Flying People Spotted Over New York City…Film At Nine

In a recent publicity venture for their new movie “Chronicle”, 20th Century Fox enlisted the help of viral marketing agency Thinkmodo to design and execute a rather unique campaign element that surely caused several doubletakes over the New York City skyline.

If you thought you saw some flying humans in the sky over parts of New York City and New Jersey in the last couple of weeks you are, in fact, not crazy. You were merely exposed to a new kind of avant garde marketing technique brought to you by the same folks that unleashed the iPad Head Girl a few months back.

Michael Krivicka from Thinkmodo explains:

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Anonymous And The War Over The Internet

Late in the afternoon of Jan. 19, the U.S. Department of Justice website vanished from the Internet. Anyone attempting to visit it to report a crime or submit a complaint received a message saying the site was unable to load. More websites disappeared in rapid succession. The Recording Industry Association of America. The Motion Picture Association of America. Universal Music. Warner Brothers. The FBI.

By nightfall, most of the sites had come back online, but the people responsible for the outages had made their point. They'd landed what they hailed as the biggest blow yet in an escalating war for control of the Internet, and in one of their online command centers, "Phoenix" and his associates were celebrating.

Phoenix, a college student, is a member of Anonymous, the loose coalition of hackers, pranksters and other creatures of the Internet who have made headlines over the last 13 months for attacks on the computer systems of a wide range of targets: MasterCard, Visa and PayPal; the San Francisco public transit system; a Texas think tank; Sony; a host of computer-security companies; authoritarian governments in Tunisia and Egypt.

Phoenix wouldn't call himself a "member," of course. Much like Occupy Wall Street, a movement with which it has many ties, Anonymous technically has no official membership, hierarchy or specific agenda. Some "anons" do wield more influence than others and the resulting resentments have led to bitter internecine feuds, but its overall lack of an official power structure is essential to its identity and perhaps its survival. As Anonymous put it in a taunting statement to NATO, another recent object of its unfriendly attentions, "You can't cut off the head of a headless snake."

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Native Americans actually came from a tiny mountain region in Siberia, DNA research reveals

*Tiny region in central Russia has DNA link to native Americans today
*Ancestors thought to have walked across ice 13,000 years ago
*Altai is 'key place', because central location means ancient peoples passed through

Altai in southern Siberia sits right at the centre of Russia. But the tiny, mountainous republic has a claim to fame unknown until now - Native Americans can trace their origins to the remote region.

DNA research revealed that genetic markers linking people living in the Russian republic of Altai, southern Siberia, with indigenous populations in North America.

A study of the mutations indicated a lineage shift between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago - when people are thought to have walked across the ice from Russia to America.

This roughly coincides with the period when humans from Siberia are thought to have crossed what is now the Bering strait and entered America.

'Altai is a key area because it's a place where people have been coming and going for thousands and thousands of years,' said Dr Theodore Schurr, from the University of Pennsylvania in the US.

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WAKE UP TO A BETTER BREAKFAST

START the day with a decent meal and you’ll be slimmer, cheerier and more focused but too many of us just eat the same old food. ANGELA DOWDEN offers some ideas that add variety and meet your body’s needs.

Best for slimmers

Two poached eggs on a slice of wholemeal toast spread with low-fat spread and grilled tomato and a cup of green tea

329 calories, 18.3g fat

Women who ate a couple of eggs for breakfast reduced their total food intake over the day by around 400 calories according to American researchers at the Rochester centre for Obesity. Repeated every day for just over two months adds up to a weight loss of around half a stone. The satiating ingredient appears to be protein which one theory suggests may stimulate the release of hunger-controlling hormones in the gut. Team with a slice of wholemeal or grainy toast to give slow release energy and add mushrooms or tomatoes to make one of your five a day. Swill down with green tea which helps boost fat burning.

Best for heart health

Kippers, one slice of wholemeal toast with low-fat spread and grilled tomatoes

529 calories, 32.9g fat

Kippers are packed with omega-3s, and you only need to breakfast on them once a week to cover your body’s requirement of these fats which help reduce the risk of a heart attack by improving blood flow and reducing clotting risk. To maximise the benefit, team with lycopene-rich tomatoes – also linked with lower risk of cardiovascular disease – and spread an accompanying slice of toast with a low-fat spread that also has cholesterol-reducing properties such as Benecol Light. The average smoked kipper supplies half your daily maximum of blood pressure-raising salt however; so don’t have this breakfast too often.

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Solar Storm Forecasts Improve as Sun’s Fury Increases

If this week's raging solar storm was any indication, the sun is ramping up its activity — and scientists will be ready for it. By meticulously studying our planet's star, they are able to predict these potentially dangerous space weather events better than ever before.

A huge solar flare erupted Jan. 23, triggering the strongest radiation storm in nearly a decade. A wave of charged particles, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), bombarded Earth yesterday (Jan. 24). The bombardment is over now, but some minor disruptions to spacecraft and power grids were reported.

Scientists' forecast for the arrival of the disruptive wave was off by only 13 minutes, far more accurate than in the past. And with much of the world's networks interconnected and populations increasingly reliant on technology, the ability to predict and track potentially harmful space weather events will become ever more crucial.

