Latest news with #Bran
RTÉ News
28-05-2025
- Health
- RTÉ News
Can dogs help to predict epileptic seizures?
Analysis: New research combining a dog's natural instincts with technology might help people with epilepsy by predicting seizures Dogs have long held a special place in Irish life, not just as loyal companions, but as trusted protectors of our homes, families and livestock. Their protective instinct is one of the earliest reasons humans formed bonds with them. Their importance goes back centuries featuring in tales of Fionn MacCumhaill and his dogs Bran and Sceólang. They were noble, wise, and fiercely loyal hounds, often sensing danger before it arrived and intervening to save lives. Today, while most dogs are no longer fending off wolves, their protective instincts remain strong. Some even find a vocation as service dogs extending their role to emotional and physical protection, guiding the visually impaired, alerting people to medical emergencies and providing support to those with PTSD or anxiety. This deep-rooted role of dogs as protectors has inspired new research, looking at how a dog's natural instincts, combined with technology might help people with epilepsy by predicting seizures and enabling faster intervention. Why predicting seizures matters More than 45,000 people in Ireland live with epilepsy, about one person in every hundred. Each year, Ireland records over 130 epilepsy-related deaths, some linked to a condition called sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). For some, medication effectively controls seizures. For others, seizures can happen without warning, disrupting daily life and posing serious safety risks. While some people experience early warning signs in the form of a type of seizure, commonly called auras, others receive no advance notice. For those who do sense them, auras offer valuable time to seek safety or alert others. But what if someone, or something, could detect a seizure even earlier and more reliably? That question is at the heart of the PAWSENSE (Paws Assisting with Sensors for Epilepsy Needs and Safety) research project. This project, led by the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics at Dublin City University, explores whether seizure-alert assistance dogs, equipped with wearable technology, can help detect and alert to seizures before they happen. The science behind the sniff The concept rests on a growing body of research suggesting that dogs can detect seizures before they occur by picking up on subtle changes in human scent. These changes involve volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are released through our breath, skin, sweat, and other bodily fluids. Everyone's VOC profile is unique, and research indicates it may change prior to a seizure. Studies from Florida International University and Canine Assistants have shown that specially trained dogs can detect these changes up to an hour in advance of a seizure. Research by Dr. Neil Powell and a team at Queen's University Belfast found that even untrained pet dogs exhibit unusual behaviour, such as nudging, barking or pawing, when their owner is about to have a seizure. What dogs can do with smell is extraordinary. While humans have around five million scent receptors in their noses, dogs can have up to 300 million, depending on the breed. Dogs can layer scents, the way humans might hear individual instruments in an orchestra. This allows them to pick up a specific odour, like a pre-seizure VOC, even in a crowded, noisy, or chaotic environment. Dog collar motion sensors While previous efforts focused solely on training dogs to detect and alert to seizures, this research adds a vital second layer with a sensor-equipped dog collar. When the dog detects the scent associated with an oncoming seizure, it responds with a specific trained alert behaviour, such as spinning. This alerts to the person that a seizure is imminent. From Insider Science, how dogs sniff out seizures The dog wears a collar with motion sensors that track the alerting spin behaviour. When the collar detects this movement, it can automatically send an alert to a family member, friend or other designated contact, along with the GPS location of the person who is about to have a seizure. This advance notice gives the individual time to get to safety and allows others to step in and provide support. Safeguarding dogs in research The idea of dogs playing a role in medical detection is not new. They have been studied in contexts ranging from cancer detection to hypoglycaemia alerts. However, epilepsy poses distinct challenges as seizures often happen silently and without warning, which demands both fast and reliable alert systems. Training the dogs and carefully matching them to individuals is critical. Although seizure alert dogs are not currently available through Dogs for the Disabled, they are managing the matching, training and ongoing support for the dogs as part of this research. Dogs have spent thousands of years watching over us and it important that the same is done for them. What science is beginning to measure, dogs have long been able to sense 'Not a silver bullet' Wearable technology has made significant strides in detecting certain types of seizures, but its ability to reliably predict seizures is still limited. Combining technology with dogs' scent detection capabilities may offer a more adaptive and reliable solution, but PAWSENSE is not a silver bullet. It is a multidisciplinary effort addressing a complex issue with nuance and care. If successful, this model could be adapted internationally, or even applied to other conditions where behavioural or scent cues signal health events. Crucially, the project acknowledges the emotional toll epilepsy takes. A dependable alert system might not stop seizures from happening, but it can still make a big difference. Just knowing that a warning will come, and that help is on the way, may ease anxiety and bring peace of mind, helping people feel safer and more confident in their daily lives. The question remains however, can such a system become broadly accessible through public healthcare, or will it remain a niche, privately supported tool? What science is beginning to measure, dogs have long been able to sense. This research provides a glimpse into how we might learn from nature to shape the healthcare tools of tomorrow.
