If you are worried about your heart attack risk, which screening tests should you get and when?

For healthy patients over age 40, I like to get a electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) every 2-5 years, and more often if they are older or have existing or new risk factors for coronary artery disease. The main reason for this is not to look for signs of heart disease, but to have a baseline for comparison to help interpret any potential abnormal ECG findings in the future.

Echocardiograms are not appropriate as screening tests but are useful for evaluating suspected abnormalities of the heart valves or reduced overall heart function.

A stress test is not necessary for active people without symptoms of angina. However, this test may be appropriate for sedentary people over age 50 with multiple cardiac risk factors, especially before they begin an exercise regimen.

For patients with new symptoms that suggest angina, a stress test is usually the first diagnostic step. If the stress test is positive (abnormal), then a procedure called catheterization is used to get a better look inside the arteries and determine the best treatment approach.

Sometimes the results of a stress test are not clearly normal or abnormal. In those cases coronary CT calcium scoring can be used to measure the amount of calcium in the arteries. Since most plaque contains calcium, this test indirectly measures plaque buildup and can help determine whether or not a catheterization is necessary,

Coronary CT testing is often marketed as a screening test for heart disease risk. However, finding coronary calcification in the absence of any symptoms doesn’t tell your doctor enough information. You would still need a functional test (a stress test) to determine if your high calcium score actually represents a problem that needs treatment.

I generally don’t recommend routine screening tests looking for coronary artery disease. Instead, my advice is to concentrate your efforts on controlling all of your modifiable risk factors, in order to prevent future plaque from forming.

© 2007 Johns Hopkins University. All Rights Reserved. This article from Johns Hopkins University is provided as a service by Yahoo. All materials are produced independently by Johns Hopkins University, which is solely responsible for its content.

source:health.yahoo

CHICAGO - Rex Grossman signed a one-year contract Saturday with the Chicago Bears and will compete for the starting quarterback job.

Grossman, a 2003 first-round draft pick, started the Super Bowl for the Bears after an up-and-down season in 2006. He struggled again last year and was benched following the third game. He returned for five more games before injuring his left knee.

Grossman passed for 913 yards with three touchdowns and one interception for an 80.2 passer rating when he returned. In the first three games, his 45.2 rating with one TD and six interceptions contributed to the Bears’ 1-2 start.

“Rex has won a lot of football games for us around here,” coach Lovie Smith said. “You look at how he played at the end of the football season until he came up with that injury, he is playing good football.”

Grossman has started 30 games with 489 completions in 900 attempts (54.3 percent) for 5,907 yards with 31 touchdowns and 33 interceptions. His career passer rating is 70.9.

“We wanted him because we feel like he gives us the best opportunity to be the best team we can be going into this next season,” general manager Jerry Angelo said.

Angelo confirmed Grossman will battle Kyle Orton for the starting quarterback spot and that there could be two other quarterbacks on the roster next season. Angelo did not include veteran backup Brian Griese in those plans, and it’s possible Griese will be cut in early March before he is due a $300,000 roster bonus.

“It’s an open competition,” Smith said. “It’s not like we promised Rex a starting position, or any of the guys a starting position. They’re coming to Chicago because they feel good about competing for the starting job.”

Angelo said stabilizing the quarterback position is the team’s biggest priority, but Grossman’s contract doesn’t help much because he would be a free agent after the 2008 season without a contract extension.

“With one-year deals you’re not solving anything,” Angelo said. “You’re still in the hunt, so to speak. We certainly feel good about the people who are contending at the position, but it’s not solved yet.”

The Bears hope signing Grossman provides leverage to bring wide receiver Bernard Berrian back to the team. He becomes a free agent Friday.

“We’re using everything we possibly can,” Smith said. “Bernard has been a big part of what we’ve done. He’s come up through the ranks with us.

“We’d like to see him finish it at our place. Hopefully, signing guys like Rex will help.”

Agent Drew Rosenhaus said Saturday he expects Berrian and fellow client Lance Briggs to enter free agency rather than sign a contract with the Bears.