Solar flares and CMEs are expected to increase in frequency as the sun emerges from the dormant phase of its 11-year activity cycle.

When a CME hits Earth, the resulting geomagnetic storm interacts with the planet's magnetic field lines. This not only amps up Earth's auroras (the northern and southern lights), but, in the case of a strong CME aimed directly at Earth, can disrupt the operations of satellites in orbit and power grids and other communications infrastructures on the ground.

"There was a major event back in 1989 that led to a major power failure in Quebec that had broad implications for the province," Harlan Spence, an astrophysicist at the University of New Hampshire, told SPACE.com. "Because the world has highly connected power grids, the effects of that particular geomagnetic storm were also felt through many parts of the continental U.S."

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Geomagnetic storm, auroras possible January 23, 24, & 25, 2012

NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and STEREO missions detected a strong M9 class solar flare and associated Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) on January 23 at about 3:59 Universal Time (11:59 pm on January 22 EST). The associated moderate geomagnetic storm may cause aurora borealis activity in the northern United States.

M solar flares are the second strongest classification of solar flares, with X solar flares being the strongest. This solar flare was almost strong enough for the X classification.

The CME is headed in Earth's direction and will likely cause a moderate geomagnetic storm on January 24 (UT Date) and a minor geomagnetic storm on January 25 (UT date). In North American time zones, the new Universal Time date begins in the evening hours (8 pm in the EST zone). Hence the geomagnetic storms will extend from the nights of January 23/24 to January 24/25 in North America.

The geomagnetic storm may have some small effects on the power grids at high latitudes. The effect most noticeable to the average person will however be the possibility of aurora or northern lights. The interactions between the charged particles in the CME and Earth's magnetic field cause the aurora, also known as the northern or southern lights.

On the night of January 23/24, during the moderate geomagnetic storm, observers as far south as the latitudes of New York and Idaho have a good chance of seeing the northern lights. On the night of January 24/25 the geomagnetic storm, if it follows predictions, will subside to a minor geomagnetic storm. Minor geomagnetic storms typically cause auroral activity as far south as the latitudes of Michigan and Maine in North America. Space weather predictions are not always right, so there is no guarantee of Aurora, but there is a strong possibility.



To observe the northern lights go outside to a dark clear location with a flat northern horizon. Look towards the north. No optical instruments are needed. Aurora are best seen with the naked eye.
Source: examiner , UnhealthyEarth

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Year 2012: Alien Hybrid Or Starchild Discovered In China?

A boy has stunned medics with his ability to see in pitch black with eyes that glow in the dark.

Doctors have studied Nong Youhui's amazing eyesight since his dad took him to hospital in Dahua, southern China, concerned over his bright blue eyes.

Dad Ling said: "They told me he would grow out of it and that his eyes would stop glowing and turn black like most Chinese people but they never did."

Medical tests conducted in complete darkness show Youhui can read perfectly without any light and sees as clearly as most people do during the day.

Could Nong Youhui be a Hybrid or Starchild? A new and growing generation of extraordinary and gifted children are springing up across our planet, is the human species evolving, or possibly our Extraterrestrial visitors tinkering with our DNA? As always you decide.

Source:RiseEarth

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Mercury Contamination

A Guide to Staying Healthy and Fighting Back

The Dangers of Mercury

Exposure to mercury, even in small amounts, is a great danger to humans and wildlife.

When mercury enters the body it acts as a neurotoxin, which means it harms our brain and nervous system. Mercury exposure is especially dangerous to pregnant women and young children, but all adults are at risk for serious medical problems.

Most mercury pollution is produced by coal-fired power plants and other industrial processes. The most common way we are exposed to mercury is by eating contaminated fish.

NRDC is working hard to reduce mercury pollution in our air and water.

Protect Yourself and Your Family from Mercury Exposure

Here are some resources to help you reduce your exposure to mercury:

*Learn more about the dangerous effects of mercury
*Understand your risk with our Mercury Calculator
*Follow these simple steps to reduce your risk
*Use our Mercury in Fish Wallet Card to easily identify safe options
*Take advantage of our Sushi Guide and Safe Sushi Card
*Find out the answers to common medical and dental questions (we also have more information for medical professionals)

Help Stop Mercury Pollution

Despite the availability of cost-effective technologies and safer alternatives, the regulation of mercury pollution has been surprisingly slow. After years of stonewalling, the biggest and dirtiest polluters are working harder than ever to weaken or delay proposed and recently adopted standards. These standards would save as many as 24,600 American lives and prevent up to 170,650 cases of aggravated asthma every year by 2016. Take action to protect your health today.

Learn about the assault on the EPA and the Clean Air Act, and what NRDC has been doing to reduce mercury pollution.

A Global Issue: Reducing Worldwide Mercury Emissions

Mercury is a pollutant that knows no borders. Mercury released halfway across the globe can end up in your local lake or in the fish you buy in your grocery store.

That’s why NRDC is working with the United Nations and the Zero Mercury Working Group, a coalition of over 80 non-governmental organizations, on a global treaty to cut mercury pollution around the world.
Source: nrdc

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Women feel more pain than men, study finds

Who hurts more, men or women? A new Stanford University study examining patients' medical records found surprisingly clear results: across the board, women report higher levels of pain than men.

