New Hampshire Health News Digest

NYO - News Story 1 - Biden Unbound: Lays Into Clinton, Obama, Edwards By contrast with what Mr. Biden describes alternately as his opponents’ caution and their detachment from reality, the Senator from Delaware has for months been pushing a comprehensive plan to split Iraq into autonomous Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish ethnic regions that is controversial, to say the least. Under the plan, local policing and laws will be the responsibility of regional authorities. Most of the American troops would be withdrawn, with small numbers remaining to help with anti-terrorism operations. The ensuing chaos from ethnic migrations within Iraq would be contained with the help of political pressure created by a conference of Iraq’s neighbors. But the idea of an American endorsement of Iraqi federation along those lines has drawn criticism from just about every ideological corner of the foreign-policy establishment. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, another potential 2008 candidate who played a major role in n...

CNS STORY: Vatican newspaper denounces reporter who posed as penitent for expose : "The reporter made his false confessions to 24 different priests in five Italian cities, including Rome. The magazine said the idea was to see how priests handle difficult pastoral situations and whether they followed the strict norms laid out by church teaching. The reporter, for example, told two priests he was HIV-positive and wondered whether he should use a condom when having sexual relations with his girlfriend. One told him no, and the other said it was a question of conscience, the magazine reported. More than once, the magazine said, priests gave quite different advice on his supposed 'sins,' which included matters relating to homosexuality, divorce, stem-cell research, euthanasia and prostitution. One issue that found unanimous condemnation by confessors was abortion, the magazine said."

Sky News: Eight People Arrested In Terror Swoop The eight people arrested by terror police in Birmingham were allegedly planning an Iraq-style kidnapping and beheading in the UK. Sky's Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt says they intended to post a video of the hostage being tortured and killed on the internet. Their target was a British Muslim soldier in his twenties who is now under police protection. The soldier, who has not been named, has served with UK forces in Afghanistan. His abduction would have mirrored the kidnappings of the British hostages Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan by Iraqi insurgents. [...] The fact the aim was apparently not to cause mass casualties, as in previous terror attacks, signalled a "chilling" change in tactics. The suspects had been tracked in a combined police operation led by the Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit. They were supported by officers from the West Midlands police and the Metropolitan Police. Officers swooped on 12 addresses in th...

Brain Man, One Man's Gift May Be The Key To Better Understanding The Brain - CBS News : "Twenty-four years ago, 60 Minutes introduced viewers to George Finn, whose talent was immortalized in the movie 'Rainman.' George has a condition known as savant syndrome, a mysterious disorder of the brain where someone has a spectacular skill, even genius, in a mind that is otherwise extremely limited. Morley Safer met another savant, Daniel Tammet, who is called 'Brain Man' in Britain. But unlike most savants, he has no obvious mental disability, and most important to scientists, he can describe his own thought process. He may very well be a scientific Rosetta stone, a key to understanding the brain. [...] It is estimated there are only 50 true savants living in the world today, and yet none are like Daniel. He is articulate, self-sufficient, blessed with all of the spectacular ability of a savant, but with very little of the disability. Take his math skill, for example....

Awesome star map This scaled map shows how far things are from the Earth, and changes scales to show you everything from the earth's core to the most distant microwave residue of the big bang at the farthest reaches of the universe. Really really cool. It's a huge gif file, scroll to the bottom and work your way up!

Leader of Shiite religious cult killed by U.S., Iraqi forces - Los Angeles Times : "BAGHDAD -- American and Iraqi forces killed the leader of a Shiite religious cult, known as the Heaven's Army, along with several hundred armed members who had planned to launch an attack in the holy city of Najaf, including against the country's most known religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraqi officials said today. The gunmen planned to attack during ceremonies marking one of the holiest Shiite holidays, in the Islamic month of Muharram. At least 600 cult members, hiding on the city's outskirts in palm date orchids, had been digging trenches and were planning to disguise themselves as pilgrims, Maj. Gen. Othman Ghanemi, the Iraqi commander who heads the Najaf region, told the Associated Press. He said the gunmen planned to kill as many senior clerics as they could, including Sistani, apparently because they believed the violence would cause the Imam Mahdi, the last in t...

The Sun Online - News: You are undie surveillance : "OFFICIALS are bracing themselves for a storm of public outrage over their controversial X-ray cameras scheme. As part of the most shocking extension of Big Brother powers ever planned here, lenses in lampposts would snap “naked” pictures of passers-by to trap terror suspects. The proposal is contained in leaked documents drawn up by the Home Office and presented to PM Tony Blair’s working group on Security, Crime and Justice. But the prospect of the State snooping on individuals’ most private parts is certain to spark national fury. And officials are battling to find a way of dealing with that reaction. A January 17 memo seen by The Sun discusses the cameras, which can see through clothes. It says “detection of weapons and explosives will become easier” and says cameras could be deployed in street furniture. [...] The memo says: “The social acceptability of routine intrusive detection measures and the operational response requir...

