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A Quote I like:
A little unlearning goes a long way. --Richard Kehl
with in your contol
feeling
thought
attitudes
awareness
values
desire
education
knowledge
trining
wellness
principles
problem solving skill
choices
How much risk I take
not in your contol
race
sex
age
country of origin
birth family
physical attributes
raw intelligence
other choices
Blogroll:
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Sites:
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Unique Readers:
Syndication:
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Tell your Truth. As much as you’re ready for.
Take Risks. As deep as you dare without doing harm. There is no growth with- Out risk.
Pay Attention to .Your Body. Breathe and focus on your internal process.
Express your Feelings. Be alive and in touch
Take Personal Responsibility. Own your thoughts, words, actions, experiences and choices.
Make “I” Statements. Taking responsibility more and blaming less.
Speak Directly to Person You Are Talking Th or About
Stay in the Here-and-Now.
Avoid the Use of Globalisms. e.g. everyone does that - we all feel that way.
If You Don’t Like What’s Happening, Say or Do Something About It. (You may or may not get what you want)
Honor and Allow Silence When it Happens. Notice what is happening when nothing is happening.
Blogroll:
ACLU
boingboing
zenzibar
ming.tv
court tv
Discovery
The history channel
oprah.
frank4zen
info please
Dr Phil.
fact check
how stuff works
cover ups
why files
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Meet up
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Coast to coast
refdesk
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web Md..
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Abc news
RawFrog
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 20 Sep 2008 @ 02:30
– People who startle more easily at loud noises or frightening images may be more prone to taking conservative political stances, reports the Washington Post. A new study suggests that there may be a biological basis for people's stands on contentious issues, with those who react less strongly to perceived threats seemingly predisposed to have liberal ideologies.
The study's authors emphasize that you can't gauge any one person's politics by jumping out from behind furniture and yelling "Boo!" but they hope the results can lead to a little less hate in political arguments. The idea that innate biological traits may play even a small role in determining political preferences might help dissuade the notion that those in the opposite camp are simply stupid or irrational.
Washington Post More >
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 16 Sep 2008 @ 18:57
ROCKVILLE, Maryland (Reuters) - A major study links a chemical used in many plastic products including baby bottles to human problems such as heart disease and diabetes, while U.S. regulators on Tuesday said they still believe it is safe.
The chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, is widely used in plastic food and beverage containers and in the coating of food cans.
Until now, environmental and consumer activists who have questioned the safety of BPA have relied on animal studies. But the study by British researchers in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that among 1,455 U.S. adults, those with the highest levels of BPA were more likely to have heart disease, diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities than those with the lowest levels.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said they would review the new findings, which were not taken into consideration when the agency issued a draft conclusion in August that BPA is safe at current exposure levels.
"We have confidence in the data that we've looked at and the data that we're relying on to say that the margin of safety is adequate," FDA official Laura Tarantino told reporters at a meeting of experts advising the agency on its BPA conclusions.
"There are things you can do if you choose to reduce your level of bisphenol A," Tarantino said. "But we have not recommended that anyone change their habits or change their use of any of these products because right now we don't have the evidence in front of us to suggest that people need to."
BPA is used to make polycarbonate plastic, a clear shatter-resistant material in products ranging from baby and water bottles to plastic eating utensils to sports safety equipment and medical devices.
It also is used to make durable epoxy resins used as the coating in most food and beverage cans and in dental fillings. BPA can mimic the hormone estrogen in the body.
People can consume BPA when it leaches out of plastic into liquid such as baby formula, water or food inside a container. Some retailers and manufacturers are moving away from products with BPA. Canadian officials concluded BPA was harmful.
Steven Hentges of the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry group, said the study's design did not allow for anyone to conclude BPA causes heart disease and diabetes.
"At least from this study, we cannot draw any conclusion that bisphenol A causes any health effect," he said.
"On the other hand, though, bisphenol A has been very intensively studied in a very large number of laboratory animal studies. And the weight of evidence from those studies ... continues to support the safe use of products containing bisphenol A," Hentges said in a telephone interview.
The British researchers, who acknowledged their findings are not proof that the chemical is causing the harm, analyzed urine samples from a U.S. government health survey of adults ages 18-74 representative of the U.S. population.
The 25 percent of people with the highest levels of bisphenol A in their bodies were more than twice as likely to have heart disease, including heart attacks or type 2 diabetes, compared to the 25 percent with the lowest levels.
At the FDA panel meeting, several scientists and activists said the FDA ignored animal studies finding health concerns and some called for it to be banned in food container products.
Senior Democratic U.S. Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, who heads the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said the FDA has "focused myopically on industry-funded research."
In the British study, the researchers said the chemical is in more than 90 percent of people, suggesting there is not much that can be done to avoid it. More than 2.2 million tons of BPA are produced each year.
(Additional reporting by Michael Kahn in London; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen, Maggie Fox and Bill Trott) More >
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 3 Sep 2008 @ 14:11
Here are 120 things you can do starting today to help you think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash your brain’s full potential.
1. Solve puzzles and brainteasers.
2. Cultivate ambidexterity. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, comb your hair or use the mouse. Write with both hands simultaneously. Switch hands for knife and fork.
3. Embrace ambiguity. Learn to enjoy things like paradoxes and optical illusions.
4. Learn mind mapping.
5. Block one or more senses. Eat blindfolded, wear earplugs, shower with your eyes closed.
6. Develop comparative tasting. Learn to properly taste wine, chocolate, beer, cheese or anything else.
7. Find intersections between seemingly unrelated topics.
8. Learn to use different keyboard layouts. Try Colemak or Dvorak for a full mind twist!
9. Find novel uses for common objects. How many different uses can you find for a nail? 10? 100?
10. Reverse your assumptions.
11. Learn creativity techniques.
12. Go beyond the first, ‘right’ answer.
13. Transpose reality. Ask “What if?” questions.
14. SCAMPER!
15. Turn pictures or the desktop wallpaper upside down.
16. Become a critical thinker. Learn to spot common fallacies.
17. Learn logic. Solve logic puzzles.
18. Get familiar with the scientific method.
19. Draw. Doodle. You don’t need to be an artist.
20. Think positive.
21. Engage in arts — sculpt, paint, play music — or any other artistic endeavor.
22. Learn to juggle.
23. Eat ‘brain foods’.
24. Be slightly hungry.
25. Exercise!
26. Sit up straight.
27. Drink lots of water.
28. Deep-breathe.
29. Laugh!
30. Vary activities. Get a hobby.
31. Sleep well.
32. Power nap.
33. Listen to music.
34. Conquer procrastination.
35. Go technology-less.
36. Look for brain resources in the web.
37. Change clothes. Go barefoot.
38. Master self-talk.
39. Simplify!
40. Play chess or other board games. Play via Internet (particularly interesting is to play an ongoing game by e-mail).
41. Play ‘brain’ games. Sudoku, crossword puzzles or countless others.
42. Be childish!
43. Play video games.
44. Be humorous! Write or create a joke.
45. Create a List of 100.
46. Have an Idea Quota.
47. Capture every idea. Keep an idea bank.
48. Incubate ideas. Let ideas percolate. Return to them at regular intervals.
49. Engage in ‘theme observation’. Try to spot the color red as many times as possible in a day. Find cars of a particular make. Invent a theme and focus on it.
50. Keep a journal.
51. Learn a foreign language.
52. Eat at different restaurants - ethnic restaurants specially.
53. Learn how to program a computer.
54. Spell long words backwards. !gnignellahC
55. Change your environment. Change the placement of objects or furniture — or go somewhere else.
56. Write! Write a story, poetry, start a blog.
57. Learn sign language.
58. Learn a musical instrument.
59. Visit a museum.
60. Study how the brain works.
61. Learn to speed-read.
62. Find out your learning style.
63. Dump the calendar!
64. Try to mentally estimate the passage of time.
65. “Guesstimate”. Are there more leaves in the Amazon rainforest or neuron connections in your brain? (answer).