For the study, researchers reviewed patients' electronic medical records. EMRs are used by only about one percent of hospitals in the U.S. today - including two Stanford-affiliated hospitals. Patients at these hospitals report their feelings of pain, typically in the form of scores on a scale of 0 to 10 - 0 meaning "none at all" and 10 meaning "the most imaginable."

Stanford Pediatrics professor Dr. Atul Butte and his colleagues reviewed 160,000 pain reports from over 72,000 patients. And after crunching the numbers, found a clear gender gap.

"In many cases, the reported difference approached a full point on the 1-to-10 scale," Butte said in Stanford's Scope journal. "How big is that? A pain-score improvement of one point is what clinical researchers view as indicating that a pain medication is working." This makes the data not just statistically significant, but also clinically significant.

"We actually use these numbers," Butte said. "We use these as a kind of threshold - when do we start pain medicine? Are we treating someone with enough pain medicine? We need to have that understanding that there is a sex difference here."

The results were published in the Jan. 16 online edition of the Journal of Pain.

What accounts for the difference?

Since the data were self-reported, the explanation may be that women more readily report pain than men do. Since nurses often take these records, men may have been more reluctant to admit their pain to female nurses. Or the difference may be hormonal.

"Why the pain responses are at the higher level in females, we really don't know. Is it completely psychologically based? Is it related to hormones? We are really not clear," Dr. Prasad Movva with Kaiser San Jose's chronic pain program told the San Francisco Chronicle. "But this report is a good start definitely."
Source: cbsnews, HealthyAeon

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How To Eat For Better Sleep

Americans are getting sicker. Seventy percent of the diseases we are acquiring as a nation are caused by behavior, and food choices top the list.

In the past two decades alone, we have observed the overwhelming impact that poor food choices has on our waistlines. It's not just about our pant size either -- these choices have additional repercussions such as increased disease and even dull skin, hair and nails.

Often overlooked are the additional mechanisms in the human body that are affected by the types of foods we are choosing to put into our mouths at each meal. Several studies have uncovered a strong correlation between diet and poor sleep quality.

Getting too few z's has detrimental effects on our bodies, and our appearance! Simply put, lack of sleep is not pretty! Too few hours in the sack has been shown to increase triglyceride levels, alter hunger hormones and compromise energy levels. Worse yet, it leads to graying, less vibrant skin.

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The 3 Most Romantic Gestures Any Man Can Perform

Most guys don’t have a white horse at the ready to snatch up a woman into happily-ever-after, but there are still romantic gestures any man can perform. These gestures are not necessarily elaborate, and they don't even involve kneeling down like a pauper to beg for her hand in marriage (although that will take the cake every time). The three most romantic gestures any man can perform are instead affordable, feasible, don't include singing some sickly serenade on a balcony and can actually be kind of fun—as long as you're tough enough to survive in the rain or cold without a coat for a few minutes.

Write a love poem.

Don’t fret if you’re not Shakespeare–or can’t even come up with a word that rhymes with “beer.” Writing a love poem for your girl is one of the most romantic gestures any man can perform. It’s not the actual words that count, but the thought that you cared enough to sincerely pour out your heart on paper just for her. Sound too mushy for you? You can instead write a rap song or heavy metal tune, as long as you keep out the f-word and don't call her any nasty names.

Whisk her away for a surprise get-away.

An impromptu weekend in Paris will get you brownie points for the rest of your life, but you can still make a romantic gesture without traveling or knowing how to say "Where's the bathroom?" in French. A surprise picnic during a hellish workweek lunch, a spontaneous holiday up in the mountains or even a quick jaunt to the park can count. As long as it’s a special get-away that gets you out of your normal routine for the two of you to be alone, it can count as a romantic gesture. No, the dive bar down the street and the bowling alley won't cut it.

Give her your coat.

Giving a woman your coat is one of the oldest but most effective romantic gestures that has withstood the test of time. It proves chivalry is not dead while it also proves you're not an inconsiderate sap who is too wussy to withstand a little cold, rain or snow. Giving her your coat when she’s cold or the weather is foul shows you would sacrifice yourself to ensure she is warm and comfortable. That sacrifice will be remembered forever somewhere deep in her heart, although it still won't get you out of taking out the trash. And forget about the coat-over-a-puddle move. That's more stupid than romantic, especially if it's leather.
Source: mademan

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Scosche’s iPad Mount Gives You the In-Car Entertainment Center You Couldn’t Afford

They're a great way to silence a car full of screaming kids, but in-vehicle entertainment centers are an expensive option. So assuming you've already sprung for an iPad 2, Scosche's backSTAGE pro II mount is a cheaper solution to peaceful rides.

Like most mounts it's designed to attach an iPad 2 to the back of a vehicle's front seats, but instead of nylon straps or other less-than-secure solutions, it's got a strong aluminum pivoting mounting bracket and a sturdy-looking case. A thin and discreet 12-volt power cord can be easily hidden under carpeting or floor mats to keep the iPad running for your entire trip, while an infrared emitter allows passengers to privately listen with a set of wireless headphones.