“I would say at this time I would project that those guys would at least get to free agency, or at least the beginning of it” Rosenhaus said at the NFL scouting combine. “But the Bears are going to be in the mix as we continue to talk with other teams.

“We’re going to have a good, healthy dialogue with them.”

source:news.yahoo

DHAKA, Feb 23 (AFP) - Bangladesh authorities will complete a draft voter list within months, an official said on Saturday, paving the way for elections and the restoration of democracy in the emergency-ruled country.
“The Election Commission will publish the draft of the voters’ list by July,” said commission information officer S.M. Asaduzzaman.

“There is no doubt about holding the national election by December this year as per the commission’s road map,” he added.

Previous elections were cancelled and a military-backed emergency government took power in January 2007 following vote-rigging allegations by the opposition Awami League.

It alleged that officials loyal to the outgoing coalition government, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had drawn up a list containing 14 million fake voters.

The interim government pledged to clean up Bangladesh’s notoriously corrupt politics before holding fresh elections by the end of 2008.

Its anti-graft crackdown has seen at least 150 high-profile figures arrested including the country’s two most recent prime ministerss.

Source:news.yahoo

GAZA CITY (AFP) - Merchants across the Gaza Strip closed their shops on Saturday in a half-day strike to protest against Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory, an AFP correspondent said.
The strike, called by the Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCAS), a politically independent group headed by Palestinian parliamentarian Jamal al-Khudari, was to be part of a day of international events and demonstrations.

“Our message is clear, and it is to break the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip and to motivate the Arab and Islamic and international community on the official and popular level,” Khudari told AFP.

The group says it has organised protests and other activities in more than 90 cities across the world and has called on international participants to switch off their lights for 30 minutes after sundown in a show of solidarity.

Hundreds of protesters, including representatives from Hamas and Gaza’s other main political movements, gathered in Gaza City’s Kuteiba Square to lay the cornerstone of a memorial to victims of the blockade.

From there demonstrators marched to the United Nations headquarters where Khudari presented a letter addressed to UN chief Ban Ki-moon on the impact of the blockade.

Israel has sealed the Gaza Strip off from all but vital humanitarian goods since the Islamist Hamas movement — considered a terrorist organisation by Israel and the West — violently seized power last June.

On January 17 Israel completely locked down the territory, causing the Gaza Strip’s sole power plant to shut down for lack of fuel. It resumed shipments of food, medicine, and fuel five days later.

Israel has said the closures are aimed at putting pressure on the Hamas-run government in Gaza to end near-daily rocket and mortar attacks by militants against southern Israeli towns and military positions.

On Saturday Khaled al-Batsh, the spokesman for the radical Islamic Jihad group which has claimed many of the rocket attacks, joined in the protests against the blockade, which he called “immoral and inhuman.”

Hamas meanwhile vowed to continue armed attacks as spokesman Ismail Radwan warned that “if the siege continues there will be large explosions in the region that will engulf all parties and factions.”

Many international human rights groups have accused Israel of pursuing a policy of collective punishment against Gaza’s 1.5 million residents and also called on militant groups to stop targeting the Jewish state with rockets.

source:news.yahoo

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Memphis wanted to prove it really was the best team in the country, maybe even make a run at perfection.
Turns out, the Tigers aren’t even best in their own state.

Tyler Smith hit a turnaround jumper in the lane with 28 seconds left and No. 2 Tennessee knocked off the nation’s last unbeaten team, edging top-ranked Memphis 66-62 on Saturday night.

The Volunteers (25-2) won the I-40 showdown and are likely headed to No. 1 for the first time in school history.

“You guys all said we needed to lose one, so we lost one,” Memphis coach John Calipari told the media, trying to shrug off the end of the nation’s longest home winning streak at 47 games. “Great game. I have to give them credit. They scrapped, they battled.”

Tennessee won on a night when star guard Chris Lofton scored only 7 points, beating up the Tigers with a dominating performance on the boards. Lofton did finish it off, though, hitting a couple of free throws with 4.5 seconds to go after Memphis (26-1) intentionally missed at the line.

Now the spotlight shifts to the Vols, who’ve never made it to a regional final, much less the Final Four.

