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  • Northwestern Football Players Can Unionize

    A precedent was set by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Chicago on Wednesday.

    The NLRB decided that football players from Northwestern University had the right to form a union. This would allow Northwestern football players to be the first labor union in college sports.

    NLRB Regional Director in Chicago, Peter Ohr, ruled that “all scholarship football players” at Northwestern who still have college eligibility are considered employees by the broad definition of the word. An order to create a union board by election was immediately made.

    Ohr stated, “The record makes clear that the employer’s scholarship players are identified and recruited in the first instance because of their football prowess and not because of their academic achievement in high school.” He added that “no examples were provided of scholarship players being permitted to miss entire practices and/or games to attend their studies.”

    Former UCLA linebacker Ramogi Huma, who has been designated as president of the would-be football players’ union at Northwestern said, “It’s like preparing so long for a big game and then when you win — it is pure joy.” Huma added, “Today, college athletes are employees. It’s a first step toward forever changing the balance of power and guaranteeing players have a seat at the table and the right to bargain for basic protections.”

    Kain Colter, Northwestern quarterback and co-founder of the College Athletes Players Association, testified that the time commitment he had to give to football kept him from applying for the pre-med program at Northwestern. He explained that players spend at least 40 to 50 hours a week on football and sacrifice their bodies in the process.

    This ruling only affects players at private schools. Those seeking unionization at public schools will need to get approval from state-run labor boards.

    At least one person on Twitter do not believe the board’s ruling is a good idea.

    Vice President for University Relations at Northwestern, Alan Cubbage, said, “While we respect the NLRB process and the regional director’s opinion, we disagree with it. Northwestern believes strongly that our student-athletes are not employees, but students. Unionization and collective bargaining are not the appropriate methods to address the concerns raised by student-athletes.”

    Northwestern plans to appeal the ruling made on Wednesday to the NLRB in Washington.

    Image via Kain Colter, Twitter.

  • Northwestern Wounded Warrior Uniforms Create Controversy [IMAGE]

    Every year since 2009 a handful of college football teams wear special Under Armour uniforms for a game as part of the Wounded Warrior Project. Northwestern University is participating this year by wearing a special uniform on November 16. Usually the Wounded Warrior uniforms are widely respected, but the uniform Northwestern will be wearing has garnered a lot of criticism.

    The American flag is incorporated in all aspects of the uniform, all the way from the helmet down to the cleats. The problem? The flag parts of the uniform are splattered with blood, which some people believe is highly offensive to veterans that were injured in combat. See a video and photos of the uniform below.

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    While some football fans seem to like the uniforms, they have struck a nerve with a lot of people. In Lt. Col. Robert Bateman’s guest post on Esquire, he called the blood-spattered Wounded Warrior uniforms “disgusting” and says they aren’t cool:

    “But when you add in the blood-splatters “artistically scattered” across the uniform as though it was the football player who had been shot, mortared, rocketed, or hit with an IED, that takes it from being merely crass to being outright Not. Cool. At. All.”

    Lt. Col. Bateman also complained about the amount of money that will be donated to the Warrior Wounded Project from jersey sales. Northwestern is selling the jerseys for $75, but only 10 percent ($7.50) will actually be donated to the WWP.

    Deadspin writer Barry Petchesky also thinks the blood spatters on the uniforms are too much–“But isn’t ‘flag covered in blood’ a little on-the-nose for something honoring a group that operates programs for injured veterans?” Petchesky also complained about the fact that Northwestern is only donating 10 percent of the jersey sales to the WWP.

    It’s worth noting that while Northwestern is only donating 10 percent of jersey sales, they plan to auction off the game-worn jerseys and will be donating 100 percent of the proceeds to the Wounded Warrior Project. When the South Carolina Gamecocks auctioned off their Wounded Warrior jerseys back in 2011, they raised $60,000 for the organization.

    What do you think of Northwestern’s Wounded Warrior uniforms? Respond below.

    Images via YouTube

  • Nebraska Hail Mary Defeats Northwestern [Video]

    Nebraska pulled the ultimate miracle in their game yesterday, sending up a Nebraska Hail Mary in order to defeat Northwestern. The game ended when Nebraska’s quarterback Ron Kellog III threw up a desperation attempt to the end-zone and the pass was tipped and caught by Jordan Westerkamp. The touchdown was scored with no time left in the game, and the final score of the game was 27-24.