The mount will even let you easily remove just the iPad 2 housing, leaving the other hardware still attached to the vehicle's headrest. And like I mentioned previously, as long as you don't factor in the $500 iPad, its $180 price tag isn't too unreasonable.

Source: gizmodo

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How To Eat For Better Sleep

Americans are getting sicker. Seventy percent of the diseases we are acquiring as a nation are caused by behavior, and food choices top the list.

In the past two decades alone, we have observed the overwhelming impact that poor food choices has on our waistlines. It's not just about our pant size either -- these choices have additional repercussions such as increased disease and even dull skin, hair and nails.

Often overlooked are the additional mechanisms in the human body that are affected by the types of foods we are choosing to put into our mouths at each meal. Several studies have uncovered a strong correlation between diet and poor sleep quality.

Getting too few z's has detrimental effects on our bodies, and our appearance! Simply put, lack of sleep is not pretty! Too few hours in the sack has been shown to increase triglyceride levels, alter hunger hormones and compromise energy levels. Worse yet, it leads to graying, less vibrant skin.

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'Magic Mushrooms' Trigger Lasting Personality Change

The psychedelic drug psilocybin (the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms") may produce lasting, positive changes in personality, new research finds. People who took the drug showed increases in the key personality dimension of openness — being amenable to new ideas, experiences and perspectives — more than a year later.

"It was sort of like an anti-inflammatory for the ego," says Brian, a 50-year-old scientist, who participated in the research (he declined to reveal his last name). "The swelling went down and I got to see what was underneath."

Researchers led by Katherine MacLean, a postdoctoral student at Johns Hopkins University, analyzed personality data on 52 participants (average age 46) who had participated in the group's earlier research on the drug. These volunteers took psilocybin during two to five sessions, at various doses, under highly controlled conditions at the hospital. They were also given personality tests before taking psilocybin, again a couple of months after each drug session, then again about a year later.

The earlier study had found positive psychological changes — documented by both participants and their family members and other associates — in calmness, happiness and kindness. The new research found that the drug takers also saw long-term changes to their underlying personality. "The most surprising thing was that we found a change in personality that is really not expected in healthy adults, not after such a discrete event," says MacLean.

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Stacking Green / Vo Trong Nghia

Architects: Vo Trong Nghia
Location: Saigon, Vietnam
Project team: Daisuke Sanuki, Shunri Nishizawa
Photographers: Hiroyuki Oki

Whoever wanders around Saigon, a chaotic city with the highest density of population in the world, can easily find flower-pots crampped and displayed here and there all around the streets. This interesting custom has formed the amused character of Saigon over a long period of time and Saigonese love their life with a large variety of tropical plants and flowers in their balconies, courtyards and streets.

The house, designed for a thirty-years-old couple and their mother, is a typical tube house constructed on the plot 4m wide and 20m deep. The front and back façades are entirely composed of layers of concrete planters cantilevered from two side walls.

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The Secret Behind SOPA

The secret behind SOPA, the so-called anti-piracy bill which is today the target of an unprecedented backlash with Wikileaks and other major websites ‘going dark’ to protest the legislation, has nothing to do with piracy or copyright theft – it’s about the formal effort to mimic Communist China’s system of Internet censorship.

But don’t take our word for it, listen to what Joe Lieberman, co-sponsor of PIPA, SOPA’s sister version in the Senate, said about the purpose of behind the US government’s efforts to control the Internet under the guise of cybersecurity.

Lieberman characterized fears that the US government would use such powers to censor political content as “total misinformation,” yet goes on to admit that the purpose behind the agenda is to mimic China’s ability to “disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war,” adding, “we need that here too”.

Of course, Communist China’s “war” is not against foreign terrorists or hackers, it’s targeted against people who dare to use the Internet to express dissent against government atrocities or corruption. China’s system of Internet policing is about crushing freedom of speech and has nothing to do with legitimate security concerns as Lieberman well knows.

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How SOPA would affect you: FAQ

When Rep. Lamar Smith announced the Stop Online Piracy Act in late October, he knew it was going to be controversial.

But the Texas Republican probably never anticipated the broad and fierce outcry from Internet users that SOPA provoked over the last few months. It was a show of public opposition to Internet-related legislation not seen since the 2003 political wrangling over implanting copy-protection technology in PCs, or perhaps even the blue ribbons appearing on Web sites in the mid-1990s in response to the Communications Decency Act.

Consider the concerted protest on January 18 by high-profile Web companies and organizations. Wikipedia's English-language pages, for instance, went completely black, while Google put a big black box over the prominent logo on its home page, with a link to a page from which users could sign a petition entitled "Tell Congress: Don't censor the Web." Street protests have also been scheduled for that date in cities including New York, San Francisco, and Seattle.

As CNET reported in December, Smith, a self-described former ranch manager whose congressional district encompasses the cropland and grazing land stretching between Austin and San Antonio, Texas, has become Hollywood's favorite Republican. The TV, movie, and music industries are the top donors to his 2012 campaign committee, and he's been feted by music and movie industry lobbyists at dinners and concerts.

