Whacko World News from an Eccentric Earth

Machines now beat humans at lip-reading

2009-10-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.zopag.com/news/computers-now-better-at-lipreading-than-humans/7169.html

Washington, September 10: A new study has revealed that computers are better at lip-reading than humans – a finding that could lead to novel methods of lip-reading training for the deaf and hard of hearing.

The research team from University of East Anglia compared the performance of a machine-based lip-reading system with that of 19 human lip-readers.

They found that the automated system significantly outperformed the human lip-readers – scoring a recognition rate of 80 per cent, compared with only 32 per cent for human viewers on the same task.

Unlike the traditional approach to lip-reading training, where viewers are taught to spot key lip-shapes from static (often drawn) images, the new video-based training system significantly improved their ability to lip-read monosyllabic words.

"This pilot study is the first time an automated lip-reading system has been benchmarked against human lip-readers and the results are perhaps surprising," said the study''s lead author Sarah Hilder.

Charge your car while you drive

2009-10-16T00:18:00.000-07:00

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/153299/german-innovation-would-charge-your-car-while-you-drive/

One of the usual complaints about electric cars is how you handle long road trips. If an electric vehicle has a range of just a couple hundred miles, and then requires eight hours plugged into the wall, well, that family drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles turns from one long (but manageable) day of driving into a three-day ordeal.

But what if you could charge your car while you were on the road? That's the idea behind Germany's IAV Automotive Engineering, which has patented a system that embeds charging electronics right into the roadway, juicing up cars as they merrily roll along.

The idea is similar to any number of wireless power innovations: Electromagnetic field generators embedded in the road would induce an electrical current in charging equipment on the underside of your car, which would charge your battery as you drive. The chargers would activate only when a vehicle is present, using an RFID tag to identify the vehicle to the charging system (in part, presumably, to bill you appropriately for power used).

IAV says the system currently works at 90 percent efficiency and would be ready for commercial rollout in about three years. Similar systems could also be adapted for home use while cars are parked: Wireless chargers could be installed in your garage, for example, freeing you from the hassle of having to remember to plug your car into wall power after a long slog home from the industrial park. Nissan has a garage-based charging system in the works, as well.

Naturally there's a bit of a problem with the idea, and that's the little matter of how you outfit a highway system as vast as America's with what sounds like relatively complicated charging equipment. The U.S. has over 46,000 miles of interstate highways alone. Adding charging circuitry to all that roadway would surely cost tens of billions of dollars or more -- and that doesn't even consider adding equipment to intrastate roads.

Still, great idea... at least in theory.

"thank you littell f***ker", says waiter

2009-09-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/09/11/329843/rude-waiter-sacked-from-halifax-restaurant.html

A waiter has been sacked after signing off a customer’s bill with the misspelt words “thank you littell f***ker”.

The waiter at the Cactus Joe Mexican restaurant in Halifax put the message on the bottom of a family’s bill referring to their two year old, who had complained during the meal, according to reports in today’s Metro.

The family visited the restaurant on its opening weekend and had been seated in the advertised kid’s zone but had been frustrated by slow service and poor food which had led to complaints from the little girl.

Dad Craig Cartin said: “The meal was indifferent anyway but to be abused on the bill is unbelievably offensive, it’s awful behaviour.”

Restaurant owner Steve Ryan apologised unreservedly to the family for the message, admitting the behaviour was “inexcusable” and has invited the family back this weekend as his guests.

Bank wants thumbprint from man with no hands

2009-09-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=112587

Tampa, Florida -- While most banks require a thumbprint to cash a check from someone who doesn't have an account, a Tampa man says that policy was impossible to comply with.

Steve Valdez says he was shocked when he was told he had to put his thumbprint on a check written on his wife's Bank of America check. Valdez says the check was written to him with the same address he has on his driver's license. Although he had two forms of identification both with pictures, the bank still required Valdez to give a thumbprint before it would cash the check.

But that was impossible, because Valdez was born without arms and wears prosthetic devices.

According to Valdez, when he gave the teller the check, she said "Obviously you can't give a thumbprint." But Valdez says the manager refused to cash the check unless he did.

When Valdez told the manager giving a thumbprint would be impossible, she suggested he either bring in his wife or open an account. Valdez says that's not the way the bank would treat someone without prosthetic arms, and he refused.

Valdez says he asked the bank if it had ever heard of the American with Disabilities Act and he says they told him they were accommodating him by offering the choices. But the ADA says businesses must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment.

A spokesman for Bank of America says while the thumbprint is a requirement for those who don't have accounts, the bank should have made accommodations.

City goes vegetarian for health and environment

2009-05-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8046970.stm

The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.

Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.

The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent's declaration of a weekly "veggie day".

Public officials and politicians will be the first to give up meat for a day.

Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own veggiedag in September.

It is hoped the move will cut Ghent's environmental footprint and help tackle obesity.

Around 90,000 so-called "veggie street maps" are now being printed to help people find the city's vegetarian eateries.

Roadkill cook-off, Spam Jam lure bold foodies

2009-05-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/05/14/food.festivals/index.html

(CNN) -- Thousands of people converge on the small town of Marlinton, West Virginia, each fall for a feast whose main ingredients were unlucky enough to crawl, slither or lurk too close to a speeding car.

It's RoadKill Cook-Off time, where past years' crowds have sampled dishes like Pothole Possum Stew, Fricasseed Wabbit Gumbo and Smeared Hog with Groundhog Gravy.

Welcome to the world of unusual -- dare we say weird? -- food festivals.

Sure, you can find plenty of culinary celebrations dedicated to everything from rhubarb to seafood, but there are also options to satisfy your cravings for rattlesnake, fried pig intestines or garlic ice cream.

The RoadKill Cook-Off is so popular that it fills all the motels and hotels in the county when it takes place on the last Saturday in September, said David Cain, who runs the event and samples all the dishes.

"There are some that are better than others, but I've never really had anything that I really didn't like," Cain said. "But there was one year they cooked a rattlesnake in some kind of stew, and ... there was no way I could taste that one."

The RoadKill Cook-Off began in 1991, when organizers thought it might boost attendance at the main event: the Pocahontas County Autumn Harvest Festival.

Did it ever.

