A very young Toots

The one and only Sweetpea, aka Mrs. Louise Marie (Katterfeld Hoffmann) Alexander, my grandmother, passed away yesterday at the age of 95. She would have been 96 in January.

Here’s the official obituary, written in a hurry to get it into the next day’s paper.

But a much better description was written by the woman herself in 1999 for a family directory. Typewritten — she worked the hell out of that typewriter.

Name

Louise Marie Alexander (Also known as Toots, Tootsie, Tootie, Sweetpea /Katterfeld, Hoffmann, Alexander)

Chicago, Kansas, Long Island, New York City

Present Job

Chief Cook & Bottle Washer for husband, Frank Alexander & my wonderful Daughter, Harriet Hoffmann Morgan, & assorted friends & strays.

Hobbies/Interests

I’m a people person & like reading, birding, gardening, cooking, sports. Also keeping up with Margie, Freda, Tom & Bill – their wives, Evie and Anna. I have daughters-in-law Nancy Little Hoffmann, wife of son Pete & Nan Hopkin Hoffmann, wife of son Roger. Also grand children, Karen & Sarah Hoffmann. And I do mean grand for all of the above.

A paragraph about yourself (and your family);

In Spring of 1915 my parents Dutch (Ludwig) & Bertie travelled across country by train to Seattle, Washington. Nine months later I was born in Everett, WA. That year Dutch ran for Governor of Washington on the Socialist ticket. He did receive quite a few votes but did not become Governor!

My earliest memories are of Dighton, KS, on my grandfather’s (Dr. Eusebius Pierce Horn & wife Ruby Howe Horn) 2,000 Ac. ranch/mostly wheat. I climbed the ranch windmill at age 2 1/2; broke one whole crate of eggs (from Ruby’s chickens & her spending money source) & assisted sister Freda in setting the prairie on fire! Scared the horses & had townspeople from Dighton put out fire. (We didn’t plan this beforehand).

Meanwhile, our family lived in many places across these United States. In 1937 I married George Hoffmann. (Anna Marie Katterfield is George’s sister). George is the father of Pete, Roger & Harriet Hoffmann. In 1953 [sic] we moved to Atlanta, Ga., (job transfer for George). George died in 1960.

In the meantime I began a 40 year career in real estate as agent, secretary & advertising agent. I retired in 1996 at age 80.

In 1973 I married Frank Alexander, a real Southern born & bred gentleman. (Y’all come see us, heah!)

While growing up I am happy to note that my sisters, Margie, Freda & brothers, Tom & Bill & I grew up in a world without indoor plumbing (for awhile). We had coal oil lamps, well water using hand pumps, wood & coal burning stoves, no T.V. Radio came along a little later. No cars. We had horse & buggy, trains & our feet for walking. We had two caring parents, a big round table for eating, crafts, games, family talks & MUCH READING from Book of Knowledge, other books & magazines.

AS THE FAMED CORNELIA SAID WHEN ASKED WHAT JEWELS SHE TREASURED, she replied: ” My children are my jewels ” I think all of you can say “Amen” to this.

She had style. I think the guy is her friend's husband.

I personally think that her being conceived on a train had to have somehow traveled down the generations, because I haven’t been able to stay still.

We’ll miss you, Grandma.

Indigenous tribes have been protesting against the project for years

A judge in Brazil has ordered a halt to construction of a multi-billion-dollar dam project in the Amazon region.

Judge Carlos Castro Martins barred any work that would interfere with the natural flow of the Xingu river.

He ruled in favour of a fisheries group which argued that the Belo Monte dam would affect local fish stocks and could harm indigenous families who make a living from fishing.

The government says the dam is crucial to meeting growing energy needs.

Judge Martins barred the Norte Energia company behind the project from “building a port, using explosives, installing dikes, building canals and any other infrastructure work that would interfere with the natural flow of the Xingu river, thereby affecting local fish stocks”.

More at BBC.

• Bad news, very well reported (full documentary debuts tomorrow — Thursday — at 8pm):

More at The Guardian.

• And another very interesting video — about the immigrant experience in São Paulo — that I first saw today. I like this method of telling stories:

Somos São Paulo [We Are São Paulo]. 6 bilhões de Outros from GoodPlanet on Vimeo.

The signature spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy were likely formed by an epic collision between the Milky Way and the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy, according to a University of Pittsburgh researcher and his collaborators whose findings were published last week in the prestigious British journal Nature.

The results of supercomputer simulations by Christopher W. Purcell, postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences, and colleagues were reported in a paper titled “The Sagittarius Impact as an Architect of Spirality and Outer Rings in the Milky Way.”

This paper is the first to identify Sagittarius as the architect of spiral structure in our Milky Way: “It presents a new and somewhat unexpected way of thinking about why the galaxy we live in looks the way it does,” says Purcell. “Cosmologically speaking, it demonstrates the idea that relatively small impacts like this can have a dramatic impact on the structure of galaxies throughout the universe,” he adds.

This idea had been assumed theoretically, but never demonstrated.