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Google joins Wikipedia 'day of darkness' protest

Wikipedia shut down its English-language sites today in protest at U.S. plans to police the internet and combat piracy - and their move has been echoed by 7,000 sites across the net.

Search giant Google has 'blacked out' its logo on its U.S. home page in solidarity with Wikipedia's move - and sites and services such as BoingBoing, Reddit, WordPress, Firefox and Metafilter are fully or partially 'blacking out' in support.

Wikipedia now loads a black 'protest' page instead of entries from the encyclopedia - only the English-language version is affected, and only the version accessed via certain browsers such as PC and iPad. Phone browsers do not load the 'black' protest page at all. An estimated 100 million users could be affected by the move.

Black out: Wikipedia shut down its English-language site today in protest at draconian plans to police the internet and combat piracy.

A message attributed to hacker group Anonymous has promised action against Sony for its former support of the SOPA anti-piracy act in the U.S.

Wikipedia, which shut down at 5am British time, will go dark for 24 hours, in an unprecedented move that brings added muscle to a growing base of critics of the legislation.

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All About PIPA and SOPA, the Bills That Want to Censor Your Internet

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are two bills that sound like they have a mildly positive aim but, in reality, have serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. While the Obama administration has come out against SOPA, effectively shelving it indefinitely, the very similar PIPA bill is still alive and well. Both SOPA and PIPA put power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language is vague enough to target sites you use every day, like Facebook and Google, making these bills a serious problem. Here's what you need to know about the bills and what you can do about them. Due to the recent opposition of the Obama administration and focus changing to PIPA, we decided to make an update to this post to make it a bit more relevant. While SOPA is likely dead, we're explaining both bills as they're very similar.

What Are SOPA and PIPA All ABout, and Why Should I Care?

The idea behind these bills sounds reasonable. They came about in order to try and snuff out piracy online, as the entertainment industry is obviously not excited that many people are downloading their products without payment or permission. The issue is, however, that it doesn't really matter whether you're in support of piracy, against it, or just don't care. The methods are ineffective. Here's what they are and why they're problematic.

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Democracy in Distress

PARIS – Is democratic time too slow to respond to crises, and too short to plan for the long term?

At a time of deepening economic and social crisis in many of the world’s rich democracies, that question is highly relevant. In Italy, for example, Prime Minister Mario Monti has the necessary and legitimate ambition to carry out comprehensive reform. He is both competent and honest, but faces a quasi-structural impediment: whereas leaders once had three years to convince voters of their policies’ benefits, they now have three hours to convince global financial markets to back their approach.

Caught between Italian legislators who, deep down, do not understand that change and markets in quest of near-immediate certainties, can Monti transcend his natural prudence and act with sufficient clarity and decisiveness?

In the United States, too, the political system is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. The political philosopher Francis Fukuyama goes so far as to say that “vetocracy” could triumph over democracy, regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential election. The separation of powers, a principle established by the US founders under the influence of philosophers such as Montesquieu, is leading today to near-paralysis.

Democracies suffer not only from their slow reaction time at moments of crisis, but also from the difficulty that they face in projecting themselves into the future and planning for the long term. On both sides of the Atlantic, political leaders know what they must do for their countries, but don’t know how to get re-elected if they actually do it. They seem to be structurally condemned to short-termism.

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Mystery of the moving Antarctic lakes

RIVERS and mountains can move given enough time, but they don't normally move half a kilometre every year. Yet that is exactly what is happening to a bizarre group of Antarctic lakes. And the lakes seem to be moving far faster than the ice shelf on which they sit.

The 11 lakes are on the edge of the George VI ice shelf, a banana-shaped sheet of floating ice sandwiched between the Antarctic Peninsula and Alexander Island. They were first spotted in the 1970s but it was only last year that their wanderlust was identified.

Douglas MacAyeal at the University of Chicago gave undergraduate interns the "boring" job of digitising a series of satellite photographs of Antarctic lakes. One student, Claire LaBarbera, noticed that the lakes moved, relative to features on land, from year to year. "I thought, what a nice curiosity," MacAyeal says. Then he took a closer look and realised that the lakes were moving five to 10 times faster than the ice shelf, and in a different direction.

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Can You Give Someone Cancer?

If they’re healthy, probably not.

Five South American presidents and former presidents, including Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, have been recently diagnosed with cancer. Chavez speculated on Wednesday that American agents may be inducing the disease in South American leaders by feeding them or injecting them with an unspecified substance. The State Department rejected Chavez’s insinuation on Thursday. Can you give someone cancer?

Not reliably. Injecting cancerous cells into a person isn’t enough to give him the disease—the abnormal tissue has to penetrate and grow in other areas of the body. If you injected someone with live cancer cells, his immune system would almost certainly attack and destroy the foreign tissue. In theory, secret agents might be able to induce cancer in a leftist South American president with a severely weakened immune system. Or perhaps they could harvest tissue from him, expose it to a carcinogen, and then reintroduce it into his body. As far as the Explainer knows, however, these techniques have never successfully caused cancer in a human.

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Nanotechnology Puts a Medical Lab in Your Hand

All the frills in life are shrinking in size. Laptops, cellphones and even big-screen televisions have been getting thinner and thinner. So why shouldn’t necessary technology like medical labs and scientific tools get the same slimming treatment?