66. Make friends with math. Fight ‘innumeracy’.
67. Build a Memory Palace.
68. Learn a peg system for memory.
69. Have sex! (sorry, no links for this one! :) )
70. Memorize people’s names.
71. Meditate. Cultivate mindfulness and an empty mind.
72. Watch movies from different genres.
73. Turn off the TV.
74. Improve your concentration.
75. Get in touch with nature.
76. Do mental math.
77. Have a half-speed day.
78. Change the speed of certain activities. Go either super-slow or super-fast deliberately.
79. Do one thing at a time.
80. Be aware of cognitive biases.
81. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. How would different people think or solve your problems? How would a fool tackle it?
82. Adopt an attitude of contemplation.
83. Take time for solitude and relaxation.
84. Commit yourself to lifelong learning.
85. Travel abroad. Learn about different lifestyles.
86. Adopt a genius. (Leonardo is excellent company!)
87. Have a network of supportive friends.
88. Get competitive.
89. Don’t stick with only like-minded people. Have people around that disagree with you.
90. Brainstorm!
91. Change your perspective. Short/long-term, individual/collective.
92. Go to the root of the problems.
93. Collect quotes.
94. Change the media you’re working on. Use paper instead of the computer; voice recording instead of writing.
95. Read the classics.
96. Develop your reading skill. Reading effectively is a skill. Master it.
97. Summarize books.
98. Develop self-awareness.
99. Say your problems out loud.
100. Describe one experience in painstaking detail.
101. Learn Braille. You can start learning the floor numbers while going up or down the elevator.
102. Buy a piece of art that disturbs you. Stimulate your senses in thought-provoking ways.
103. Try different perfumes and scents.
104. Mix your senses. How much does the color pink weigh? How does lavender scent sound?
105. Debate! Defend an argument. Try taking the opposite side, too.
106. Use time boxing.
107. Allocate time for brain development.
108. Have your own mental sanctuary.
109. Be curious!
110. Challenge yourself.
111. Develop your visualization skills. Use it at least 5 minutes a day.
112. Take notes of your dreams. Keep a notebook by your bedside and record your dreams first thing in the morning or as you wake up from them.
113. Learn to lucid dream.
114. Keep a lexicon of interesting words. Invent your own words.
115. Find metaphors. Connect abstract and specific concepts.
116. Manage stress.
117. Get random input. Write about a random word in a magazine. Read random sites using StumbleUpon or Wikipedia.
118. Take different routes each day. Change the streets you follow to work, jog or go back home.
119. Install a different operating system on your computer.
120. Improve your vocabulary.
121. Deliver more than what’s expected. More >
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 26 Aug 2008 @ 14:25
WASHINGTON – Talk about animal magnetism, cows seem to have a built-in compass. No bull: Somehow, cattle seem to know how to find north and south, say researchers who studied satellite photos of thousands of cows around the world.
Most cattle that were grazing or resting tended to align their bodies in a north-south direction, a team of German and Czech researchers reports in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
And the finding held true regardless of what continent the cattle were on, according to the study led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.
"The magnetic field of the Earth has to be considered as a factor," the scientists said.
This challenges scientists to find out why and how these animals align to the magnetic field, Begall said in an interview via e-mail.
"Of course, the question arises whether humans show also such a spontaneous behavior," she said, adding, what "consequences does it have for their health."
see More >
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 15 Aug 2008 @ 08:06
20 Key Ideas For a Happy Marriage
1. Keep your mind on your main goal, which is to have a happy marriage. Say and do what will enable you and your spouse to have a happy marriage. Avoid the opposite. Everything else is commentary.
2. Keep asking yourselves, What can we do to have a happy, loving atmosphere in our home?
3. Focus on giving, rather than taking. Say and do as many things as possible to meet your spouses needs.
4. Keep doing and saying things that will give your spouse a sense of importance.
5. Frequently ask yourself, What positive things can I say and do to put my (husband or wife) in a positive emotional state?
6. Before speaking, clarify the outcome you want. The meaning of your communication is the response you actually get. If the first thing you say is not achieving your goal, change your approach. Remember that mutual respect and happiness is your real goal. Do not needlessly argue. Silence is often the wisest choice. Constantly be mutually respectful.
7. Show appreciation and gratitude in as many ways as possible. Say something appreciative a few times a day.
8. Be a good listener. Understand your spouse from his or her point of view.
9. Be considerate of the feelings and needs of your spouse. Think of ways that you have lacked consideration and be resolved to increase your level of consideration.
10. Instead of blaming and complaining think of positive ways to motivate your spouse. If your first strategies are not effective, think of creative ways.
11. Give up unrealistic expectations. Do not expect your spouse to be perfect and do not make comparisons.
12. Do not cause pain with words. If your spouse speaks to you in ways that cause you pain, choose outcome wording, Lets speak to each other in ways that are mutually respectful.
13. Be willing to compromise. Be willing to do something you would rather not do in return for similar behavior from your spouse.
14. Write a list of ways that you have benefited from being married to your spouse. Keep adding to the list and reread it frequently.
15. Write a list of your spouses positive patterns and qualities. Keep adding to the list and read it frequently.
16. Keep thinking about what you can do to bring out the best qualities of your spouse. Reinforce those qualities with words and action.
17. Focus on finding solutions to any problems that arise. Be solution oriented. Do not just blame and complain. Do not focus on who is more wrong. For a happy marriage, work together to find mutually acceptable solutions.
18. Remember your finest moments. What did you say and do when you felt best about each other? Increase them.
19. Look for positive activities you can do together.
20. Live in the present. What went wrong in the past is the past. You create the present and future with your thoughts, words, and actions right now. Choose them wisely. More >
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 18 Jul 2008 @ 12:08
The difference between Obama and McCain, we are told, comes down to this:
The Democrat who would be president has set a serious strategy for bringing the war (or "police action" or "occupation" or "major presence" or whatever you want to call it) in Iraq to a relatively rapid conclusion, even if that conclusion is imperfect and open to criticism. That strategy is flexible -- perhaps more flexible than some of the candidate's more ardent supporters would like -- but it is real and it is likely to be implemented along a schedule that would begin with his inauguration on January 20, 2009.
The Republican who would be president absolutely rejects any strategy that is defined by the American people or their representatives in Washington for bringing the war (or "police action" or "occupation" or "major presence" or whatever you want to call it) to the conclusion that Obama proposes. Only "events on the ground" in a country that - despite McCain's hysterically-inflated fantasies about the "success" of his beloved "surge" -- has seen little progress toward the sort of long-term political, ethnic and social stability that might make for an easy exit will determine McCain's schedule.
This distinction is best understood as a clash between the approaches of two presidents who inherited unpopular wars.
Obama is an Eisenhower man. Dwight Eisenhower, who had served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, campaigned for president in 1952, when the United States was mired in the quagmire that was the Korean War. Ike's promise during that campaign was to "go to Korea" and end the war. Upon his election, that is what he did.
McCain is a Nixon man. Richard Nixon, who had served as a supply clerk and enjoyed some success as a poker player during World War II, campaigned for president in 1968, when the United States was mired in the quagmire that was the Vietnam War. Tricky Dick refused to be pinned down regarding timelines or strategies for addressing the mess in Vietnam, suggesting simply that "new leadership will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific." So vague was Nixon that his Democratic opponent in the race, Hubert Humphrey, suggested that the Republican must have a "secret plan" regarding the war. As it turned out, Nixon's plan was to keep the war going. Unlike Eisenhower, who stopped the killing, Nixon, guided by "events on the ground," illegally expanded the undeclared war from Vietnam into Cambodia and Laos. Tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of southeast Asians died before the fighting finally wound down a half decade after the Republican's election.