More at Pitt Chronicle >

Note: Today’s the last day you can vote for Micah in the College Entrepreneur of the Year contest. Go to www.entrepreneur.com/e2011/vote/college and support electric vehicles, innovation, and Pittsburgh!

With a dream of revolutionizing personal urban transportation, a University of Pittsburgh undergraduate is in the running to be Entrepreneur Magazine‘s “College Entrepreneur of the Year.” Micah Toll, a senior mechanical engineering major in the University of PittsburghSwanson School of Engineering, is one of five finalists in the contest. The winner will be the focus of a feature article in the magazine’s January issue.

The mission of Toll’s company, Pulse Motors, is to build completely electric two-wheeled Personal Electronic Vehicles. The vehicles resemble bicycles but do not require pedaling.

“Our vehicles are designed to be the ideal solution for millions of commuters driving in and around urban centers,” says Toll in his contest video entry on the Entrepreneur Magazine Web site. “Instead of a single person commuting in a two-ton gas-guzzler, our vehicles allow drivers to zip effortlessly along using minimal energy and no fossil fuels while producing absolutely zero tailpipe emissions.”

Computer rendering of a 2011 PEVO, officially debuted by Pulse Motors Aug. 28 at Pitt's Student Activities Fair. (Courtesy of Pulse Motors)

A panel of judges selected the five finalists from among thousands of entries across the country. The selection of the ultimate winner of the College Entrepreneur of the Year now comes down to two components: the online voting process and voting by the panel of judges. The online voting points and panel voting points will be combined for each of the five finalists, and the winner will be the student who receives the highest total.

More at News from Pitt >

Now, researchers at Pitt have discovered that antipsychotic drugs work akin to a Rube Goldberg machine—that is, they suppress something that in turn suppresses the bad effects of schizophrenia, but not the exact cause itself. In a paper published in the Aug. 24 Journal of Neuroscience, they say that pinpointing what’s actually causing the problem could lead to better avenues of schizophrenia treatment that more directly and efficiently target the disease.

“In the past five years or so, we’ve really started to understand what may be going wrong with the schizophrenic brain,” says Anthony Grace, Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and professor of psychology in Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences and professor of psychiatry in the Pitt School of Medicine, who is senior author of the paper.

Schizophrenia is made up of three different types of symptoms. Positive symptoms, which are added onto a “normal” personality, include hallucinations and delusions, such as hearing voices, thinking people are after you, or thinking you’re being targeted by aliens. Those are the classic symptoms of schizophrenia and the ones antipsychotic medications work on best. Grace says these are the symptoms most likely related to a neurotransmitter called dopamine.

The other two categories of symptoms are negative (what’s missing from the normal personality—the ability to interact socially or hold down a job; some emotional flattening) and cognitive (the ability to think linearly or concentrate on one thing at a time). These two really aren’t addressed well by antipsychotic drugs. “Blocking the dopamine system seems to fix classic hallucinations and delusions a whole lot better than it fixes the other problems,” says Grace.

Grace has been studying the role dopamine plays in the schizophrenic brain since 1978. It’s long been known that after several weeks of treatment with antipsychotic drugs, dopamine-producing neurons are inactivated. “It would suggest to us that in schizophrenia there is not too much dopamine, but rather the dopamine system is too responsive,” says Grace.

Therefore, by inactivating the neurons, this overresponsivity should be able to be treated. “If there were just too much dopamine in the brain, one would expect the biggest treatment effect would be at the beginning and then it would diminish,” Grace says.

More at Pitt Chronicle

Ever since the Nobel Prize for nerve growth factor was awarded more than 30 years ago, researchers have been searching for ways to use growth factor clinically.

University of Pittsburgh Professor Yadong Wang has developed a minimally invasive method of delivering growth factor to regrow blood vessels. His research, which could be used to treat heart disease, the most common cause of death in the Western world, was published in the Aug. 1 issue of the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. …

When the researchers injected their growth factor compound under the skin of mice, they saw something amazing: New blood vessels grew, and large ones, not just tiny capillaries. “We had structures that resembled arterioles—small arteries that lead to a network of capillaries,” says Wang.

Moreover, the structures stuck around. At least a month later, after only one injection of the growth factor complex, the new blood vessels were still there.

More at Pitt Chronicle

The Belo Monte dam, which would be the third-largest in the world, is currently under construction near Altamira, Brazil. Yesterday, protests were held throughout the country, and tomorrow (Aug. 22) is the worldwide day of actions against the dam.

List of actions around the world:

August 22 (Mon)

Amazon Watch has a toolkit on holding an action in your city.

More on the Altamira protest at Xingu Vivo. It was really beautiful – hymns sung, a dip in the river. Even a conga line..!?

More photos in my Flickr set.

Update (8/22/11): Some photos used by Survival International on their page about today’s Belo Monte protests around the world.  I’m honored!!

Jack works at the Pompano Beach Post Office. He’s from Homestead, PA, and worked at Kennywood in the 1970s. See his right arm tattoo here.

This tattoo represents his life story: from the cable cars and bridges of Pittsburgh to the fishing in Florida.

He’s about to go back to Homestead for the first time since 1982. I told him he might not recognize the place.