“No. 1’s great,” Lofton said. “But we want to be No. 1 at the end of the year.”

The city along the Mississippi River, famous for Elvis Presley and the blues, was downright electric before the game. Thousands streamed along Beale Street, ducking into the juke joints for a helping of music and beer, or headed over to Rendezvous to munch on slab of juicy ribs.

Priscilla Presley, who had Graceland bathed in Tiger blue the night before the game, watched from a front-row seat. NFL star Peyton Manning managed to land a seat in a luxury box to cheer on Tennessee, his alma mater.

Tickets were going for as much as $5,000 on the Internet. The fans in the lower bowl were on their feet the entire game.

“It was a great night for college basketball in the state of Tennessee,” said Vols coach Bruce Pearl, who felt the atmosphere was reminiscent of another big night in Memphis, when Lennox Lewis knocked out Mike Tyson in a heavyweight title fight.

“This town hasn’t been like that since that fight. It was alive.”

Not so much at the end. The blue-clad fans sat glumly in their seats, as if they couldn’t believe their team actually lost at home for the first time since a setback to Texas on Jan. 2, 2006.

“We’ve just got to learn from it. We lost,” junior Robert Dozier said. “They just out-toughed us. They get every loose ball, every offensive rebound. They just outplayed us.”

Despite their perfect record, the Tigers had plenty of skeptics who felt their lofty record was more the result of beating up a bunch of patsies in an unheralded league, Conference USA. They wanted to show they really were worthy of making a run at Indiana, the last team to win a championship with a perfect record, way back in 1976.

The Hoosiers can rest easy. Tennessee’s players walked off the court in triumph, holding up the name across the front of their orange jerseys to taunt the stunned crowd. The small group of Vols fans who actually got in the building hung around to chant “We’re No. 1! We’re No. 1!”

Just as Pearl predicted at a pep rally before the game.

“I wanted to make sure our guys knew we were playing for something,” Pearl said. “I don’t know if we’re the best team in the country. I knew we were 40 minutes away from being No. 1.”

Smith scored 16 points to lead the Vols, while Wayne Chism and J.P. Prince added 13 apiece. But Tennessee did its best work on the boards, overpowering the Tigers with a season-high 50 rebounds. Memphis had 34.

This was the 38th game between teams ranked Nos. 1 and 2, but only the fifth time those teams were from the same state. And Tennessee, of all places, deep in the heart of football country.

“Rocky Top, you’ll always be, home sweet home to me,” the orange-clad fans sang, having the arena to themselves after the Memphis faithful headed into the night to drown their sorrows. “Good ol’ Rocky Top, Rocky Top Tennessee.”

The Tigers were up when Smith took a pass from Lofton, backed in and hit the jumper for a 62-61 lead. Antonio Anderson missed badly for Memphis at the other end, and the Tigers were forced to foul.

“I really don’t even remember,” Smith said. “I just remember the shot going in.”

Prince hit a pair of free throws to make it a three-point game, and Tennessee wisely fouled before Memphis could go for a tying 3. Derrick Rose made the first attempt in a 1-and-1, but had to miss the second intentionally, in hopes the Tigers could grab the rebound.

No way. Tennessee came down with it and Lofton was fouled. He only went 2-of-11 from the field, but calmly sank the two foul shots that finished off the Tigers’ perfect record.

While Rose was trying to miss at the line, Memphis clanked plenty of shots it wanted to make. The Tigers, one of the nation’s worst free throw-shooting teams, lived up to their ranking by making just 8-of-17 at the line.

Rose led Memphis with 23 points, but Chris Douglas-Roberts was the only other player in double figures with 14.

The Tigers looked in good shape when Douglas-Roberts scored on a layup with 2:28 left, putting his team up 61-58.

Then Smith went to work. He answered with a drive of his own, pulling the Vols to 61-60, then hit the game winner — but only after Memphis squandered three chances on one possession to extend the margin.

Doneal Mack missed a 3, but the Tigers grabbed a long rebound. Rose missed, and Memphis chased it down again. Finally, after playing without the ball for some 90 seconds, the Vols finally grabbed it away off an attempt by Dozier that banged the front of the rim.