About 10,000 people from all over the country came to last year's gathering, Cain said. All dishes featured in the festival must have animals commonly found dead on the side of the road -- such as deer, squirrels and snakes -- as their main ingredient. But the meat doesn't have to be actual roadkill.

"Judges will deduct points for every chipped tooth resulting from gravel not removed from the RoadKill," the official rules warn. "All judges have been tested for cast-iron stomachs and have sworn under oath to have no vegetarian tendencies."

All about Spam

Thousands of miles away, in Honolulu, Hawaii, aficionados of canned luncheon meat gather in April for the annual Waikiki Spam Jam, described by organizers as "a street festival that celebrates the people of Hawaii's love for Spam."

Some may call it mystery meat, but it's not advisable to do so in Hawaii, which has the highest per-capita consumption rate of Spam products in the United States. Almost 7 million cans worth of the pinkish product are eaten every year in the Aloha State, according to festival officials.

The crowds at this year's Spam Jam sampled dishes such as Spam Fried Rice, Spam Burgers and Guava Mango BBQ Spam Sliders.

"I think people are amused by the whole idea because it is pretty different. Like, why would you celebrate Spam?" said Barbara Campbell, one of the founders of the festival. "It's just about having fun, and they love the different Spam items."

A restaurant that offered Spam Chili Nachos at the festival was so amazed by their popularity that it's thinking of adding the dish to its permanent menu, Campbell added.

Fans who admire the yellow and blue design of Spam cans also have a chance to splurge on Spam-themed merchandise, including T-shirts, baby items and slippers.

Celebrating the 'stinking rose'

Some unusual food festivals can tickle the nose as well as the palate. Vampires may hate garlic, but the pungent cloves draw huge crowds of hungry mortals each July to the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, "the garlic capital of the world."

If you're a fan, pack some breath mints and enjoy everything from traditional garlic-infused fare like scampi and stuffed mushrooms, to more exotic choices. Garlic ice cream, anyone?

Those who have tried the frozen dessert describe it as an "acquired taste."

"I would say when you first taste it, it's like regular vanilla ice cream, and then give it about 10 seconds, and you feel the kick of garlic," said Peter Ciccarelli, director of media relations for the festival.

"It's not something that people would eat by a bowlful, nor would they put chocolate syrup on it."

Last year's festival drew more than 100,000 people who consumed more than 15,000 servings of garlic bread and 10,000 servings of garlic fries. Almost 3 tons of the "stinking rose," as garlic is sometimes fondly called, were used to flavor the dishes.

A meal with legs

The truly adventurous foodies may opt for BugFest and the leggy dishes served up by Café Insecta at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh each September.

Popular choices include the Ant-Chilada, a cheese enchilada in which toasted freeze-dried ants are used as both the filling and topping, and Hush-Grubbies, in which wax worm grubs are coated with hush-puppy batter and deep fried.

For dessert, visitors can try Chocolate-Chirp Cookies, which have crickets baked in.

"We basically use recipes that we would use for any other dish and substitute the protein," explained Matthew Busch, head chef at the museum's Acro Café, who creates the dishes at Café Insecta during BugFest. So, instead of doing a shrimp stir-fry, the museum might do a scorpion stir-fry.

Busch, who said he tries anything he cooks, recommended the Hush-Grubbies, calling the bugs inside "tasty" and "a little buttery." Stir-fried scorpions, on the other hand, can be a little bitter, he cautioned.

Watching the reactions of visitors who dig in to the bug-laden food is Busch's favorite part, and he described seeing an entire range of responses, from people who are gung-ho and want to try everything to those who are squeamish and have to be peer-pressured to take a bite.

Some people's strategy is just to eat around the bugs, Busch said.

Tenants asked to give 'death notice'

2009-05-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Tenants_to_give_1_month%92s_death_notice&in_article_id=654465&in_page_id=34

Some council tenants are being asked to give their landlord four weeks notice of when they might die.
The ruling has sickened families who have been left to pay the rent charged to their relatives after their deaths.

But Charnwood Borough Council in Leicestershire said the only way the charges could be avoided was if the tenant notified officials of being a month away from death's door.

Jim Seaton, of Ibstock, Leicestershire, was sent a rent bill 18 days after his stepfather, Raymond Smith, died aged 80.

'I asked the council, “How does a dead man give one month's notice?' But they told me, “Sorry, rules are rules.”'

And Amanda Harrison said the council acted like 'vultures' after she was sent a bill for £229 after her aunt died, aged 88.

Cllr David Slater, lead member for housing, said he would do 'everything in his power' to overturn the 'absolutely ludicrous' and 'distasteful' policy.

However, Charnwood Neighbourhood Housing, which deals with the contract, insisted the notice period was needed to maintain income and to ensure properties were re-let quickly.

Grow up, stop fretting, dying cancer teen told

2009-03-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160894/Grow-stop-worrying-What-doctor-said-X-Factor-singer-months-killed-cancerous-tumours.html

A teenager died from massive cancerous tumours after his GP repeatedly failed to diagnose the disease and told him to 'grow up a bit and stop worrying', an inquest has heard.

Christopher Chaffey, 19, was so worried about his failing health that he visited his doctor's surgery half a dozen times in the 15 months up to his death.

His symptoms were dismissed as minor and allegedly put down to 'panic attacks'.
Even when a blood test was 'significantly abnormal', the GP thought it indicated mild anaemia instead of taking it more seriously.

X Factor contestant Mr Chaffey found the same attitude at a hospital casualty department when he was taken there by ambulance with a headache, vomiting and chest pains.

A doctor at Hull Royal Infirmary believed he had an anxiety-related condition and told him to consult his GP.

But the teenager's body was gradually being ravaged by cancer and he died two months later - two days after doctors finally discovered the true nature of his condition.

A post-mortem examination found tumours in his neck and skull, as well as a huge tumour affecting his heart and lungs which weighed four-and-a-half pounds.

The alleged medical blunders were revealed at an inquest in Hull.

Dr Sahra Ali, a consultant haematologist who was involved only at the very end of his treatment, told the hearing that the lymphoma would have taken months to develop.

The doctor added: 'It's a very sad case which is treatable and potentially curable if it would have presented at an earlier stage.'

