Select edge ring in UV mode? Is it possible? [Edit: apart from manually, edge by edge!]

I'm going through a tutorial. The example UV I'm working on is an unwrapped strip from a ball. 

Selecting the strip rings (e.g. to straighten them by scaling) proves incredibly challenging! Here's what I tried and didn't work:

1) the select ring function from the 3d view (CtrlAltRMB) doesn't work in UV window

2) using "sync UV with model" gets you the selection from the 3d view but: it'll disappear as soon as you disable sync or it will scale the model you can't scale on "individual origins" if you scale UV edges with sync enabled

3) the Circle or Border selection tools (in UV) do not select in "crossing" mode - i.e. you can't select rings only by drawing a flat narrow selection (you can only select rings AND loops by fatfingering it)

4) the Circle or Border selection tools - if you decide to subract the loops and leave the rings - now, weirdly, will work in "crossing" mode thus subtracting a loop and all your rings from your selection
OK, so it seems fair to answer this - since the question was about selecting edge ring in UV editor. 

The way to do this is by:


enabling "keep UVs and edit mode mesh selection in sync" (button in the header of UV editor)
just Ctrl+Alt+RMB an edge in 3D editor (a derived UV selection will show up in UV editor)


Were the question about straightening the resulting selection, it would seem there is no way to do this for now (version 2.67b).

[Thanks to Mr Zak for clearing the confusion.]