See where an appropriate amount of public pressure will get you? As promised, Rogers' long-due rational unlocking policy is in full effect. You can now pay $50 to have Rogers unlock a device bought on contract if it's either fully paid off or has been on the network for 90 days, making it easier to take your phone on a vacation -- or to a rival carrier, if you also pony up any relevant cancellation fees. Likewise, you won't have to make a phone call now that retail staff have resources to unlock devices in-store. We can't say that the gesture delivers more freedom than buying already unlocked hardware like the Nexus 4, but those lured into a contract by a sweet deal on an iPhone 5 or HTC One won't have to feel completely fenced in for the whole three years.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - After flirting with an all-time high for three weeks, the S&P 500 <.spx> posted its best closing level in history. But some strategists say Thursday's record could be a harbinger that the stock market rally is running out of steam.
The S&P traded within 10 points of the all-time closing high for 13 sessions before breaking through, showing that investors need new catalysts to push firmly above resistance levels.
"As the market has gone higher ... upward moves have generally gotten smaller, which suggests that the move is getting old and that we need a pullback," said Mark Arbeter, chief technical strategist for Standard & Poor's in New York.
Stocks could fall about 3 percent to 4 percent, he said.
The benchmark index has risen almost 10 percent so far this year, fueled by strong profit growth and accommodative monetary policy from the Federal Reserve. But those gains have slowed as investors fret over Cyprus's bailout and mixed signs about the economy.
Still, stocks have been resilient, lifting the S&P to its record close of 1,569.19 on Thursday. Investors stepped in on declines to buy and finally pushed the S&P above the previous record set on October 9, 2007.
The broad index is also within a stone's throw of its intraday record of 1,576.09. The Dow surpassed its record close on March 5 and set a series of records, ending Thursday at 14,578.54.
The S&P has risen for 11 of the past 13 weeks, up 0.4 percent over the past two weeks. In contrast, the CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, a measure of investor anxiety, is up about 14.5 percent over the same period.
"The increase in volatility we've seen is far more likely to be the sign of a short-term top" than the trend of investors buying on dips, Arbeter said. "If that volatility persists, then you would need to worry about an intermediate top."
In addition, speculator positions show a preference for holding long positions. Mike O'Rourke, chief market strategist at Jones Trading, noted that long positions account for more than 65 percent of speculative positions in futures contracts, a point at which rallies can be overextended.
U.S. markets will be closed for the Good Friday holiday and reopen on Monday.
The stock market next week will face tests of the milestone it reached, with the situation of Cyprus's banks and a round of U.S. data, including the March jobs report on Friday, facing investors.
GOLDILOCKS REPORT
About 197,000 jobs were added in March, according to a Reuters poll of economists. That would be down from the 236,000 jobs created in the previous month but still suggest improvement in the labor market. The unemployment rate is seen holding steady at 7.7 percent.
A strong payroll report could spark caution if it raises questions about whether the Federal Reserve would be more inclined to reduce monetary stimulus more quickly.
"There will be those who fear that if things improve too dramatically, too quickly, the Fed will take its foot off the pedal of quantitative easing," said Kristina Hooper, head of portfolio strategies at Allianz Global Investors in New York.
So far, however, the Fed has not suggested a change in its stimulus measure is likely. If the central bank slows the rate of its monthly bond purchases, a program that has been credited with boosting equity prices, "that could cause some weakness," Hooper said.
Rex Macey, chief investment officer at Wilmington Trust in Atlanta Georgia, said a "Goldilocks report" was needed for markets to rally.
In the first quarter the S&P rose 10 percent. It gained 3.4 percent in March, the index's fifth straight monthly rise. The Dow was up 3.7 percent in March and more than 11 percent in the first quarter, while the Nasdaq composite index was up 3.2 percent in March and 8 percent in the quarter.
Cyprus will remain in focus after the government was forced to accept a stringent European Union rescue package to avert default. In a positive sign, there were no runs by depositors on banks after they reopened under tight controls on Thursday.
Macey, who helps manage about $20 billion in assets, compared the market's situation to the card game "Texas Hold 'Em" poker where players start out with cards they can see and don't see additional cards until after rounds of betting.
"Based on the cards we can see now, which are things like economic fundamentals, I think stocks are a fine place to be in the longer term," he said. "However, there are still cards we can't see, like what the resolution will be in Cyprus, that could cause trouble."