Non-defensive wars end not when circumstances "on the ground" in distant lands dictate but when presidents who choose to be leaders rather than managers of misery decide to end them.
Barack Obama, like Dwight Eisenhower, proposes to be a leader.
John McCain, like Richard Nixon, proposes to be a manager of misery -- and the American decline that will hasten with each passing year of the quagmire in Iraq. More >
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 16 Jul 2008 @ 17:04
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush has asserted executive privilege to protect information that a House panel has subpoenaed on the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, the White House said Wednesday.
A House committee chairman, meanwhile, held off on a contempt citation of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who sought the privilege claim, as a courtesy to lawmakers not present. Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, rejected Mukasey's suggestion that Vice President Dick Cheney's FBI interview on the subject should be protected by the privilege claim.
"We'll act in the reasonable and appropriate period of time," Waxman, D-Calif., told the panel. But he made clear that he thinks Mukasey has earned a contempt citation and that he'd schedule a vote on the matter soon.
"This unfounded assertion of executive privilege does not protect a principle; it protects a person," Waxman said. "If the vice president did nothing wrong, what is there to hide?"
The assertion of the privilege is not about hiding anything but rather protecting the separation of powers as well as the integrity of future Justice Department investigations of the White House, Mukasey wrote to Bush in a letter dated Tuesday. Several of the subpoenaed reports, he wrote, summarize conversations between Bush and advisers — are direct presidential communications protected by the privilege.
"I am greatly concerned about the chilling effect that compliance with the committee's subpoena would have on future White House deliberations and White House cooperation with future Justice Department investigations," Mukasey wrote to Bush. "I believe it is legally permissible for you to assert executive privilege with respect to the subpoenaed documents, and I respectfully request that you do so."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush invoked the privilege on Tuesday. More >
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 16 Jul 2008 @ 15:53
Falling in love.
Laughing so hard your face hurts.
A hot shower.
No lines at the Super Wal-Mart.
A special glance.
Getting mail.
Taking a drive on a pretty road.
Hearing your favorite song on the radio.
Lying in bed listening to the rain outside.
Hot towels out of the dryer.
Finding the sweater you want is on sale for half price.
Chocolate milkshake.
A long distance phone call.
A bubble bath.
Giggling.
A good conversation.
The beach.
Finding a $20 bill in your coat from last winter.
Laughing at yourself.
Midnight phone calls that last for hours.
Running through sprinklers.
Laughing for absolutely no reason at all.
Having someone tell you that you're beautiful.
Laughing at an inside joke.
Friends.
Falling in love for the first time.
Accidentally overhearing someone say something nice about you.
Waking up and realizing you still have a few hours left to sleep.
Your first kiss.
Making new friends or spending time with old ones.
Playing with a new puppy.
Late night talks with your roommate that keep you from sleeping.
Having someone play with your hair.
Sweet dreams.
Hot chocolate.
Road trips with friends.
Swinging on swings.
Watching a good movie cuddled up on a couch with someone you love.
Wrapping presents under the Christmas tree while eating cookies and drinking eggnog.
Song lyrics printed inside your new CD so you can sing along without feeling stupid.
Going to a really good concert.
Getting butterflies in your stomach every time you see that one person.
Making eye contact with a cute stranger.
Winning a really competitive game.
Making chocolate chip cookies!
Having your friends send you homemade cookies!
Spending time with close friends!
Seeing smiles and hearing laughter from your friends.
Holding hands with someone you care about.
Running into an old friend and realizing that some things (good or bad) never change.
Discovering that love is unconditional and stronger than time.
Riding the best roller coasters over and over.
Hugging the person you love.
Watching the expression someone's face as they open a much-desired present from you.
Watching the sunrise.
Getting out of bed every morning and thanking God for another beautiful day.
Having friends you know you can cry on or talk to about your deepest problems
More >
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 11 Jul 2008 @ 11:50
The Top 37 Inspirational, Thought Provoking
Quotations of Frederick Zappone
© 2008 By www.frederickzappone.com All Rights Reserved
• The way out of suffering is through it. Resist suffering and suffering increases. Acceptance, in the moment, that you are suffering will dissolve your suffering instantly.
• You are perfect in every way until you compare yourself with another.
• Your need to control things is based on the fear of things controlling you.
• What you worry about is what controls you.
• Every one of us is allowed to suffer in order that we can grow in compassion and sensitivity towards the suffering of others.
• When someone treats us unkindly we learn how to treat others with great kindness.
• Living successfully today requires us to leave the past behind us.
• Strangers can love you easier than family because strangers have no history with you that they can hold against you.
• Only people who live in fear feel the need to abuse others.
• Trying too hard is un-attractive (does not attract) and pushes away from us the very things we want.
• When you encounter obstacles or roadblocks that are between you and what you want out of life choose to be like the "wind and water" and "flow" up, over, around or under them rather than fighting them and giving them power over you.
• We become free to follow the desires of our heart when we are influenced more by our own thoughts than the thoughts of others.
• Happiness allows us to walk over the top of our problems while unhappiness allows us to drown in them.
• In life, we always have two choices about our circumstances; we can change our circumstances or we can change our attitude about our circumstances. Once we change our attitude, our circumstances change naturally.
• When we stop finding faults in ourselves, we will stop finding faults in others.
• A relaxed mind solves even the most difficult problems, in life, easily. A stressed out mind delays problems being solved. A closed mind prevents problems from being solved altogether.
• God most often answers our prayers in the form of an inspired thought or creative idea that either sets us free or moves us to tears.
• God lives in the moment. If you want to find God, live there too!
• Discarding the past and forgetting about the future by living in the moment will give you the peace of mind you seek.
• Being rejected is part of life, get over it.
• Life doesn't always go your way, don't take it personally.
• Most people are full of crap, love them anyway.
• If you care about you, others will too!
• Putting other people first all the time will put you back at the end of the line.
• Life is not difficult, it is only our thinking that makes it so..
• Find humor in your problems and they will seem smaller to you.
• Love won't solve the problems of the world but it certainly makes the ride worthwhile.
• Don't take yourself too seriously, no one else does.
• Sometimes it hurts to think, that's why people get headaches.
• Creating prosperity is "simple" to do and yet many people judge that "simple thought" as "too good too be true" while never judging the thought that scarcity and lack of money are "too bad to be true".
• The one real weakness we have is underestimating the part our very own thoughts played in creating the circumstances we have in our life today.
• Every thought we think is a prayer to God.
• The only reason people don't have their prayers answered is because they quit praying before their prayer request is fulfilled.
• Expressing sincere prayers of gratitude for what we have guarantees that we will have more.
• There is always hope and a way out from underneath depression and despair when we change how we think.
• Any time you are feeling negative, you are not loving and approving of yourself. If you were loving and approving of yourself, you would never feel negative. More >
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 6 Jul 2008 @ 08:12
EIJING, July 5 -- False beliefs are everywhere. Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one poll has found. This effort to dispel misinformation may be more difficult than it seems, thanks to the quirky way in which our brains store memories - and mislead us along the way.
The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer's hard drive does. Facts are stored first in the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain about the size and shape of a fat man's curled pinkie finger. But the information does not rest there.
Every time we recall it, our brain writes it down again, and during this restorage, it is also reprocessed. In time, the fact is gradually transferred to the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally learned. For example, you know that the capital of California is Sacramento, but you probably don't remember how you learned it.
This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true.
With time, this misremembering only gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage.
As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength.
