Gabe Saporta and Co. prove to MTV News that they bring the party. By Rya Backer
Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta and Alex Suarez Photo: MTV News
An interview with Cobra Starship ought to come with a warning: Once the cameras start recording, throw away anything you'd previously prepared, because Gabe Saporta and Co. are card-carrying hams.
Anyone who's familiar with members Ryland Blackinton and Alex Suarez's takes as "Dick Bagwell" and "Vincent Twice (Vincent Twice)," respectively, in our Musical March Madness videos of years past knows how invested they can become in adopted personages (to say nothing of Blackinton's other alias, Guy Ripley), but I was just as happy to learn that their authentic selves were just as animated. Between us: Now that I've gotten a bit of distance from the situation, I can also admit that as a female who grew up in early aughts Manhattan, I was pretty excited to go out on a (albeit, synthesized reality) date with the lead singer of my beloved Midtown — the band which upon its demise was how Cobra Starship was born.
"I needed a band and ... you were like the first people I asked," Saporta said, regarding his reaching out to Suarez and Blackinton, who were once in a band together called This is Ivy League.
Suarez added, "Gabe was like, 'Hey, look, I'm starting this new band. You guys should come and be a part of it. I would love to have you guys. I don't know what's going to happen."
Not willing to let go of the good thing his band with Blackinton amounted to, "[Suarez] said no at first," Saporta solemnly remembered about his first shot at getting a new band together.
Eventually, the pair obviously came around, and alongside Victoria Asher and Nate Novarro, Starship have become a pop-rock behemoth, known for big choruses and dance floor-ready tracks. So, it only made sense to take Suarez and Saporta to the Village Party Store on our First Date. Surely, the makers of party music would feel at home at the party store, right?
My suspicions were confirmed. And between learning how to host a "gritty" party to being branded with a Cobra temporary tattoo down my right forearm, it's safe to say that the group brings the party wherever they go.
Brain surgery for epilepsy underutilizedPublic release date: 23-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jason.bardi@ucsf.edu 415-502-4608 University of California - San Francisco
UCSF study indicates effective treatment should be far more common
Ten years ago, a landmark clinical trial in Canada demonstrated the unequivocal effectiveness of brain surgeries for treating uncontrolled epilepsy, but since then the procedure has not been widely adoptedin fact, it is dramatically underutilized according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The study, published this month in the journal Neurology, showed that the number of Americans having the surgery has not changed in the decade since release of the effectiveness study, though surgical treatment is now uniformly encouraged by neurology and neurosurgery professional societies.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 2 million Americans have epilepsy. Hundreds of thousands of these men, women and children suffer from uncontrolled seizures, but nationally only a few hundred are treated surgically each year with UCSF performing about 50 of the operations.
Among people who do have the operation, the study found, there are significant disparities by race and insurance status. White patients were more likely to have surgery than racial minorities, and privately insured patients were more likely to undergo surgery than those with Medicaid or Medicare.
"As a medical community, we are not practicing evidence-based medicine with regard to the treatment of patients who have epilepsy," said Edward Chang, MD, chief of adult epilepsy surgery in the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery and the UCSF Epilepsy Center. "There are a lot of people who are taking medications and continuing to have seizures even though they can potentially be seizure-free."
A MODERN SURGERY FOR AN ANCIENT DISEASE
Epilepsy has been recognized as an important neurological condition since ancient times and its name means "seizures" in Greek. It can be inherited or it can be caused by anything that injures or irritates the brain. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, described it in detail in his writings some 2,500 years ago, and it is believed to have afflicted many famous people throughout history, including Julius Caesar.
UCSF is one of the world's leading institutions involved in epilepsy research, with one of the few medical centers that has top-ranking departments in relevant areas: neurology, biomedical imaging, and neurosurgery.
Paul Garcia, MD, director of the clinical epilepsy program and a study co-author, said that most patients referred to UCSF for surgical evaluation have had uncontrolled seizures for many years despite trying several medications. Research has shown that after the first two medicines fail, it is uncommon for patients to gain complete seizure control with medical treatment alone. Without control over their seizures, patients are at risk for physical injuries or even dying. Furthermore, the seizures often interfere with normal life activities such as driving, studying and working.
To see how widely this type of surgery has been used, Chang and neurosurgery resident Dario Englot, MD, PhD, accessed a national database of all of the surgeries across the United States for the last 20 yearsa timeline centered on the Canadian study. They found that there has been no increase in the 10 years, even as diagnoses of epilepsy have increased along with the number of hospitalizations for seizures.