On the heels of today's earnings release, Blackberry vice chairman Mike Lazaridis announced that he'll leave the company on May 1st. The exec founded the company formerly known as Research in Motion almost 30 years ago, with Jim Balsillie as its early CEO -- who resigned this time last year himself and recently sold off his remaining shares. Lazaridis said that he'll focus instead on his new Quantum Valley Investments venture, which recently backed a research center in his home town of Waterloo, Ontario.
Mar. 28, 2013 ? Marital conflict is a significant source of environmental stress for children, and witnessing such conflict may harm children's stress response systems which, in turn, may affect their mental and intellectual development.
These conclusions come from a new study by researchers at Auburn University and the Catholic University of America. The study appears in the journal Child Development.
Researchers looked at 251 children from a variety of backgrounds who lived in two-parent homes. The children reported on their exposure to marital conflict when they were 8, providing information on the frequency, intensity, and lack of resolution of conflicts between their parents. The study gauged how children's stress response system functioned by measuring respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an index of activity in the parasympathetic branch of the body's stress response system. RSA has been linked to the ability to regulate attention and emotion. Children's ability to rapidly solve problems and quickly see patterns in new information also was measured at ages 8, 9, and 10.
Children who witnessed more marital conflict at age 8 showed less adaptive RSA reactivity at 9, but this was true only for children who had lower resting RSA. In addition, children with lower baseline RSA whose stress response systems were also less adaptive developed mental and intellectual ability more slowly.
"The findings provide further evidence that stress affects the development of the body's stress response systems that help regulate attention, and that how these systems work is tied to the development of cognitive ability," explains J. Benjamin Hinnant, assistant professor of psychology at the Catholic University of America and one of the researchers.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Research in Child Development, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
J. Benjamin Hinnant, Mona El-Sheikh, Margaret Keiley, Joseph A. Buckhalt. Marital Conflict, Allostatic Load, and the Development of Children's Fluid Cognitive Performance. Child Development, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12103
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
A bacterial transplant in mice has been shown to provide some of the benefits of gastric bypass surgery without putting the animals under the knife
By Nicola Jones and Nature magazine
Here the taxonomy of gut bacteria in mice that have received gastric bypass (red) is compared to that of mice kept at the same weight (blue) and of others that were not kept on a diet (green). Image: Science Translational Medicine/AAAS
Obese people considering gastric bypass surgery to help trim their fat might one day have another option: swallowing a new supply of gut bacteria. A study in mice suggests that weight loss after bypass surgery is caused not by the operation itself, but at least in part by a change in the amounts of various species of microbes in the gut.
A bypass operation separates off a small part of the stomach and connects that directly to the intestines. Recipients tend to feel less hungry, fill up more quickly and burn more calories at rest, and they often lose up to 75% of their excess fat. Counter-intuitively, this is thought to be caused by a change in metabolism, rather than by the reduced size of the stomach.
Gut microbes are thought to be part of this picture. People who have had bypasses are known to experience changes in the selection of microbes in their guts. Fat people have been shown to host a different selection of gut bacteria from people who are obese, and transferring the gut bacteria of fat mice into thin ones can cause the thin mice to pack on extra weight. But no one knew whether the microbes in bypass patients changed because they got thin, or if the patients got thin because the microbes changed.
Chop and change To investigate, Lee Kaplan, director of the Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and his colleagues gave about a dozen obese mice bypass surgery. As expected, the mice lost about 29% of their body weight, and kept it off despite a high-fat diet. New conditions in their bodies ? such as a change in bile acids ? allowed a different set of gut bacteria to thrive.
The researchers then took faecal samples from the mice that had been operated on, and put bacteria from them into the guts of mice specially bred without any gut flora. These mice, which were not obese, lost 5% of their weight without any changes to their diet. The results are reported in Science Translational Medicine.
The effect is impressively large, says Randy Seeley, an obesity researcher at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, particularly given that sterile mice almost always gain weight when given any kind of gut flora. The fact that the mice getting the second-hand bacteria did not lose as much weight as those that had surgery suggests that other factors are also at work; these could include hormonal changes.
The results are promising for obesity treatments, but there are still hurdles to overcome. ?You can?t just take a pill of the right bacteria and have them stick around,? says Seeley. If the gut?s environmental conditions don?t change, then the original microbes come back, he says. Kaplan says that the next steps are to isolate the four bacteria types that the study found to be at play and introduce them into obese mice or people. Antibiotic treatments might help the new bacteria to stick. ?I believe it?s possible,? says Kaplan.