The teams started out like they both intended to go for 100.

Tennessee made its first four shots, two of them from 3-point range. Memphis connected on its first three, all of them outside the arc. So intense was the action, the first TV timeout didn’t come until the game was more than 7 minutes old.

They couldn’t keep up the pace. Tennessee wound up making only 38 percent (24 of 64) from the field. Memphis finished just shy of 40 percent on 23-of-58 shooting, failing to make any 3s in the second half after hitting five of their first eight from beyond the stripe; they wound up 8 of 27.

The Tigers couldn’t pull off another last-minute escape, as they did a week earlier when rallying from 7 down in the final 90 seconds at UAB.

“I thought we had them at end,” said Calipari, sweat dripping off his brow. “They made plays and we didn’t, which is really unusual for us.”

Pearl was the prophet on this night.

Minus his garish orange jacket, the coach attended the pep rally a couple of hours before tipoff, firing up the faithful at a sports restaurant near the FedExForum. He made a bold promise: “All I can tell you is we’re 40 minutes away from being No. 1.”

Then his team proved him right.

source:news.yahoo

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan’s outgoing ruling party promised Saturday to support the victors in combating Islamic extremism, while the winners discussed ways to curb President Pervez Musharraf’s powers — especially his right to dismiss parliament.
Suspected Islamic extremists killed three Pakistani security personnel late Saturday south of Peshawar, a reminder of the security threat facing the next government.

Mushahid Hussain, secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, told reporters that his pro-Musharraf party was prepared to play a “positive, constructive role” after suffering a crushing defeat in last Monday’s elections.

The two biggest opposition parties together captured at least 154 of the 268 contested seats in the National Assembly, compared to only 40 for the ruling party. The Election Commission has yet to declare winners in six seats.

With the Pakistan People’s Party of Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League-N planning to form a coalition government, Hussain said his party would support the future administration in pursuing “a national agenda above party lines,” including “combating extremism and terrorism.”

He also said the losers would help the new government develop programs to improve education, health, the rights of women and minorities as well as developing a broad-based foreign policy.

“Relations with Western countries should have the support and sanction of the people of Pakistan,” Hussain said.

For their part, leaders of Bhutto’s party were holding closed-door strategy sessions over the weekend, discussing their legislative program and preparing for coalition talks with the Pakistan Muslim League-N, headed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

A People’s Party statement said discussions included ways to curb Musharraf’s powers, including his authority to dismiss parliament. Without limitations, opposition leaders fear that Musharraf, a former army chief, might simply dissolve parliament and call new elections if the lawmakers take actions that he opposes.

“The participants … vowed to work for the restoration of the parliamentary supremacy by undoing undemocratic provisions under which elected parliaments have been dismissed,” the party said in a statement Saturday.

The president has the power to dissolve parliament under an article of the constitution first included under the authoritarian rule of the late President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq. The article was removed after Zia ul-Haq’s death in 1988 but reinstated under Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup.

Changing the constitution requires two-thirds support in the National Assembly — more than the two major opposition parties won in the Monday election.

The People’s Party also must designate its choice for prime minister before parliament convenes, probably next month. Party officials say the front-runner is veteran politician Makhdoom Amin Fahim, 68, a longtime Bhutto loyalist from Sindh province.

The United States is anxious for the new government to display a commitment to continuing the war against al-Qaida and Taliban-style militias operating in the lawless tribal area along the border with Afghanistan.

The latest attack occurred late Saturday when militants attacked a checkpoint near Darra Adam Khel, killing two paramilitary troops and one policeman, said Zulfikar Khan, a local police official. Six government forces were wounded, but there was no report of militant casualties.

The shattering defeat suffered by the ruling party was widely seen as a public repudiation of Musharraf and his eight-year rule, including his alliance with the United States. More than 20 senior Cabinet ministers lost their seats as a further sign of Musharraf’s eroding support.

Musharraf has been a key U.S. ally in the war on terror, but his military campaign against militants has further damaged his reputation among many Pakistanis who resent American influence.

