Community Briefs

Thursday, October 22, 1998

Community Briefs

Defense secretary to speak at Anderson

U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen will speak at UCLA on
Oct. 28 at 4 p.m. in Korn Convocation Hall at the Anderson
School.

Cohen’s lecture, titled "The Conditions of Peace in the 21st
Century," is sponsored by the Center for International Relations, a
unit of International Studies and Overseas Programs.

As the nation’s preeminent voice on defense and international
security issues, Cohen became the country’s 20th secretary of
defense in January 1997, after being confirmed in the Senate by a
99-0 vote.

"We are extremely pleased to have Secretary Bill Cohen come to
UCLA," said political science Professor Richard Rosecrance,
director of the Center.

"He has often spoken of the terrorists and nuclear threats to
America, and now he will turn his attention to what needs to be
done to assure peace in the future."

Cohen was a Republican senator for the state of Maine from
1979-1997 and also served three terms in the House of
Representatives before his appointment.

Nov. 3 elections data now available online

California Secretary of State Bill Jones has unveiled a new
component to his 1998 election website that will allow the public
to have online access to last-minute contribution data during the
final two weeks before the election.

Contributions or independent expenditures of $1,000 or more made
during the final 16 days before the election must be reported to
the secretary of state within 24 hours of receipt.

"The public deserves to know who is funding the last-minute
attack ads that will soon be filling the airwaves," Jones said.
"Full disclosure of campaign finances will help voters make more
informed choices on Nov. 3."

Visitors to the internet site, located at http://www.ss.ca.gov,
will be able to review the contribution date by recipient,
contributor and date the information was filed.

"These last two weeks, the money will be flying fast and
furiously into targeted legislative races," Johes said. "This site
is designed to provide campaign finance information to voters well
in advance of election day."

Rare form of dementia enhances artistic talent

Researchers led by a University of California, San Francisco
neurologist have determined that a relatively rare form of dementia
brings out startling artistic talents in some people, and that
these abilities evolve and flourish even as patients lose the
ability to remember such basic words as "art."

The finding, published in the Oct. 20 of issue the journal
Neurology, offers insights into the way in which the disease,
frontotemporal dementia, exacts its price, but also into the way in
which creativity emerges in the brain.

"The last place one would expect to find any aptitude
flourishing, let alone emerging, is in the brain of someone slowly
wasting away with dementia, but the evidence is pretty dramatic,"
said Bruce L. Miller, M.D., the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen
Distinguished Professor in Neurology and director of the UCSF
Alzheimer’s disease center.

"In each of the five cases we’ve documented, a period of
exceptional creativity heralded the beginnings of a tragic disease
and continued to flourish even as the patients began to lose their
ability to use language.

"Studying these patients," Miller said, "may help researchers
learn where and how visual and musical abilities develop in the
brain."

Frontotemporal dementia accounts for roughly 10 percent of
dementia cases, frequently runs in families, and tends to manifest
itself when people are in their 50s.

Compiled from Daily Bruin staff reports.

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