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on March 27, 2013.
BRASILIA (Reuters) - A Brazilian doctor who was charged with killing seven patients to free up beds at a hospital intensive care unit may have been responsible for as many as 300 deaths, according to a Health Ministry investigator.
Prosecutors said Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team administered muscle relaxing drugs to patients, then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern city of Curitiba.
De Souza, a 56-year-old widow, was arrested last month and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder. Three other doctors, three nurses and a physiotherapist who worked under De Souza have also been charged with murder.
Prosecutors for the state of Parana said wiretaps of De Souza's phone conversations revealed that her motive was to free up hospital beds for other patients.
"I want to clear the intensive care unit. It's making me itch," she said in one recording released to Brazilian media. "Unfortunately, our mission is to be go-betweens on the springboard to the next life," she added in the same phone call.
De Souza's lawyer, Elias Mattar Assad, said investigators had misunderstood how an intensive care unit works and she would prove her innocence.
More cases are expected to emerge as investigators comb through 1,700 medical records of patients who died in the last seven years at the hospital, where De Souza headed the intensive care unit.
"We already have more than 20 cases established, and there are nearly 300 more that we are looking into," the chief investigator assigned by Brazil's Health Ministry, Dr. Mario Lobato, said on Globo TV's Fantastico program on Sunday.
If prosecutors prove that De Souza killed 300 patients, this could be one of the world's worst serial killings, rivaling the notorious case of Harold Shipman, the English doctor who was found to have killed at least 215 patients.
Lobato said the deaths he reviewed occurred under similar circumstances: a muscle relaxant such as Pancuronium (trademark Pavulon) was administered, increasing the patients' dependence on artificial respiration; then the oxygen supply was reduced, causing death by asphyxia.
Some of the patients were conscious moments before they died, he said.
Prosecutors said De Souza felt "all powerful" running the intensive care unit homicide, to the point where she "had the power to decree the moment when a victim would die."
In some cases, De Souza was absent from the hospital and gave instructions to end the life of a patient by telephone to members of her medical team, according to documents detailing the charges.
Last week, a Curitiba judge ordered the release of De Souza and her medical team. Prosecutors sought on Monday to have her returned to custody because she was the leader of the team and witnesses had reported being intimidated.
Parana state prosecutors asked police on Wednesday to investigate whether more hospital employees, including former managers, were involved in the case.
President Dilma Rousseff's government will announce steps on Thursday to reorganize the hospital, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said.
Contact: Barry Whyte barry.whyte@embo.org European Molecular Biology Organization
HEIDELBERG, 25 March 2013 Researchers have used whole genome sequencing to reveal if drug-resistant bacteria are transmitted from animals to humans in two disease outbreaks that occurred on different farms in Denmark. The results, which are published today in EMBO Molecular Medicine, confirm animal-to-human transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a disease-causing bacterium that carries the recently described mecC gene. The mecC gene is responsible for resistance to the penicillin-like antibiotic methicillin.
Drug-resistant bacterial infections pose a significant challenge to public health and may have severe and sometimes fatal consequences. As the costs of whole genome sequencing methods continue to plummet and the speed of analysis increases, it becomes increasingly attractive for scientists to use whole genome sequencing to answer disease-related questions.
"We used whole genome sequencing to see if we could determine if the two disease outbreaks were caused by the same bacterium and to investigate if the pathogens were transmitted from animal to humans or the other way around," remarked Mark Holmes, from the University of Cambridge and the senior author on the paper. "At first glance, it seems reasonable to expect the same pathogen to be the source of the two outbreaks at the two geographically close locations. By looking at the single differences in nucleotides or SNPs in the DNA sequences of each isolate, it became obvious that two different strains of bacteria were responsible for the two disease outbreaks. In one case, the results also clearly showed that the most likely direction of transmission was from animal to human."
Methicillin-resistant S. aureus can lead to debilitating skin and soft tissue infections, bacteremia, pneumonia and endocarditis. The researchers used an Illumina HiSeq sequencing system to take a close look at the nucleotide sequence of each pathogen. By comparing single difference in nucleotides in the two sequences (single nucleotide polymorphisms) they were able to reach conclusions about the identity of the pathogens and the routes of infection.
