Unravelling the Mys-tery

Welcome to EYP!

What Type of Delegate Are You?

A Journalist Guide to GA

A Typical Greek

Truth About the Truth

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EditorialThis editorial is dedicated to two people who have not been credited enough yet. First, There is Ran-dolf who is our lovely proofreader and all around help. Without him, we would still be sitting and editing the first issue! Secondly, Fotis is the man with the videocamera. His great vidoes will definitely remind you of the great times you had. BIG THANKS TO THEM!The editors, Johan and Alex

the man behind the legend:An Interview with Jorg Körner

I’m the King, b**ch.

In ten mins...

Germantime

I have been granted an au-dience with the “big man” him-self: The Presi-dent of this 24th Greek NSC. A wise, experi-enced 26-year-old, Jorg Körner tells me all about his devotion to EYP.

by Philip Dyson

Jorg is working on a Ph.D. How, I ask him, does he manage to fit in all the vast amounts of time required for EYP sessions? He responds immediately, “I use all my holidays”. I thought this showed a lot of devotion. “No, some people might just think I´m an idiot” he says.

When he began his EYP career, Jorg was far from the humble, measured character that he is today. He describes himself as

having been “cocky” and arro-gant when he first began. EYP changed this though. He met so many intelligent and socially engaging people, from whom he learnt so many things, that he was able to get down from his high horse. It gave him the drive to develop his personal skills. EYP has influenced him more than just socially though: He claims that almost all of the methods he uses while working, he learned from EYP.

Jorg hopes that in this session he will be able to inspire del-egates. He wants them to re-alise that they could be part of something amazing where they can think beyond borders and national selfishness, to come to a solution that will be good for all. He wants them to recog-nise that the opportunity they have here is much more than they get on a normal school day: Speaking in front of a vast group of people that are willing to listen, it’s not a chance you want to miss.

He tells me that, like many of us, after most sessions he feels physically empty, wanting to just lie in a bed for days. He tends to feel both happy and distraught at the same time. But of course that shows that the experience was just all the more worthwhile. Hopefully, you’ll follow his steps.

Too Sexy for ur Love

Get To Know The Chairs!By: Eva Tsoukala and Emil Bremnes

By now, you have probably got-ten to know your own chair quite well. But who are all these other weirdoes? Here is some fascinating information about each and every one of the chairs. They are facts you’ll find interesting, but would never dare to ask them about.

a) What country do you come from?b) What do you study?c) When and where was your first EYP session?d) Who is the most beautiful woman/handsome man in the world?e) What is your favourite song?f) What would be the ideal Christmas present for you?

AFCO Irema) Turkeyb) Lawc) The Summer Olympic Forum ‘07d) Jared Letoe) “A Sorta Fairytale” – Tori Amosf) A plane ticket to everywhere Iliasa) Greeceb) Medicinec) The 20th NSC Greece ‘09d) Ana Ivanovice) “Rock You Like a Hurricane” – Scorpionsf) A trip to London

EMPL Piaa) Germanyb) Economyc) Frankfurt Forum ‘03d) George Clooneye) “Philosophy” – Ben Folds Fivef) A cat Aspaa) Greeceb) Mechanical Engineeringc) 17th NSC Greece ‘07d) Pep Guardiolae) Hey You” – Pink Floydf) A ticket to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert and Pia!