Mr Chaffey, of Coniston, near Hull, was a music fan and had been a contestant in The X Factor two years earlier, although he failed to get beyond the first round.
He was forced to postpone his A-level studies in media and law because of his health problems.

The inquest heard how Mr Chaffey's GP, Joseph Austin, ordered blood tests in July 2007 after the teenager complained of excessive sweating and hair loss. The tests showed abnormalities, but were not considered important.

Repeat blood tests the following April showed his haemoglobin levels had fallen, which the GP diagnosed as a mild type of anaemia.

Independent expert Bill Holmes said these blood test results should have been 'explored more actively'.

He said night sweating was a well-recognised symptom of lymphoma, although GPs usually came across more innocent causes.

Mr Chaffey's mother Patricia, 40, told the hearing that when her son went back to the GP with his taxi driver father Paul, 43, they were allegedly told 'he should grow up a bit and stop worrying there's something wrong with him'.

She took him back to the GP when bouts of fainting prevented him from doing voluntary work at a charity shop.

Mrs Chaffey told the GP about prominent veins on her son's chest, his voice becoming hoarse, and that she sometimes had to sleep in his bedroom, but the doctor put it down to panic attacks, the inquest heard.

Dr Austin said he never suspected his patient was suffering from anything serious. Asked by coroner Geoffrey Saul whether he had ever suggested to a member of the family that the problem was in the mind, Dr Austin replied: 'No, I never told him that.'

On July 19 last year, when Mr Chaffey was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary, tests were ordered by Dr Mohammed As'Ad, who also decided there was nothing physically wrong with him.

Later, consultant Mark Higson concluded there had been 'several' missed opportunities at the A&E department when the cancer could have been picked up.
Mr Chaffey's father got in touch with the Psychosis Service for Young People, which put him on a six-month plan to cope with anxiety, but his health continued to worsen and his weight to drop.

On September 17 last, the family spotted a lump on his neck and he was seen by an out-of-hours doctor. He was admitted to hospital but by then it was too late.
The inquest continues.

Free lunch on offer

2009-03-05T05:36:00.000-08:00

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2009/3/5/lifefocus/3385487&sec=lifefocus

AS the credit crunch bites deeper into Londoners’ pockets, many restaurants are at their wits’ end trying to boost their fledgling business.

First, there was Cha Cha Moon near Oxford Street. It caused a stir with its price-busting £3.50 (RM18.50) deals for popular hawker fare such as Singapore fried noodles and Penang prawn mee until recently.

Then came Little Bay in Farringdon, which literally tore up the bills and asked customers to name their price instead.

“No food bills – pay us what you think the food is worth,” declared a blackboard outside the eatery in east London. Some see it as a psychological ploy to test one’s self-respect.

In the end, many would have paid up more than what was on the table – an ego-boosting trip for some, while saving the blushes for others.

Of course, there were also those who saw the chance for a too-good-to-be-true meal. Some had the audacity to leave as little as two pence (about 10 sen) for the food before slipping off.

But no one had bargained for what a Vietnamese Chinese restaurateur came up with next – he’s paying customers £1 (RM5.30) to eat as much as they can!

Now, that’s what you call a real Chinese takeaway. It’s about paying people to stuff themselves with aromatic duck, honey roast spare ribs and chicken noodle soup while fighting recession at the same time.

“It’s my way of giving a little back to my loyal customers who had supported me during the good times,” said James Huynh of Oriental Aroma in Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire.

He admitted that he had been incurring losses every day. Yet the day would come when his goodwill would earn back more business from his return customers.

“My mother used to tell me from childhood that if you’re prepared to give a little without expectation, in time you can only prosper,” said Huynh who arrived in Britain as a refugee about 30 years ago.

So it looks like the advice has been working well for him so far. Hence, the extraordinary offer believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

And since the promotion began recently, it has become the talk of the town, attracting a growing number of customers with queues forming even outside the restaurant.

Critics may sneer that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Well, the catch is you have to spend at least £5 (RM26.50) on drinks to qualify for the offer.

Huynh, however, insisted the drinks price was not a catch but merely to prevent undesirable people from “gate-crashing” the restaurant.

Say what you like. The ineluctable truth is that the economic crisis has left restaurateurs scraping the barrel for more innovative ideas to attract customers.

Bloodpressure medicine for erasing painful memories

2009-03-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55455/

In 1999 a postdoc in my lab, Karim Nader, walked into my office with an idea for a new experiment. He outlined his plan to test a controversial theory in neuroscience called memory reconsolidation that contradicted what we had learned as a field about how memories were stored. The experiment he proposed seemed like such a reach that I told him not to bother doing it. As luck would have it, Nader wasn't a particularly obedient postdoc.

A month later, Nader came back into my office and said, "It worked." I looked at him surprised. "What worked?" I asked. "The reconsolidation experiment," he told me. I was amazed. Most neuroscientists, myself included, believed that a new memory, once consolidated into long-term storage, is stable. It's as if every long-term memory had its own connections in the brain. Each time you retrieve the memory, or remembered, you retrieved that original memory, and then returned it. Reconsolidation theory proposed a radically different idea—that the very act of remembering could change the memory. Therefore, every time you remembered, you'd recall the memory as it was the very last time you remembered it, rather than the memory that was created the first time. And it would be replaced as a new representation. This theory suggested that the very act of remembering might render memories fragile, subject to change or perhaps erasure. If Nader's pilot findings were correct, it might have huge implications in treatments for soldiers and other patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Could traumatic memories be dampened or erased by simply remembering? Nader's pilot data convinced me to focus my attention and lab resources on studies of reconsolidation, and many other labs soon followed. Reconsolidation took off like wildfire.

Ideas about reconsolidation had been around since the 1960s but didn't catch on. The theory popped up again in the 1990s, but still didn't gain much traction. The reason our study grabbed everyone's attention had to do with how we did the study. Most work on this topic had used an experimental protocol that affected the whole body and brain. While the results had suggested the possibility of reconsolidation, there were always alternative explanations and questions: With the drug having such widespread actions how does one know it's affecting memory as opposed to motivation or attention or other factors? Instead, we administered the drug locally. Because we knew that the amygdala was the area in the brain that stored fear memories, we could inject a tiny amount of the drug directly into the site. If that disrupted the animal's ability to perform the task, the effect was likely due to a disruption of memory and not to the other factors. In the years that followed the publication of our paper,1 the field of reconsolidation blossomed. Hundreds of studies have been done since.