The researchers emphasize that while whole genome sequencing cannot replace other more traditional types of diseases analysis it can greatly increase the ability of scientists to distinguish between different pathogens as the cause of disease.
"Our findings demonstrate that the MRSA strains we studied are capable of transmission between animals and humans, which highlights the role of livestock as a potential reservoir of antibiotic-resistant bacteria," remarked Ewan Harrison, one of the lead authors of the study.
###
Whole genome sequencing identifies zoonotic transmission of MRSA isolates with the novel mecA homologue mecC
Ewan M. Harrison, Gavin K. Paterson, Matthew T.G. Holden, Jesper Larsen, Marc Stegger, Anders Rhod Larsen, Andreas Petersen, Robert L. Skov, Judit Marta Christensen, Anne Bak Zeuthen, Ole Heltberg, Simon R. Harris, Ruth N. Zadoks, Julian Parkhill, Sharon J. Peacock, Mark A. Holmes
Read the paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
doi: 10.1002/emmm.201202413
Further information on EMBO Molecular Medicine is available at: http://www.embomolmed.org
Media Contacts
Barry Whyte
Head | Public Relations and Communications
About EMBO
EMBO is an organization of more than 1500 leading researchers that promotes excellence in the life sciences. The major goals of the organization are to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulate the exchange of scientific information, and help build a European research environment where scientists can achieve their best work.
EMBO helps young scientists to advance their research, promote their international reputations and ensure their mobility. Courses, workshops, conferences and scientific journals disseminate the latest research and offer training in techniques to maintain high standards of excellence in research practice. EMBO helps to shape science and research policy by seeking input and feedback from our community and by following closely the trends in science in Europe. ?
For more information: http://www.embo.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Barry Whyte barry.whyte@embo.org European Molecular Biology Organization
HEIDELBERG, 25 March 2013 Researchers have used whole genome sequencing to reveal if drug-resistant bacteria are transmitted from animals to humans in two disease outbreaks that occurred on different farms in Denmark. The results, which are published today in EMBO Molecular Medicine, confirm animal-to-human transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a disease-causing bacterium that carries the recently described mecC gene. The mecC gene is responsible for resistance to the penicillin-like antibiotic methicillin.
Drug-resistant bacterial infections pose a significant challenge to public health and may have severe and sometimes fatal consequences. As the costs of whole genome sequencing methods continue to plummet and the speed of analysis increases, it becomes increasingly attractive for scientists to use whole genome sequencing to answer disease-related questions.
"We used whole genome sequencing to see if we could determine if the two disease outbreaks were caused by the same bacterium and to investigate if the pathogens were transmitted from animal to humans or the other way around," remarked Mark Holmes, from the University of Cambridge and the senior author on the paper. "At first glance, it seems reasonable to expect the same pathogen to be the source of the two outbreaks at the two geographically close locations. By looking at the single differences in nucleotides or SNPs in the DNA sequences of each isolate, it became obvious that two different strains of bacteria were responsible for the two disease outbreaks. In one case, the results also clearly showed that the most likely direction of transmission was from animal to human."
Methicillin-resistant S. aureus can lead to debilitating skin and soft tissue infections, bacteremia, pneumonia and endocarditis. The researchers used an Illumina HiSeq sequencing system to take a close look at the nucleotide sequence of each pathogen. By comparing single difference in nucleotides in the two sequences (single nucleotide polymorphisms) they were able to reach conclusions about the identity of the pathogens and the routes of infection.
The researchers emphasize that while whole genome sequencing cannot replace other more traditional types of diseases analysis it can greatly increase the ability of scientists to distinguish between different pathogens as the cause of disease.
"Our findings demonstrate that the MRSA strains we studied are capable of transmission between animals and humans, which highlights the role of livestock as a potential reservoir of antibiotic-resistant bacteria," remarked Ewan Harrison, one of the lead authors of the study.