Now they are: advances in nanotechnology have made it possible to put an entire medical lab into one high-powered chip, which not only fits in the palm of your hand, but also performs diagnostic tests in a matter of minutes.

Researchers are gradually finding ways to create reliable, nano-sized labs that are able to perform a variety of diagnostic tests, which used to require teams of people and weeks of waiting. The tiny wafers of glass or plastic work by compressing a series of tests. For example, the Guardian reports Professor Tom Duke at the London Center for Nanotechnology is working on a “lab-on-a-chip” to test for HIV.

In Duke’s chip, a drop of blood is separated by nanometer-sized pillars, which then trap larger elements such as blood cells and proteins. Virus particles pass through this trap (which acts like a nano-sieve) where they hit a series of levers coated with antibodies that bend when they are hit. The more they bend, the more virus is present.

This is just one application for the lab-on-a-chip. Many different viruses and diseases can be tested using a similar process including genetic mutations, cancer and even biological contaminants from the battlefield. The Guardian also reports that the Simbas chip, designed by a team from the University of California, Berkeley, which can detect a biological component in blood at a concentration of approximately one part per 40 billion.

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Alcohol Policies and Sexually Transmitted Disease Among Youth

"A 10 percent increase in the average state excise tax on beer will reduce the gonorrhea rate by 4.4 percent for boys 15-19 and by 3.7 percent for men aged 20-24."

Studies of teenagers suggest that heavy drinkers are more likely to be sexually active, more likely to have multiple partners, and less likely to use condoms. Because all of these behaviors are risk factors for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), if alcohol control policies reduce alcohol consumption and thus the drunkenness that causes youths to engage in unsafe sex, then it is also possible that these policies will reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted disease.

In An Investigation of the Effects of Alcohol Policies on Youth STDs (NBER Working Paper No. 10949), co-authors Michael Grossman, Robert Kaestner, and Sara Markowitz use the incidence of AIDS and gonorrhea to explore the effect of alcohol control policies on these two STDs in teenagers and young adults. After collecting data across the U.S. states for the years 1981 to 2001, and testing 6 different statistical models, they find evidence that STD rates among youth can be altered with alcohol control policies.

The highest average gonorrhea rate during the sample period was in the population of 15-19 year-old girls: 457 per 100,000. Young men aged 15-19 had the lowest reported rate: 332 per 100,000. Average AIDS rates were about 37 per 100,000 for men aged 30-34. Females ages 20-29 had the lowest incidence of AIDS, about 4 cases per 100,000. These men and women were assumed to have contracted the AIDS virus 8 years earlier on average.

Because beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage among youth, the authors use state excise taxes on beer to represent the price of alcohol. State laws on drinking and driving changed continually during the period under observation,

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Are You Eating These 7 Fall Superfoods?

Though fall is in many ways the unofficial season of gluttony (we're looking at you, Halloween and Thanksgiving), it's also a great time of year for healthy eats. The ground is flush with nutrient-rich root veggies and the trees are full of the crisp, quintessentially-autumn fruit that's number three on our list, they're practically doubling over.

Maybe best of all, with the sticky summer months behind us, there's something that just feels right about cooking again -- throwing on a cozy sweater and whipping up a meal with some of the healthy ingredients autumn has to offer.

For 7 of our fall superfood picks, read on.

Pumpkin

Why we love it:

In addition to being just oh-so autumnal, pumpkins are a great source of fiber and vitamin A, which according to the Harvard School of Public Health, stimulates white blood cell activity and regulates cell growth and division.

How to prepare:

Judy Caplan, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, suggests roasting or sautéing pumpkin "meat" with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. For a slightly sweeter treat, she suggests cooking the pumpkin with a bit of pure maple syrup.

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MICHEL TELO – Ai Se Eu Te Pego

Michel Teló is a Brazilian singer and dancer and his first big hit is called “Ai Se Eu Te Pego”.

“Ai Se Eu Te Pego” – a very funny song, it is already a worldwide hit and it is appreciated in many countries all over the world. Even if not many people understand the lyrics of this song, everyone can recognize the good latino melody.

The song was also made famous by the Brazilian soccer player Neymar, who made a special dance for this track.



Translation

Nossa, nossa
Assim você me mata
Ai, se eu te pego,
Ai, ai, se eu te pego
Wow, wow
You’re gonna kill me that way
Ah when I get my hands on you, (poor you)
Ah when I get my hands on you, (poor you)
Delícia, delícia
Assim você me mata
Ai, se eu te pego
Ai, ai, se eu te pego
Delicious, delicious
You’re gonna kill me that way
Ah when I get my hands on you, (poor you)
Ah when I get my hands on you, (poor you)
Sábado na balada
A galera começou a dançar
E passou a menina mais linda
Tomei coragem e comecei a falar
Saturday party night
Everyone began to dance
The hottest girl of the place passed me by
So I got the guts up and began to say to her

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New e-book system promises a more paper-like reading experience

There may indeed come a day when printed books and magazines have been gone for so long, that nobody cares how little reading a digital document resembles reading one printed on paper. That day is not yet here, however - most of us still like our e-reading experience to be as close as possible to that of reading a book. To that end, this week a team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced the development of new e-reading system, that brings several book-like capabilities to tablets and smartphones.

