text:
by Michael Caruso
It's been said that one person's loss is another's gain. If so, the same is true when it comes to pipe organs and the churches in which they can be found.
In April of 2007, St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Germantown was closed due to declining membership and rising maintenance costs. Quintessentially Victorian in style, looking as though it had been extracted from one of the Barchester novels of the 19th century master Anthony Trollope, the church was designed by George W. Hewitt and Frank Furness, with a subsequent addition by Theophilus Parsons Chandler Jr. Considered a jewel in Philadelphia's architectural crown, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Among its treasures are two 1909 stained glass windows executed by muralist Violet Oakley, a former student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The pair of windows delineate Jesus' New Testament parable of the wise and foolish virgins. In addition to the Oakley windows, there are two Tiffany windows of comparable artistic stature.
Yet another gem in St. Peter's Church was its 1923 E.M. Skinner pipe organ. Skinner was among the most important organ builders in America, designing and building pipe organs for the chapel at Girard College in North Philadelphia, the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Harlem Heights, New York, the National Episcopal Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul in Washington, D.C., the Cleveland Public Auditorium and the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh.
The organ at St. Peter's Church in Germantown is listed as Opus 407, meaning that it's the 407th instrument designed and built by E.M. Skinner. It boasts 32 ranks or types of pipes, 30 stops or registrations, three manuals ("great," "swell" and "choir" keyboards), and pedal board, for a total of 2,098 pipes. It's a relatively small pipe organ, yet it was considered a sterling example of Skinner's romantic/symphonic style of instrument design.
Rather than allow the pipes to deteriorate as a result of the church's closing, the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania centered in Philadelphia contacted Father Mark Horack, S.J., the pastor of Old St. Joseph's Church in Society Hill. "Old St. Joe's," as it is affectionately known, is the oldest Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia, founded by Jesuit Fathers in 1733. The church is a National Shrine of Religious Freedom because it was, at one time, the only site where the Catholic Latin Mass could be publicly celebrated in all of the British Empire (obviously when Pennsylvania was still a British colony)..
The Episcopal Diocese informed Father Horack that the organ would not be dismantled and sold off in pieces if Old St. Joseph's would agree to move, refurbish and use it for religious services. Father Horack, who is now the pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, D.C., accepted the free gift. The project was continued and brought to a successful conclusion through the efforts of Father Horack's successor at Old St. Joseph's, Father Daniel Ruff, S.J., and Norman Gouin, the parish's director of music. The first stage of the organ's restoration was overseen by C.M. Walsh Pipe Organs in Collingdale; the project was completed by Emery Brothers of Allentown.
Old St. Joseph's Church will bless and dedicate the newly restored pipe organ, which once served the Germantown community for 84 years, with a recital Sunday, Sept. 9, at 3 p.m. Andrew Senn, the organist and music director of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, 21st and Walnut Streets, will be the soloist in a program that includes his own transcription of Rossini's Overture to "Il Turco in Italia," J.S. Bach's Prelude & Fugue in E-flat major, BWV 552, Percy Whitlock's Folk Tune and Andante Tranquilo from "Five Short Pieces," Franck's "Chorale No. 1 in E major" and "Les Cloches de Hinckley" by Vierne. Senn is an alumnus of Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music and has been the organist & music director at First Presbyterian since 2006. Previously, he was organist and music director at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Germantown.
Old St. Joseph's Catholic Church is located at 321 Willings Alley (near the intersection of 4th and Walnut Streets) in Society Hill. For more information, call 215-923-1733.


text:
Learning, memory and habits are encoded in the strength of connections between neurons in the brain, the synapses. These connections aren't meant to be fixed, they're changeable, or plastic.
Duke University neurologist and neuroscientist Nicole Calakos studies what happens when those connections aren't as adaptable as they should be in the basal ganglia, the brain's "command center" for turning information into actions.
"The basal ganglia is the part of the brain that drives the car when you're not thinking too hard about it," Calakos said. It's also the part of the brain where neuroscientists are looking for the roots of obsessive-compulsive disorder, Huntington's, Parkinson's, and aspects of autism spectrum disorders.
In her most recent work, which she discussed at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston, Calakos is mapping the defects in circuitry of the basal ganglia that underlie compulsive behavior. She is studying mice that have a synaptic defect that manifests itself as something like obsessive-compulsive behavior.
Calakos' former colleague Guoping Feng developed the mice at Duke before moving to the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, where he now works. Feng was exploring the construction of synapses by knocking out genes one at a time. One set of mice ended up with facial lesions from endlessly grooming themselves until their faces were rubbed raw. When examining synaptic activity in the basal ganglia of these mice, Calakos' group discovered that metabotropic glutamate receptors, or mGluRs, were overactive and this in turn, left their synapses less able to change. Scientists think overactivity of these receptors can cause many aspects of the autistic spectrum disorder Fragile X mental retardation.
"It's an example of synaptic plasticity going awry," Calakos said. "They're stuck with less adaptable synapses." Calakos is now using the mice to determine whether drugs that inhibit mGluRs can be used to improve their behavior and testing whether the circuit defects are a generalizable explanation for similar behaviors in other mouse models. This work may then lead to new understandings for compulsive behaviors and new treatment opportunities.
Seeking Roots Of Obsessive Behavior, Motion Disorders
Learning, memory and habits are encoded in the strength of connections between neurons in the brain, the synapses. These connections aren't meant to be fixed, they're changeable, or plastic.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I've never had this much fun watching CNBC. For those of you who were living under a rock yesterday and haven't seen this clip, you can watch it below.
What do you think? Do you agree with Rick Santelli that we shouldn't be forced to pay with our tax dollars to bail out neighbors who are in foreclosure, or do we all benefit, especially in the value of our own home, if our neighbors are able to keep theirs?
And who would have thought we'd ever be talking about a non-Jim Cramer/CNBC rant?


text:
Mario Lopez Weds Longtime Girlfriend Courtney Mazza
Dec 2, 2012 10:45 AM EST
Sorry, ladies! Mario Lopez is off the market. The X Factor co-host wed girlfriend Courtney Mazza Saturday in Mexico, Us Weekly reports. Photos: Everybody's posing nude! Check out Rihanna and other stars who've bared all The couple's 2-year-old daught… Read more


text:
Muscle Mustangs & Fast FordsEvents
Video: Fox-Body "Flying" Mustang
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a Stang!
On the drag strip, anything can happen with high horsepower machines and heavy competition. David Measell was in the cockpit of this Fox-body Mustang at Georgia Motorsports Park (at Lights Out V Paid in Full) when the track doubled as an air strip sending his Mustang flying 100 feet down the track on just its rear bumper. Qualifying for the Outlaw Drag Radial just turned a bit more intense.
Excitedly announcing the "flying car," the announcer certainly got a kick out of the soaring Mustang. When 1320video caught up to Measell, he admits to just buying the Mustang this past week and a few test runs have been made where it normally dominates the 1/8th mile in the 4.40 second range. A few tweaks and running that much power and incredible traction, the car bucked up and started soaring almost making its way over the track wall.
With a displacement of 706ci and the addition of nitrous, this crazy Ford Mustang produces over 2,000 horsepower – more than enough to knock your socks off. Measell talks about racing Pro-Mods back home with this being his first experience in a regular race car. His quote of the night – "I like my wheelie bars."