###
Whole genome sequencing identifies zoonotic transmission of MRSA isolates with the novel mecA homologue mecC
Ewan M. Harrison, Gavin K. Paterson, Matthew T.G. Holden, Jesper Larsen, Marc Stegger, Anders Rhod Larsen, Andreas Petersen, Robert L. Skov, Judit Marta Christensen, Anne Bak Zeuthen, Ole Heltberg, Simon R. Harris, Ruth N. Zadoks, Julian Parkhill, Sharon J. Peacock, Mark A. Holmes
Read the paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
doi: 10.1002/emmm.201202413
Further information on EMBO Molecular Medicine is available at: http://www.embomolmed.org
Media Contacts
Barry Whyte
Head | Public Relations and Communications
About EMBO
EMBO is an organization of more than 1500 leading researchers that promotes excellence in the life sciences. The major goals of the organization are to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulate the exchange of scientific information, and help build a European research environment where scientists can achieve their best work.
EMBO helps young scientists to advance their research, promote their international reputations and ensure their mobility. Courses, workshops, conferences and scientific journals disseminate the latest research and offer training in techniques to maintain high standards of excellence in research practice. EMBO helps to shape science and research policy by seeking input and feedback from our community and by following closely the trends in science in Europe. ?
For more information: http://www.embo.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) ? Zimbabwe's High Court orders the immediate release of a prominent rights lawyer detained for eight days for obstructing the course of justice.
Court officials said Beatrice Mtetwa was asked to post a $500 bail and her release papers will be prepared Monday.
High Court Judge Joseph Musakwa ruled that Mtetwa was following professional legal procedures when she demanded to see a search warrant from police at the offices of four officials in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party. Those officials are accused of illegally compiling information on high level corruption and will appeal for bail later Monday.
Mtetwa and the four officials deny any wrongdoing.
Lawyers' groups have cited the arrests as intimidation against opponents of President Robert Mugabe by loyalist police and officials ahead of elections around July.
One of the most well-loved NES games of all time, "DuckTales," is being resurrected in high definition, Capcom announced today. "DuckTales: Remastered" will be coming to Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U this Summer.
Gamers old enough to have had an NES will likely remember the original "DuckTales," a creative and challenging platformer with catchy music and memorable level design. The new version features highly detailed graphics based on the original, as well as new levels and improved boss fights.
The game was announced at the PAX East gaming convention, along with non-HD releases of the classic Dungeons & Dragons series of arcade beat-em-ups. Capcom has been highly successful with its retro re-releases, producing popular and acclaimed versions of "Mega Man," "Blaster Master" and "Bionic Commando" among others in the last few years.
No word on exact release date, but "DuckTales: Remastered" will cost $14.99 or the equivalent amount in Microsoft's MS points.
Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.
Syracuse wins 66-60. C.J. Fair scored 18 on 6/14 shooting. Southerland had 14 points and 9 rebounds.
Solomon gets a layup to go and now Cal is down 6 with 6.9 seconds left. Timeout.
Solomon gets an offensive rebound on an airball and makes a layup PLUS the foul. 22.9 seconds left. Southerland has fouled out. Solomon misses the free throw and Fair gets the rebound.
Crabbe makes a running jumper a few feet inside the 3-point line to cut the lead to 64-56 with 29.1 seconds left.
First, Syracuse fails to get a good inbounds pass in and fumbles the ball out of bounds. Then Cal's inbounds pass flies out of bounds. Just terrible turnovers. 62-54 Syracuse. 36.5 seconds left.
Baye Keita was left wide open down low and threw down a two-handed dunk. 62-53 Syracuse with 40.1 seconds left. Baye Keita commits a foul on the other end.
Carter-Williams goes 1/2 from the line to make it 60-53, Cobbs is called for a charge but it looked like Carter-Williams was moving the entire time.
Triche ges fouled and only makes 1/2. Cal respondes with an easy layup from Cobbs to make it 59-53.
Syracuse threw it away but Cal recovered and stepped out of bounds.
Cal goes right to Wallace on the right side and he swishes a 3 to cut the lead to seven. We have a game! 58-51 Syracuse.
Crabbe knocks down a long 3 from the left wing to cut the lead to 10. Now Fair goes to the line for Syracuse and misses BOTH.
Baye Keita went up for a dunk and got fouled. Only made 1/2. 57-44 Syracuse.
Southerland makes both. 56-44 with 3:23 left and Cal turns it over again.
Carter-Williams drives to his right and stretches out to get the layup. Then Cal turns it over and commits a foul. 54-44 Cuse and Southerland going to the line with 3:38 left.
Cobbs got fouled on a layup and made 1/2. 52-44 Syracuse.
Robert Thurman working hard on the offensive rebounds and got a put-back to go to cut the lead to seven. But Southerland somehow got a one-handed runner from the baseline to go. 52-43 CUSE with 4:29 left.