ECON Jonathana) Swedenb) Philosophy, politics and econ-omyc) Swedish NS ‘08d) Penelope Cruze) “Road Tripping” – Red Hot Chilli Peppersf) A super-cool bike with flashy things and a stereo Evanthiaa) Greeceb) Lawc) 20th NSC Greece ‘09d) Robert Pattinsone) “Iris” – Goo-goo Dollsf) An Au Hermès Birkin bag

CULT Bircana) Turkeyb) Lawc) Turkish NS, Jan. ‘08d) Christian Balee) “Paradise” – Coldplayf) An Audi Menia) Greeceb) Architectural Engineeringc) 16th NSC Greece ‘07d) George Clooneye) “Beautiful Day” – U2f) Many, many kisses

ITRE I Lukaa) Croatiab) Mechanic Engineeringc) IS in Berlin ‘04d) Eva Longoriae) “Snow” – Red Hot Chilli Pep-persf) To go to Mars… Chryssaa) Greeceb) Pre. Medc) 19th NSC Greece ‘09d) Adam Levinee) “No Surprises” – Radioheadf) An extra month of vacation, for doing nothing.ITRE II Adama) Polandb) High School studentc) EYP Poland NSC – 2011d) Renee Zellweger in Chicago/ Sean Connerye) “Cocaine” – Eric Claptonf) A truckload of cookies Lavrentiaa) Greeceb) Physicsc) EYP Greece NSC – Athens ‘06d) Megan Fox/ Jude Lawe) Try to find this out during the session (!)f) A trip to the Norwegian fjords

IMCO I

ITRE II Leoa) Germanyb) Mathsc) EYP Germany NSC – Würzburg ‘10d) Keira Knightley/ Jason Stathame) “Little lion man” – Mumford & Sonsf) A bed to put things on Dimitrisa) Greeceb) Chemical Engineeringc) EYP Greece NSC – Thessa-loniki ‘06d) Chandler Bing from the “Friends”e) “Isolation” – Joy Divisionf) A jeep road trip in the mountains/A solar energy charg-er IMCO I Jorga) Germanyb) Neurobiologyc) EYP Germany NSC – ‘05d) Natalie Portman / Hugh Lauriee) “Keine Liebe” – Prinz Pif) Holidays in France

Marala) Greece/Armeniab) Medicinec) EYP Greece NSC – Thessa-loniki ‘05d) Megan Fox/ Channing Tatume) “Oh very young” – Cat Stevensf) Skydiving lessons

IMCO II Gioa) Greeceb) Electrical/ Computer Engineer-ingc) EYP Greece NSC – Athens ‘06d) Megan Fox/ Johnny Depp / Jude Lawe) “Don’t you forget about me” – Simple Mindsf) A 27 inches led TV / New slip-pers Dunjaa) Englandb) Gap year / Future History studentc) Durham Nationals ‘10d) Megan Fox / Marlon Brando/ Zac Efrone) “Brown eyed girl” – Morisseyf) A Swiss watch

AFET Maraa) Greeceb) Lawc) EYP Greece NSC – Athens ‘05d) Debbie Harry/ Ryan Goslinge) “Someday” – The Strokesf) A perfect New Year’s Eve party

AFCO

EMPLECON

ITRE III IMCO IIAFET

ITRE II

CULT

ITRE I

The truth about the truth

Mind reading, there-fore, is undoubtedly getting closer to be-coming an active part of a not-so-far future.

By: Ileana Lazea

The truth about the truthBy: Ileana Lazea

Mind-reading… For the moment it is still science fiction, but that may not be the case for much longer!Several lines of inquiry are con-verging on the idea that the neurological activity of the brain can be decoded direct-ly, and people’s thoughts re-vealed without being spoken.Researchers from the University of Minnesota have recently re-ported that their volunteers can successfully fly a helicopter (ad-mittedly a virtual one, on a com-puter screen) through a three-dimensional digital sky, merely by thinking about it. Signals from electrodes taped to the scalp of such pilots provide enough infor-mation for a computer to work out exactly what the pilot wants to do.

Being both interesting and useful, mind-reading of this sort will allow the disabled to lead more normal lives, and the able-bodied to ex-tend their range of possibilities even further. But there is another kind of mind-reading too: deter-

mining, by scanning the brain, what someone is actually think-ing about. This experiment is en-dorsed by recently published pa-pers and it led to the development of a large number of theories.Jack Gallant of the University of California, Berkeley wanted to prove that it is now possi-ble to make a surprisingly ac-curate reconstruction of ex-actly what is passing through an awake person’s mind.