Even if they do not understand the neuroscience behind source amnesia, campaign strategists can exploit it to spread misinformation. They know that if their message is initially memorable, its impression will persist long after it is debunked.
In repeating a falsehood, someone may back it up with an opening line like "I think I read somewhere" or even with a reference to a specific source.
In one study, a group of Stanford students was exposed repeatedly to an unsubstantiated claim taken from a website that Coca-Cola is an effective paint thinner. Students who read the statement five times were nearly one-third more likely than those who read it only twice to attribute it to Consumer Reports (rather than The National Enquirer, their other choice), giving it a gloss of credibility.
Adding to this innate tendency to mold information we recall is the way our brains fit facts into established mental frameworks. We tend to remember news that accords with our worldview, and discount statements that contradict it.
In another Stanford study, 48 students, half of whom said they favored capital punishment and half of whom said they opposed it, were presented with two pieces of evidence, one supporting and one contradicting the claim that capital punishment deters crime. Both groups were more convinced by the evidence that supported their initial position.
Psychologists have suggested that legends propagate by striking an emotional chord. In the same way, ideas can spread by emotional selection, rather than by their factual merits, encouraging the persistence of falsehoods about Coke - or about a presidential candidate.
Journalists and campaign workers may think they are acting to counter misinformation by pointing out that it is not true. But by repeating a false rumor, they may inadvertently make it stronger.
Consumers of news, for their part, are prone to selectively accept and remember statements that reinforce beliefs they already hold. In a replication of the study of students' impressions of evidence about the death penalty, researchers found that even when subjects were given a specific instruction to be objective, they were still inclined to reject evidence that disagreed with their beliefs.
In the same study, however, when subjects were asked to imagine their reaction if the evidence had pointed to the opposite conclusion, they were more open-minded to information that contradicted their beliefs. Apparently, it pays for consumers of controversial news to take a moment and consider that the opposite interpretation may be true.
In 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the Supreme Court wrote that "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market". Holmes erroneously assumed that ideas are more likely to spread if they are honest. Our brains do not naturally obey this admirable dictum, but by better understanding the mechanisms of memory perhaps we can move closer to Holmes' ideal. More >
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 4 Jul 2008 @ 18:23
Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:13 AM
Article Font Size
LUBBOCK, Texas -- A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra—but don't necessarily expect it to keep the fireworks all night long.
Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body's blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra, said scientists in Texas, one of the nation's top producers of the seedless variety.
Found in the flesh and rind of watermelons, citrulline reacts with the body's enzymes when consumed in large quantities and is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems.
"Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it," said Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. "Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects."
Todd Wehner, who studies watermelon breeding at North Carolina State University, said anyone taking Viagra shouldn't expect the same result from watermelon.
"It sounds like it would be an effect that would be interesting but not a substitute for any medical treatment," Wehner said.
The nitric oxide can also help with angina, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, according to the study, which was paid for by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
More citrulline—about 60 percent—is found in watermelon rind than in the flesh, Patil said, but that can vary. But scientists may be able to find ways to boost the concentrations in the flesh, he said.
Citrulline is found in all colors of watermelon and is highest in the yellow-fleshed types, said Penelope Perkins-Veazie, a USDA researcher in Lane, Okla.
She said Patil's research is valid, but with a caveat: One would need to eat about six cups of watermelon to get enough citrulline to boost the body's arginine level.
"The problem you have when you eat a lot of watermelon is you tend to run to the bathroom more," Perkins-Veazie said.
Watermelon is a diuretic and was a homeopathic treatment for kidney patients before dialysis became widespread.
Another issue is the amount of sugar that much watermelon would spill into the bloodstream—a jolt that could cause cramping, Perkins-Veazie said.
Patil said he would like to do future studies on how to reduce the sugar content in watermelon.
The relationship between citrulline and arginine might also prove helpful to those who are obese or suffer from type-2 diabetes. The beneficial effects—among them the ability to relax blood vessels, much like Viagra does—are beginning to be revealed in research.
Citrulline is present in other curcubits, like cucumbers and cantaloupe, at very low levels, and in the milk protein casein. The highest concentrations of citrulline are found in walnut seedlings, Perkins-Veazie said.
"But they're bitter and most people don't want to eat them," she said.
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 4 Jul 2008 @ 17:03
Paul McCartney is no longer a threat to Israeli youth.
More than four decades after the Beatle and his famous band mates were told they couldn’t perform in Israel for fear that they would corrupt the country’s young people, the “Let It Be” singer has signed on for a September concert in either Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan. The big-budget show, first reported by Yediot Aharonot, will follow McCartney concerts in Georgia and Turkey. The show, likely to be the largest and most expensive of the summer, is being organized by David Zarzevski, a promoter behind the Eilat Jazz Festival and recent Tel Aviv-area concerts by Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu.
The show will mark McCartney’s debut concert in Israel, though not his first invitation to perform. The singer and his Beatles counterparts planned a concert in the country in 1965, but they were barred from performing by then-education minister Yaakov Schneider on grounds that the band members might serve as negative role models for the country’s youth. (Israeli government approval is no longer needed for performances by foreign artists.)
Israel’s current ambassador to England sent letters to McCartney, Ringo Starr and relatives of deceased Beatles George Harrison and John Lennon earlier this year, expressing regret for the incident. The letter to McCartney declared that “Israel missed a chance to learn from the most influential musicians of the decade.”
McCartney isn’t the only high-profile musician heading to the Holy Land. Also on his way is American jazz great Branford Marsalis, who will perform at the Tel Aviv Opera House on July 17. The saxophonist previously performed in Israel in 1997. More >
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3 Jul 2008 @ 08:32
Day to Day, July 4, 2008 · In Germany, almost everyone has access to heath care coverage.
A small 0.2 percent of legal German residents are uninsured, compared with nearly 18 percent of Americans.
Many clinics for the uninsured in the United States can't meet the demand of people in need of free care. But it's a different story in Germany, where there are very few clinics — eight in the entire country —
Struggling with Demand in the U.S.
Someone who is uninsured in Washington, D.C., could try to get an appointment at La Clinica del Pueblo in Columbia Heights.
There are four doctors. It's open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week — and stays open late on Wednesdays. But it's always fully booked.
"At our busiest days we have 50 or 60 patients coming through. The waiting room is often packed," says Dr. Meredith Josephs, the director of the clinic. She says that only a quarter of people who walk into the clinic without an appointment get seen.
"We are still unfortunately turning folks away," Josephs says.
She works 11-hour days and still goes home frustrated.
"It's definitely emotionally difficult sometimes," she says. "I sort of try and live life sort of focusing on the ones that I can help and I'm kind of cold-hearted to the others, because if I were to spend my time trying to figure out how to serve all the people who can't get in the door, I think I would just go crazy."
Josephs isn't alone. There are 10 free clinics like this in Washington, D.C., dedicated to caring for uninsured patients — and thousands more across the United States.
Serving Patients Across the Ocean
The story is very different in Germany, where there are only eight free clinics for the uninsured in the whole country.
Dr. Herbert Breker is beginning his day at the Malteser Clinic for the uninsured in Cologne. This is a small, three-room clinic — a tiny office, exam room and waiting area attached to a private charity hospital.
It's 9 a.m. Breker looks out the window and checks the waiting room for patients. But no one is coming. So, he sits at his desk, makes some calls and gets some paperwork done.
About 15 minutes later, his first patient shows up. It's a middle-aged man suffering from vertigo. He's one of only two German citizens who come into the clinic this day. That's because almost all Germans have health insurance.
Breker sends the man home with a referral to get additional tests — then has some more downtime before other patients arrive.
"I take a quick look to see if somebody arrived meanwhile and I see that it's empty. I'll look out the windows. And I don't see anybody, so no nobody is coming," Breker says as he checks the waiting room.