Both teams traded baskets and then Cal's Richard Solomon made a layup to cut it to 8. 49-41 CUSE with 5:28 left.
A moving screen is called on Syracuse's Baye Keita and Cal gets the stop they needed. Cal down 10 and now David Kravish will go to the line after getting fouled on a dunk attempt.
Cobbs gets his first bucket of the second half and now Syracuse leads 45-33 with 8:24 left.
Cal hasn't made a field goal in approximately 7 minutes. Cuse leads 44-31 with 10:45 left.
Were we expecting any new hardware from ASUS? Items we've seen but have not shipped like the Qube and Transformer Book spring to mind immediately, but they're not a direct match for this pic the company posted on its Google+ page earlier this evening (Update: we replaced it with the final pic.) It's inviting any and all guesses as to what's in store and promises a device reveal tomorrow, so your period of eager anticipation will be (thankfully) short lived. Judging by the comments it might not be anything we've gone hands-on with previously, but the image reveals that spun-metal aluminum look we've become familiar with on ASUS' tablets and laptops lately. Beyond that, the oddly squarish aspect ratio draws immediate comparisons to the 3:2 Chromebook Pixel, but until it's officially unveiled we'll leave the rest of the random speculation up to you.
Update1: The smart money so far is on its Varidrive media dock, which appears to match the dimensions and spun-metal look nicely -- we'll see what it really is tomorrow.
Update 2: Well, ASUS has relieved the overwhelming tension on its Google+ page by announcing a new... DVD writer. It does strongly resemble the aforementioned Varidrive dock with its spiral brushed aluminum look and the outfit claims it's the world's thinnest at 13mm, but as one G+ commenter put it: "a DVD writer. Seriously." Check the second source below for the reveal.
In my role as a chiropractor in Champlin Minnesota, ?I have given free health workshops to our community for over 20 years.? One of our most popular classes, Taking Charge of Your Health, is directed at measuring overall wellness level, then giving specific advice to improve wellness quickly and efficiently.? Here?s an example for those of us who never seem to have enough time:
Try Resistance Training
Resistance or strength training, includes any kind of exercise that has resistance from gravity (pull ups, for example), resistance bands, weights, etc. It?should be intense enough that 7-8 repetitions fatigues the muscle to near failure.? If you have never performed the exercise before, start at a lighter intensity of 10-12 reps to failure.? Then gradually increase the resistance until you find that by your 8th repetition you are unable to do another one.? This is called anaerobic exercise and has many more benefits than aerobic exercise.
Aerobic exercise includes traditional exercise such as going for a brisk walk, jogging, cross country skiing and group fitness classes.? They certainly have a place in our fitness program, but resistance training simply gives us more bang for the buck.
If you only?had 20 minutes for exercise, strength training out performs aerobic training for improving/eliminating diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, female infertility, age related poor balance, and even premature aging.
This is supported by research, reviewing hundreds of my patient?s body compostion results and their exercise plans, and my own personal experience.? I have been an avid runner for years but began noticing that marathon runners often times weren?t my healthiest patients.? The patients with the best health markers were the ones that lifted weights?regularly.? They may also do aerobic exercise but the common thread was resistance training.
I have counseled enough patients over the years to know that it is the women that will fight me on this.? There is absolutely no worry about ?bulking up? by adding in resistance training.? Quite the contrary, you will slim down, look healthier and feel great.??I have seen it hundreds of times.
As Joseph Mercola, M.D. states in his analysis of exercise, ?Strength training is an important component as it?s the number one way for you to remain strong, young, and independent well into old age, and what good is living long if you?re too decrepit to enjoy it??
If you would like to have your body composition tested and help getting started on a program, I?d love to help you. A great place to begin is? by joining us for our next Taking Charge of Your Health class, which I offer every month free of charge at the clinic.
TripAdvisor, the travel site built around destination guides and user reviews, today made another acquisition: it has bought Tiny Post, an app that lets users take pictures, write captions over them, and then share them with people on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it looks like this was both an acqui-hire as well as a product acquisition. The team behind Tiny Post, including founders Dick Brouwer and Melissa Miranda, will join TripAdvisor's Palo Alto office; and TripAdvisor's CEO Steve Kaufer is describing Tiny Post itself as a "great fit" with the rest of TripAdvisor's business.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have once again demonstrated the incredible capabilities of metamaterials ? artificial nanoconstructs whose optical properties arise from their physical structure rather than their chemical composition. Engineering a unique two-dimensional sheet of gold nanoantennas, the researchers were able to obtain the strongest signal yet of the photonic spin Hall effect, an optical phenomenon of quantum mechanics that could play a prominent role in the future of computing.