Therefore, three members of his team were appointed to watch assorted film trailers while sit-ting perfectly still in an fMRIMachine for two hours. Focus-ing on the visual cortex, their method of assessment depended on the brute power of modern computing, for after comparing the frames from the film trail-ers with those being watched, they looked for similarities.They “fed” their computer with 5000 hours of clips from You-tube and asked it to predict, based on the correlation they discovered, what the match-ing fMRI pattern would look like.

The next step consisted of an-other two hours spent in the ma-chine, watching trailers, while the computer analyzed the reactions of the doctors’ visual cortexes and picked, for each clip, 100 bits of YouTube footage whose corre-sponding hypothetical fMRI pat-tern best matched the real one. By melding the clips together to produce an estimate of what the real clip looked like, the result was often a simulacrum of the original, also moving in the same way as the clip it was based on.

Mind reading, therefore, is un-doubtedly getting closer to be-coming an active part of a not-so-far future. However, putting aside the advantages it might bring along, this great achievement will also abolish the ability to lie. Transparency, honesty, we all sup-port them, but we have to also agree upon the fact that Homo sapiens has turned lying into an art and calling it: diplomacy, public relations or simple good manners, lying is one of the things that makes our current world go round!

Mind-reading, something that exists only in movies

or can it be possible in the near future? Ileana

tells you about the new findings on this contro-

versial topic....

Chronicles of a meeting part IIBy: Dimos Papadimitriou and Ileana Lazea

The second day came fast. The previously unacquainted indi-viduals all of a sudden became a bonded committee group. Post-Its, drafts and ideas would go flying all over the Vasileiadis high school rooms. A day of (hard) commit-tee work was ahead, problems should be tackled, potential solu-tions had to be found; the echo of the youthful, fresh, innovative perspectives would immerse the building.

Then came Aristotle and Plato carrying huge packs of research papers, Wikipedia articles and

topic overviews. The two dele-gates have been working hard to make the most out of the session. Much to their relief, they soon understood that they were suffi-ciently prepared for the session. The atmosphere was motivating them and giving them an upbeat mentality. The occasion triggered passionate conversations be-tween the participants and the same applied to our heroes.

Those were the questions that were constantly on the minds of our two delegates. Despite the complicated topics, smart, seri-

ous and daring approaches were expressed. Nevertheless, at that moment they did not envision that something could go wrong. But committee work also involves compromising between opposing viewpoints. And those contrasting approaches to the same situation were evident.

What should the role of the European Union be?

Which perspective should we evaluate next?

Which articles of the Lisbon Treaty should we now go through?

Is this solution feasible or just idealistic?

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved

A Typical GreekBased on a Foreigners Perspective

By: Emil Bremnes

Considering that my hometown is located on the top of the world, a place so cold you freeze your ass off during both winter and summertime, and your closest neighbours are polar bears, it’s a true pleasure for me to take part in this great session in Thessaloniki, Greece. It’s a place where you get temperatures far above zero and the opportunity to actually interact with other human beings – not only your neighbours (the above-mentioned polar bears).

Having spent roughly three days here, working closely together with and observing several native Greeks, I would say I have gotten a pretty good idea of what a Greek person is like, both when it comes to appearances and personality. For that reason, I would like to paint you a picture of a typical Greek, based on a foreigner’s per-spective. (Keep in mind that it’s only a “stereotypical view” on some of the characteristics I have repeatedly seen in Greek people.)

Greek people only eat meat. Though that might not be completely true, it sure seems like it. And who can blame you when your meat is so good? If I had lived here, I would probably eat nothing but souvlaki. It’s that good.

Greek guys are hairy. And that’s a fact! Never before have I seen so many beards in one and the same place. Am I jealous? Absolutely. If I could pick any beard to grow on my face, it would be a Greek beard.