Breker pours himself a cup of coffee. He explains why the man is uninsured.
All Germans, he says, can get medical insurance through their employers. This man didn't qualify — he was self-employed. For a while he bought insurance on his own, then as he got older it became too expensive.
Breker tells us that kind of problem won't last much longer: Germany has passed a law that will get people in that situation covered by health insurance. It will take effect next January.
The Clinic's Customers
Breker says people who have no insurance in Germany are usually living in the country illegally. That's who most of his patients are.
He reads through a log of recent patients. In addition to the occasional German patient, most are from other places — Turkey, Romania, Morocco, Bosnia, Poland, Costa Rica and Nigeria.
Late in the afternoon on one particular day, two people show up at once. A Romanian woman pleads for medicine for her husband. And a frantic American walks in.
Breker greets him at the door. The patient, Michael Davis, has a cardiac condition — and is uninsured. He's nervous that Breker will turn him away.
Davis, 35, says he suffered a massive heart attack in Germany last summer — while on vacation. He spent a couple of weeks in the hospital. They told him he would have to have bypass surgery. He flew back to the U.S. and saw a cardiologist.
"The cardiologist said right then and there we must admit you; if we let you leave, liability-wise we could be in serious trouble because we just know that you are a walking time bomb," Davis says.
So he had the surgery right away, but he didn't have insurance. His employer didn't offer coverage for part-time workers like him.
"I was never offered to get any kind of health care," he says. "Whether I even pay into it or whether it was supplemental."
Davis says he is still dealing with more than $50,000 in bills from his heart attack in Germany and bypass surgery in the U.S.
"Medicaid's supposed to cover the hospitalization and the bypass from the United States, but Medicaid's saying I made too much money even though I didn't work from April to September," he says. "I've gone through so much of an ordeal because of it."
Davis is now living in Germany, and he hopes to get a job and get married to his German partner soon. Then he'll have health care coverage. But those bills won't go away.
Breker examines Davis, then sends him for additional tests.
"Look, what I tried to do, I referred you to the service of this hospital. They'll give you an appointment for an echocardiogram, it's just an EKG, which I think is very important to see how much your left ventricle is damaged," he says.
Davis' shoulders drop, and he leans against the counter when the exam ends. You can see him relax.
"I wasn't expecting to be treated like this let alone to get such immediate care as quickly as this occurred. I'm actually shocked right now," he says.
A World of Difference
At 2 p.m. Breker closes up shop for the day.
"That's about time we close now. We close," Breker exclaims.
So, by the end of the day, Breker has seen eight patients and given them treatment, medicine and referrals to the specialists they need. It's a situation Josephs at La Clinica Del Pueblo in Washington can hardly imagine.
"Wow, that's amazing. I wish I could say it were the same here," she says. "It's a different experience."
Josephs says it's not easy to get health care in the U.S. if you don't have insurance. It means long waits — and a lot of barriers.
Radio piece produced by Jane Greenhalgh.
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1 Jul 2008 @ 07:52
For second straight month, more coalition troops die in Afghanistan than Iraq — a grim milestone that analysts says underscores the Taliban's growing strength.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month, a grim milestone capping a run of headline-grabbing insurgent attacks that analysts say underscore the Taliban's growing strength.
The fundamentalist militia in June staged a sophisticated jailbreak that freed 886 prisoners, then briefly infiltrated a strategic valley outside Kandahar. Last week, a Pentagon report forecast the Taliban would maintain or increase its pace of attacks, which are already up 40 percent this year from 2007 where U.S. troops operate along the Pakistan border.
Some observers say the insurgency has gained dangerous momentum. And while June also saw the international community meet in Paris to pledge $21 billion in aid, an Afghanistan expert at New York University warns that there is still no strategy to turn that commitment into success.
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 27 Jun 2008 @ 09:24
Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."
Specify that your drive-through order is "TO-GO."
If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."
Reply to everything someone says with "that's what you think."
Practice making fax and modem noises.
Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc" them to your boss.
Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with prophesy."
Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears and grimacing.
Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.
Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
Staple pages in the middle of the page.
Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
Honk and wave to strangers.
Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints at the cash register.
TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
type only in lowercase.
dont use any punctuation either
Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
Repeat the following conversation a dozen times.
"DO YOU HEAR THAT?"
"What?"
"Never mind, it's gone now."
As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "No, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
Ask people what gender they are.
While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
Sing along at the opera.
Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.
Ask your co-workers mysterious questions and then scribble their answers in a More >
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23 Jun 2008 @ 10:17
Seventeen students in one Massachusetts high school are pregnant and many of them became that way on purpose. The girls confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. None of them is older than 16. The school’s superintendent said these are girls who generally lack self-esteem, a sense of direction and have a lack of love in their life; they are young women wanting and needing affection. School officials started looking into the spike in pregnancies after an unusual number of girls came to the school clinic for pregnancy tests. Some came by several times. Some of the girls reacted to the news they were pregnant with high fives and plans for baby showers. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the school principal stated.
Question: What is it in our society that would encourage this type of pack mentality behavior (Juno, Jamie Lynn Spears, etc.) and should the school be held responsible at all? More >
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 23 Jun 2008 @ 08:53
George Carlin Dead at Age 71
June 23, 2008, 2:44 AM EST
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.
Carlin constantly pushed the envelope with his jokes, particularly with the "Seven Words" routine. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace.
When the words were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies. Carlin hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" and noted on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long."
He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
When asked about the fallout from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction," Carlin told the AP, "What are we, surprised?"
"There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body," he said. "It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."
Carlin was born May 12, 1937 and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.
While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.
"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.
From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.
In 1960, he left with a Texas radio buddy, Jack Burns, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. r Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.
Only problem was, it didn't work for him.
"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."
Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law More >
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 19 Jun 2008 @ 08:00
George Carlin will be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts said Tuesday that Carlin will be honored for his 50-year career as a Grammy-winning standup comedian, writer and actor. He will be the 11th recipient of the award.
It will be presented November 10th at a tribute performance that will be televised by PBS.
Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen Schwarzman says Carlin makes people laugh but also makes them think.
Carlin has released 22 solo albums and three best-selling books. He starred in a variety of TV and movie roles and is famous for his ''Seven Dirty Words'' routine.
Past recipients of the prize include Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin and Neil Simon. More >
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 10 May 2008 @ 04:02
WASHINGTON (AP) — Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.
A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
"Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years," said John Walters, director of the office. "This is not just youthful experimentation that they'll get over as we used to think in the past."
Smoking marijuana can lead to more serious problems, Walters said in an interview.
For example, using marijuana increases the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent, the report said. And teens who smoke pot at least once a month over a yearlong period are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than nonusers, it said.
The report also cited research that showed that teens who smoke marijuana when feeling depressed were more than twice as likely as their peers to abuse or become addicted to pot — 8 percent compared with 3 percent.
Experts who have worked with children say there's nothing harmless about marijuana.
"I've seen many, many kids' lives negatively impacted and taken off track because of marijuana," said Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, director of adolescent services for Phoenix House treatment centers in California. "It's somewhat Russian roulette. There are so many factors, emotional, psychological, biological. You can't predict the experimentation and how it will impact a kid."
The drug control policy office analyzed about a dozen studies looking at marijuana use, including research by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Overall, marijuana use among teens has decreased 25 percent since 2001, down to about 2.3 million kids who used pot at least once a month, the drug control office said.
While the drop is encouraging, Walters appealed to parents to recognize signs of possible drug use and depression.
"It's not something you look the other way about when your teen starts appearing careless about their grooming, withdrawing from the family, losing interest in daily activities," Walters said. "Find out what's wrong." More >
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 18 Apr 2008 @ 06:28
SAN ANGELO, Texas - A court hearing to decide the fate of the 416 children swept up in a raid on a West Texas polygamist sect descended into farce Thursday, with hundreds of lawyers in two packed buildings shouting objections and the judge struggling to maintain order.