Part of the problem is awareness, both among patients and care providers, Chang said. New anticonvulsant drugs appear on the market often enough to provide physicians with new drug combinations for their patients to try. Brain surgery can be more daunting than having to swallow fistfuls of pills, even though surgery is much more effective for many people. The problem though is that new medications are not very effective if previous ones already failed, according to Chang. Epilepsy surgery in the modern era has been repeatedly shown to be safe and effective.
Also, many people with epilepsy are not getting the specialty care needed to properly identify the source of the seizures. The study found a significant trend that patients are being evaluated less at epilepsy centers and more at community hospitals often without dedicated epilepsy expertise. The result is that some patients may not receive an adequate workup, and in many cases, the source of the seizures can be very difficult to find without special expertise. "The success of epilepsy surgery totally depends upon the accurate localization of seizure onset region," Chang said.
The decade-old Canadian study showed that more than nearly two-thirds of all people who underwent surgery as part of the study in the 1990s were seizure-free. Fewer than 10 percent of patients in the study who relied on drugs alone achieved the same degree of freedom from seizures.
"Even though this important evidence was published 10 years ago now, we have not seen increases in the number of patients," Chang said. "We need to do better."
###
The article, "Epilepsy surgery trends in the United States, 1990-2008" is authored by Dario J. Englot, David Ouyang, Paul A. Garcia, Nicholas M. Barbaro, and Edward F. Chang and appears in the journal Neurology. See: http://www.neurology.org/content/78/16/1200.abstract
This work was supported in part by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at UCSF.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Brain surgery for epilepsy underutilizedPublic release date: 23-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jason.bardi@ucsf.edu 415-502-4608 University of California - San Francisco
UCSF study indicates effective treatment should be far more common
Ten years ago, a landmark clinical trial in Canada demonstrated the unequivocal effectiveness of brain surgeries for treating uncontrolled epilepsy, but since then the procedure has not been widely adoptedin fact, it is dramatically underutilized according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The study, published this month in the journal Neurology, showed that the number of Americans having the surgery has not changed in the decade since release of the effectiveness study, though surgical treatment is now uniformly encouraged by neurology and neurosurgery professional societies.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 2 million Americans have epilepsy. Hundreds of thousands of these men, women and children suffer from uncontrolled seizures, but nationally only a few hundred are treated surgically each year with UCSF performing about 50 of the operations.
Among people who do have the operation, the study found, there are significant disparities by race and insurance status. White patients were more likely to have surgery than racial minorities, and privately insured patients were more likely to undergo surgery than those with Medicaid or Medicare.
"As a medical community, we are not practicing evidence-based medicine with regard to the treatment of patients who have epilepsy," said Edward Chang, MD, chief of adult epilepsy surgery in the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery and the UCSF Epilepsy Center. "There are a lot of people who are taking medications and continuing to have seizures even though they can potentially be seizure-free."
A MODERN SURGERY FOR AN ANCIENT DISEASE
Epilepsy has been recognized as an important neurological condition since ancient times and its name means "seizures" in Greek. It can be inherited or it can be caused by anything that injures or irritates the brain. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, described it in detail in his writings some 2,500 years ago, and it is believed to have afflicted many famous people throughout history, including Julius Caesar.
UCSF is one of the world's leading institutions involved in epilepsy research, with one of the few medical centers that has top-ranking departments in relevant areas: neurology, biomedical imaging, and neurosurgery.
Paul Garcia, MD, director of the clinical epilepsy program and a study co-author, said that most patients referred to UCSF for surgical evaluation have had uncontrolled seizures for many years despite trying several medications. Research has shown that after the first two medicines fail, it is uncommon for patients to gain complete seizure control with medical treatment alone. Without control over their seizures, patients are at risk for physical injuries or even dying. Furthermore, the seizures often interfere with normal life activities such as driving, studying and working.
To see how widely this type of surgery has been used, Chang and neurosurgery resident Dario Englot, MD, PhD, accessed a national database of all of the surgeries across the United States for the last 20 yearsa timeline centered on the Canadian study. They found that there has been no increase in the 10 years, even as diagnoses of epilepsy have increased along with the number of hospitalizations for seizures.
Part of the problem is awareness, both among patients and care providers, Chang said. New anticonvulsant drugs appear on the market often enough to provide physicians with new drug combinations for their patients to try. Brain surgery can be more daunting than having to swallow fistfuls of pills, even though surgery is much more effective for many people. The problem though is that new medications are not very effective if previous ones already failed, according to Chang. Epilepsy surgery in the modern era has been repeatedly shown to be safe and effective.