I have spent 25 years or so working out the neural basis of emotion, with a number of successes along the way. But I had never experienced anything quite like this. It wasn't that everyone accepted the idea. In fact, it is still quite controversial. It's sometimes said that the success of a scientific publication is based on how many other publications result. By that measure, reconsolidation has been a whopping success story, and one I might have easily missed.

The people who knew me as a boy would never have predicted that I would have become a neuroscientist. I grew up in Euncie, Louisiana, a typical small town that I longed to leave. My parents, however, wanted me to stay in Eunice and attend the new junior college that had just opened up there. I was resistant to the idea, so they put a deal on the table. They'd let me leave Eunice and go to college in Baton Rouge if I became a business major and came back to town to be a banker. People will say anything under duress: I told them they had a deal.

Brain training 'doesn't work'

2009-02-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/26/brain-training-games-which

People who spend money on "brain trainers" to keep their minds agile may get the same results by simply doing a crossword or surfing the internet, according to research published today.

A panel of experts, including eminent neuroscientists, found there was no scientific evidence to support a range of manufacturers' claims that the gadgets can help improve memory or stave off the risk of illnesses such as dementia.

Devices such as the Nintendo DS, endorsed by the actor Nicole Kidman and the singer Cheryl Cole, have enjoyed a surge of popularity recently. But the experts employed by the consumer group Which? concluded that much of the evidence supporting the claims was "weak" and that in some cases other activities, such as playing standard computer games, could have the same effect.

Importantly, none of the "brain training" claims were supported by peer-reviewed research published in a recognised scientific journal.

Which? asked a panel of scientific experts to examine gadgets and their claims. They included Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, Mindfit and Lumosity.

Martyn Hocking, editor of Which?, said: "If people enjoy using these games, then they should continue to do so - that's a no-brainer. But if people are under the illusion that these devices are scientifically proven to keep their minds in shape, they need to think again."

Which? members who had written to the organisation about brain training were asked to try the products for a month. One of the experts, Dr Adrian Owen, assistant director at the Medical Research Council's cognition and brain sciences unit in Cambridge, said of the research involving one group: "If they'd been asked to play Space Invaders for a month and improved at it - as surely they would - would we have concluded this was a beneficial form of brain training? Probably not."

Michael Scanlon, a neuroscientist from Lumosity, defended the company's research standards, and said: "We would never say Lumosity is proven to improve day-to-day living, but there is more and more evidence it does. We have actually conducted our own clinical trials to measure effectiveness of the product."

Also under the spotlight was Mindfit, a CD-Rom endorsed by the scientist Lady Greenfield. Two of the three studies it used to support its claims that it improved mental performance were found to be flawed. It also claimed that "cognitively challenging" activity protects against Alzheimer's. Bruce Robinson, chief executive of MindWeavers, which produces MindFit, said: "If you look at the wider evidence in the field the broad conclusion is that brain stimulation is working. With the MindFit product, a study was done by an independent medical centre in Israel which supported that evidence. We are not claiming MindFit will stop Alzheimer's."

Nintendo said: "Nintendo does not make any claims that Brain Training is scientifically proven to improve cognitive function. What we claim is the Brain Training series of games, like playing sudoku, are enjoyable and fun. These exercises can also help to keep the brain sharp."

Tried and tested

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo) £110 including DS console:

Instructions say it can help consolidate memory and creativity

Which? No evidence that using this product will have any functional impact on your life whatsoever

Mindfit (PC CD-ROM) £88

Company claims "exercises important abilities known to decline in later life"

Which? Tests didn't show using it was significantly better than playing Tetris

Lumosity (online training system) Luminos Labs, £4.99 a month

Company says: "Exercises ... designed to stimlulate neuroplasticity that leads to improved cognitive ability"

Which? Does not mean improvements on tasks will lead to improvements in day-to-day living

Overtime is 'as bad as tobacco' for dementia

2009-02-27T05:49:00.000-08:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4803218/Long-hours-put-workers-at-risk-of-dementia-according-to-research-into-damage-to-brain.html

Extreme tiredness and stress could be as bad for the brain as smoking, according to the study.

The report, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found middle-aged workers clocking up more than 55 hours a week have poorer mental skills, including short-term memory and ability to recall words, than those working fewer than 41 hours.

The findings suggest the long-term damage to the brain caused by excessive time at work has been underestimated.

One in eight British workers puts in more than the supposed European maximum of 48 hours a week.

Researchers, led by Dr Marianna Virtanen from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, monitored 2,214 British civil servants from the 1980s.

Participants in their early 50s were put through a series of brain function tests. Those doing the most overtime recorded lower scores in two of the five key brain function tests - reasoning and vocabulary.

The researchers said: "This study shows that long working hours may have a negative effect on cognitive performance in middle age. The link between cognitive impairment and dementia later in life is clearly established.

"The difference between employees working long hours and those working normal hours is similar in magnitude to that of smoking, a risk factor for dementia."

Professor Cary Cooper, an expert in workplace stress from Lancaster University, told the Daily Mail: "Working long hours obviously makes you very tired. If you do that on a consistent basis it's going to affect your brain function. Long hours are not just bad for health, they are also bad for your performance."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/26/earlyshow/health/main4830822.shtml

(CBS) New research from The Journal of American Epidemiology says that long hours on the job are weakening your mental abilities and could put you at risk for developing dementia.

Neurologist Caroline Brockington stopped by the Early Show to discuss the new study with co-anchor Julie Chen.

"It really looked at a group of people who work greater than 55 hours. And looking at their cognitive functioning, how well they were able to reason and do their job. And it seems that they had declined in their cognitive abilities," Brockington said.

According to Brockington, the people tested in the study had problems with memory, problems with functioning appropriately and problems with reading and comprehension.

"But help me define 'work.' Because could this same study apply to someone who, a man or a woman, who stays at home taking care of the kids and the home and all that?" Chen asked.

"Certainly. I think it could be translated into anybody who works. It just depends on what are the things that result from working hard? Meaning you don't sleep well, right? You probably don't exercise well. You don't eat well. And all those things result in a decline in your memory or short-term memory," Brockington said.