The case — clearly one of the biggest, most convoluted child-custody hearings in U.S. history — presented an extraordinary spectacle: big-city lawyers in suits and mothers in 19th-century, pioneer-style dresses, all packed into a courtroom and a nearby auditorium connected by video.
At issue was an attempt by the state of Texas to strip the parents of custody and place the children in foster homes because of evidence they were being physically and sexually abused by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon splinter group suspected of forcing underage girls into marriage with older men.
As many feared, the proceedings turned into something of a circus — and a painfully slow one.
By midafternoon only two witnesses had testified, and both only to lay the foundation for documents to be admitted. One witness, a state trooper, was cross-examined by dozens of attorneys, each of them asking the same question on behalf of a child or parent.
As the afternoon dragged on, no decisions had been made on the fate of any of the youngsters.
Additional details on life at the ranch began to emerge as child welfare investigator Angie Voss testified.
She said that if one of the men fell out of favor with the FLDS, his wives and children would be reassigned to other men. The children would then identify the new man as their father. Voss said that contributed to the problem of identifying children's family links and their ages.
Tough time keeping order
Texas District Judge Barbara Walther struggled to keep order as she faced 100 lawyers in her 80-year-old Tom Green County courtroom and several hundred more participating over a grainy video feed from an ornate City Hall auditorium two blocks away.
The hearing disintegrated quickly into a barrage of shouted objections and attempts to file motions, with lawyers for the children objecting to objections made by the parents' attorneys. When the judge sustained an objection to the prolonged questioning the state trooper, the lawyers cheered.
Upon another objection about the proper admission of medical records of the children, the judge threw up her hands.
assume most of you want to make the same objection. Can I have a universal, 'Yes, Judge'?" she said.
In both buildings, the hundreds of lawyers stood and responded in unison: "Yes, Judge."
But she added to the chaos as well.
Walther refused to put medical records and other evidence in electronic form, which could be e-mailed among the lawyers, because it contained personal information. A courier had to run from the courthouse to the auditorium delivering one document at a time.
"We're going to handle this the best we can, one client at a time," Walther said.
Legal wrangling
Little evidence had been admitted by midafternoon. The first attempt to admit evidence resulted in an hour-long recess while all the lawyers examined it. The rest of the morning was spent in arguments about whether to admit the medical records of three girls, two 17-year-olds and one 18-year-old.
Department of Public Safety Sgt. Danny Crawford testified to DPS's discovery of a church bishop's records taken from a safe at the ranch that listed about 38 families, some of them polygamous and some that included wives 16 or 17 years old. But under repeated cross-examination, Crawford acknowledged the records contained no evidence of sexual abuse. More >
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 18 Apr 2008 @ 03:23
Here's something to drum into your head... the boys keeping the beat may be geniuses (and that means you too, Ringo)
By OLINKA KOSTER - More by this author »
Drummers are usually credited more for their creative skills than for being brain boxes.
But new research turns that theory on its head - suggesting that those with good rhythm, such as Beatle Ringo Starr, may also be the most intellectual.
The study found that intelligence and good rhythm go hand in hand, after those who performed best at a "drumming" task were also found to have scored the highest in intelligence tests.
Swedish researchers were astonished by the results, as the first task - which involved tapping a drumstick to time - did not require any problem-solving skills.
But Fredrik Ullen, from leading European university the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, concluded that the study showed a link between intelligence, good timing, and the part of the brain used for problem-solving.
"The rhythmic accuracy in brain activity that is observed when a person maintains a steady beat is also important to the problem-solving capacities measured with the intelligence tests," he explained.
"It is interesting as the task didn't involve any kind of problem-solving."
For the study, 34 right-handed men aged between 19 and 49 who were recruited randomly via a newspaper advertisement.
They were first asked to tap a drum stick at variety of different time intervals as accurately as possible.
Secondly, they were asked to complete a "psychometric test" consisting of 60 questions and problems.
When the results were analysed, it was found that the participants who tapped the drumstick with the most accuracy also achieved the highest scores in the intelligence test.
Prof Ullen, who led the study with Guy Madison at Sweden's Umea University, said the study showed a correlation between high intelligence, an ability to keep good time, and a high volume of "white matter" in the part of the brain linked to planning and managing time.
"We found that people with high general intelligence are also more stable on a very simple timing task," he said.
"We also found that these participants had larger volume of the white matter in the brain, which contains connections between brain regions."
John Jenkins, emeritus professor at the University of London, has previously claimed that listening to music by Mozart, which features sound waves repeated regularly in a particular pattern but not close together, can boost children's powers of intelligence.
Eight years ago, the Education Department went so far as to say listening to the music could help reduce social problems such as teenage pregnancies and drug abuse.
Scans of the brain have also shown that the brain uses a wide distribution of areas to listen to music.
The left side tends to process rhythm and pitch and the right looks after timbre and melody. More >
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 29 Mar 2008 @ 02:04
Big Belly in Middle Age Increases Alzheimer's Risk
Thursday, March 27, 2008 8:22 AM
Article Font Size
Having a big belly in middle age appears to greatly increase one's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia decades later, researchers said on Wednesday.
Their study tracked 6,583 people in northern California for an average of 36 years starting when they were ages 40 to 45. Their abdominal size was measured at the outset of the study. [Editor's Note: Doctor Says Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Can Be Prevented — Click Here Now.]
A total of 1,049 of them -- nearly 16 percent -- went on to develop Alzheimer's disease or some other form of dementia by the time they reached their 70s. Those in the upper 20 percent in terms of belly size in middle age were almost three times more likely to develop dementia than those in the bottom 20 percent of belly size, the researchers found.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia among older people, and researchers have been working to understand the causes and risk factors for the brain disease.
Belly size in middle age was a much better predictor of later development of dementia than looking merely at obesity as shown by a person's body mass index, a measure of body fat based on height and weight, the researchers said.
"It's not just weight, it's where you carry your weight that is a very important risk factor," said Rachel Whitmer, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California, who led the study.
"If you have two people who are both 10 pounds (4.5 kg) overweight, one carries it around the middle and one carries it around the hips, that person who carries it around the middle needs to know they are at greater risk," Whitmer said in a telephone interview.
Previous research has shown that having a large abdomen in middle age elevates one's risk for diabetes, stroke and heart disease, but the researchers said this was the first study linking belly fat in middle age to increased risk of dementia.
Having a large belly raised one's risk of dementia regardless of whether the person was of normal weight overall, overweight or obese, and regardless of health conditions such as diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease, according to the study published in the journal Neurology.
Whitmer said research is needed to reveal the underlying mechanisms linking abdominal size to eventual dementia risk.
"We're sort of at the beginning of understanding the clinical effects of these byproducts of fat," Whitmer said. "But there is evidence from the molecular level, from animal models, and from population studies that it could have a negative effect on the brain."
Measuring abdomen size in the elderly may not be as valuable an indicator of dementia risk because people as they age naturally are apt to lose muscle and bone mass and gain belly size, Whitmer said.
[Editor's Note: Doctor Says Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Can Be Prevented — Click Here Now.]
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 17 Mar 2008 @ 19:07
Teenage girls and their parents need to read the latest government study of sexually transmitted diseases. The infections are so prevalent they are hard to avoid once a girl becomes sexually active. One in four girls ages 14 to 19 is infected with at least one of four common diseases. Among African-American girls in the study, almost half were infected. The data, drawn from a sample of 838 girls who participated in a broad national survey in 2003-4, was presented last week by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By far the most common of the four S.T.D.’s was the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which infected 18 percent of the girls. Chlamydia infected 4 percent, trichomoniasis — a common parasite — 2.5 percent, and genital herpes 2 percent.