    Nebraska lost to Minnesota last week, and this win may just be enough to save their season, and their coach Bo Pelini’s job. While they are now able to control their own destiny with a 6-2 record in the Big Ten Legends division, they have some tough games coming up against Michigan and Michigan State. Although, if Michigan plays anything like they did against Michigan State yesterday, Nebraska should have no trouble in that game.

    Kellog described the Nebraska Hail Mary that he threw as “a crazy play,” and a crazy play it was, to say the least.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfG1mZ-XtUI

    The game continued to go back and forth all afternoon, and when Northwestern took a 3-point lead with 1:20 left, it seemed that the game was all but over. Nebraska was forced to start the final drive from their own 17 with no timeouts, a seemingly impossible feat to overcome. Northwestern took an early lead, but simply lost control after that. They went up 21-7, but their following 11 possessions resulted in 10 punts and an interception.

    Ron Kellog III’s Hail Mary for Nebraska came at just the right time, and while he was only the third-string quarterback coming into the season, Bo Pelini has said that if they ever needed to drive the field in the final 2 minutes, Kellogg would be the guy he called on.

    The Nebraska Hail Mary that was executed on November 2nd was perhaps its most dramatic since Matt Davison’s “Miracle at Missouri” that kept their national championship hopes alive in 1997.

    Image via Youtube

  • Chronic Pain, Is It All In The Brain?

    Chronic Pain, Is It All In The Brain?

    “Mind over matter” is advice that seems to come up again and again these days. Can this advice be helpful even with something as brutally overwhelming as chronic pain? Well, according to new research much of the pain is wired in the brain. A recent study conducted by Ali R. Mansour and A. Vania Apkarian from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine shows that chronic pain may be linked to the white matter in the brain even before an actual injury has occurred.

    The study was based around 46 individuals who were studied over the course of a 12 month period. Information about this new study was released earlier this week in the journal, Pain, where claims suggest that differences in brain structures lead certain people to predispositions for chronic pain. These predispositions can be observed through the neural passageways even before a person has experienced chronic pain. The link between the evolution of short-term pain and the manifestation of chronic pain is not determinable from the study. However, with continued research such questions may someday be answered.

    Previous research has shown that chronic pain sufferers have less gray matter in their brains when compared with individuals who have not suffered from chronic pain. The gray matter relates to how the brain controls movement and retains memories as well as to enabling reasoning capabilities. Another noted distinction to the wiring of chronic pain sufferers is that the connection between physical pain and the visceral, emotional component is more closely woven into the brain structure for these chronic pain sufferers than those not afflicted. As a result of this study, it was observed that of the 46 subjects whose pain escalated to the chronic level they had white matter in their brains that “exhibits 30 to 50 years of additional aging.”

    Emotional support for present suffers may prove to be more medicinal than prescriptions as the following tweets show.

    [Image Via Wikimedia Commons And Courtesy Of Borsook D, Moulton EA, Schmidt KF, Becerra LR. Through Neuroimaging revolutionizes therapeutic approaches to chronic pain]

  • Colon Cancer Cells “Two-Faced,” Shows Study

    Colon Cancer Cells “Two-Faced,” Shows Study

    A new study has revealed a group of colon cancer cells that can either suppress or promote tumor growth. Researchers stated that these “two-faced” cells are a subset of T-regulatory (Treg) cells that are known to suppress immune response.

    The study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, also showed that the two-faced cells were differentiated in their cancer growth or suppression forms by the presence of a protein called RORγt.

    “The subset of Tregs that expand in human colon cancer is different from the Tregs that abound in healthy individuals in their ability to suppress inflammation,” said Khashayarsha Khazaie team leader of the research and an associate professor at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University. “Since their discovery, Tregs have been assumed to be harmful in cancer based on the knowledge that they suppress immunity. More recent clinical studies have challenged this notion. Our work shows that Tregs, by suppressing inflammation, are normally very protective in cancer; it is rather their switch to the expression of RORγt that is detrimental.”

    The study identified the abnormal Treg subset in mice with hereditary colon cancer, then looked for the same cells in human colon cancer patients. Research has already demonstrated that transferring Tregs from healthy mice to cancerous mice protects the cancerous mice from colitis and colitis-induced cancer. By inhibiting RORγt in Tregs, Khazaie and his team were able to protect mice against hereditary colon cancer.