"So what is it about overworking our brains that makes us not be able to remember things, challenges our ability to reason?" Chen asked.

"The brain needs the appropriate rest. It can't be working 24 hours a day. So if you look at it as a computer, it can't continue to take in all the stimuli without rest. So again, when people work a long time and they don't rest or they don't have enough sleep, they don't have enough exercise, they don't eat well, all those things influence how the brain functions," Brockington explained.

"What are the signs that my brain is overworked?" Chen asked.

"That you can't remember things, that your vocabulary gets lost, that you have problems with concentration. You have problems with sort of multitasking. You have difficulty doing those things," Brockington said.

"So if you have these signs, what do you do?" Chen asked.

"Well, you need to get some rest. It's really balance, right? Finding the right balance between work and doing the things that you know are right in terms of a healthy lifestyle. Again, getting enough rest, getting exercise, eating right, those types of things are important," Brockington said.

It sounds like the study is really about getting enough sleep. Is that it?" Chen asked.

"Well, it's getting enough sleep and getting sleep on a routine basis. Meaning a lot of people sleep at different times. But really if you can find your own routine and stick to it, it's probably the best way to improve your memory over time," Brockington said.

"Is there anything we can do to our brain to let it rest while we're at work?" Chen asked.

"Well, there's probably a few things. Number one, if you really overload it -- to get out of that stimulus, to get out of that environment. So instead of the phone ringing and you're answering questions, etc., if you can just get yourself out of that moment and go to a quiet place," Brockington said.

She also suggested power napping, which consists of 20 or 30 minutes of just napping.

"It's really going to allow your brain to rest and sort of reboot, so to speak, so that you're more alert. You can concentrate better. Those type of things," Brockington said.

"And what are the long-term effects? If we don't take care of this now, what's going to happen down the road?" Chen asked.

"They speculate in the study maybe that it would increase somebody's risk of dementia, which is really long-term memory problems," Brockington said.

"I'm going to take a power nap," Chen said.

'Antarctic Alps' and 'lakes' found

2009-02-25T05:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16659-alpine-mountain-range-revealed-beneath-antarctic-ice.html

A series of prefabricated buildings perched on stilts create a boxy but unremarkable hamlet on the Antarctic ice. What is astonishing about this research base is that it is set 500 metres above the peaks of a 3500-metre mountain range.

The Gamburtsev mountains are not a new discovery – they were first located 50 years ago by a team of Russian scientists. But little was known about their scale and morphology. Now, an international team has returned with data revealing that if you could strip away the ice, the view would look rather like the European Alps (see image).

The team set up camp in two locations near to Dome A – the highest point on the ice sheet, where temperatures average -30 °C.

For weeks they flew two aircraft over the ice, exploring the hidden peaks with radar and aeromagnetic sensors, and covering a distance equivalent to three trips around the globe. Gravity sensors on the surface of the ice collected yet more data.
Toothy range

"We now know that not only are the mountains the size of the European Alps, but they also have similar peaks and valleys," says Fausto Ferraccioli, a geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey. "This adds even more mystery about how the vast East Antarctic ice sheet formed."

The Gamburtsev range is thought to be the birthplace of the ice sheet. It sits at the centre of the continent, far from warming sea air, and reaches between 3000 and 4000 metres above sea level. This means that some 35 million years ago when the ice sheet started to form, the range would have been very cold.

It is unclear, though, how fast the ice spread across the continent, and whether the ice formed the jagged landscape or the peaks were there first.

If the ice sheet formed slowly, glaciologists would expect to see rounded plateaus in places where it eroded the rock, but the surveys found no such soft landscapes. This may suggest that the ice grew very rapidly, effectively preserving an ancient Alpine landscape beneath kilometres of ice. On the other hand, Ferraccioli says it would be foolish to ignore the possibility that the flow of rivers and glaciers carved deep valleys as the ice sheet was forming.

How the mountains came to be in the first place is also something of a mystery. One theory – that they were volcanic peaks – was weakened by data published last year, which found that the sediment downstream from the peaks is not volcanic in origin.
Hidden fault?

Yet it is difficult to see how the peaks could have grown out of the collision of two tectonic plates – East Antarctica is generally thought to be a homogenous, stable plate.

One of the first tasks in sifting through the data, says Ferraccioli, will be to see if there is any evidence of major differences in the geology of the mountains. Such differences could be a sign that there is an inactive fault line beneath the ice that could have formed the range.

Alternatively, a broad collision elsewhere could have pushed the mountains up within the plate – a bit like a lump of play dough being squished between two wooden blocks. Two portions of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana collided at roughly the same time as the Gamburtsev range is thought to have first emerged, but quite where that happened isn't known.

One thing is certain from the preliminary data: there's liquid water in them there valleys. "The temperatures at our camps hovered around -30 °C," says Robin Bell, of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. "But three kilometres beneath us, at the bottom of the ice sheet, we saw liquid water in the valleys. The radar mounted on the wings of the aircraft transmitted energy through the thick ice and let us know that it was much warmer at the base of the ice sheet."

The grey city roller

2009-02-25T05:43:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7909096.stm

A rollerblading Belfast pensioner has been fined £300 after he was filmed skating along a street in England.

Geoff Dornan, 71, now living in Ormskirk, Lancashire, was caught on CCTV skating through Chapel Street in Southport in October 2008.

He said it was to keep fit, but Sefton Council said his rollerblading was a nuisance and a danger to the public.

Mr Dornan was found guilty on two counts of breaching a by-law but has since lodged an appeal.

He was also ordered to pay £1,800 costs, but the fines were suspended after Andrew Scott, defending, said an appeal notice had been handed to the prosecution.

The appeal case will be heard at a crown court at a later date.

In his defence, Mr Dornan, a retired youth worker, told the court he took up rollerblading seven years ago as a way of keeping fit.

He said he enjoyed skating down the town's main street as he enjoyed moving to the music from buskers, but he insisted that he always gave right of way to pedestrians.

He also told the court he tried to give people as much space as possible and used his rollerblades responsibly.

He said: "The reason I do the skating is primarily for my health benefit.

"I think people suspect that I am more dangerous than I am."

