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I’m Shirley Griffith.

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And I’m Steve Ember with Explorations in VOA Special English. Today, we travel through city streets all over the world to explore street art, a popular and lively art movement.

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Street art can be found on buildings, sidewalks, street signs and even trashcans from Tokyo to Paris to New York City. This special kind of art can take the form of paintings, sculptures, cloth or even stickers. Its international presence is supported by Web sites, artist communities, books and magazines. Street art has become part of a global visual culture. Now, even art museums and galleries are collecting the work of street artists.

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It is not easy to provide an exact history of the street art movement. This kind of art has developed in many kinds of ways in places all over the world. Also, because it is illegal to paint public and private property without permission, street artists usually work secretly. This secretive nature of street art and its countless forms make it hard to define exactly. And people have different opinions about the movement. Some think street art is a crime and destroys property. But others see this art as a rich form of non-traditional cultural expression.

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Many experts say the movement began in New York City in the nineteen sixties. Young adults would use paint in special cans to spray their “tag” on walls and train cars around the city. This tag was a name they created to identify themselves and their artwork. This colorful style of writing is also called graffiti. It is visually exciting and energetic. Some graffiti paintings were signs marking the territories of city gangs or illegal crime groups.

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Graffiti also became a separate movement expressing the street culture of young people living in big cities. Graffiti art represented social and political rebellion. This was art that rejected the accepted rules of culture and power. These artists could travel around areas of the city making creative paintings for everyone to see. The artists could become famous without being officially recognized. Sometimes this street art created a dispute between artists and city officials. Graffiti artists created their images and city officials quickly painted over them.

During the nineteen eighties two New York painters who began as street artists became very famous. Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat started creating their paintings on the streets. But soon they began showing their work in art galleries and museums. This is when street art started to become part of the more general popular culture.

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An example of Swoon's work

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Swoon did not start her career making street art. She studied fine art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. But she says she lost interest in the official workings of art galleries. She soon started taking her art into the streets.

Swoon likes how her work changes slowly after it is outside for a while. The art slowly disappears because of the effects of time, sun and rain. She also enjoys the freedom of expression which street art permits. And people enjoy Swoon’s strong and imaginative pictures. In fact, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City has bought several of her works.

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In Houston, Texas you can see a very different kind of street art by Knitta Please. This group of artists is made up of people who like to knit. Knitting is a way of creating clothing by looping together long thin pieces of material such as cotton or wool. Two members of Knitta Please became tired of starting knitting projects and never finishing them. So they decided to become street artists. They place their knitted projects on door handles, street signs, and cars around town. Many people in Houston collect the colorful creations of Knitta Please.

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One of Space Invader's works on a building in Barcelona, Spain

On Space Invader’s Web site, you can see the many other cities where he has placed his art. Space Invader has traveled to places like Dhaka, Bangladesh; Mombasa, Kenya, and Istanbul, Turkey.If you like his work, you can even buy Space Invader clothing, shoes, and pictures.

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The streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil are also rich with artwork. For example, you can find the work of two brothers who go by the name Os Gemeos. They paint images of funny flat-faced people with orange-yellow skin. Their imaginative characters have many different forms and expressions. Art galleries all over the world have shown the artwork of Os Gemeos.

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Street artists have different reasons for choosing this special kind of creative act. Some artists do not approve of the profit-making business of galleries and museums. They think that these organizations disconnect art from every day life. They also like the fact that street art stays part of the city environment.

Other artists express their political beliefs with their art. Some see street art as protesting the culture of big business and corporations. They do not like city walls covered with advertisements that sell products. These artists see these advertisements as examples of corporate aggression. They think that if an advertisement can be on a wall, so can their art. Still other artists like the excitement of working in the streets and trying not to get caught.

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A detail of Shepard Fairey's original image of Obama. This collage is now part of the Smithsonian's collection.

Shepard Fairey is also involved in legal action with the Associated Press. The AP accuses him of using one of its photographs of Barack Obama for his famous poster. Fairey says he used the AP photograph as a reference, but then changed it greatly for his own idealized and colorful picture of Barack Obama.

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Street art has become a popular kind of design for advertising companies because it gives an image of youth, boldness and energy. For example, the American department store Saks Fifth Avenue recently chose Shepard Fairey’s design company to create window displays and shopping bags. His bold black and white designs are influenced by Russian Constructivist art of the nineteen twenties. This Russian art was used as a propaganda tool to represent the goals of the socialist state. Fairey’s designs change the meaning of the Russian propagandist style by applying it to the costly shopping goods of capitalism.

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The Internet has had a big influence on street art. For example, artists can show their work to people all over the world.

Web sites like WoosterCollective.com have thousands of pictures of street art from all over the world. Also, artists and fans can communicate with each other and exchange ideas.

However, people say the Internet is not a replacement for the experience of seeing street art live. To really understand this art you have to see it in its environment. The street art movement depends on the energy and life of the city. And like cities, this imaginative and exciting art will continue to change and grow.

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This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. You can see examples of street art at voaspecialenglish.com.  I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I’m Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

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This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.

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And I'm Bob Doughty. Today we tell about the latest research and treatments for Parkinson's disease.

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In some patients, doctors place electrical devices into the brain to reduce the effects of Parkinson's disease

The decrease in the amount of dopamine can result in one or more general signs of Parkinson's disease. These include shaking of the hands, arms and legs. They also include difficulty moving or keeping balanced while walking or standing. Also, there may be emotional changes, like feeling depressed or worried. The symptoms of Parkinson's differ from person to person. They also differ in their intensity.                                                     

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The disease is named after James Parkinson.  He was a British doctor who first described this condition in eighteen seventeen. Doctor Parkinson did not know what caused it. During the nineteen sixties, medical researchers discovered changes in the brains of people with the disease. These discoveries led to medicines to treat the effects of the disease. There is no cure for Parkinson's and no way to prevent it.  And doctors still are not sure about the cause.