The Spinoff
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival: A firm favourite for writers
A round-up of responses to the 2025 Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival – the 10th birthday edition of the festival – from writers who appeared in it. The sun shines Autumn-crisp as we wind up the Remutakas. That giant range so dense with forest, and so steep, it both awes and frightens me as we pass over it. We (my son, partner and writer Brannavan Gnanalingam) are off to Featherston Booktown Karukatea Festival for the day: both Bran and I have events at 1.30pm (me chairing a panel called The Pluck of the Irish; and Bran in a panel called Swimming Upstream: the rise of Sri Lankan writing in Aotearoa). As soon as we slide off the mountain, pass the witchy crystal shop and cruise into Featherston proper the festival atmosphere is there in flags, and crowds and a general sense that this weekend Featherston is far busier than usual. What I love about Featherston Booktown is that you can see and feel its impact. In big cities you have to be right inside the festival venue or site to feel it, but in Featherston it's everywhere. The cafes are chokka; you can't go anywhere without spotting a writer and schools of audience members. I also love how there's buskers, food trucks and port-a-loos. To me a festival isn't really a festival without port-a-loos or some definition of flag and Featherston has both and more. They also have a delightful home baking cafe in their Anzac Hall (one of the main venues) and an ingenious set up by which audiences must walk through the booksellers' tent to both enter and exit the Hall. Very canny. When myself, Noelle McCarthy and Dame Fiona Kidman walk up onto the stage for The Pluck of the Irish (with the delightful John Connell who was being beamed in from County Longford, Ireland) we are greeted by a sea of people. At least 200 (maybe more? My spatial maths is not great) are squished in rows of white, plastic seats – a sold-out house. The atmosphere is warm, the tech superb (John is beamed onto a big screen and the sound is perfect) and the support from the team of volunteers cheery and enthusiastic. While I can't claim to have been to every writers festival in Aotearoa I've been to heaps and for me Featherston is one of the best. It brings its place to life and it does it with what it's got: community, enthusiasm and vision. And it makes this book festival junkie satisfied and hopeful. / Claire Mabey As ever, Featherston delivered a festival that had all the ingredients of a big city one, with some added extras, the most unlikely people wearing their blue host pinafores, indicating a whole community coming together to celebrate books, plus, dare I say it, the slight atmosphere as one approached, of a country rodeo: music, tents, atmosphere. I loved all the packed out events, the camaraderie that lasted until I climbed on the train out of town on Sunday night. I was impressed that Rachel Boyack, Labour's shadow spokesperson for the Arts took the trouble to come from Nelson to support and listen. Three endless cheers for Mary, Biggsy and the Featherston team. It was a blast. / Dame Fiona Kidman I love Booktown. Featherston's got that nice village-y feel; the pastries from Baker are sensational; and there always some super good combos on the programme. My personal highlights: meeting Mr Norwegian Wood, Lars Mytting, and his wife Tuva; watching Matt and Sarah Brown's children perform at the end of their This Is Not Yours to Carry session; and having the talented young Pasifika group Malaga Sā Strings provide music during our tribute to the O.G., Albert Wendt. / Victor Roger Maybe it's because I'm writing memoir about my native 90s south and how writing was underground, dangerous, dubious work there, but Featherston, physically, hit me as really southern this time. Improbably, unnecessarily wide streets; footpaths so broad they give you existential crises. The uncanny linear geometries of woolshed and endless railway lines right up beside the chaos of massive macrocarpa the size and girth of ancient Lebanese cedars. A handpainted ad for pies, for Featherston Booktown. And then, just over there in the endless chill and vast and freezing darkness, a classic small-town New Zealand town hall. Alight and heaving with passionate people there to talk and hear about lit. Glowing windows, far off voices and laughter in the silence, seeming somehow to levitate in an immense cold void. The whole town's on board with it. Volunteers everywhere, tables of self-published authors lined up hawking wares outside the bookstores of Fitzherbert St. Impassioned, troubled geniuses and calm, self-contained ones. The smiling, the friendly, the yarn-haired and wild-eyed hermits, the young and the hungry, the hobbling and distinguished, roaming around looking for coffee and venues and ham, cheese and pineapple toastie pies. Shayne Carter was there. Noelle McCarthy, glamorous and hilarious as usual, was there. Fiona