"With metamaterial, we were able to greatly enhance a naturally weak effect to the point where it was directly observable with simple detection techniques," said Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division who led this research. "We also demonstrated that metamaterials not only allow us to control the propagation of light but also allos control of circular polarization. This could have profound consequences for information encoding and processing."
Zhang is the corresponding author of a paperdescribing this work in the journalScience. The paper is titled "Photonic Spin Hall Effect at Metasurfaces." Co-authors are Xiaobo Yin, Ziliang Ye, Jun Sun Rho and Yuan Wang.
The spin Hall effect, named in honor of physicist Edwin Hall, describes the curved path that spinning electrons follow as they move through a semiconductor. The curved movement arises from the interaction between the physical motion of the electron and its spin ? a quantized angular momentum that gives rise to magnetic moment. Think of a baseball pitcher putting spin on a ball to make it curve to the left or right.
"Light moving through a metal also displays the spin Hall effect but the photonic spin Hall effect is very weak because the spin angular momentum of photons and spin-orbit interactions are very small," says Xiaobo Yin, a member of Zhang's research group and the lead author of the Science paper. "In the past, people have managed to observe the photonic spin Hall effect by generating the process over and over again to obtain an accumulative signal, or by using highly sophisticated quantum measurements. Our metamaterial makes the photonic spin Hall effect observable even with a simple camera."
Metamaterials have garnered a lot of attention in recent years because their unique structure affords electromagnetic properties unattainable in nature. For example, a metamaterial can have a negative index of refraction, the ability to bend light backwards, unlike all materials found in nature, which bend light forward. Zhang, who holds the Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California (UC) Berkeley, where he also directs the National Science Foundation's Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center, has been at the forefront of metamaterials research. For this study, he and his group fashioned metamaterial surfaces about 30 nanometers thick (a human hair by comparison is between 50,000 and 100,000 nanometers thick). These metasurfaces were constructed from V-shaped gold nanoantennas whose geometry could be configured by adjusting the length and orientation of the arms of the Vs.
"We chose eight different antenna configurations with optimized geometry parameters to generate a linear phase gradient along the x direction," says Yin. "This enabled us to control the the propagation of the light and introduce strong photon spin-orbit interactions through rapid changes in direction. The photonic spin Hall effect depends on the curvature of the light's trajectory, so the sharper the change in propagation direction, the stronger the effect."
Since the entire metasurface sample measured only 0.3 millimeters, a 50-millimeter lens was used to project the transmission of the light through the metamaterial onto a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera for imaging. From the CCD images, the researchers determined that both the control of light propagation and the giant photonic spin Hall effect were the direct results of the designed meta-material. This finding opens up a wealth of possibilities for new technologies.
"The controllable spin-orbit interaction and momentum transfer between spin and orbital angular momentum allows us to manipulate the information encoded on the polarization of light, much like the 0 and 1 of today's electronic devices," Yin says. "But photonic devices could encode more information and provide greater information security than conventional electronic devices."
Yin says the ability to control left and right circular polarization of light in metamaterial surfaces should allow for the formation of optical elements, like highly coveted "flat lenses," or the management of light polarization without using wave plates.
"Metamaterials provide us with tremendous design freedom that will allow us to modulate the strength of the photonic spin Hall effect at different spatial locations," Yin says. "We knew the photonic spin Hall effect existed in nature but it was so hard to detect. Now, with the right metamaterials we can not only enhance this effect we can harness it for our own purposes."
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DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: http://www.lbl.gov
Thanks to DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for this article.
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Global Pollution and Prevention News: US Drinking Water: D+!
How safe is our drinking water? The water system especially in our older cities has been around for a long time being patched and repaired. The American Society of Civil Engineers and its members are committed to protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the public, and as such, are equally committed to improving the nation?s public infrastructure. To achieve that goal, they have recently issued a Report Card on the condition and performance of the nation?s infrastructure. They are experts at how it is done and they give the American system a D+! At the dawn of the 21st century, much of our drinking water infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life. There are an estimated 240,000 water main breaks per year in the United States. The quality of drinking water in the United States remains universally high, however. Even though pipes and mains are frequently more than 100 years old and in need of replacement, outbreaks of disease attributable to drinking water are rare.