Greek people are always late. Sometimes I wonder if anything hap-pens on time in this country…

Greek people are very relaxed. Even though a bus that was sup-posed to arrive on time is over an hour late, you don’t freak out or anything. Instead you utilize the extra time you’ve been given to do something productive. That is truly admirable.

Greek people always wear sunglasses. Can’t let the sun damage those pretty brown/ blue/green/[insert color] eyes.

Greek people are really loud. Seriously, how can you be that passion-ate about absolutely everything? Not that I even have a clue what they’re shouting about...

Greek people are very friendly. Getting asked at least ten times if I needed help carrying a suitcase says a lot. Greek people are help-ful, kind and really good people. That is the main reason to why I believe this NSC is going to be an amazing one.

Crossword

ACROSS1. The only Greek food foreigners know2. The city you are in3. General… 4. Europe’s national anthem5. A government’s foreign financial …

DOWN2. The theme of the session6. European [not commission but…]7. European Youth Parliament or for short8. Your current continent.9. This session’s president’s name10. Judges of the Session

1. Souvlaki 2a. Thessaloniki 3. Assembly 4. Ode to Joy 5. Debt 6. 2d Technology 6. Parliament 7. EYP 8. Europe 9. Jorg 10. Jury

By: Bruce Willis and Katerina Alexaki

A journalist guide to General AssemblyBy: Ileana Lazea and Mirja Kuhlencord

The big day has come. You have got to know each other and grown together as a committee. You have had good and bad moments. You have worked a lot in order to write a strong resolution. Now, it’s time to harvest the fruits of your work. It’s time for the climax and final part of this EYP session. Welcome to the General Assembly or simply called GA!

During this event, in keeping with the par-liamentary rules of the European Parlia-ment, your committees will take turns to present the beforehand written resolutions to the plenary. After the defence and at-tack speeches, lively debates in English will ensue, culminating in the voting-procedure on the resolutions itself.

We want to make sure you feel well pre-pared for this crucial part of the session and therefore give you some advice that will guide you through the day.

Before GAGet the right outfit! The dress code is for-mal and you should arrive with appropriate clothes at the GA venue – we want to see suits, shirts, ties, dresses and skirts.Girls better use flat shoes like ballerinas rather than high heels so that they will still be able to walk and to perform some great energisers.

Make sure you have read the other reso-lutions and prepared speeches as well as questions. Then, Keep calm, take a deep breath and relax a bit. Don’t worry – you’re going to do a great job!During GABe respectful! Despite widely diver-gent opinions the discussions shall be marked by mutual respect and provide a valuable and interesting experience for everyone. Try to keep an eye on things to praise as well, not only on things you would like to attack.

Keep actively participating! Listen care-fully; write post-its to communicate and raise your placards as often as you can. And, drink a lot of coffee taking advan-tage of the coffee breaks.

Give short massages to each other to compensate stress.

After GABe proud of yourselves! No matter if your resolution has passed or not and no matter if selected or not, all of you will have contributed to some great three days.

Hug the others, tell them what they did well and look forward to…Christmas!

Are your mouths watering? On the menu today is some delicious Greek foods.

By: Evgenia Faraza

We asked our non-Greek officials which is the first Greek food that comes to their mind!

The results..? Out of 15 people 6 chose souvlaki, 2 gyros, 2 Greek salad, 2 tzatziki, 1

mousakas, 1 bougatsa, 1 feta cheese. Favourite drink? Ouzo of course!

Let’s take a quick look at the ingredients that make these dishes so delicious...!

Mousakas: A very traditional and hard-to-make food that includes mincemeat, potatoes, tomatoes, onion, eggplant, parsley and to-mato sauce. One piece is enough for your tummy to be full!