But the council said he was contravening a by-law which forbids skating on Chapel Street.

The by-law states that "no person shall skate, slide or ride on rollers, skateboards or other self-propelled vehicles in such a manner as to cause danger or annoyance".

Chairman of the bench, Fraser Wallace, said: "We find the manner of your skating put pedestrians at risk and exposed them to harm."

He said it was clear Chapel Street was not meant to be used as a "skate park" and said Dornan's behaviour "causes a danger" to the public.

You can listen to an interview with Geoff Dornan on Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme after 0800 GMT on Wednesday.

Boy, 13, Father of one

2009-02-23T14:14:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7889033.stm

The case of the 13-year-old who has fathered a baby highlights a worrying trend of "children having children", the Tory leader has said.

David Cameron was speaking after Alfie Patten's girlfriend Chantelle Steadman, 15, gave birth on Monday.

Latest figures from UK National Statistics show there were 7,826 conceptions in under-16s in 2006 - down 1,000 from 10 years earlier.

Sexual health experts said teens should be encouraged to have "ambition".

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said it was an "awful" and "unusual" case.

"I want those kids to be safe and also the young child as well, and I want us to do everything we can as a society to make sure we keep teenage pregnancies coming down," he said.

Mr Cameron said: "It is really worrying in our country today you've got children having children - and obviously we all hope that these very, very young children will grow up and be good parents, but frankly parenthood isn't something they should be thinking about.

"That's what's gone wrong and we've got to put it right."

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, who now runs the Centre for Social Justice said it "exemplified the point we have been making about broken Britain".

He told the BBC the problem of teenage pregnancies was concentrated in certain communities.

"Quite often what fails to recognise is that in some of the more difficult communities, this has become pretty much the norm.

"I've visited many estates where there are very huge collections of very young mothers, often with multiple children - and often 'guesting fathers'.

"This is a major problem in the UK."

No prosecution

The teenagers, both from Eastbourne, had kept the pregnancy secret until Chantelle's mother Penny noticed her daughter was getting bigger.

Chantelle had her baby in Eastbourne District General Hospital, and is now home with her family.

Sussex Police said no action would be taken with it "not in anyone's interests" to prosecute.

East Sussex County Council said the teenage parents will be supported with intensive monitoring and health visitor support.

Tony Kerridge, a spokesman for the sexual health specialist Marie Stopes International, said: "These sorts of lifestyle choices can be dealt with on an educational level if teenage girls realise what they are contemplating is a route into social deprivation and being in the benefits culture for the rest of their lives.

"It may seem like a short term solution to problems at home, but the mid to long term prospects are probably a life stuck on benefits.

"We should, as a society, be encouraging our young people to have much bigger and better aspirations than that."

Simon Blake of Brook added: "Most under-16s aren't having sex, but young people do want more education about sex.

"They want their parents to talk to them, their school to talk to them and they want confidential services to go to."

Mandatory education

Speaking on a visit to the Midlands, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I don't know the individual details of the case, but of course I think all of us would want to avoid teenage pregnancies."

Beverley Hughes, children and young people's minister, said 80% of under-18 pregnancies were in 16 and 17-year- olds.

"Evidence shows that good quality sex and relationship education and parents talking to their children delays early sex and increases the use of contraception whenever they do have sex.

"We know that life as a teenage parent is hard, with outcomes for them and their children often very poor.

"That's why the government has issued guidance to local areas on providing the right support to improve the welfare of both the teenage parents and child."

Pupils learn the three Fs in 'filth' class

2009-02-20T11:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?10-year-old_pupils_learn_the_three_Fs_in_swearing_class&in_article_id=544677&in_page_id=34&in_a_source

A class of ten-year-olds at a church school were encouraged to write down the rudest words they knew - and then grade them in order of offensiveness.
The youngsters were told to produce the list by a male teacher who wanted them to decide how upsetting the phrases would be if they were used to bully people.

The litany of lewdness included variations on the F-word, crude slang for sex acts, female and male genitalia, and racist and derogatory name-calling.

Parents were furious when their children returned home from Great and Little Shelford Church of England Primary School near Cambridge and saw their 'vocabulary of filth'.

Yesterday, parents who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, spoke of their disbelief.

One mother said: 'When my ten-year-old showed me an exercise book with words like "c***sucker" rewarded with a tick from the teacher, I was disgusted.

'You don't expect your children to learn this kind of filth at school, particularly one linked to the church.'

Another added: 'I don't want to sound prudish but it is a pity there isn't more emphasis placed on the three Rs in schools these days.

'Some of the words used were so bad, I'd never heard them before.'

Headteacher Alison Evans has since apologised over Fred Laband's lesson and ordered the abusive material to be ripped from all 30 pupils' exercise books.

'On reflection, it has been agreed it was inappropriate to record these words in writing and the pages have been removed,' a letter sent to parents said.

Dentist fear girl starved to death

2009-02-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Dentist_phobia_girl_starved_to_death_after_refusing_food&in_article_id=526915&in_page_id=34

An eight-year-old girl starved to death after developing such a fear of dentists she refused to eat, an inquest heard today.
Sophie Waller underwent an operation to remove her milk teeth after she stopped eating or speaking because of pain in one of them.

However the inquest was told that after she was discharged she continued to refuse to eat solid food.

Her parents Janet and Richard, from St Dennis, Cornwall, said they told doctors Sophie was only consuming small amounts of yoghurt, fruit and "build up" drinks prescribed by a GP and were told she would be "ok".

A week later Sophie was so emaciated they could see her spine through her back and her hair was falling out.

The couple told the hearing they rang the hospital but were told by a nurse not to bring her in as she was now under the care of community child psychologist Dr Kerry Davison.

Mrs Waller, 34, said: "No-one saw her after she was discharged from hospital.

"I told Kerry Davison she was sucking on a water melon, she told me that was enough for her to survive on."

Paediatric pathologist Dr Marie-Ann Brundler said Sophie died on December 2, 2005 from acute renal failure caused by starvation and dehydration.

Dr Brundler said she would have expected a health professional to have noticed Sophie's emaciated state had they seen her before she died.

Mrs Waller said Sophie was "devastated" when she discovered her teeth had gone and had a long-standing phobia of dentists.