Fearing a weakening of Pakistan’s anti-terror stand, U.S. officials have encouraged the election winners to work with Musharraf, even though some key opposition figures have called for him to step down in the wake of last Monday’s balloting.

source:news.yahoo

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, Sen. John McCain, has lobbyists as top aides and “many of them have been running their business on the campaign bus while they’ve been helping him.”
The Democratic presidential hopeful also said McCain’s health care plans reflect “the agenda of the drug and insurance lobbyists, who back his campaign and use money and influence to block real health care reform.”

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for McCain, said the Arizona senator “has been an agent for change for his entire career — he is the greatest change agent in our party — and we plan to highlight that record in this election.”

Obama has criticized McCain increasingly in recent weeks, while running off 11 straight primary and caucus victories over his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Polls taken during the primary season show that independent voters are drawn in large numbers to both Obama and McCain, suggesting the two men would compete intensively for their support if they wind up opposing each other in the general election this fall.

Obama made his remarks as he campaigned for votes in the March 4 Democratic primary in Ohio, with 141 national convention delegates at stake.

He made health care a focus of his campaign day, visiting a hospital diabetes unit. At one point in a discussion with doctors and nurses, the talk turned to prevention of the illness in youngsters.

“If we just cut out soda pop,” it would make a difference, he said.

Asked at a later news conference about the issue, he said he hopes schools will “re-examine how easily they make soda available.”

Citing an increase in childhood obesity and diabetes, he said if children “are consuming vast amounts of soft drinks chock full of corn syrup, then we should, you know, consider whether we want to maybe have at least some zones like schools where they have to drink water once in a while.”

Obama singled McCain out for criticism twice during the day, at one point saying that the Republican’s health care proposals are worse than anything proposed in the race between himself and Clinton.

He characterized them as “more of the same Bush health care policies that haven’t worked in the past and won’t work today.”

“It’s a tax break that doesn’t guarantee coverage and doesn’t make sure that health care is affordable for the working families who need it most,” he said.

Obama broadened his criticism to McCain’s ties to lobbyists in general, saying, “He takes their money and has put them in charge of his campaign.”

The Illinois senator returned to the subject later, when he said it was indisputable that McCain’s “got his top advisers in this campaign are lobbyists, that many of them have been running their business on the campaign bus while they’ve been helping him.”

An aide said Obama was referring to Charlie Black, and pointed to a recent published report that said the McCain strategist, who is a registered lobbyist, does a lot of work by phone from McCain’s campaign bus.

In rebuttal, Hazelbaker accused Obama of trying to distract attention from his record and resume. She said he has “no national security experience and plans billions of dollars in tax hikes.”

source:news.yahoo

CINCINNATI - Hillary Rodham Clinton angrily accused her Democratic rival Saturday of deliberately misrepresenting her positions on NAFTA and health care in mass mailings to voters, adding, “Shame on you, Barack Obama.”
Clutching two of Obama campaign mailings in her hand for emphasis, the former first lady said, “enough with the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove’s playbook.”

Obama defended the mailings as accurate and rejected Clinton’s complaint as a political ploy. He said that despite her current criticism of NAFTA, she supported the trade agreement when it passed during her husband’s administration.

“You can’t be for something and take credit for an administration … and then when you run for president say that you didn’t really mean what you said way back then. It doesn’t work like that,” he said to cheers at a rally in Akron.

The long distance clash erupted as the two Democrats campaigned separately across Ohio, one of two big states with primaries on March 4.

Obama has won 11 straight primaries and caucuses, and some of Clinton’s supporters have said she must win both Ohio and Texas a week from Tuesday to keep her hopes alive of winning the party nomination. Recent polls show Ohio is close, and Texas closer.

Clinton’s frustration was evident as she criticized Obama in unusually strong terms — a few days after ending a nationally televised debate by saying she was “honored to be here with” him in a historic race between a black man and a woman.

She said by his actions, Obama was giving “aid and comfort to the very special interests and their allies in the Republican Party who are against doing what we want to do for America.”

“Meet me in Ohio,” she said. “Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign.” The two are scheduled to debate Tuesday in Cleveland.