Gyros: The most common food that you can find anywhere in Greece. It has pork meat or the internationally famous souvlaki, onion, tomatoes, tzatziki, fried potatoes, mustard, ketchup and pita. We usually ask for a “pita gyro to go”. That is why you probably see many people outside walking with a pita gyro in their hand and a satisfied smile, because of the taste of gyros!

Tzatziki: The sauce that goes with everything! With meat, bread, potatoes, etc. It is easy to make: you only need to have cucum-bers, yoghurt, oil, vinegar, salt and garlic. Garlic is the essence of tzatziki! Some people say the more garlic, the better. But, atten-tion: do NOT eat tzatziki before the committee work, the General Assembly or, in general, before an important meeting, an interview or a social gathering. People will walk away from you, because of the smell of garlic!!

Greek Salad: The first thing that the tourists order in a Greek “taverna”, especially in the islands. Cut some cucumbers, tomatoes and onions, put a couple of olives, cut a big slice of feta cheese (another favourite food of the tourists), add salt, oil and a handful of fresh oregano, and there you go! Your Greek salad is ready!

Bougatsa: The best snack that you can have for breakfast with your coffee or during your break at school/university! It is hot, and you can order it with cheese, plain cream or cream with choco-late! Of course, you can find it...everywhere!

Are you hungry yet? Is your mouth watering? Go have your coffee break or your lunch! Taste the Greek food, quench your appetite

and get ready to write your resolutions!! Bon appetit! ΚΚΚΚ ΚΚΚΚΚ!

Sprya project intended to help Parkinson’s patients

by Eva Tsoukala

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. The motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease result from the death of dopamine-generating cells in the substantia nigra, a region of the midbrain. Early in the course of the disease, the most obvious symptoms are move-ment-related, including shaking, rigidity, slowness of movement and difficulty with walking and gait. Later, cognitive and behav-ioural problems may arise, with dementia commonly occurring

in the advanced stages of the disease.

Parkinson can be treated in its early stages, but patients who have been suffering from the disease for years can’t be very hopeful. As the disease progresses and dopamine neu-rons continue to be lost, a point eventually arrives at which drugs such as levodopa and do-pamine (used to treat the early

stages of the disease) become ineffective at treating the symp-toms and at the same time produce a complication called dyskinesia, marked by involun-tary writhing movements. Most patients end up taking a combi-nation of drugs that might not have the desired results in the long run. Furthermore, some of these drugs have been proven to cause side effects such as: excessive daytime sleepiness, low blood pressure, behavioural problems, liver damage, nausea and insomnia.

Having acknowledged the crucial relations between the symptoms of PD and the ef-fectiveness of medication, Da-vid Byrne, Elliot Cohen, Alex-andra Dumitriu, Selene Mota, and Michalis Tolkas started a very special project named “Spry”. The development of the prototype took place during the Independent Activities Pe-riod 2011 of the MIT and in the Health and Wellness Innovation workshop organized by the MIT Media Lab’s New Media Medi-cine research group. Thanks to Wockets (special wearable ac-celerometers) each patient can track the magnitude of various forms of tremor. The data will be then sent through Bluetooth to the patient’s mobile phone which in turn will provide the

data to a remote server for fur-ther analysis. Among others, the results of this analysis will cor-relate symptom intensity with medication adherence over time (day, week, and month). The results may also be sent to a practitioner for evaluation. This can now save the patient from huge amounts of money and time that are usually spent during clinic visits. Spry also al-lows the patient to insert addi-tional information such as their mood during the day which can be also correlated with the ef-fectiveness of medical treat-ment. It becomes evident that this project is a very useful tool for those who are in need of special treatment in order to fight against this incurable dis-ease.

People have been suffering for years and years because of not taking the right medica-tion to fight Parkinson’s. Today, scientists have the solution to various serious health prob-lems including this specific dis-ease. Spry project is a wonder-ful example of how people can make a radical change in the field of health. What we have to do is congratulate and thank those who ran this project and encourage talented young sci-entists to dedicate even further to their field of expertise.