My Way News - YouTube to Share Revenue With Users : "DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) - Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, said Saturday that his wildly successful site will start sharing revenue with its millions of users. Hurley said one of the major proposed innovations is a way to allow users to be paid for content. YouTube, which was sold to Google for $1.65 billion in November, has become an Internet phenomenon since it began to catch on in late 2005. Some 70 million videos are viewed on the site each day. 'We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users,' Hurley said. 'So in the coming months we are going to be opening that up.' Hurley, who at 30 is one of the youngest Internet multimillionaires, gave no details of how much users might receive, or what mechanism would be used. In October 2005, Revver - which like YouTube offers video clips online - announced plans...

"Presenteeism" afflicts business, experts say - Yahoo! News : "NEW YORK, Jan 26 (Reuters Life!) - Practically every workplace has one -- the employee who comes to the job aching, coughing and sneezing. So-called 'presenteeism,' or going to work when sick, is a persistent problem at more than half of U.S. workplaces and costs U.S. business a whopping $180 billion a year, research shows. Like its more notorious counterpart absenteeism, it takes on growing importance as employers try to keep an eye on productivity and the bottom line, experts say. 'Employers are increasingly concerned about the threat that sick employees pose in the workplace,' said Brett Gorovsky, an analyst at CCH, a Riverwoods, Illinois-based provider of business and corporate law information and a division of Wolters Kluwer. 'Presenteeism can take a very real hit on the bottom line, although it is often unrecognized,' he said. Recognition of the issue is growing, however, as CCH ...

Does Anyone Else Detect a Trend? Blackfive What needs to be understood is the central role that Al Qaeda — or more accurately its successor organization, a group called the Islamic State of Iraq — is playing on these fronts and the diminishing role of all the other insurgent groups. The wider Sunni insurgency — the groups beyond Al Qaeda — is being slowly, and surely, defeated. The average insurgent today feels demoralized, disillusioned, and hunted. Those who have not been captured yet are opting for a quieter life outside of Iraq. Al Qaeda continues to grow for the time being as it cannibalizes the other insurgent groups and absorbs their most radical and hardcore fringes into its fold. The Baathists, who had been critical in spurring the initial insurgency, are becoming less and less relevant, and are drifting without a clear purpose following the hanging of their idol, Saddam Hussein. Rounding out this changing landscape is that Al Qaeda itself is getting a serious beating as the A...

SPACE.com -- Mars' Missing Air Might Just be Hiding : "Rather than having had its air knocked out into space, Mars might just be holding its breath. New findings suggests the missing atmosphere of Mars might be locked up in hidden reservoirs on the planet, rather than having been chafed away by billions of years' worth of solar winds as previously thought. Combining two years of observations by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, researchers determined that Mars is currently losing only about 20 grams of air per second into space. Extrapolating this measurement back over 3.5 billion years, they estimate that only a small fraction, 0.2 to 4 millibars, of carbon dioxide and a few centimeters of water could have been lost to solar winds during that timeframe. (A bar is a unit for measuring pressure; Earth’s atmospheric pressure is about 1 bar.)"

Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq - washingtonpost.com "There were no costs for the Iranians," said one senior administration official. "They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back." Three officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said. But, for three years, the Iranians have operated an embedding program there, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shiite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency and to the violence against Sunni factions. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq "has been quite striking....

U.S. eyes heat-beaming weapon by 2010�|�US News�|�Reuters.com MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Georgia (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday unveiled what it called a revolutionary heat-beaming weapon that could be used to control mobs or repel foes in conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan. The so-called Active Denial System causes an intense burning sensation causing people to run for cover, but no lasting harm, officials said. "This is a breakthrough technology that's going to give our forces a capability they don't now have," Theodore Barna, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for advanced systems and concepts, told Reuters. "We expect the services to add it to their tool kit. And that could happen as early as 2010." Reuters Pictures Photo Editors Choice: Best pictures from the last 24 hours. View Slideshow The weapon, mounted on a Humvee, uses a large rectangular dish antenna to direct an invisible beam toward a target. It includes a high-vol...