In her criticism of Obama, she asked, “Since when do Democrats attack one another on universal health care?”

Obama had a ready reply to that. “Well, when she started to say I was against universal health care … which she does every single day,” he said.

Since late last year, Clinton has consistently attacked Obama’s health care plan, saying it would leave 15 million Americans uninsured.

Clinton’s advisers have repeatedly criticized the Obama campaign’s mailings, both of which went out in the last several days.

One says her plan for universal coverage would “force” everyone to purchase insurance even if they can’t afford it. Her plan requires everyone to be covered, but it offers tax credits and other subsidies to make insurance more affordable.

Obama’s plan does not include the so-called “individual mandate” for adults, and he has argued that people cannot be required to buy coverage if they can’t afford it. He has said his first priority is bringing down costs.

The Illinois senator’s plan does include a mandate requiring parents to buy health insurance to cover children.

The second mailing, on the North American Free Trade Agreement, quotes a 2006 Newsday article suggesting Clinton believed the agreement had been a “boon” to the economy. NAFTA and other trade agreements are extremely unpopular in Ohio, which has suffered an exodus of blue-collar jobs to other countries in part due to such agreements.

It’s a particularly sensitive matter for Clinton, whose husband championed and pushed for passage of the agreement as president. She is counting on the support of white, working class voters in the state.

“I am fighting to change NAFTA,” she insisted. “Neither of us were in the Senate when NAFTA passed. Neither voted one way or the other.”

Clinton said Newsday had corrected the record about her views on the agreement. Indeed, the paper published a blog item earlier this month saying Obama’s use of the word “boon” was unfair.

“Obama’s use of the citation in this way does strike us as misleading,” the paper said. “The quote marks make it look as if Hillary said “boon,” not us. It’s an example of the kind of slim reeds campaigns use to try to win an office.”

Earlier, Newsday published an item saying the word “boon” had been the paper’s “characterization of how we best understood her position on NAFTA, based on a review of past stories and her public statements.”

As evidence of their concern about the issue, the Clinton campaign released two new ads in Ohio, including one featuring John Glenn — a former astronaut and U.S. senator from Ohio for 24 years — saying Clinton would fix trade agreements like NAFTA.

Clinton said she felt good about her prospects in Ohio and Texas but refused to say whether she needed to win both states to stay in the race.

“Let’s let the people of Ohio vote. Let’s actually have an election and then we can look at the results,” she said.

source:news.yahoo

LONDON - A lucky gambler has made 1 million pounds, or about $1.97 million, from a 50 pence ($1) bet, British bookmaker William Hill said Saturday.

The man, who William Hill has not identified, correctly guessed the outcome of eight horse races Friday, beating odds of two-million-to-one.

He walked into a William Hill branch in the north England town of Thirsk and placed wagers on eight horses in eight different contests in a so-called “accumulator bet,” the company said.

His first win came when a horse called “Isn’t That Lucky” won the 2:55 p.m. race at the Sandown track, southwest of London. By the time “A Dream Come True” crossed the finish line at the Wolverhampton racecourse in central England later that evening, the man had won 1 million pounds.

William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe says the man was oblivious to his win when he came to a different William Hill branch Saturday to place more 50 pence bets. Sharpe said the man had not won any of Saturday’s wagers, losing 2.50 pounds.

“If he does it another 400,000 times we’ll have it all back,” Sharpe said.

William Hill, one of the biggest players in Britain’s gambling industry, operates more than 2,000 betting shops across the country.

source:sports.yahoo

LA CROSSE, Wis. - For as long as he can remember, Brad Williams has been able to recall the most trifling dates and details about his life.
 
For example, he can tell you it was Aug. 18, 1965, when his family stopped at Red Barn Hamburger during a road trip through Michigan. He was 8 years old at the time. And he had a burger, of course.

“It was a Wednesday,” recalled Williams, now 51. “We stayed at a motel that night in Clare, Michigan. It seemed more like a cabin.”

To Williams and his family, his ability to recall events — and especially dates — is a regular source of amusement. But according to one expert, Williams’ skill might rank his memory among the best in the world. Doctors are now studying him, and a woman with similar talents, hoping to achieve a deeper understanding of memory.