WHAT TYPE OF DELEGATE ARE YOU?

1) What did you think when you first saw the words, “24th National Selection Conference of the European Youth Parliament - Greece”? a) Boring political thing - time to look cool. b) Excellent chance to practice politics. c) Is it something I have to be social at? d) Whaaat...?

2) What was your reaction to the topic over-view? a) Too cool to read it until the night before. b) Read every little bit of information you could possibly find. c) Read it well, but told no one about it. d) Fell asleep while reading it.

3) What did you (or would you) include in your suitcase for the session? a) Designer clothes, expensive gadgets and im-pressive shiny things. b) Loads of notes, really well ironed shirts and a pair of spare glasses. c) Clothes, notes, and gadgets, but no one can look inside it. Not even a peek. d) Whatever my mom has put in it, mostly. I didn’t really bother.

4) What do your notes look like? a) Folders with awesome names, saved in a super cool tablet PC. b) Categorized notes (highlighted with 4 differ-ent colors) covering every single aspect. c) Sufficient, effective and smart notes that may be looked at by you, and you only. d) Mainly superficial notes with a few short, but smart comments.

5) What do you do during a coffee break? a) Hanging out, looking cool. b) Run to next computer to look something up about the topic. c) Sitting in a quiet corner, watching people go by. d) Taking a quick nap. Just five minutes…

6) What will you probably do when you get home tonight? a) Log into Facebook and update my status about how awesome the day was. b) Study all of the notes from the day and then gather some more. c) Get some rest and make sure no one sees my notes. d) Drop straight into bed!

7) Most important object of the session for you: a) Designer sunglasses. b) My amazingly large folder with notes in it. c) My notebook. d) Some warm, comfortable clothes.

8) What are your current feelings about the ses-sion? a) I feel excited and popular. b) I feel excited and really well prepared. c) I feel excited but also a bit shy. d) I feel excited but also a bit tired.

9) Describing the session so far in three words, those would probably be: a) Socializing, Popularity, Awesomeness. b) Politics, Studying, Discussions c) Brainstorming, Listening, Learning d) Fun, Chatting, Chilling.

10) What will you ask from Santa Claus this year? a) The new iPhone 4S. b) An organisational folder for my notes. c) I’m not going to tell you! d) Something fun, I guess.

by: Achilleas Platanitis

Mostly (a)’s: “Too Cool for School!” You’re the cool figure in this session. You’re the person that walks in a room with your perfect style or sparkling jewelry, impressing people be-fore you even meet them. You want to be the person that everyone wants to be around and you can make a pretty fine delegate – as long as you don’t spend more time in front of a mirror instead of doing research.

Mostly (b)’s: “The Nerd Herd”You’re a walking library, as far as your subject is concerned. You know every single little detail and you know it well. You’re most likely to be the person who learns all the technical stuff so you’ll be able to do great in committee work. It’s too bad that you can’t read up on social skills as well. But don’t get preoccupied with that; play to your strengths and put your superior knowledge to use.

Mostly (c)’s: “The silence before the (brain)storm”You’re the ‘quiet’ delegate. You’re most likely to be a person that needs some persuasion before you actively engage in socialising. You’re probably a character that feels most comfortable observ-ing everyone else discuss with a look of intensive thinking on your face. But that way you don’t miss any details of the committee discussions and use your observations to contribute useful comments.

Mostly (d)’s: “Grab your pillow and a blanket. Let’s go!”You’re one of the sleepy guys of the session. You need your rest and you don’t miss an opportu-nity to get some. Delegates like you can be found napping all over the venue both during commit-tee work and General Assembly (teambuilding re-quires moving!) But even if your notes are super-ficial and you haven’t paid much attention, when you do decide to make a comment, at least it is of high quality because your brain is well rested.