Parkinson's affects more than four million people around the world. It affects more than one million people in North America.  Most are older adults.

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Most patients have what is called idiopathic Parkinson's disease. Idiopathic means the cause is unknown. People who develop the disease often want to link it to something they can identify.  This might be a medical operation or extreme emotional tension.

Yet many doctors reject this idea of a direct link to Parkinson's. They point to other people who have similar experiences and do not develop the disease. 

Still, doctors say it is possible that such events might cause symptoms of Parkinson's to appear earlier than they would have.

Studies have found a link between the disease and some chemical products. Last year, an American study showed such a link between Parkinson's and pesticides, like those used for killing insects. The study compared three hundred nineteen Parkinson's patients to more than two hundred family members.

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Two years ago, a European study showed a link between pesticide use and Parkinson's. This study also found that serious head injuries also increased a person's risk. Scientists at Aberdeen University in Scotland collected information about more than nine hundred people with Parkinson's or similar conditions. They compared this group to almost two thousand people without the disorder. All the people were asked about their use of pesticides, chemical fluids and metals like iron. The researchers also collected information about family history of the disease and head injuries.

Farm workers and others who said they often used pesticides had a forty-one percent greater risk of Parkinson's than other people. The disease was also two and one-half times more common among people who had been knocked unconscious more than once in their lives. These people temporarily lost consciousness after suffering a blow to the head.

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Another area of study is family genetics. There are examples of members of a family having the disease. The National Institutes of Health in the United States says about fifteen percent of people with Parkinson's have a family history of the disease.  But most cases involve people with no such family history.

A few years ago, researchers completed what they called the first large map to show genetic links with Parkinson's disease.  The map identifies changes in genes that may increase the risk in some people.

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Recently, a gene-testing company announced plans for a large genetic study of Parkinson's patients. The company, 23andme, was the idea of Ann Wojcicki.

She is the wife of Sergey Brin, who helped create the Internet search engine Google. He has a gene that increases his risk of developing Parkinson's. His mother has the disease. The company is working with two not-for-profit groups.  They hope to collect DNA from ten thousand Parkinson's patients. The goal is to search for common genes that may cause the disease.

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There is no cure for Parkinson's disease. But improved treatments to ease the effects of the disease make it possible for many patients to live almost normal lives. People who have lost their ability to do many things are sometimes able to regain some of these abilities with treatment.

The most commonly used drug is levodopa. The National Institutes of Health says levodopa is a chemical found naturally in plants and animals. When it reaches the brain, levodopa is changed into dopamine, the chemical that is lacking in people with the disease.

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Levodopa helps ease the symptoms of Parkinson's.  But it does not prevent more changes in the brain that are caused by the disease. Long-term use can produce unwanted effects in some people. These side effects include feeling sick to the stomach.

To prevent this from happening, levodopa can be combined with other substances, like carbidopa. The National Institutes of Health says carbidopa delays the changes in levodopa until it reaches the brain.

Other drugs used to treat Parkinson's disease act like dopamine. They produce reactions in the nerve cells in the brain.  They can be given alone or in combination with levodopa. Many of the possible side effects are similar to those linked with the use of levodopa. They include sleepiness, feeling sick or having bad dreams.

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An operation called deep-brain stimulation also is used to treat Parkinson's disease. Doctors place small electrical devices deep in the brain. The devices are connected to a piece of equipment called a pulse generator.

Deep brain stimulation can reduce the need for levodopa and other drugs. It also helps to reduce symptoms such as shaking and slowness of movement. Recently, a report in Science magazine showed how deep-brain stimulation works. It found that the treatment affects neural wires called axons.

The researchers were from Stanford University in California. They used light-sensitive molecules to turn on and off nerve cells in the deep brain structure of mice. Nothing happened when they turned on the light in cells in an area of the brain called the subthalamic nucleus. But bursts of electricity on the axons improved movement in the animals.

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A separate study found that a less invasive treatment might reduce the symptoms of Parkinson's. It showed that a treatment called dorsal column stimulation could re-establish movement in rodents with Parkinson's-like problems. In the study, researchers fired bursts of electricity at the animals' spinal cords. Romulo Fuentes of Duke University in North Carolina led the researchers. He noted that doctors already use spinal cord stimulation in people to help reduce long-lasting pain.            

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Scientists are also exploring other experimental treatments. In March, President Obama ended restrictions on the use of federal money for research using human embryonic stem cells. Stem cells from very early embryos are able to grow into any tissue in the body. Scientists say such cells might be able to cure or treat diseases like Parkinson's.  But opponents say stem cell experiments are wrong because human embryos are destroyed. They say this is just like destroying a human life.

Michael J. Fox

American actor Michael J. Fox has had Parkinson's disease for eighteen years. But unlike most patients, he got the disease as a young man. He is forty-seven now and has many symptoms of the disease. But Fox still acts on television, writes books and is an activist for Parkinson's. The Michael J. Fox Foundation has raised more than one hundred forty-two million dollars to fund research for better treatments. Michael J. Fox says he is sure that a cure for Parkinson's disease will be found in the future.

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This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by George Grow. Our producer was Brianna Blake.  I'm Barbara Klein.

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And I'm Bob Doughty. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com.  Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.