Also, many people with epilepsy are not getting the specialty care needed to properly identify the source of the seizures. The study found a significant trend that patients are being evaluated less at epilepsy centers and more at community hospitals often without dedicated epilepsy expertise. The result is that some patients may not receive an adequate workup, and in many cases, the source of the seizures can be very difficult to find without special expertise. "The success of epilepsy surgery totally depends upon the accurate localization of seizure onset region," Chang said.
The decade-old Canadian study showed that more than nearly two-thirds of all people who underwent surgery as part of the study in the 1990s were seizure-free. Fewer than 10 percent of patients in the study who relied on drugs alone achieved the same degree of freedom from seizures.
"Even though this important evidence was published 10 years ago now, we have not seen increases in the number of patients," Chang said. "We need to do better."
###
The article, "Epilepsy surgery trends in the United States, 1990-2008" is authored by Dario J. Englot, David Ouyang, Paul A. Garcia, Nicholas M. Barbaro, and Edward F. Chang and appears in the journal Neurology. See: http://www.neurology.org/content/78/16/1200.abstract
This work was supported in part by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at UCSF.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Students, teachers, and parents in New York State don't know what to make of this bizarre question on the state exams. Let's see if you can do better. Sharpen your pencils! But first, everyone's familiar with the story of the pineapple and the hare, right? More »
Spotify's Android app has been in need of an update for some time—especially when compared to its beautiful Windows Phone offering. Fortunately, the wait is over, and the new version is much improved: it's cleaner, more visual, and wants to help you find as much new music as possible. More »
Smartphones are the next frontier in computing technology with rapid advancements and fierce competition between brands. Mobile computing is fast becoming a fixture of life everywhere in the world and mobile phone manufacturers are all rushing to meet the need with more power and slicker features. Like many new and emerging technologies in other fields like virtual private servers and cloud computing, mobile world has it?s own buzzwords and they could be heard a lot at ?the Mobile World Congress, which is the main industry conference and technology exhibition in the world, with thousands of exhibits, including new devices from the major brands like HTC, Samsung and Sony.
The 2012 MWC in Barcelona has just wrapped up, and as with most conferences where new technology is unveiled, there were some clear winners and equally clear losers.
The Most Striking Devices Certain devices may not be easily categorized as winners and losers, but still manage to generate awe and desire among technology lovers. One example of this would be the Asus Padfone, a device that is a tablet, notebook computer and smartphone in one. The Padfone can be slipped into a tablet dock, which can then be used for everything that an Android tablet computer would normally be used for. A keyboard can also be attached, turning the whole thing into a notebook computer. The setup is not altogether new, having been seen before in the Motorola Atrix, but Asus has implemented it with a sleeker and more adaptable interface.
The once-great Finnish mobile phone innovators, Nokia, are attempting the regain their former status with several new devices. The most notable Nokias shown at MWC is the 808 Pureview. The device has a single striking feature one that allows it to stand out from essentially every mobile phone ever made: it has a 41 megapixel camera. The camera on this phone is in some ways better than many high-end digital cameras available on the market. It is a stunning development that may well change the both the world of mobile phones and that of digital cameras in the near future.
Quadcore Phones Aside from the striking attention-getters, there were a number of powerful phones meant for more practical everyday use. Quadcore was the name of the game when it came to phones like HTC?s One X which many reviewers consider elegant and stylish in its design as well as a computing powerhouse that carries a four-core CPU. The one big benefit of quadcore CPUs is multitasking. For example, the user can use their phone to hold a conversation, edit a photograph, and manage a Virtual Private Server all with various Android apps, all running simultaneously and with barely any time lag at all. Aside from the One X, Other quadcore phones include the Huawei Ascend D and the LG Optimus 4X HD. The One X, Ascend and Optimus 4X HD, all run Google?s new Ice cream Sandwich OS which is the latest incarnation of Android. The world?s largest cellphone manufacturer, Samsung, was not be left out, they unveiled the Galaxy S Blaze and an updated Galaxy Tab along with their projector phone, the Galaxy Beam.
The Disappointing Devices Disappointments included Sony?s Xperia P which while nice-looking, brings nothing new to the game, it also runs the outdated Gingerbread version of Android.
Windows 8 MWC was not just about hardware devices as Microsoft took the opportunity to show off Windows 8 Beta for the first time. The consensus is that it is slick, extremely user friendly, and works equally well with both touchscreens and keyboards, and it is meant to be used on all three types of devices. Users of WP7 Mango on mobile phones will be instantly familiar with the interface, though other users may need to get used to the idea of tiles instead of icons.
Overall, MWC 2012 in Barcelona did a good job of showing where mobile technology plans to head next, with overall improvements in speed and power displayed in devices from most of the major manufacturers.
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Public release date: 23-Apr-2012
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