schuster, 2011) discusses not being able to go out with her daughters in public, lest they be recognized.

"I hope that people will give them their space and their privacy so they can live normal lives, because if not it's almost like they're still in a prison," Landis said.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

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Mayans never predicted world to end in 2012: experts

A general view shows the exterior of the tomb of a Mayan ruler at the ruins of the Mayan city of Palenque in the hills of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas in this undated handout photo by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) released June 23, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/INAH/Handout

By Pepe Cortes

PALENQUE, Mexico | Fri Dec 2, 2011 10:06am EST

PALENQUE, Mexico (Reuters) - If you are worried the world will end next year based on the Mayan calendar, relax: the end of time is still far off.

So say Mayan experts who want to dispel any belief that the ancient Mayans predicted a world apocalypse next year.

The Mayan calendar marks the end of a 5,126 year old cycle around December 12, 2012 which should bring the return of Bolon Yokte, a Mayan god associated with war and creation.

Author Jose Arguelles called the date "the ending of time as we know it" in a 1987 book that spawned an army of Mayan theorists, whose speculations on a cataclysmic end abound online. But specialists meeting at this ancient Mayan city in southern Mexico say it merely marks the termination of one period of creation and the beginning of another.

"We have to be clear about this. There is no prophecy for 2012," said Erik Velasquez, an etchings specialist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). "It's a marketing fallacy."

The National Institute of Anthropological History in Mexico has been trying to quell the barrage of forecasters predicting the apocalypse. "The West's messianic thinking has distorted the world view of ancient civilizations like the Mayans," the institute said in a statement.

In the Mayan calendar, the long calendar count begins in 3,114 BC and is divided into roughly 394-year periods called Baktuns. Mayans held the number 13 sacred and the 13th Baktun ends next year.

Sven Gronemeyer, a researcher of Mayan codes from La Trobe University in Australia, who has been trying to decode the calendar, said the so-called end day reflects a transition from one era to the next in which Bolon Yokte returns.

"Because Bolon Yokte was already present at the day of creation ... it just seemed natural for the Mayan that Bolon Yokte will again be present," he said.

Of the approximately 15,000 registered glyphic texts found in different parts of what was then the Mayan empire, only two mention 2012, the Institute said.

"The Maya did not think about humanity, global warming or predict the poles would fuse together," said Alfonso Ladena, a professor from the Complutense University of Madrid. "We project our worries on them."

(Reporting by Pepe Cortes; editing by Anthony Boadle)

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Let the Space Shuttle Rest in Peace, Experts Tell Congress (SPACE.com)

The space shuttle isn't going to fly again, no matter how often supporters of the iconic winged vehicle trot out the possibility, a panel told lawmakers Wednesday (Oct. 12) on Capitol Hill.

Ever since NASA grounded its shuttle fleet in July, some prominent voices have been calling for the venerable orbiters to be pressed back into service. But that's simply not going to happen, panelists said, so continuing to pound the drum won't do any good.

"This would have been a great research question three or perhaps four years ago," Joseph Dyer, chairman of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, told members of the House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology Wednesday. "But it's not a good question, or a practical question, at this time." [NASA's Space Shuttle Program In Pictures: A Tribute]

Gap in American spaceflight capabilities

The administration of President George W. Bush decided back in 2004 to end the shuttle program. And this finally came to pass in July, when the orbiter Atlantis wrapped up its STS-135 mission and touched down for the last time.

With the shuttles retired, the United States is now completely dependent on Russian Soyuz vehicles to ferry American astronauts to and from the International Space Station. NASA wants private spaceflight companies to take over this taxi service eventually, but that likely won't happen until 2015 at the earliest, officials have said.

A number of observers seem unwilling to accept this four- or five-year gap in American human spaceflight capabilities. One possible solution they offer is bringing the shuttle back.

For example, former Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan suggested as much last month in his testimony before this same House Science Committee, saying the nation should "get the shuttle out of the garage."

And at the same September hearing, Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the moon, maintained that proposals to continue flying the shuttle under commercial contract "should be carefully evaluated prior to allowing them [the shuttles] to be rendered 'not flightworthy' and their associated ground facilities to be destroyed."

Shuttles are museum-bound

House Science Committee member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) raised the possibility of reviving the shuttles again Wednesday, but Dyer shot it down.

And fellow panelist Thomas Stafford, chairman of the International Space Station Advisory Committee, was similarly bearish on the prospect, citing the time it would take to ramp up the shuttle's infrastructure once again.

