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Copyright Better Homes Real Estate, Playas del Coco and Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste, Costa Rica January 2014
Bits and Pieces:
The News:
Bilingual speakers move seamlessly in languages
Bilingual speakers can switch languages seamlessly, likely developing a higher level of mental flexibility than monolinguals, according to Penn State linguistic researchers.
"In the past, bilinguals were looked down upon," said Judith F. Kroll, professor of psychology, linguistics and women's studies. "Not only is bilingualism not bad for you, it may be really good. When you're switching languages all the time it strengthens your mental muscle and your executive function becomes enhanced."
Fluent bilinguals seem to have both languages active at all times, whether both languages are consciously being used or not, the researchers report in a recent issue of Frontiers in...................
Click here to read more
NEW: 5 Apartments, all for $189,000 with lot big enough for 2nd stage. Click here for details.
Researcher expands on theory of tropics as biodiversity cradle
The University of Chicago evolutionary expert has refined his theory that the tropics is the key to the biodiversity in the world today.
He is David Jablonski. and much of his study is based on the marine bivalves, clams, oysters and similar.
He studies these because they leave a strong record in fossils and because.......................
Coral found more resistant to temperatures than scientists thought, study says
Coral reefs may be able to adapt to moderate climate warming, improving their chance of surviving through the end of this century, if there are large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, according to a study funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and conducted by the agency’s scientists and its academic partners. Results further suggest corals have already adapted to part of the warming that has occurred.
“Earlier modeling work ..................
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Reduced again to $225k:
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5 Apartments, all for $169,500 with lot big enough for 2nd stage.
Continued:
Some of our bargain listings: NEW: 5 Apartments, all for $189,000 with lot big enough for 2nd stage.
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Playas Del Coco Apartments
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Lot Size: 950m2 / 10,200 sq. ft.
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Lot size 950m2, making it big enough to easily build 4 more studios and still have ample parking. The property is fully fenced and there is a pool.
The studios are rented for $250 a month and the 2 Bed 2 Bath apartment for $450. That's $16,800 per year revenue.
Price: $189,000
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Kitty´s Condo
Location: Playa Ocotal
2 bedroom 2 bathroom
750 sq. ft.
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Price: $79,000
Click here for more details.Listing: # 5102821
Ocotal Beach Front Condo
Location: Playa Ocotal
2 BR, 2 BA. Size: 1,200 sq. ft.
Beachfront Condo with 2 BR, 2 BA, 1,200 sq ft, fully furnished. 150 feet from the high tide mark. The development overlooking the Pacific Ocean has 2 large community pools / rancho/ BBQ common area. You can hear and see the waves on the pristine blue flag beach of Playa Ocotal.
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Cortos - Short News Stories U.S. Web site will provide 5,000 taxation answers
There is a list of 5,000 tax topics online, courtesy of the National Technical Information Service of the Department of Commerce.
The topic index is specifically designed for taxpayers with international filing requirements, the government agency said. And if the 5,000 topics are not enough, U.S. taxpayers also can send comments and suggestions for additional topics to topicmap@irs.gov. The service was noted by the Association of Americans Resident Overseas.
Exporters benefiting from EU program
Some 652 Costa Rican firms have received 1.2 million euros in investments from Europe since 2009 under a special program, according to the Cámara de Exportadores de Costa Rica. The program is called AL-INVEST IV.
The main point of the program is to give Costa Rican exporters a broader grasp of the international market.
The investments have been in training, technical assistance, trade missions, promotion, conferences and the adopting of innovations, said the chamber.
T he program is sponsored in Costa Rica by BN Desarrollo, a Banco Nacional subsidiary.
Some 189 smaller firms have benefitted from the program, according to an announcement,
This year the investment program will hold seven events in Costa Rica mainly to focus on training and to put in practice a promotional program outside the country's borders.
Isla del Coco guards get equipment
A local foundation has donated with the help of Banco Nacional some $23,400 in equipment for the benefit of Isla del Coco workers.
The foundation is the Fundación Amigos de la Isla del Coco, and the donation was to the Sistema Nacional de Áreas de Conservación.
The equipment includes radios, six radio bases, power sources, microphones and installation.
The foundation in another program, provided clothing worth $7,000 to the park guards.
The remote island is surrounded by a marine reserve, and the principal job of those stationed there is to prevent illegal fishing.
Banco Nacional is offering a total of 25 million colons or about $50,000 for the benefit of the island through the foundation.Bilingual speakers move seamlessly in languages
"In the past, bilinguals were looked down upon," said Judith F. Kroll, professor of psychology, linguistics and women's studies. "Not only is bilingualism not bad for you, it may be really good. When you're switching languages all the time it strengthens your mental muscle and your executive function becomes enhanced."Fluent bilinguals seem to have both languages active at all times, whether both languages are consciously being used or not, the researchers report in a recent issue of Frontiers in Psychology. Both languages are active whether either was used only seconds earlier or several days earlier.
Bilinguals rarely say a word in the unintended language, which suggests that they have the ability to control the parallel activity of both languages and ultimately select the intended language without needing to consciously think about it.
The researchers conducted two separate but related experiments. In the first, 27 Spanish-English bilinguals read 512 sentences, written in either Spanish or English alternating language every two sentences. Participants read the sentences silently until they came across a word displayed in red, at which point they were instructed to read the red word out loud, as quickly and accurately as possible. About half of the red words were cognates, words that look and sound similar and have the same meaning in both languages.
"Cognate words were processed more quickly than control words," said Jason W. Gullifer, a graduate student in psychology, suggesting that both languages are active at the same time.