Kidman. The sturdy, peacefully troubled giant and multi-million seller Lars Mytting disturbing our dreams with a reading from his memoir. There were so many more, so quickly you couldn't see them all. It felt like every session was nearly sold out. It was fast, it was densely packed, deeply local, hugely fun and often deeply moving. Highly recommended. / Carl Shuker It was a beautifully warm and inspiring festival to be a part of. Bringing the community together to discuss books and art and ideas over great food – every town should be, and should have, a Booktown! / Stephen Mushin Something that has always impressed me about Featherston Booktown is how ambitious it is, from the authors and speakers it invites to the number of events it squeezes into a single weekend. This year's festival was no exception, clearly the rapturous culmination of 10 years of community-building and dreaming big. One of the volunteers told me about people who travel from as far as Auckland and even Australia to attend, which is a ringing endorsement for any festival, literary or otherwise. As a writer, I feel very fortunate for the invitations to participate in Featherston Booktown – all my visits have been memorable and I've loved getting to share my work and appear on stage alongside some of my literary heroes. I loved the conversation between Pip Adam and Saraid de Silva about the realities of being a working writer and the uncertainty that follows us around. The glitz and glamour of a festival certainly builds excitement and attention for our books and writers, but so much needs to be done to ensure that we can support writers and other artists to create work to showcase at future festivals. / Chris Tse This was my first time at Featherston Booktown as a punter or presenter and I was surprised – surprised by its size – with 90 presenters over a weekend. There were three other sessions at the same time as the panel I was part of, including a stellar line-up discussing Colonisation and Decolonisation to a sold-out crowd of 400, so we were thrilled to still have 80-90 attendees, and if that isn't proof enough of the fantastic turnout – the volunteer fire brigade were rumoured to have run out of food on Sunday. Surprised at the whole community feel – the plethora of blue-aproned volunteers (including the ex-principal of our children's Rotorua primary school) who ran everything seamlessly even while pausing to analyse the books discussed in a previous session; the incredible 'spread' and birthday cake for Gala night; the white tablecloth morning tea (admittedly I saw this only on Facebook); the drinks for writers laid on at the Royal Oak; and even Book Voucher Monday where school children got to choose a free book. All in all I just hadn't realised the wholesome, interested, intelligent vibe of Featherston Booktown – a truly Wairarapa experience. / Claire Baylis Friday morning, too early. Turning Eve into Kamikaze from How to Train Your Dragon with black facepaint and a Swanndri. Teasing her hair before coffee, it could have gone either way. All the Featherston schools are having Come As Your Favourite Character day. Saturday. It's never sunny. It was sunny. Mary and Biggsy everywhere, the same big smiles, blue aprons, white puffs of hair. The booksellers tent: jammers. So much resin jewellery. People who love writers festivals have a certain look. Sharleen with her pūkeko picture books, a large ceramic swamp hen in the middle of the table, its belly full of chocolate fish for every passing kid. She was giving away feijoas and walnuts from the garden as well. Our Irish panel. Fairy lights in the big hall, hundreds of people on white plastic garden chairs. Dame Fiona Kidman sharing milking stories with a man on a Zoom from County Longford. All of John's extended family jammed into a corner of the tea room afterwards. Talking, talking, talking. The feeling: one home here and one home there. Saturday night, standing on my own outside the Anzac Hall, listening to the Malaga Sā quartet, school-kids on violins and violas, Pacific interpretations of the classical traditions. Their strings are a prayer, floating out across the empty school. St Teresa's where Eve goes, the paint from the crossing gleaming white in the dark like teeth. I have my black eyeliner on still, from standing in The Dickensian this morning, confessing a teenage vampire crush to a roomful of ardent, scone-eating Goths. Penny from the library walks by; Penny who knows every child in this place. I tell her about Eve meeting Sally Sutton of Mini-Wings fame, the photo I took of them at Chicken and Frog last night; Eve grinning like she's won something, still wearing her raccoon-eye makeup. The cold from our breaths is puffing white. It might frost overnight. The moon is nearly full. They're painting a mural on the front of the Bakehouse co-working space up on Wakefield, everyone can join in. I saw them still out in the dark when I drove by. A girl with loose blonde hair and a man in