The study did not look at such feared diseases as H.I.V./AIDS, syphilis or gonorrhea, but the four it did look at are worrisome enough. Although most HPV infections cause no symptoms and clear the body in less than a year, persistent HPV can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. S.T.D.’s can cause infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease and other painful symptoms. It will not be easy for sexually active teenagers to avoid any danger. Even among girls who said they had had only a single sexual partner, 20 percent were infected. With more than three million teenage girls infected, it is imperative to find ways to protect others.
The new findings strengthen the case for providing HPV vaccine to young girls and for regular screening of sexually active girls to detect infection. There is also a clear need to strengthen programs in sex education. Exhortations to practice abstinence go only so far.
Teenage girls who are sexually active need access to contraceptives and counseling. They need to understand that the numbers are against them and that a serious infection is but a careless sexual encounter away.
article More >
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 27 Feb 2008 @ 15:03
A new study finds men who spent more than four hours a day talking on cell phones had lower sperm counts, although the study's author cautions that the findings are "quite preliminary."
Feb. 25) -- Are men speed-dialing infertility by talking for hours a day on their cellphones?
A new study suggests that might be the case, but before potential papas ditch the devices, they should know that lead author Ashok Agarwal says the data are "quite preliminary."
Cellphones emit radiofrequency electromagnetic waves. Scientists have reported potential adverse effects of the waves on the brain, heart, endocrine system and DNA, Agarwal, director of the andrology lab at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and his co-authors write in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
Agarwal's team studied 361 men under 40 who were being evaluated for infertility; men whose personal or family history might explain a low count or other sperm abnormalities were excluded.
The scientists divided the patients into four groups, based on how long they said they talked on a cellphone each day. Then they analyzed the men's semen and found a strong association between length of time spent on a cellphone and sperm count and quality. Those who talked more than four hours a day had lower counts and more poor "swimmers" and abnormally formed sperm.
One reason could be the heat generated by the phones; sperm production is sensitive to temperature, Agarwal says.
The researchers didn't ask the men about other potential sources of electromagnetic wave exposure, like laptop computers, or where the men usually kept the phone when they talked. Next to their ear? In a pocket while using a headset? Says Agarwal: "There are hundreds of variables that can affect our conclusions."
Location, location, location makes a big difference, says British infertility specialist Iwan Lewis-Jones, who, like Agarwal, is conducting laboratory studies of cellphones' impact on sperm specimens. "To get an effect, I think you've got to have the phone very close to the sperm."
In research still ongoing, Agarwal says, he has found that sperm quality decreases in semen specimens left sitting next to a phone in talk mode for as little as an hour. Lewis-Jones says he isn't ready to report results from his research, in which phones in talk mode are left next to semen specimens.
"We are not saying that mobile phones affect fertility," he says. "All we're trying to do is see what effect they have on the sperm cell." In other words, he says, changes seen in laboratory experiments probably are not occurring in real life.
The only way to answer that question definitively, he says, is to randomly assign men to use a cellphone or not. But, he says, considering "I don't know anybody who hasn't got a mobile phone now," few men would volunteer to go without one.
Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2008-02-25 09:03:22 More >
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 14 Feb 2008 @ 21:50
All too often, we scold ourselves because of our bad habits. The good news is we don't need to participate in that type of self-destructive behavior any longer. Believe it or not, bad habits can be broken. If you are working on changing a bad habit, the best way is to put a new good one in its place—one that will serve you well. Even if you think you do not have a lot of bad habits, this exercise will work for you too. Creating good habits is healthy for everyone.
For the next few days, simply observe your habits. Which ones are working well for you and which ones are not? For example, do you find yourself overeating, under exercising, neglecting your self care, procrastinating, spending too much time on the computer or e-mail? Many of these things seem to come naturally for us, but are frustrating at the same time. It can be madding to always feel that you don't have enough time in the day to do the things you want. The good news is that your daily life can be improved with a few simple changes.
When developing new habits, it's important to write them down. First of all, write down the habits you find yourself doing each day that you want to break. Some of these habits can be modified; some can be let go of completely. Do this for a week so you can see the extent of these habits. Do you find yourself doing them daily?
Next focus on what you would like your typical day to look like. Do you want more time for your family or self care? Would you like more down time—time to read and relax? Have the bad habits you have written down been getting in your way of accomplishing your great day?
Look at your list of bad habits and think about them. Are they really necessary? What is the payoff for having them? There is always a payoff or you would not be doing them. What is the trade off? By breaking the habit, what will you gain? What can you put in the place of the bad habit that would enhance your life? Cross off the bad habit and replace it with a good one.
From that point, make up a list of good daily habits you would like to begin to follow. Don't try to follow them all at once. Change takes time. Pick one that will get you off to a good start. When that becomes a habit, pick another one. Changing a habit can, at times, take a few weeks before it feels natural. If you find yourself slipping backwards, don't give up. Simply continue your efforts. You don't have to be "starting over"; you will simply be picking it back up from where you left off.
As you begin working with new daily habits, you will find that some will work for you and others you once thought were necessary will turn out to be ones that you do not need after all. That's to be expected when you start this process. Try the new habit out. If it is accomplishing what you set out to achieve, then keep it. If not, change it until it does. It's perfectly acceptable to change them as necessary. After you get a solid set of daily habits in place, review them every so often to be sure they are still serving you. The good thing about habits is that they are your choice. Be sure that you put some in place that are great for you. They are meant to support your life, not complicate it. The habits are not "shoulds" or "rules". Keep them simple and have fun with them.
Addressing self-care in your daily habits is essential. If you don't take care of yourself, then life is much more difficult. Be sure that included in your daily habits are a few dealing with your self-care. An example would be exercise and getting enough sleep. This is essential to have the energy you need to create change in your life.
Above all, remember your habits are your choice. You may have developed them in childhood or they may have become recent ones. Whatever they are, they are what you choose them to be. It's your own decision and determination that will replace bad habits with good ones.
Susan Scholl is a Certified Professional Life Coach. You can read more about her at link More >
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23 Jan 2008 @ 08:21
WE’VE just had the most depressing day of the year – but you don’t have to let bad weather, Christmas debt and failed New Year’s resolutions get you down.
There’s a way to banish winter woes, get fit and lose weight all at the same time.
What’s more, it won’t cost you a single a penny. Just take a walk.
Walking is the world’s most simple exercise and yet has incredible benefits.
In fact, there’s nothing better than a fast-paced walk in the brisk winter air to put a smile on your face and let you know you’re alive.
Take the dog, take the baby or take your partner. The more the merrier.
Even better, one of the major benefits at this time of year is that resistance from the wind adds intensity to each workout so you get fit even quicker.
It doesn’t matter if you haven’t exercised since you were forced to do PE at school.
Just 30 minutes of walking will boost your mood and improve your health, even when broken into small segments of ten minutes.
Walk for 60 minutes five times a week and you will start to see serious benefits.
There’s no need to panic that you won’t be able to walk for that long.
Just take it gradually so you can build up slowly. You’ll soon increase your speed and stamina.
WHY IT WORKS
1. GOOD FOR YOUR HEART. Walking lowers blood pressure, reduces cholesterol and helps prevent strokes.
2. BOOSTS BRAIN POWER. It increases blood and oxygen supply, so you feel more alert. Walking also improves memory, creativity and problem-solving skills.
3. CHEERS YOU UP. Walking three to four times a week for 30 minutes each time has been shown to lift people’s moods, making them feel happier.
4. STRENGTHENS BONES. As a weight-bearing exercise, taking a stroll increases and maintains bone density, helping prevent fractures and osteoporosis and protecting against osteoarthritis.
