Cognitive Labs

Stan Tuhoski, 81, stands near the spot where he was taken prisoner by
German troops who overran Allied positions during the Battle of the Bulge

WINTERSCHEID, Germany (Reuters) - It has taken more than 60 years, but gazing down a ridge over a former battlefield near Germany's border with Belgium, Stan Tuhoski believes he has finally found closure from the greatest trauma of his life.


Now a frail 81-year-old, the Polish-American was just a teenager when he was caught up in the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest single engagement for U.S. forces in World War Two.

Captured by German troops as they overran his raw, unprepared division in December 1944, he survived death marches and the horrors of prison camps, but returned home broken and verging on suicide.

"I would sit down and cry and cry and cry," he said, explaining how he needed psychological counseling to allow him to stabilize his life and raise a family, including two sons who were to die in the American war in Vietnam a generation later.

But it took a return to the rolling forested battlefield of the Ardennes stretching through parts of Belgium, Luxembourg and France to come to terms fully with his wartime nightmare.

"I can get it out of my mind now," he said during a trip with 19 other American veterans organized by a U.S. charity.

"Before I kept thinking: what was I doing over there and why did I do what I did, you know? I've come over now and I've got a clear mind. I can go back and forget about it."

Tuhoski, a former factory worker from Greig, New York state, was only able to make the trip thanks to Greatest Generations Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 2004.

"In the United States, a lot of veterans in their 80s and 90s do not have the funding to return," said Australian Tim Davis, who set up the foundation having been inspired by a grandfather who fought alongside U.S. forces in the Pacific.

1,500 VETERANS DYING EVERY DAY

The Colorado-based organization has so far helped six groups of about 20 World War Two veterans return to Europe.

Davis said that with America's 1.8 million World War Two veterans dying at the rate of 1,500 a day, time was running out for those who want to make similar trips before they die.

"Before too long there is only going to be a small handful of veterans to keep the legacy alive," he said.


Troops of the 1st Division at Omaha Beach

The latest trip began with a visit to D-Day's Omaha beach in Normandy, France before heading eastwards to the Ardennes. The veterans will later take in the former German concentration camp at Dachau and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's mountain-top headquarters in Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Alps.

Shep Waldman, a former staff sergeant from Denver, Colorado, said he had always believed himself unscarred emotionally from his combat experience, but years later suddenly experienced flashbacks in which he imagined himself back in battle.

He said had never been able to afford to return to Europe and it had been an important catharsis.

"I wanted to see it one more time. I wanted to make sure it was OK -- that I could walk along Omaha Beach and not see 5,000 ships from the invasion force out at sea or a sniper behind me."

U.S. businessman Jeffrey Rosenthal helped finance the veterans' return. He said it was important to keep the memory of what they did alive.

"These gentlemen oftentimes have gotten lost," he said. "People often don't want to hear their stories any more. They don't realize that but for these men and others like them who gave their lives, we wouldn't have the freedom we have today."

Davis said the foundation had a waiting list of 11,000 veterans and aimed to expand its trips to Vietnam and Korea.

But with each visit to Europe costing $3,000 per head it currently had only enough funds for two more groups. It aimed to raise more money from big corporations, not just in the United States, but in the
European Union and the Pacific.

"We really need to look at what this generation has made for us," he said. "It's time to say thank you."

Labels: Battle of the Bulge, Veterans, WW2

Humans and Chimps share 98.5% of their genes. However, no one would say that chimps approach humans in intelligence or cognitive ability.

What accounts for the difference?

About 5 million years ago or less, a genetic change was introduced into a protein called the neuropsin, which governs memory and learning and is found only in neurons in the central nervous system. While both humans and chimps have neuropsin - humans alone have a second form of the protein called Type II neuropsin. It is disintinguished from the former in that it is 45 amino acids longer.

In the recent study, conducted by Dr. Bing Su at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and just published in the journal Human Mutation, scientists also showed that inducing the Type II mutation in chimpanzee neurons was sufficient to create the longer splice variant found in humans, demonstrating that a relatively minor mutation could account for the difference in protein length - and therefore the mental performance gap, between the species.

It would be interesting to determine if the genesis of the Type II variant led to the development of consciousness or enhanced self-awareness by stimulating changes in the brain.

Labels: chimps, humans