paint-stained pants. A black dog on the lawn beside them. You could see the outline of the mural in the car headlights: big pale flowers with purple faces against an orange background, curling and twining like something from Alice in Wonderland. Inside the Anzac Hall they're putting out the cakes, the slices, metal bowls of whipped cream with spoons sticking straight up in them. Wheeling the laden trestle tables from Mitre 10 out into the hall from the tearoom. Manaakitanga. Funsize Mars bars in the green room, someone's spray painted WHAREPAKU on the outhouse door. We do our readings. Shayne Carter's pandemic diary all swagger and heart, how music and creativity is the best first line of defence. Carl Shuker kills. He reads the passage from A Mistake where the patient dies. Tough act to follow. Selina Tusitala rises to it. An ode to getting stoned with Sam Hunt. It is poets, always poets. And writers and readers and waiata and strings. More than that, it is Booktown. Our town. Cheryl's blue fingers after two days of workshops. The mini fell chug chugging. $3 sausages for the Fire Service, wrapped in kitchen towels. The tiny library Jess made and hung up outside The Baker. One of the books is called Nice Things About Pae Tū Mokai: 'You can always find a car park.' 'The staff at Langs work so hard to remember your name.' Dave in his top hat, waiting for me outside The Dickensian. Patsy's scones. The little Goths who had a birthday party at my Dracula presentation, the birthday girl take-your-breath-away beautiful in her velvet bow and black veil, blowing out 18 black candles on her black cake. John, helping me out, reading Jonathan Harker's diary in a red cravat. Gary and Melissa taking Paddy Gower and Matt Heath to the RSA. Joy Cowley in a fuzzy jumper and crucifix on the big screen in the Anzac Hall at the Gala. She said 'Booktown, you're in my heart.' Sunday, the last day. Mrs Wishy Washy tacked up in the playground gate. Eve jumps on the flying fox, hits the bank of raggedy tyres at the end of the line, soars up for a second, past the copper- leafed oaks into the Featherston blue-sky afternoon. An hour earlier, hustling me into my shoes, my coat: 'Come on Mama hurry, it's Booktown!' / Noelle McCarthy
CBS News
17-02-2025
- CBS News
Squatters took over a Baltimore County home. A proposed law in Maryland could make it easier to get them out.
David Bran's slice of the American dream is nestled in the woods near Owings Mills, Md. He and his wife bought the suburban home and fixed it up, hoping to sell and add to their retirement nest egg. Until the squatters moved in. "I was stunned. I was floored. I watched my life investment literally flashing before my eyes," Bran told WJZ Investigates. "Because I'm thinking the money we borrowed, the time we put into it, and these people basically just stealing possessions of our house, of our retirement, of our life savings." It started with a call from his roofer the day before a scheduled home inspection. "He said, 'Hey, I'm here at the property and there's a moving van and there's two people in the house,'" Bran recalled. "First thing I thought was, 'That's impossible.'" So, he rushed there from Harford County. "The back door was open. It was full of furniture. My for sale sign was down," Bran said. "I looked at the front door. The first thing I noticed was my key box - the lock box that held the key - was gone." Several people were at the door, Bran said. "They asked me what I was doing there, and I said, 'Well this is my house. This is my house. What are you doing here?' And he immediately looked at me and said, 'Well, I've rented this house," Bran said. The person told him he had the key, a lease, "and I have possession," he said. The fake lease Bran said the fake lease was eight pages long and looked like the real thing. "It was the best lease I've ever seen. It had my name, my wife's name, our home address. All the terms and conditions, the monthly rental, the terms of the lease at the back of the lease. It had their photo identification stapled to the back of it with everyone's signature," Bran told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren. "And of course, the signature didn't look anything like mine, but it was all fully executed." The information is all publicly available. "You can Google someone's name and find out their address, all that information online," Bran said. Police came, but told Bran there was nothing they could do. "The ultimate answer was it's a civil matter because he's provided a lease document," Bran said. "And he has a key to the property, and he had some furniture in there, which does give him possession of the house." Police told him there was no criminal violation. "The only option I had was to go to court and file for an eviction," Bran said. "I was furious. I was so angry, Someone just coming in and taking your life's work, your life savings away from you. It was terrifying." Bran does not believe Maryland has the proper laws to deal with it. Proposed