Welcome to EYP! The European Youth Parlia-ment was founded by Bettina Carr-Allinson in 1987, initially as a school project at the Lycee Fran-cois-ler in Fontainebleau, south of Paris. EYP was established in Greece in 1992 and it currently resides in Thessaloniki. It is a non-governmental, non-profitable or-ganisation that has as a purpose to select and prepare the delega-tions that represent Greece in the International Sessions of EYP. Although, it does much more than that! A National Committee, such as EYP Greece, is able to organize 4 different types of ses-sions:• Regional Session/Interna-tional Forum: Regional sessions are of varying length, from 3 to 7 or 8 days, and in essence imitate international sessions. In these sessions, the participants can be either selected from an NSC or not. They have, however, a more constrained budget and tend to be less formal than international sessions. For both national and regional sessions, resolutions are not sent on to the European Par-liament.• NationalSelectionConfer-

ence: Each year two NSCs take place in both Thessaloniki and Athens, in December and March respectively for 3 or 4 days. They are organised in order to select a group of 8-10 people to attend the International Session and a group of 20 people to attend Re-gional Sessions. They introduce the EYP spirit to young students that are invited to participate through their school. • International Session:Three times a year these ten-day long sessions take place in differ-ent places around Europe. They bring together about 270 people from different countries showing them the full magnitude of an EYP session. Apart from all other parts of a session, slightly extend-ed, they include events such as Eurovillage and Euroconcert. They are the most significant events

organised by the International Committee in cooperation with a National Committee of EYP. Apart from the NSC you are at, right now, you can participate in other future events as well. Such upcoming events are, the 2nd Nord-Pas-De-Calais Regional Session of EYP-France in Lens, the Regional Conference in Traun-stein, the Regional Conference in Hamburg, the 10th European Fo-rum of EYP-France in Tignes. For more information about events refer to www.eypej.org Besides if you are truly in-terested in EYP and you can’t at-tend any session, we urge you to assist your National Committee. You are more than welcome to join its General Assemblies and

you are free to express your ideas and concerns about the organisa-tion. EYP Greece has many great examples of young people who,

although started interfering with EYP during their teenage years, they never actually attended a session until they were in their

early 20s. So as you can see, whether you like it or not, it is not really easy to run away from EYP!!

By: Achilleas Platanitis and Evgenia Faraza

Alzheimer stole my mind!

Most of you, reading that this article is about Alzheimer’s disease, are more likely to ig-nore it thinking that it doesn’t concern you as long as you are still young. But what about your immediate environment? Your parents, grandparents or other relatives? Are you aware that if they are 65 years old and above they are prone to Alz-heimer’s disease or that they might even suffer from it with-out knowing it? Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an incurable, progressive brain disease that gradually destroys memory and cogni-tive skills. Initially the symp-toms are: mild impairment of memory and other cognitive functions that often go un-noticed by both the patient and family members. But as the disease progresses it slowly affects the activities of everyday life, such as so-cial relationships, managing finances, driving, self-care and so forth. Every month new research find-ings are discovered that may cure or prevent Alzheimer’s disease. It is true that so far scientists haven’t found a drug that can cure AD completely. But, there are pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical treat-ments that help significantly to improve the patients’ quality

of life. It has been proved that people suffering from AD have depleted levels of acetylcholine, a substance that plays an im-portant role in the mnemonic process. Nowadays, there are certain drugs that can inhibit an enzyme that breaks down the acetylcholine, thus, they im-prove memory delaying the de-velopment of the disease. The earlier these formulations are administered, the better their efficiency will be.