Williams, a radio anchor in La Crosse, seems to enjoy having his memory tested. Name a date from the last 40 years and, after a few moments, he can typically tell you what he did that day and what was in the news.

How about Nov. 7, 1991?

“Let’s see,” he mused, gazing into the distance for about five seconds. “That would be around when Magic Johnson announced he had HIV. Yes, a Thursday. There was a big snowstorm here the week before.”

He went on to identify correctly some 20 other events including the birth of the first test-tube baby in 1978, the toxic-gas leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984, and Billie Jean King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in tennis’ “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973.

“I’ve always been this way,” Williams said. “Growing up, I never really had reason to think I wasn’t like everyone else.”

So how does he do it?

“You want the Nobel Prize right now? Tell me that answer and I’ll publish it,” said Dr. James McGaugh, who has studied Williams since last summer. “We don’t know. We do know that he carries this information with him, that it’s detailed, that it’s just there. That’s what we want to know — why is it there?”

Williams’ brother first contacted McGaugh, a research professor at the University of California, Irvine, after the neurobiologist published a case study of a similar person in the journal Neurocase in 2006.

That woman is in her mid-40s and was identified only by the initials A.J. She told McGaugh whenever she hears a date, memories from that date in previous years flood her mind like a running movie. The phenomenon, she laments, is “nonstop, uncontrollable and totally exhausting.”

“Most have called it a gift, but I call it a burden,” she wrote. “I run my entire life through my head every day and it drives me crazy!!!”

McGaugh and his colleagues subjected A.J. to a battery of psychological tests. Given a date at random, she was nearly flawless in recalling the day of the week and what she did that day. The details she provided invariably matched what she had written in diaries decades earlier.

Scientific literature documents people who could memorize a series of 50 to 100 random letters or digits. Another person read a 330-word story twice, then reproduced it nearly verbatim a year later.

But those research subjects remembered meaningless information. What distinguishes Williams and A.J. is their “superior autobiographical memory” — an above-average ability to remember dates and details from their distant past, McGaugh said.

“In subjects we regard as having this ability, they do better than 90 percent on the tests we provide,” McGaugh said.

The tests typically involve reproducing personal information that can be corroborated with old scrapbooks, yearbooks and diaries, sources that McGaugh often tries to obtain from family members without the subjects’ knowledge.

Other tests involve naming a notable public event and asking for its date, or vice versa.

Williams and A.J. both performed better on topics that interested them. Williams excels at pop-culture trivia such as Academy Award winners, but he stumbles on sports.

A lifelong bachelor and self-described Scrabble addict, he finished second when he appeared on “Jeopardy!” in 1990. He says he went 5-for-5 on “1984 movies” but tripped up on categories including “snakes” and “words that begin with ‘kh’.”

Because a person’s interest in the information is a key factor in recall ability, some researchers doubt that Williams and A.J. are unique.

“If it’s a truly amazing memory that just sucks things up, it shouldn’t be based on how interesting something was to you,” said Stephen Christman, a neuropsychologist at the University of Toledo in Ohio.

Christman, who wasn’t involved in the research, pointed to baseball fanatics who remember obscure statistics because of their passion for the game. Perhaps, he speculated, A.J. obsesses so much over past events and relives them so frequently in her mind that it’s now effortless for her to recall countless dates and events.

The number of people with comparable memory skills has been hard to pin down. After publishing his research with A.J., McGaugh heard from about 50 people claiming they had the same skill or, like Williams’ brother, knew someone who might.

Of them, McGaugh and his colleagues have identified a third person — a 50-year-old Ohio man — who shows similar promise.

Ever since pointing his elder brother in McGaugh’s direction, Eric Williams, 45, has been recording Brad’s adventures for an upcoming documentary. The movie, to be titled “Unforgettable,” is scheduled to be completed later this year.

“The human brain is the most complicated and important machinery in the known universe,” McGaugh said. “My aim with this research isn’t to cure Alzheimer’s. It’s to decrease the mystery of this marvelous machinery.”
Source:news.yahoo