Called the Smart E-book System, the "algorithm-based conversion technology" incorporates the off-screen border area of touchscreen devices, which is known as the bezel. By placing a finger or thumb on the bezel then sliding it into the screen (or sliding it off the screen and onto the bezel), users can do things such as flipping through pages one at a time, or quickly riffling through whole sheaves of them - forwards or backwards.

They can also stick a finger on one page to bookmark it, continue flipping using another finger until they get to a different page that catches their interest, then cross-reference between the two pages by virtually folding the stack of intervening pages back and forth.

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Effect of daily aspirin on long-term risk of death due to cancer: analysis of individual patient data from randomised trials

Background

Treatment with daily aspirin for 5 years or longer reduces subsequent risk of colorectal cancer. Several lines of evidence suggest that aspirin might also reduce risk of other cancers, particularly of the gastrointestinal tract, but proof in man is lacking. We studied deaths due to cancer during and after randomised trials of daily aspirin versus control done originally for prevention of vascular events.

Methods

We used individual patient data from all randomised trials of daily aspirin versus no aspirin with mean duration of scheduled trial treatment of 4 years or longer to determine the effect of allocation to aspirin on risk of cancer death in relation to scheduled duration of trial treatment for gastrointestinal and non-gastrointestinal cancers. In three large UK trials, long-term post-trial follow-up of individual patients was obtained from death certificates and cancer registries.

Results

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Mediterranean diet and reduced calorie intake promote brain health and longevity

Researchers have long theorized that a Mediterranean diet full of vegetables, fruit, fish, nuts, seeds and olive oil can help promote good health. Scientists at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden reporting in the European journal AGE provide the unanimous results: four independent studies demonstrate this style of eating not only lowers the risk from many chronic and potentially fatal diseases, but actually also extends healthy lifespan in aging adults. A separate research body appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) explains that calorie restriction or consuming about twenty-five percent fewer calories each day, turns on a molecule that helps the brain stay young. Extrapolating the results of both studies suggests that following a Mediterranean diet with fewer calories may provide a valuable key to preserving memory, lowering risk of serious illness and extending a healthy life span.

Swedish researchers studied the effects of a Mediterranean diet on older people in the Swiss population. They developed a unique study designed to compare 70-year-olds, who eat a Mediterranean diet, with others, who have eaten more meat and animal products. The intent was to confirm the positive results suggested by a myriad of studies over the past decade that found a diet low in animal meats and high in fresh vegetables and monounsaturated fats can improve health and extend lifespan.

Mediterranean Diet Extends Lifespan by Twenty Percent

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ViewSonic touchscreen wirelessly links to your phone or tablet

ViewSonic has outed a pair of new displays, the TD2220 multitouch monitor and the TDi2340 universal display, the latter capable of providing extra screen-space for your tablet via an impromptu WiFi connection. The TD2220 is a 22-inch LCD supporting two-finger multitouch, with 360-degree rotation and integrated 2W speakers.

As for the TDi2340 universal display, that’s an altogether more interesting proposition. Described by ViewSonic as an “anchor for cloud computing devices”, the 23-inch monitor supports 10-point multitouch and wireless connections with your smartphone, tablet, or notebook.

Inside there’s an ARM11 processor running a custom ViewSonic UI, that supposedly makes viewing photos and streamed video more straightforward; Netflix and YouTube get name-checked. For more businesslike purposes, you can apparently either set the TDi2340 up as an extended desktop or in dual-display mode.

No word on pricing for either monitor, but they’re both expected to drop sometime in Q2 2012.
Source: www.slashgear.com

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Mogees turns any rigid surface into a musical instrument

Mogees is great news for all the air guitarists out there. This tiny device, built by Bruno Zamborlin for his Arts and Computational Technologies PhD project*, offers a whole new way of expressing yourself musically, even if you don't have the slightest idea how to play an instrument. Mogees, or a "Mosaicing Gestural Surface," is based on a simple contact microphone that turns any hard surface into a musical interface for triggering audio samples. What sets Mogees apart from other interfaces of this kind is that different types of touch stimuli generate different output. Simple gestures like scratching, rubbing or tapping can produce a surprising array of sounds worthy of a serious experimental music set up.

As you interact with the rigid surface, the contact microphone attached to it picks up the resultant vibrations, which are then either converted directly into audible sound or used as input for selecting a matching audio sample from a database. The selected sample is of course instantly played, so the aspiring musician is treated to a real time experience.

Each kind of touch gesture has a recognizable sound signature. Identifying this signature enables Mogees to serve up a different audio sample in response to a different kind of touch stimulus. What's more, you are not limited to touching the playing surface with your own hands, since the device can pick up vibrations generated by just about anything. You also aren't constrained to perfectly smooth surfaces (e.g. you can play a tree, as shown in the video below).

Take all the above into account, and suddenly the whole world becomes a huge DJ deck. It looks like we're set for another year of crazy musical innovation.