    “Tregs are actually very useful in the fight against cancer,” said Khazaie. “We can do better by targeting RORγt or other molecules that are responsible for the expansion of this Treg subset, instead of indiscriminately eliminating all Tregs. We are very excited about the therapeutic options that targeting specific subsets of Tregs could provide in human solid tumor cancers, and that is our next immediate goal.”

  • HIV Test For Babies Tested For Developing Nations

    A clinical trial of a new HIV drug test could improve the lives of both mothers and children in developing nations. The test delivers results in under one hour – far faster than conventional tests – and researchers hope it will increase the rate at which HIV positive infants are diagnosed and treated.

    The pending trial was announced this week by Northwestern University, where the research on the test took place. The trial will take place “soon” in Maputo, Mozambique, with nine other countries slated to begin trials after the results of the Mozambique trial are analyzed.

    “Our test provides while-you-wait results, and if a child is infected, he or she will begin treatment immediately, which is critical to survival,” said David Kelso, professor of biomedical engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern. “One and a half million infants in Africa and Asia are born to HIV-positive mothers each year, but only a fraction of the HIV-positive infants are identified in time to start treatment. While adults can manage the disease for decades, an infant who isn’t treated likely will die within a year or two.”

    The new test is a miniaturized version of the p24 HIV test. It was specifically designed for use in developing nations, is “easy-to-use,” and has a 95% accuracy rate, according to Northwestern. The test detects low levels of core protein 24, which is made by the virus.

    To perform the test, medical personnel take a drop of an infant’s blood and place it on a blood-separation membrane, which is then inserted into a small processor. Results come in just 30 minutes, with two black lines indicating the presence of HIV. The cost of the test is currently $15, though that price is expected to drop by as much as half as production volume increases.

    The technology behind the test was developed with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is the first product to come out of the Northwestern Global Health Foundation, which Kelso helped found in 2010.

    “The Northwestern Global Health Foundation is a new sort of business: a nonprofit biotech company that helps manufacture and deliver health care products that wouldn’t turn enough profit to be attractive to traditional companies,” Kelso said. “If the foundation works, I think it’s an entirely new way to do business.”

    (Photo courtesy Northwestern University)

  • Scientists Use Neuroprosthesis to Move Paralyzed Hand

    Scientists at Northwestern University have created brain-machine technology that will deliver brain signals directly to muscles, bypassing the spinal chord. This technology may one day help paralysis victims regain muscle control.

    The research was done on monkeys by measuring brain signals as they used their hand to perform simple tasks like grasping and dropping a ball. They used the information to create an algorithm that maps brains patterns and predicts muscle activity when the monkey used the ball.

    Next a local anesthetic was administered to the monkey, temporarily paralyzing its arm below the elbow. Devices located in the brain and arm, together called a neuroprosthesis, allowed the monkey to pick up and drop the ball almost as well as before.

    “The monkey won’t use his hand perfectly, but there is a process of motor learning that we think is very similar to the process you go through when you learn to use a new computer mouse or a different tennis racquet. Things are different and you learn to adjust to them,” said Miller, a professor at Northwestern, in the scientific publication in Nature.

    The apparatis detects a variety of movement, theoretically making it possible for the monkey to perform many other hand movements.

    Previous prosthetics could only help a person with hand paralysis provided they still had control of their shoulder muscles. An upwards shoulder shrug would cause electrodes in the hand to close, while a downwards shrug allowed the hand to open.

    This new system uses an implant called a multi-electrode array to detect about 100 electrodes in the brain responsible for muscle control. These signals are translated in a computer and used to move the hand via electrodes.

    Although there are millions of neurons responsible for a single hand movement, the neurons monitored via the multi-electrode array are output neurons that send brain calculations to the muscles. The millions of other neurons make these calculations and only a few send them out to actually control the hand, those are the neurons scientists at Northwestern are concerned with.

    The implications of this research are widespread. It could potentially be used to give back movement to people suffering from any number paralytic of injuries. The analysis of output brainwaves could one day be used to create a cybernetic prosthesis, giving someone who has lost a limb a fully functioning prosthesis.

    “We are eavesdropping on the natural electrical signals from the brain that tell the arm and hand how to move, and sending those signals directly to the muscles,” said Lee E. Miller, Neuroscience professor at Northwestern University and the lead investigator of the study. “This connection from brain to muscles might someday be used to help patients paralyzed due to spinal cord injury perform activities of daily living and achieve greater independence.”