Participants in the second experiment performed the same tasks as those in the first experiment, but this time were presented one language at a time. The second experiment's results were similar to the first, suggesting that context does not influence word recognition.
"The context of the experiment didn't seem to matter," said Gullifer. "If you look at bilinguals there seems to be some kind of mechanistic control."
By the Penn State University news staff
Continued:
Researcher expands on theory of tropics as biodiversity cradle
The University of Chicago evolutionary expert has refined his theory that the tropics is the key to the biodiversity in the world today.
He is David Jablonski. and much of his study is based on the marine bivalves, clams, oysters and similar.
He studies these because they leave a strong record in fossils and because there are about 8,000 species throughout the world.
An article by the University of Chicago said that Jablonski has added another chapter to his out of the tropics theory.
That's a play on words mimicking the out of Africa theory about the development and dispersion of humans.
In research to be published this week, Jablonski describes bridge species that are found in the tropics and also in cooler climates.
In 2006 Jablonski first establishes that most of the marine bivalve lineages worldwide that first appeared in the past 11 million years did so in the tropics.
This suggests that, besides having the most species, the tropics are likely the primary source of diversity elsewhere on Earth.
Reported the university:
"The new research corroborates the out of the tropics model that Jablonski and others introduced in a 2006 publication. In fact, the new study documents this dynamic over the past 12 million years — even during the Ice Ages, when the temperature differences between the equator and the poles became more severe. That runs counter to the broadly accepted principle of niche conservatism, which suggests that related species tend to retain the ecological limits of their ancestors, Jablonski said. 'Most species we studied do adhere to that principle, but the ones that do not are crucial to the deployment of biodiversity on Earth.'
"There are many such bridge species but each evolutionary lineage generally has only one or two. Therefore, bridge species are widespread in an evolutionary sense but rare in terms of overall biodiversity, according to the research. And the fossil record shows that most of today’s bridge species started as tropical species. 'Somehow they left their tropical cradle, adapting to the colder temperatures and more variable climates of the temperate zones,' said Jablonski. 'It’s impressive that they apparently expanded their ability to tolerate these harsher conditions.'
The research is not without a warning. Jablonski notes that a crisis in the tropics, such as pollution or over exploitation, would have great impact all over the world.
Continued:
Coral found more resistant to temperatures than scientists thought, study says
Coral reefs may be able to adapt to moderate climate warming, improving their chance of surviving through the end of this century, if there are large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, according to a study funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and conducted by the agency’s scientists and its academic partners. Results further suggest corals have already adapted to part of the warming that has occurred.
“Earlier modeling work suggested that coral reefs would be gone by the middle of this century. Our study shows that if corals can adapt to warming that has occurred over the past 40 to 60 years, some coral reefs may persist through the end of this century,” said study lead author Cheryl Logan, an assistant professor in California State University Monterey Bay’s Division of Science and Environmental Policy. The scientists from the university, and from the University of British Columbia, were partners with the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the study.
Warm water can contribute to a potentially fatal process known as coral bleaching, in which reef-building corals eject algae living inside their tissues. Corals bleach when oceans warm only 1 to 2 degrees C (2 to 4 degrees F) above normal summertime temperatures. Because those algae supply the coral with most of its food, prolonged bleaching and associated disease often kills corals.
The study, published online in the journal Global Change Biology, explores a range of possible coral adaptive responses to thermal stress previously identified by the scientific community. It suggests that coral reefs may be more resilient than previously thought due to past studies that did not consider effects of possible adaptation.
The study projected that, through genetic adaptation, the reefs could reduce the currently projected rate of temperature-induced bleaching by 20 to 80 percent of levels expected by the year 2100, if there are large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
“The hope this work brings is only achieved if there is significant reduction of human-related emissions of heat-trapping gases,” said Mark Eakin, who serves as director of the federal agency's Coral Reef Watch monitoring program, which tracks bleaching events worldwide. “Adaptation provides no
significant slowing in the loss of coral reefs if we continue to increase our rate of fossil fuel use.”
“Not all species will be able to adapt fast enough or to the same extent, so coral communities will look and function differently than they do today,” CalState’s Ms. Logan said.
While this paper focuses on ocean warming, many other general threats to coral species have been documented to exist that affect their long-term survival, such as coral disease, acidification, and sedimentation. Other threats to corals are sea-level rise, pollution, storm damage, destructive fishing practices, and direct harvest for ornamental trade.
According to the Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000 report, coral reefs have been lost around the world in recent decades with almost 20 percent of reefs lost globally to high temperatures during the 1998-1999 El Niño and La Niña and an 80 percent percent loss of coral cover in the Caribbean was documented in a 2003 Science paper. Both rates of decline have subsequently been documented in numerous other studies as a trend.
Tropical coral reef ecosystems are among the most diverse ecosystems in the world, and provide economic and social stability to many nations in the form of food security, where reef fish provide both food and fishing jobs, and economic revenue from tourism. Mass coral bleaching and reef death has increased around the world over the past three decades, raising questions about the future of coral reef ecosystems.
In the study, researchers used global sea surface temperature for the pre-industrial period though 2100 to project rates of coral bleaching.
Because initial results showed that past temperature increases should have bleached reefs more often than has actually occurred, researchers looked into ways that corals may be able to adapt to warming and delay the bleaching process.
The article calls for further research to test the rate and limit of different adaptive responses for coral species across latitudes and ocean basins to determine if, and how much, corals can actually respond to increasing thermal stress.
By the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration news staff.
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