China's Hu vows to "purify" Internet�|�Tech&Sci�|�Technology�|�Reuters.com : "BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has vowed to 'purify' the Internet, state media reported on Wednesday, describing a top-level meeting that discussed ways to master the country's sprawling, unruly online population. Hu made the comments as the ruling party's Politburo -- its 24-member leading council -- was studying China's Internet, which claimed 137 million registered users at the end of 2006. Hu, a strait-laced communist with little sympathy for cultural relaxation, did not directly mention censorship. But he made it clear that the Communist Party was looking to ensure it keeps control of China's Internet users, often more interested in salacious pictures, bloodthirsty games and political scandal than Marxist lessons. Reuters Pictures Photo Editors Choice: Best pictures from the last 24 hours. View Slideshow The party had to 'str...

Wired News: Military Builds Robotic Insects : "If you feel something crawling on your neck, it might be a wasp or a bee. Or it might be something much more dangerous. Israel is developing a robot the size of a hornet to attack terrorists. And although the prototype will not fly for three years, killer Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs, are much closer than that. British Special Forces already use 6-inch MAV aircraft called WASPs for reconnaissance in Afghanistan. The $3,000 WASP is operated with a Gameboy-style controller and is nearly silent, so it can get very close without being detected. A new development will reportedly see the WASP fitted with a C4 explosive warhead for kamikaze attacks on snipers. One newspaper dubbed it 'The Talibanator.'"

Meet me in my avatar's office | CNET News.com Welcome to IBM Island Last April, the company started buying just a few islands in Second Life, and then developing those internally. In the summer, it launched its Forbidden City and Wimbledon islands, along with a digital community called 3D Jam, where employees could "jam" about ideas with family, partners or co-workers. In October, IBM unveiled its "Global Connections," giving IBMers a virtual island where they can interact with company alumni. A month later, it bought 12 islands, including one that's become a virtual test store for Circuit City. The store gives shoppers a lounge-like experience of the retailer, with displays for the iPod and couches for sitting and gauging the right proportions of a new TV. Shoppers' avatars can then click to buy products at Circuit City's real online store. This month, IBM introduced a prototype store for Sears, as well as its own island, Lotussphere, where clients ...

The postwar photographs that British authorities tried to keep hidden | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited · Treatment of suspected communists revealed · Four court martialled after police inspector's inquiry Ian Cobain Monday April 3, 2006 The Guardian Archive pictures of German prisoners held by the British following the second world war Archive pictures of German prisoners held by the British following the second world war. Photographs: Martin Argles For almost 60 years, the evidence of Britain's clandestine torture programme in postwar Germany has lain hidden in the government's files. Harrowing photographs of young men who had survived being systematically starved, as well as beaten, deprived of sleep and exposed to extreme cold, were considered too shocking to be seen. As one minister of the day wrote, as few people as possible should be aware that British authorities had treated prisoners "in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps". Many ...

In Douglass Tribute, Slave Folklore and Fact Collide - New York Times : "At the northwest corner of Central Park, construction is under way on Frederick Douglass Circle, a $15.5 million project honoring the escaped slave who became a world-renowned orator and abolitionist. Beneath an eight-foot-tall sculpture of Douglass, the plans call for a huge quilt in granite, an array of squares, a symbol in each, supposedly part of a secret code sewn into family quilts and used along the Underground Railroad to aid slaves. Two plaques would explain this. The only problem: According to many prominent historians, the secret code — the subject of a popular book that has been featured on no less a cultural touchstone than “The Oprah Winfrey Show” — never existed. And now the city is reconsidering the inclusion of the plaques, so as not to “publicize spurious history,” Kate D. Levin, the city’s commissioner of cultural affairs, said yesterday. The plaques may go, but they have spawned an energet...

World Tribune.com -- Strategist: Iran believes it could destroy Israel with a single nuke JERUSALEM — Iran's nuclear program seeks first-strike capability against Israel, a leading strategist said. The Israeli strategist and former intelligence officer said Iran believes it could destroy the Jewish state with one nuclear weapon. "Iranians believe that it holds, may hold, a first strike capability against Israel once it has a nuclear capability," said Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute of Police and Strategy. Dr. Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute of Policy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel. Herzliyaconference.org Iran believes "that Israel is a one-bomb country, one bomb from the point-of-view of the receiving side; that the U.S. would not intervene against Iran under such conditions; and all of that with apocalyptic zeal may result in actual use of nuclear weapons," he said. Bar, who for years worked in the Israeli intelligence commun...