5. HELPS IMMUNE SYSTEM. Being outside in the elements will build up your immune system. Walking increases levels of oxygen in your blood which in turn boosts your immune system so you can fight off bouts of colds and flu.
REASONS TO KEEP GOING
A brisk stroll first thing is a great way to start the day.
Walking not only busts fat but it also boosts your resting metabolic rate, which means you’ll go on burning calories after you stop.
What’s more, the faster you go, the more fat you’ll burn.
Time yourself. A vigorous 120 steps per minute is around 3mph, 135 steps is a fat-burning 4mph and a seriously speedy 150 steps is 5mph — the fastest most people walk before breaking into a run. Stay walking, though — you’ll burn more calories.
If you reckon you are too busy to fit in a 30-minute walk, slot in smaller chunks to fit in with your schedule.
Studies at Loughborough University found that people who walked continuously for 30 minutes, five days a week, had very similar fitness increases as people who split their 30 minutes into three ten-minute walks.
And the longer you keep going, the better you will feel.
Beta-endorphins — the body’s feel-good chemicals — will kick in after around 30 minutes of brisk walking, so keep it up.
Walking raises blood levels of other mood-enhancing chemicals, too, such a dopamine, adrenaline and serotonin.
Just make sure you wear comfy, supportive footwear. There’s nothing like aching feet and blisters to put you off your stride.
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 2 Jan 2008 @ 18:18
EAGLE COUNTY, COLORADO — What’s the worst thing anyone could say about you? Of the myriad of potential answers you might come up with, let’s say that your spouse or lover says that you’re insecure.
Instead of getting angry or defensive, let’s say you were open to exploring whether the criticism was true (“Well, aren’t I sometimes insecure? OK, so she just told you something true about you. Isn’t that what you want from your relationship — that she tells you the truth?”)
Of course, you could always go to your familiar response: “No, I’m not. It’s you who are insecure!” — but you know where that leads.
Once you understand that you can actually hear something critical and even gain value from it, give yourself a gift of the following exercise, compliments of Byron Katie in the book “I Need Your Love — Is That True?” (Three Rivers Press):
Step 1: When someone criticizes you and says you are wrong (unkind, insensitive, uncaring, etc.), settle into it. Ask yourself, “Is it true? Could he be right? Can I see how someone might see me that way?” Be patient, and wait for the answer. Respond to the other person only with, “Thank you for letting me know that.”
Step 2: After the criticism, ask yourself, “Was hearing that remark at all stressful?” If the answer is yes, it means that the criticism is true about you. Question yourself before becoming defensive. So if a friend says, “You don’t listen to me,” and you want to respond, “You’re wrong,” do an honest exploration with yourself before you react or respond.
“She’s wrong about me — is that true?” No, it’s not. The truth is that sometimes I don’t listen. “How do I react when I believe that she is wrong?” I immediately get upset and feel unjustly accused. I start defending myself. I attack her in my mind. I feel sorry for myself. I stop listening. Who would I be without the thought, “She’s wrong about me?” I might listen. I might be open to what she’s saying. I might take a deeper look at myself.
Turn the statement around: “I’m wrong about her.” Or, “I’m wrong about me.” Or, “She’s right about me.” Are these statements as true or truer than the original statement?
If you’d like to follow these steps with other issues in your life, here are Katie’s steps, which she calls “The Work.” Put an issue, a problem or a conflict into a statement (example: “He or she doesn’t love me,” or, “I would be happier if I got that promotion.” ) 1. Is it true? 2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? Can you absolutely know that you would be happier, or that your life would be better, if you got what you wanted?
Can you really know what is best in the long run for his, her or your path? 3. How do you react when you believe that thought? Where do you feel it in your body? How do you treat yourself? How do you treat others when you believe that thought? Does that thought bring peace or stress into your life? 4. Close your eyes and imagine yourself with the person (or in that situation) without that thought. Describe how it would feel not to have that thought. How would your life be different? 5. Turn the thought around.
Find three examples in your life where the turnarounds are as true or truer. Examples: Instead of, “I am not insecure,” use turnaround No. 1: “I am insecure,” turnaround No. 2: “The other person is insecure,” turnaround No. 3: “I am secure,” or turnaround No. 4: “I need more security.”
Now take an issue in your life, a thought you have that causes you anger or defensiveness, and use these questions to explore that issue. Your need for approval will likely diminish if you do, and you are far more likely to feel greater peace of mind.
Neil Rosenthal can be reached at 303-758-8777 or by e-mail from his Web site, www.heartrelationships.com. More >
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 2 Jan 2008 @ 18:12
US researchers have identified a married couple who sailed from England to the US in around 1630 as the bearers of a genetic mutation which puts their numerous descendants at higher risk of a hereditary form of colon cancer.
Reuters explains that cancer researchers at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah began to look into a local "family", currently numbering about 5,000 people, "because its members had an unusually high risk of colon cancer". Over 14 years they scoured detailed Mormon church records, in the process identifying another group in New York at similar risk. The genetic trail from both eventually led back to the British pair.
tudy leader Deb Neklason said: "The fact that this mutation can be traced so far back in time suggests it could be carried by many more families in the United States than is currently known. In fact, this founder mutation might be related to many colon cancer cases in the United States."
The mutation in question provokes "attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis" (AFAP), which makes people "more prone to developing polyps that can cause colon cancer". In the absence of adequate treatment, the carriers are at a "greater than 2 in 3 risk of developing colon cancer by age 80, compared to about 1 in 24 for the general population".
Neklason concluded: "This study highlights that you need to pay attention to your family history. With intervention to remove the polyps, the risk goes to near nothing."
The study on the unnamed families is published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. ®
Bootnote
Colorectal cancer is the "third-leading cause of cancer death in the United States" and will kill 52,000 people in the US in 2008, according to the American Cancer Society. More >
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 1 Nov 2007 @ 05:23
Part of the reason so many people blog is to help change the world. So I’m starting a new competition. The reward? Convincing people to change the world in 30 seconds or less.
The task?
I challenge all bloggers to blog about 30 things that can be done to change the world in 30 seconds. Before you freak out, that’s 30 seconds for EACH of the 30 things. 30 for 30.
There is a lot you can do to change the world in 30 seconds. In thirty seconds or less, what are things you can do to make the world a better place through your conscious decisions not automatic behaviors and habits? Here is my list.
1. Smile at a stranger.
2. Hug someone.
3. Pick up a piece of trash and throw it away.
4. Let someone else cut in front in the grocery line.
5. Let a car merge in front of you in traffic.
6. Smell a flower, don’t pick it.
7. Put the shopping cart in a shopping cart receptacle or return it to the store.
8. Pet an animal.
9. Say something nice.
10. Gargle.
11. Turn up the temperature on the air conditioner and down on the heater by 1-2 degrees (saves electricity and energy).
12. Stop smoking thirty seconds at a time.
13. Purchase rechargeable not disposable batteries.
14. Buy fruit not candy.
15. Use your car blinker.
16. Park your car farther from the store and walk.
17. Choose NOT to park in a handicapped stall even if you are handicapped - leave it for the more handicapped.
18. Take your children to the park not the store.
19. Drop $5 on the sidewalk and walk away fast and don’t look back.
20. Don’t wear perfume or cologne.
21. Wear less makeup.
22. Wave hello to your neighbors.
23. Reuse paper in your printer (print on the back).
24. Give money to pet charities.
25. Turn off the television.
26. Shut up.
27. Tell someone “I love you”.
28. Tell someone you care about them.
29. Look behind you.
30. Tell someone when they have snot hanging out of their nose, their fly unzipped, food on their face, their shirt unbuttoned, or an |
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