anti-squatting law That's where Ryan Nawrocki comes in. The Baltimore County delegate introduced House Bill 202, which makes squatting a felony with penalties, including time behind bars, and gives the local sheriff the immediate ability to throw the squatter out. "It would put much more serious penalties in place," Nawrocki said. "I think we need those because clearly whatever penalties we have in place right now are wholly inadequate. The first problem is the timeline that it takes to get someone out of a property. When someone is squatting in a property, currently, we treat them almost as if they are a tenant. And a tenant has all kinds of legal rights – as they should – to eviction proceedings and other things that can be quite extensive, and there's good reason why we have those measures in place to protect tenants." Nawrocki told WJZ, "Currently, the fine is only $1,000 for this type of forgery. Mine would up that fine to $5,000. It would also provide up to ten years in jail for some of these folks. Because we're talking about some folks who are operating some very serious, in my opinion, criminal networks here. They're producing documents at an alarming rate that frankly look better than some of the leases that I've signed." Opposition to anti-squatting bill Opponents argue it is wrong to turn the local sheriff into a judge on the spot to determine the validity of documents. "This is a dangerous bill, and that's why we're in opposition of it," Joseph Lovelace with Maryland Legal Aid said during a recent hearing on Nawrocki's bill. Scammers are also taking advantage of legitimate renters, targeting properties, gaining access and creating fake leases for them. Then, they advertise on platforms like Craigslist and take the money from people who think they are legally renting them. "It would effectively give them no notice, have no type of hearing in front of a judge or a court and effectively kick them out," said Albert Turner with the Public Justice Center. One mother told lawmakers she was the victim of someone who scammed her with a fake lease, and the current system kept her from being immediately evicted. "It was scary and confusing. I realized the person who rented me the house had never owned it and had scammed me out of a few thousand dollars," said Jessica Leggett. She told lawmakers the small window of time that afforded her was crucial. "If HB202 would have passed, a sheriff would have kicked me out into the streets at that time, and I wouldn't have been able to get my belongings," Leggett said. "That's terrifying for me and my family." The Office of the Public Defender (OPD) believes "...the bill may result in approximately 450 new cases statewide for OPD each year, requiring the equivalent of three attorneys and one administrative assistant at an estimated cost of $325,948 in fiscal 2026, increasing to $443,012 by fiscal 2030. Although the Department of Legislative Services (DLS) is unable to validate OPD's precise caseload/staffing estimate without experience under the bill, it acknowledges that general fund expenditures may increase minimally to accommodate an increased workload. To the extent OPD's case volume increases meaningfully as a direct result of the bill, OPD can request additional resources through the annual budget process." Cash for keys scam Delegate Nawrocki believes scammers are continually taking advantage of Maryland's weak laws. "It's easier to give people money and be extorted essentially than to kind of work through the legal process and take up to sometimes a year to get these people out," Nawrocki said. "We shouldn't be encouraging people to extort in our society." He believes these scammers know exactly what they're doing in the "cash for keys" scam. "They want your money, and they recognize that it is often cheaper and easier for a property owner to hand someone cash than to work through the legal proceeding," Del. Nawrocki said. Paying up David Bran found out firsthand why the scam is called "cash for keys" after police left, and he says, the squatters threatened to damage the property. "I had a lot to lose, and I realized he has nothing to lose," Bran said. So, he cut a deal and paid them $7,500 in cash to turn over the keys and leave his home. "He agreed to it. He acknowledged it. I made him sign it on the back of the lease agreement," Bran said. "$7,500 cash to get him out on the spot." He never saw the people again. Bran also learned the alleged squatters had a long record of doing the same thing to other property owners over and over again. When asked his reaction, Bran told WJZ Investigates, "I really can't say on camera." Bran now has cameras monitoring his home, and he lives with the nagging fear that it could all happen again. "You think you're doing the right thing, right? You know it's your property. You own the house. You've shown the police officer, you own the house," Bran said. "They're in there illegally. The police should remove them. It should be that simple."