* Bruno Zambrolin created Mogees in collaboration with Norbert Schnell and Frederic Bevilacqua as part of his joint PhD in Arts and Computational Technologies between IRCAM/Centre Pompidou in Paris and Goldsmiths, University of London.


Source: gizmag

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Exercise is good for your waistline – But it's a writing exercise

Is losing weight as simple as doing a 15-minute writing exercise? In a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, women who wrote about their most important values, like close relationships, music, or religion, lost more weight over the next few months than women who did not have that experience.

"We have this need to feel self-integrity," says Christine Logel of Renison University College at the University of Waterloo, who cowrote the new study with Geoffrey L. Cohen of Stanford University. When something threatens your sense that you're a good person, like failing a test or having a fight with a friend, "We can buffer that self-integrity by reminding ourselves how much we love our children, for example," she says.

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Highly toxic chemicals are found in laundry detergents, dryer sheets, deodorants, perfumes, soaps and other household products

As part of National Poison Prevention Week, health officials are warning parents to keep their children away from household poisons. That's good advice, of course, but sadly very little attention is paid to slow-acting poisons and toxic chemicals found in personal care products that slowly (but surely) kill both parents and children by the millions. I'm talking about the toxic chemicals found in everyday household products that, when absorbed through the skin (as practically all chemicals are), lead directly to liver toxicity, nervous system disorders, and cancer.

Let's take a look at the list:

The bathroom is one of the most toxic rooms in the house for most American families. People use deodorants containing aluminum (Alzheimer's disease), shampoos containing harsh solvents (liver toxicity), toothpaste containing non-organic fluoride (osteoporosis), mouthwash with aspartame (brain tumors) or saccharin (cancer), and to top it off, most people slap on a dab of perfume or cologne containing highly toxic cancer-causing chemicals. In a laboratory analysis, one popular perfume was found to contain more than forty chemicals classified as hazardous to the liver, and yet the FDA still does not require perfume manufacturers to warn consumers about the toxic chemicals found in their products.

And the bathroom is only the beginning: the laundry room is also highly toxic, containing the same chemical perfumes in both the laundry detergent and especially the dryer sheets. Dryer sheets coat all your clothes with a layer of toxic chemicals. When you wear those clothes, your body moisture causes those chemicals to come into contact with your skin and be absorbed directly into your bloodstream. It's an easy way to poison your system with cancer-causing chemicals.

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New Research: TV Can Take 22 Minutes Off Your Life For Every Hour Watched

Watching TV can shorten your lifespan by 22 minutes for every hour spent, according to a new study.

Australian researchers found that for each hour of television watched, those aged 25 and older lose 22 minutes of their life, around the same amount of time a typical American TV show spanning an hour dedicates to commercials.

The findings of the study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, also showed that people who watch six hours on average live five years less than those who do not watch television.

While the act of watching television itself does not lead to sooner death, there was a link to timelier death in people who watch lots of television. Typically, people who watch too much television tend to live a less healthy lifestyle, eat incorrectly and do not get a proper amount of exercise, which can lead to the development of obesity, diabetes or heart disease.

The study led by Dr. J. Lennert Veerman of the University of Queensland collected data regarding health conditions and television watching activity, when done sedentary not when multi-tasking, from 11,000 people aged 25 and older who were part of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study along with national trends.

Although the study focused on Australian figures, the researchers noted "the effects in other industrialized and developing countries are likely to be comparable, given the typically large amounts of time spent watching TV and similarities in disease patterns."

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12 Nutrition Swaps for 2012

It's a new year, and plenty of us are resolving to lose weight, exercise more and eat less.

I'd like to propose a resolution makeover...

Don't just aim to eat less and deprive yourself, instead upgrade what you are currently eating to give your body the wholesome, energizing foods it needs.

Below are 12 small diet swaps you can do that will add up to a big payoff for weight loss and optimal health...

Swap 1: Breadcrumbs To Seeds

How to: Opt for sesame seeds, chopped pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds instead of breadcrumbs to coat chicken and fish.

Healthy Payoff: Get the crunch you crave but with more healthy fat, fiber and protein.

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Lady Gaga turns angry android for L'Uomo Vogue

Chameleon pop star Lady Gaga, gets a futuristic makeover for the January issue of men's fashion magazine, L'Uomo Vogue.

Ever the queen of re-invention, Lady Gaga is starting to make our heads spin with her voracious appetite for extreme makeovers.

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Researchers demonstrate flexible epaper phone

A smartphone made from electronic paper has been demonstrated by researchers in Canada.

The PaperPhone is flexible and can be controlled by being bent, written on or used as a touchscreen.

The PaperPhone, built to determine how people use a flexible device, is a collaboration between researchers from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, Arizona State University, USA, researchers from the E-Ink Corporation.

“This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years,” Roel Vertegaal, director of the human media lab at Queen’s, said. “This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper.”



The epaper sheet, which uses the same e-Ink technology found in the Amazon Kindle ereader, is just millimetres thick and can be used to make phone calls, read ebooks and play music.

The researchers say that this technology could eventually mean the end of paper and printers. Dr Vertegaal said: “The paperless office is here. Everything can be stored digitally and you can place these computers on top of each other, just like a stack of paper.”
Source: telegraph

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