The inquest heard she lost around 11 kilos in the four weeks before she died, consuming small quantities of yoghurt, mashed up fruit and fruit juice.

On November 28 Mrs Waller said the hospital refused to take Sophie back and after speaking to Dr Davison she was advised to contact her GP who prescribed "build up drinks" over the phone but did not see and examine Sophie.

Mrs Waller said: "The only contact we had was with Kerry Davison and the one time with the GP.

"I just wished she had come out to look at her or if the hospital had let us return."

Mr Waller, 35, said: "This could have easily been avoided, if we could have just gone to the hospital."

Workers urged: Go home and multiply

2009-01-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/01/26/canon.babies/index.html

By CNN's Kyung Lah

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Even before one reaches the front door of Canon's headquarters in Tokyo, one can sense the virtual stampede of employees pouring out of the building exactly at 5:30 p.m.

In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.

"Canon has a very strong birth planning program," says the company's spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. "Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it."

Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country's low birthrate.

At 1.34, the birthrate is well below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan's population, according to the country's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Keidanren, Japan's largest business group, with 1,300 major international corporations as members, has issued a plea to its members to let workers go home early to spend time with their families and help Japan with its pressing social problem.

One reason for the low birth rate is the 12-hour workday. But there are several other factors compounding the problem -- among them, the high cost of living, and social rigidity toward women and parenting.

In addition, Japan's population is aging at a faster pace than any other country in the world.

Analysts say the world's second-largest economy faces its greatest threat from its own social problems, rather than outside forces. And the country desperately needs to make some fixes to its current social and work structures, sociologists say.

Canon says its 5:30 p.m. lights-out program is one simple step toward helping address the population problem. It also has an added benefit: Amid the global economic downturn the company can slash overtime across the board twice a week.

"It's great that we can go home early and not feel ashamed," said employee Miwa Iwasaki.

$3.8 million for a woman's virginity

2009-01-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/01/22/virginity.value/index.html

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN

(CNN) -- Is a woman's virginity worth $3.8 million? That's how much Natalie Dylan, a 22-year-old from San Diego, California, said she has been offered through an auction she announced in September.

Her private auction through the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada, has given her lots of "business opportunities," she said.

Her top bid comes from a 39-year-old Australian, but she has no immediate plans to settle the auction, she said in a recent interview with CNN.

Some men may seek virgins because they want them as trophies, or desire purity. But as to why men would bid so much money on virginity, she said she has no answer.

"I honestly don't know what they see in it," she said.

If you think Dylan's auction amounts to prostitution, she completely agrees. She also said she's not breaking any laws -- after all, prostitution in Nevada is legal.

"I feel people should be pro-choice with their body, and I'm not hurting anyone," she said. "It really comes down to a moral and religious argument, and this doesn't go against my religion or my morals. There's no right or wrong to this."

The idea that virginity has a high value harkens back to the days of early humans -- if a man has sex with a virgin woman, he knows for sure that her children will be his, anthropologists reason. In early civilizations, women were also considered the property of men, said Laura Carpenter, assistant professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

In America, women were expected to remain virgins until marriage through the 1950s, Carpenter said. But with the availability of the pill and the IUD in the 1960s, combined with youth counterculture and gay rights movements, it became more common for women to engage in premarital sex, she said.

Attitudes shifted toward the conservative side in the 1980s with the worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic, which made the stakes much higher for choosing a sex partner, especially for men. Abstinence-based education programs also took off around that time, with government support, she said.

Today, about 95 percent of Americans have sex before they're 25, Carpenter said. But worldwide, virgin prostitutes can claim larger fees, certain cultures still attach larger dowries to virgin brides, and some women undergo reconstructive surgery to restore their hymens.

In looking at Dylan's auction, "To some extent it's not new. The new part is the Internet," Carpenter said.

Dylan is not the first to hold a public sale for her sexual innocence. An Italian model reportedly had plans to sell her virginity for more than $1 million in September. Dylan said she was inspired by a report of a Peruvian woman who put her virginity up for sale.

Some think Dylan's auction may be indicative of a shift in the way society treats sexuality.

"In a world that is teeming with brand messages, with sponsorships everywhere, intimacy is really just the next thing to go," said Jon Ray, a 24-year-old marketing consultant in Austin, Texas, and author of the blog Who is Jon Ray?

Brett Austin Vanderzee, a 19-year-old student at Oklahoma Christian University who has pledged to stay a virgin until marriage, finds Dylan's actions somewhat appalling, but not shocking.

"It's kind of crazy, but I think it's the general direction that society has been heading in for a while," he said. "We're becoming more accepting of things that normally would have been considered unwise."

Kiara Daines, a 17-year-old from Detroit, Michigan, said she's saving herself until marriage for personal and religious reasons. Both Vanderzee and Daines said they have endured teasing from their peers because of their choice to remain abstinent.

Others say there's just too much hype around virginity. Martha Kempner, vice president for information and communications for the nonprofit Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S., said telling a young woman to stay"pure" misses the point that sexuality will influence her long after she loses her virginity.

"By putting the emphasis there, [on virginity], we're actually devaluing the rest of women, the rest of her, and the rest of her sexuality for the rest of her life," she said.

A recent study in the journal Pediatrics showed that religious teens who take virginity pledges are as likely to have sex before marriage as their religious peers, and less likely to use condoms or birth control when they become sexually active.

Many people say losing one's virginity has different implications for men than women. While young women see the act as a symbolic giving of themselves, young men are more prone to want to get it over with and brag about it. Similarly, says Kempner, women are taught to keep themselves "pure" and help men exercise control, while there's a "boys will be boys" attitude around men.

Do men really think that virginity is worth millions of dollars?

Audacia Ray, a 28-year-old former sex worker from New York and author of "Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration," is skeptical. She views Dylan's auction as a publicity stunt and doesn't anticipate she'll "continue in the industry."

The importance of a woman's virginity may vary in different cultures, but generally there's not the high value there used to be, Ray said.

"It begins to be viewed more as a burden over time -- a burden in that losing virginity is an event, so that it has to somehow mean something, which is part of the reason why people are all up in arms about Natalie," she said.

How do Dylan's friends and family feel? Dylan, who said she was raised in a conservative, non-Christian religious household, said although her mother doesn't agree with her, she still loves her as a daughter. Generally people have been supportive, said Dylan, who uses "Natalie Dylan" as a pseudonym.