Drinking water or potable water is water safe enough to be consumed by humans or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry meets drinking water standards, even though only a very small proportion is actually consumed or used in food preparation. Typical uses (for other than potable purposes) include toilet flushing, washing and landscape irrigation.
Drinking water quality in the United States affects approximately 314,569,000 people in some way or another. In some places in the United States, people may be concerned about pollutants.
Nearly 170,000 public drinking water systems are located across the United States. Of these, 54,000 are community water systems that collectively serve more than 264 million people.
Although new pipes are being added to expand service areas, drinking-water systems degrade over time, with the useful life of component parts ranging from 15 to 95 years. Especially in the country?s older cities, much of the drinking water infrastructure is at the far older end of its useful life and in need of replacement.
Failures in drinking water infrastructure can result in water disruptions, impediments to emergency response, and damage to other types of infrastructure.
In 2012, the American Water Works Association (AWWA) concluded that the aggregate replacement value for more than one million miles of pipes was approximately $2.1 trillion if all pipes were to be replaced at once. Since not all pipes need to be replaced immediately, it is estimated that the most urgent investments could be spread over 25 years at a cost of approximately $1 trillion.? This is one large bill!
All is not gloom and doom.? Some places are being proactive.? The Chicago Department of Water Management delivers almost one billion gallons of fresh water to the residents of Chicago and 125 suburban communities every day. The city has replaced about 30 miles of water mains a year in recent years. That pace is not nearly quick enough, given that Chicago put down about 75 miles of mains a year between 1890 and 1920, and that those pipes were not expected to serve for more than a century. In 2012, the city embarked on a 10-year plan to replace 900 miles of century-old drinking water pipes.
What is the long term?? The system needs to be upgraded and there will be large capital costs.? Water bills will have to rise to compensate.
ITHACA, N.Y. ? After record the highest winning percentage for a season in program history, the men's squash team placed senior Nick Sachvie and sophomore Aditya Jagtap on the All-Ivy League Team. It's the third time Sachvie has won the honor, while it's the first time Jagtap has been named All-Ivy. ? Sachvie once again anchored the top spot in the Big Red's lineup, posting an 11-8 record. He was one of seven unanimous selections to the All-Ivy League Team. Sachvie advanced to the quarterfinals of the Pool Division of the College Squash Association's Individual Championships, where he lost to top-seeded Todd Harrity of Princeton. He was 34-19 over his three seasons on East Hill and was unanimously named the Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 2011, when he advanced to the finals of the College Squash Association's Individual Championships. ? Jagtap settled in to the No. 2 position, winning 14 of his 18 matches on the season. His individual winning percentage of .778 led the team. After winning seven of his first nine matches in three games, Jagtap went through a stretch of hard-fought matches down the stretch. His come-from-behind five-game victory over Rochester's Neil Cordell on Jan. 23 helped the Big Red move up to fifth in the national rankings, then Jagtap rallied for another five-game victory against Princeton's Samuel Kang on Feb. 8 to help spur the squad's 5-4 victory over the previously undefeated and top-ranked Tigers. ? Co-Players of the Year Todd Harrity, Princeton Ali Farag, Harvard
Men's Rookie of the Year Vivek Dinodia, Princeton
All-Ivy League Team^
Ramit Tandon, Columbia* Nick Sachvie, Cornell* Aditya Jagtap, Cornell Chris Hanson, Dartmouth*
Ali Farag, Harvard*
Brandon McLaughlin, Harvard*
Todd Harrity, Princeton*
Samuel Kang, Princeton*
Tyler Osborne, Princeton
Kenneth Chan, Yale
Hywel Robinson, Yale
*unanimous selection
^ 11 players on All-Ivy due to a tie in the voting
The American BlackBerry faithful have been waiting and while those with business (and T-Mobile) intentions got there a little early, the Z10 is now available to the more typical pay-monthly masses from AT&T. Priced up at $200 on a two-year contract, you can pick it up from Ma' Bell's for-real stores and online today, just click on that source link for all those carrier details.
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Public release date: 25-Mar-2013
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than aerobic exercise.
