Daily Lobo new mexico
monday September 29, 2014 | Volume 119 | Issue 31
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Fall’s pagan pride festival fills pantry Prenatal
arsenic exposure linked to disability By Sayyed Shah
Diana Cervantes / Daily Lobo / @DailyLobo
Anne Key and her Colombia Red Tail Boa, Asherah, perform an improv belly dance on Sunday morning for the 14th annual Pagan Pride Day Harvest Bounty at Bataan Park. The event celebrates pagan religions, traditions and the beginning of the autumnal equinox.
By Daniel Montaño Early-morning rain clouds parted and the sun illuminated psychics, gypsy dancers and henna healers who all came together to celebrate the autumnal equinox. Albuquerque Pagan Pride Day took over Baatan Park on Sunday to educate the public about pagan traditions, encourage community service and bring food to those in need during the harvest season, said Ramona Stipe, event coordinator and president of the board for Pagan Pride Day.
Homecoming crowning Junior education major Jordan Dautenhahn and senior political science major Sophie Salcedo, left to right, celebrate after they were announced Homecoming King and Queen, respectively, at University Stadium on Friday night. The Homecoming announcement took place during halftime at the UNM football match against Fresno State.
Photo by William Aranda
The event was one of 115 that took place nationwide over the past week, all of which were aimed at helping others in a loving way and spreading awareness, Stipe said. “With TV and movies, there are a lot of negative things out there about paganism,” Stipe said. “But it’s basically just Earthbased spirituality.” In order to enjoy the festivities, attendees were asked to donate non-perishable food items or cash, which will be given to the First Unitarian Church Food Pantry, she said.
In 2013, PPD brought in more than 850 pounds of food for families in need, she said. “They don’t get a lot of donations, but they serve 45 to 50 families a week,” Stipe said. “Families that wouldn’t be able to eat otherwise.” Activities included belly dancing, workshops discussing various pagan traditions, a scavenger hunt designed to help educate attendees on those traditions, and an altar decorating contest, she said. Aromatherapy massages, bands, children’s parades and Wildlife
Rescue Inc. of New Mexico were also on hand for entertainment and education. Erin Watson, president of the Pagan Student Guild of UNM, said she has been involved with PPD since 2010 and that the event has been steadily growing. “I think that it’s growing more and I think that, with nurturing care and putting a lot of effort into it, it’s going to keep growing,” Watson said. “The word’s getting out there.”
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Pagan pride page 3
A neuroscience researcher at UNM has found a possible link between mothers who drink water containing even moderate amounts of arsenic and children who exhibit depression and learning memory deficits later in life. Christina Tyler, a biomedical sciences graduate student, has developed a model using mice to measure the negative effects of exposure to arsenic, and has studied means of countering those effects. Tyler’s pregnant mice were given water that contained 50 parts per billion of arsenic — the same levels consumed by the average American prior to 2006. After being born, the baby mice were given a separate cage with clean drinking water, she said. All of the arsenic-exposed baby mice showed signs of depression, lethargy and trouble with memory, she said. “The scary part about it is that these offspring are not directly drinking the water with arsenic; it is just their moms,” Tyler said. “For people like us, who were born way before 2006, our moms drank it and then we drink it, and we have now just started going down to that 10 parts per billion.” In 2002, regulators ruled that the proportion of arsenic in drinking water could not exceed 10 parts per billion. This standard went into effect in 2006, according to the official website of the Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to 2006, arsenic was considered to be safe in water sources up to 50 parts per billion. Another UNM graduate student had previously determined that mice exposed to arsenic exhibit learning memory deficits and depressive behaviors. Tyler built on this work to determine how those effects could be reversed, she said. She said she thought arsenic was reducing the brains’ ability to make new cells in the hippocampus — a process known as neurogenesis — which was causing the deficits in the mice. Her theory held throughout testing, she said. “The hippocampus is one part of the brain important for learning and memory,” Tyler said. “There is continual division of cells in the brain. The hippocampus can make new cells, and this process is called adult neurogenesis. People who have depression tend to have reduced neurogenesis.” Tyler said she then gave the mice Prozac for a month and tested their behaviors. The mice responded well and showed fewer signs of depression. Further, mice placed in an enriched environment without Prozac responded just as well. “(The mice) go to a cage with a lot of other mice and they have toys and a lot of other things to
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Arsenic page 2