For example, each space shuttle launch requires a huge expendable orange fuel tank to be built. There are no such tanks left, and restarting production of the tanks at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana would be difficult.

"One of the long poles in the tent is that external tank," Stafford said. "And that would probably take about two years to start up."

The current condition of the orbiters also makes it unlikely that they'll ever fly again. NASA technicians have been prepping Atlantis and its sister shuttles Discovery and Endeavour for their retirement roles as museum showpieces ever since they touched down. Already, some components of the orbiters that may harbor toxic residues, such as their main engines, have been removed. Other hardware has been taken off for potential use on future spacecraft.

Atlantis will head to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, Endeavour is bound for the California Science Center in Los Angeles and Discovery will end up at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

And NASA has already handed Endeavour's keys over to the California Science Center, so even the space agency is ready to say its goodbyes.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Japan experts design superelastic alloy, may resist quakes

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG | Thu Jun 30, 2011 2:09pm EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Researchers in Japan have developed a superelastic alloy, which can spring back to its original form in extreme temperatures, they said in a report on Friday, adding that they hope it may be used in buildings to absorb shocks from earthquakes.

The experts, who wrote about their invention in the journal Science, added a small amount of nickel to an iron-based alloy, and found that the new material can recover its original shape at any temperature from -196 to 240 degrees Celsius.

Lead author Toshihiro Omori at the Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering in Tohoku University, said this new material was far more elastic than other superelastic alloys, which cannot revert to their original form outside the -20 to 80 degrees Celsius range.

"Our ferrous alloy has temperature insensitivity by one order of magnitude. This property is very important because materials are subject to change in temperature in most cases," Omori wrote in an email in response to questions from Reuters.

"Another advantage is its low cost. The raw material is cheap ... resulting in the potential for large scale applications," Omori wrote.

The material may be used in environments that are constantly exposed to extreme temperatures, such as joints and controls in cars, planes and spacecraft, Omori and his colleagues said.

It may also help buildings cushion stress and violent movement in earthquakes, the materials science experts added.

MATERIALS SCIENCE RESEARCH TAKES OFF IN ASIA

Research in materials science has taken off in the past 30 years, led by Asia and especially China, according to findings of a study released this week by Thomson Reuters.

The study found that around 1.1 million papers involving materials science have been published annually in recent years.

Much of Asia's sharp rise in materials science research comes from China, which published more than 55,000 papers over the last 5 years, up from fewer than 50 papers in 1981.

By comparison, the United States published 38,189 papers over the same period but since the early 1980s, its world share in this field has fallen by nearly half. A similar decline was also seen in the European Union.

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Rats, bees to protect African wildlife: experts

Bees are seen on a honeycomb at Cherchell farm in Tipaza Valley March 27, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Louafi Larbi

By Jonny Hogg

KINSHASA | Fri Jun 10, 2011 1:38pm EDT

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Beekeeping and breeding animals such as cane rats for food are needed to help tackle the unsustainable trade in bush meat in central Africa, conservation experts said on Friday.

Local populations rely on birds, reptiles and mammals including apes in the vast Congo Basin for food, but overhunting for so-called bush meat is leading to 'empty forest syndrome', according to a statement issued by a panel of environmental experts following a meeting on the issue in Nairobi.

"Tackling the impact of unsustainable and illegal trade in bush meat is critical for protecting the livelihoods of rural people and conserving wildlife in biodiversity-rich areas," said John Scanlon, secretary-general of the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species (CITES).

Legitimate subsistence hunting is being replaced by commercial hunting and trade in endangered species including elephants and primates, said Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The statement said that replacing bush meat with locally produced beef would require up to 80 percent of the Democratic Republic of Congo to become pasture.

"Therefore, there is no alternative to making the use of wildlife for food more sustainable."

The Democratic Republic of Congo, which is the size of western Europe, is home to more than 150 million hectares (370 million acres) of forest, one of the largest stretches left in Africa.

Experts say overhunting is undermining food security and also poses a threat to the forest itself, as 75 percent of tropical tree species depend on animals to spread their seeds.

Measures proposed by the experts include the promotion of beekeeping to produce honey for trade and subsistence, the introduction of community wildlife management programs, and farming cane rats for food.

Cane rats, also known as grasscutters, are large herbivorous rodents that are already farmed in some parts of Africa.

Bush meat has become big business in some countries, with the Central African Republic's informal trade estimated at $72 million dollars a year, the statement said.

Population growth and commercial trafficking were adding to pressure on local wildlife, it added.

(Editing by Bate Felix and Jonathan Lynn)

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