NextPath - 13 Things I Wish I Learned in College 13 Things I Wish I Learned In College College is a great experience that millions of students look forward to every year. I myself have been in college for a total of 6 years and have obtained a B.A. in communications as well as a MBA. After attending college I started working and realized that college does not prepare you for the real world. Here are some of the things that I should have learned in college so I would have been more prepared for my job after college. 1. Getting to the Point – Most of the term papers I did in college were long and had minimal requirements. The last thing my boss wants to read is a 10 page report that could have been one paragraph long. Professors need to teach students to get to the point and not push for lengthy essays. 2. Making Proper Presentations – I have made a lot of presentations in college, but the professors did not show me how to successfully communicate my ideas. Having cheesy designed s...

SAN FRANCISCO / SPIDER SHIP ON THE BAY / El Cerrito firm unveils the Proteus, 'a new class of vessel' The strangest vessel made its formal premiere Thursday on San Francisco Bay, and it was a sight to see: It looked like a spider, wiggled over the waves like a porpoise, and was fast as the wind. It is named the Proteus, after a Greek god of the sea, and is the first of what might be a long line of wave adaptive modular vessels -- WAM-V for short -- developed by Ugo Conti, an engineer and inventor. Conti calls it "the prototype of a new class of vessel." Using technology developed by Conti's El Cerrito Marine Advanced Research Inc., the WAM-V is "a new class of watercraft ... that delivers a radically new seagoing experience." It has twin hulls, like a catamaran, connected to each other and a control cabin by four metal legs. The legs ride on titanium springs -- like shock absorbers -- that allow the WAM-V to adjust to the surface of the water -- to flex ...

BBC NEWS | Americas | Rule by decree passed for Chavez : "Venezuela's National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting the president the power to bypass congress and rule by decree for 18 months. President Hugo Chavez says he wants 'revolutionary laws' to enact sweeping political, economic and social changes. He has said he wants to nationalise key sectors of the economy and scrap limits on the terms a president can serve. Mr Chavez began his third term in office last week after a landslide election victory in December." All the lefties in the U.S. are defending this guy, as in "the people of Venezuela want Chavez", ignoring that he stole the elections, and that he is suppressing dissent, closing newspapers and hounding anyone who disagrees, just the stuff they accuse Bush of doing. But if Chavez actually does it, in the real world, he's a hero. Because he's a lefty. They don't really care about right and wrong, they just want...

BBC NEWS | Americas | Rule by decree passed for Chavez : "Venezuela's National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting the president the power to bypass congress and rule by decree for 18 months. President Hugo Chavez says he wants 'revolutionary laws' to enact sweeping political, economic and social changes. He has said he wants to nationalise key sectors of the economy and scrap limits on the terms a president can serve. Mr Chavez began his third term in office last week after a landslide election victory in December." All the lefties in the U.S. are defending this guy, as in "the people of Venezuela want Chavez", ignoring that he stole the elections, and that he is suppressing dissent, closing newspapers and hounding anyone who disagrees, just the stuff they accuse Bush of doing. But if Chavez actually does it, in the real world, he's a hero. Because he's a lefty. They don't really care about right and wrong, they just want...

Independent Online Edition > Health Medical People who took high dose supplements of folic acid did significantly better in tests of memory and cognitive performance than those given a placebo, researchers report.

8 lottery winners who lost their millions - MSN Money Having piles of cash only compounds problems for some people. Here are sad tales of foolishness, hit men, greedy relatives and dreams dashed. : "For a lot of people, winning the lottery is the American dream. But for many lottery winners, the reality is more like a nightmare. 'Winning the lottery isn't always what it's cracked up to be,' says Evelyn Adams, who won the New Jersey lottery not just once, but twice (1985, 1986), to the tune of $5.4 million. Today the money is all gone and Adams lives in a trailer. 'I won the American dream but I lost it, too. It was a very hard fall. It's called rock bottom,' says Adams. 'Everybody wanted my money. Everybody had their hand out. I never learned one simple word in the English language -- 'No.' I wish I had the chance to do it all over again. I'd be much smarter about it now,' says Adams, who also lost money at the slot machines in Atla...

CTV.ca | Small molecule offers hope for cancer treatment A small, non-toxic molecule may soon be available as an inexpensive treatment for many forms of cancer, including lung, breast and brain tumours, say University of Alberta researchers. But there's a catch: the drug isn't patented, and pharmaceutical companies may not be interested in funding further research if the treatment won't make them a profit. In findings that "astounded" the researchers, the molecule known as DCA was shown to shrink lung, breast and brain tumours in both animal and human tissue experiments. "You typically get this eureka type of feeling. It's the most exciting thing a scientist can get," Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the University of Alberta department of medicine and a key study author, told CTV News. The study was published Tuesday in the journal Cancer Cell. The molecule appears to repair the damage that cancer cells cause to mitochondria, the units that ...