"I've talked with my exes, some different guys, and they understand it's just a business deal, and they know me, and they know I'm not this promiscuous girl. Honestly, even if I didn't do this, I'd always be the girl who thinks prostitution is OK," she said. "I would always want to find a partner that can accept me for me."

Barak berry

2009-01-22T16:19:00.000-08:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/obama.blackberry/index.html

Self-confessed BlackBerry addict Barack Obama may not have to kick the thumbing habit after all, despite the concerns of a notoriously technophobic White House.

The new U.S. president was often seen hunched over the mobile e-mail device during his election campaign and even featured at No. 2 on one celebrity Web site's list of obsessive BlackBerry users.

But, like previous Oval Office incumbents, Obama had been expected to take a vow of technological celibacy following his inaugural oath on Tuesday, despite telling CNBC in an interview that security officials would have to "pry it out of my hands." He protests that a mobile device would help him stay in touch with the real world. Should President Obama be allowed to keep his BlackBerry? Tell us what you think

E-mail has long been treated with suspicion by the Secret Service because of fears it could be hacked into by foreign espionage agencies, or that sensitive information could reach the public domain via a single mis-stroke of the "send" key.

President George W. Bush was forced to give up using e-mail when he took charge, while President Bill Clinton sent just two e-mails during his administration -- one to test that the system worked and the second to veteran astronaut John Glenn before his trip into space in 1998.

There are also concerns that mobile devices such as BlackBerries, which contain built in GPS technology, could be hacked into, revealing the president's location within a few feet.

But according to reports Thursday, Obama could now be in line to receive a spy-proof alternative to his favorite toy.

Writing on his blog for the Atlantic magazine, Marc Ambinder reports that the National Security Agency has approved a $3,350 smartphone -- inevitably dubbed the "BarackBerry" -- for Obama's use.

The exclusive Sectera Edge, made by General Dynamics, is reportedly capable of encrypting top secret voice conversations and handling classified documents.

But Obama may have pushed his Secret Service handlers' technological patience far enough. Ambinder also reports that instant messaging in the White House will still be a definite no-no :(

iPhone App Helps Snipers Hit Targets

2009-01-21T16:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481004,00.html

Is your iPhone or iPod Touch a bit too, well, artsy? Not rugged or manly enough for your taste?

Here's the solution: the Bulletflight ballistics calculator, which predicts the trajectory of bullets fired from high-powered sniper rifles by taking into account half a dozen variables including wind speed, distance, outside temperature and altitude.

After digesting all the information, Bulletflight tells you where exactly on the sniper scope you should position your target in order to hit it.

The application is preprogrammed for three kinds of rifle sold by Knight's Armament Company (KAC) of Titusville, Fla., which commissioned and sells the app for $11.99 through Apple's iTunes App Store.

Among the weapons is KAC's M110 sniper rifle, which went into service with the U.S. Army in 2007. Profiles for other kind of weapons, as well as the ammunition they use, can be added manually.

The Firearm Blog praise Bulletflight's "sheer awesomeness," but noted that there's already another iPhone/iPod Touch app called iSnipe that does essentially the same thing, retails for $4.99 and isn't tied in to a specific arms manufacturer.

Gym uses people instead of dumbbells

2009-01-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23623416-details/Gym+offers+human+weights+who+shout+encouragement/article.do

A LONDON gym has replaced its dumbbells with human weights to encourage people to exercise.

Members of Gymbox in Bank can choose to lift one of five differently sized people, including two midgets and a 155kg man.

The gym already runs a "chav fighting" self-defence class and "WAG workouts", classes aimed at making women more attractive to footballers.

The human weights, who sit on adapted machines, are said to help gym goers by letting them visualise what they are lifting. They will also shout words of encouragement.

Gymbox owner Richard Hilton said: "Creating a mental image of what you want to happen is proven to improve performance. The human weightlifting apparatus is the ultimate embodiment of visualisation theory.

"We're optimistic our members will see better results with our new human weight machine."

A spokeswoman for the gym denied using midgets as weights was tasteless. She said: "We have to have a small person because some people can only lift low weights."

The weights include Mike Edwards, 64, who weighs 55kg and is nicknamed the "micro male" and 155kg Matt Barnard, 37, from Clapham, who is known as "the super human".

India employs brain scans to ascertain guilt

2008-10-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

3 mts 16 secs

Women Fake Calls and Texts More says 3 Mobile

2008-10-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

Research by 3 suggests we’re turning into a bunch of ‘Communifakers’ who’d rather pretend to talk and text than look like a Billy no mates in the pub. According to its bullet proof scientific analysis ‘43% of women, almost a third of men (32%) and three quarters (74%) of all 18-24 year olds are guilty of pointless phone fondling.

Why? Well (stat overdose alert), 36% of us do it while waiting for friends, and 35% do it when we don’t want to avoid speaking to someone in the street (oh the irony!). And according to psychotherapist Lesley Haswell; “People experience the need to appear socially busy at all times and ‘just waiting’ is a no-no. Our basic human instinct is to be part of a group. Alone we can feel more vulnerable.”
So there you have it folks, we’re a nation of phantom-phoners and faux-texters because deep down we’re all just a little bit insecure. It’s not that we’re actually too busy watching films, surfing online, checking out Google Maps, emailing, doing the accounts, editing .docs and playing Orcs & Elves II to make a phone call.

Black bear busts secret Utah pot farm

2008-09-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weird-news/story/673281.html

PANGUITCH, Utah -- One Utah community is cheering a special bear - but don't call him Smokey.

Investigators say a large black bear raided a clandestine marijuana growing operation so often that it chased the grower away.

"This bear is definitely law-enforcement minded," said Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins. "If I can find this bear I'm going to deputize him."

Deputies found food containers ripped apart and strewn everywhere, cans with bear teeth marks, claw marks and bear prints across the Garfield County camp on Tuesday.

Perkins said the operation on Boulder Mountain included 4,000 "starter" sacks of pot and 888 young plants.

"This particular bear apparently was not going to give up and basically chased these marijuana farmers away," Perkins said. "Our county is so tough on drugs that even the wildlife are getting in on the action."