On the 30th of November 2011 at the Radiological Soci-ety of North America (RSNA) a study was presented, indicating that people who eat baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis may be capable of improving their brain health and reduc-ing the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD. “Consuming baked or

broiled fish promotes stronger neurons in the brain’s gray mat-ter by making them larger and healthier. This simple lifestyle choice increases the brain’s resistance to Alzheimer’s dis-ease and lowers risk for the disorder,” said Cyrus Raji, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Lastly, a recent study by Case Western University School of Medicine showed that one of the earliest

and most familiar impair-ments caused by AD, loss of the sense of smell, can be restored by removing a plaque-forming protein in a mouse model of the disease. The study assures that the protein, called amyloid beta, causes the loss. “The evidence in-dicates we can use the sense of smell to deter-mine if someone may get Alzheimer’s disease, and use changes in sense of smell to begin treatments,

instead of waiting until some-one shows issues of learning and remembering. We can also use smell to see if therapies are working,” said Daniel Wesson, Assistant Professor of Neuro-science at Case Western Re-serve and lead researcher.

by Evgenia Faraza

Can you imagine how life would be if you couldn’t re-call all the unique memories you have experienced, in-cluding the most unforgetta-ble EYP days that lie ahead of you, because you weren’t aware of how you can pre-vent or cure AD? The rea-son why I insist on reading this article? I don’t want you to forget this session, this newspaper the people you are going to meet, the issues you are about to discuss. I don’t want you to forget the spirit of EYP.

What’s this Ger-man’s

name who’s always on

my mind?!

Alz-heimer,

grandma! Alzhei-

mer!

In writing this article, we don’t know whether to cry, be proud of the delegates of this session for their creativity, or just sit back and laugh… “Thessalogia”… The name is a mystery no longer. The etymology of the word is actually pretty inter-esting but instead of just telling you where it comes from, we decided to conduct a small survey. The top five weird/awesome answers of what Thessalogia could mean according to the delegates included:

1. “Thessalogia…uuuhm… I’m sure it has to do with either Mytho-logia [ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ Μυθολογία - mythology]. If not, then Dasologia [ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ Δασολογία – the study of forests]”

2. “Alright…'Thessa-' definitely comes from Thessaloniki but the second part…is it from 'logos'[ΚΚΚΚΚ λόγος - speech] or 'logia' [ΚΚΚΚΚ λόγια ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚ- words], meaning that the pa-per expresses the words of Thessaloniki.”

3. “Well, that’s an easy one! We are all rather educated people so it comes from Thessaloniki and 'logios' [λόγιος ΚΚΚΚΚΚ- knowledgeable] of course! It refers to us youth gathering together to solve hard problems in Thessaloniki!”

4. ”Thessalogia? I don’t know... Maybe something to do with Aloga [Άλογα ΚΚΚΚ - horses]?!”

5. “The sessions takes place in Thessaloniki, so it might have to do with… I don’tknow, ancient Greek maybe? Yeah, that makes sense! It comes from Thessaloniki and'lego' [ΚΚΚΚ λέγω - ancient Greek verb for ‘I say/tell’; also known in Latin-related languages from theverb legere-lego-legi-lectum]”.

In a nutshell, the name came from our location (Thessaloniki, as most of you guessed!) and the ses-sion’s subject: It’s “Kick-starting research, promoting today’s science”. Taking research and science, we get Technology, or in Greek Technologia (ΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΚΤεχνολογία).

By: Bruce Willis and Katerina Alexaki

UNRAVELLING THE MYSTERY

European youth polls introductionby: Mirja Kuhlencord and Eva Tsoukala

We asked around 50 delegates from different committees about their opinion on current European issues. You can find the results here:

Υπό την Αιγίδα

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑΥΠΟΥΡΓΕΙΟ ΠΑΙΔΕΙΑΣ, ΔΙΑ ΒΙΟΥ ΜΑΘΗΣΗΣ

ΚΑΙ ΘΡΗΣΚΕΥΜΑΤΩΝ

Με την ευγενική φιλοξενία

ΑΝΤΙΔΗΜΑΡΧΙΑ ΝΕΟΤΗΤΑΣ ΑΘΛΗΤΙΣΜΟΥ & ΕΘΕΛΟΝΤΩΝ