Iraq Announces Crackdown On Mahdi Army, 400 Fighters For Muqtada Al-Sadr Arrested; Iraq PM Calls For Better Weapons, Equipment - CBS News (CBS/AP) Apparently seeking to calm U.S. fears that he will not go after militia gunmen loyal to one of his key political backers, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said 400 fighters from the Mahdi Army had been arrested over the past several weeks. In Baghdad on Thursday, bombers and gunmen killed at least 19 more people in a series of attacks in the pre-noon hours as the capital faces a surge in violence ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown. It was the first time the Shiite prime minister has specifically detailed any arrests of figures from the Mahdi Army militia that is loyal to his key backer, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Many of the militiamen are believed responsible for a majority of the sectarian violence in Baghdad over the past year. Yassin Majid, a senior al-Maliki adviser, said reports that dozens of senior militia leader...

Wired News: Fantastic Voyage: Departure 2009 : "An international team of scientists is developing what they say will be the world's first microrobot -- as wide as two human hairs -- that can swim through the arteries and digestive system. The scientists are designing the 250-micron device to transmit images and deliver microscopic payloads to parts of the body outside the reach of existing catheter technology. It will also perform minimally invasive microsurgeries, said James Friend of the Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory at Australia's Monash University, who leads the team. The researchers hope the device will reduce the risks normally associated with delicate surgical procedures. While others have tried and failed to create microrobots for arterial travel, Friend believes his team will succeed because they are the first to exploit piezoelectric materials -- crystals that create an electric charge when mechanically stressed -- in their micromotor design. 'People ...

Daily Tribune : : "History includes at least six similar convictions FERNDALE-- A Detroit man with a record of breaking store windows to satisfy a fetish for female mannequins faces up to life in prison if convicted on the latest charge against him. Advertisement Ronald A. Dotson, 39, is charged with attempted breaking and entering after police say he broke a display window Oct. 9 at a cleaning supply store in a failed effort to get at a female mannequin dressed in a black-and-white French maid's outfit. Dotson's criminal history includes at least six breaking and entering convictions involving female mannequins over the past 13 years and stints in state prison. Ferndale 43rd District Judge Joseph Longo on Thursday found Dotson competent to stand trial after he was examined by state doctors who issued a report to the court. Dotson was ordered to stand trial in circuit court following a preliminary examination on the evidence against him in Ferndale court on Thursday. The s...

Daily Tribune : : "History includes at least six similar convictions FERNDALE-- A Detroit man with a record of breaking store windows to satisfy a fetish for female mannequins faces up to life in prison if convicted on the latest charge against him. Advertisement Ronald A. Dotson, 39, is charged with attempted breaking and entering after police say he broke a display window Oct. 9 at a cleaning supply store in a failed effort to get at a female mannequin dressed in a black-and-white French maid's outfit. Dotson's criminal history includes at least six breaking and entering convictions involving female mannequins over the past 13 years and stints in state prison. Ferndale 43rd District Judge Joseph Longo on Thursday found Dotson competent to stand trial after he was examined by state doctors who issued a report to the court. Dotson was ordered to stand trial in circuit court following a preliminary examination on the evidence against him in Ferndale court on Thursday. The s...

Beauty is in the eye of your friends - being-human - 17 January 2007 - New Scientist : "It is a classic image: a group of young women sighing over the latest heartthrob. But do they all really share identical taste for, say, Brad Pitt, or that cute guy in physics class? A new study suggests that, in fact, women will look more favourably on the men that other women find attractive. Female guppies, quail and finches tend to mate with males that look like the males they have seen other females paired with. Such “mate choice copying” can pay off. If it is difficult to choose the best mating material, or takes a lot of time and energy, it makes sense to go with what works for the other girls. Yet although human mate selection suffers just such difficulties, there has been little evidence that women do this, until now. Ben Jones at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and colleagues, showed 28 men and 28 women pairs of male faces and asked them to rate their attractiveness. The photo...

The University of Reading - Cybernetics at Reading - News : "A new robot at the University of Reading has been rated as suitable for adults only by the University's Ethics and Research Committee. The K-28 robot, named Morgui (mandarin Chinese for Magic (Mor) Ghost (Gui)), consists of a rapid action robot head which has been specially designed as a test bed for multi-sensor integration. Although it has 5 senses, only two of these, vision and audio, are human equivalents, whilst the remainder, radar, infra-red and ultrasonics are extrasensory as far as humans are concerned. Professor Kevin Warwick of the University's Cybernetics Department said 'We want to investigate how people react when they first encounter 'Mo', as we lovingly like to call the robot. Through one of Mo's eyes he can watch peoples' responses to him following them around. It appears this is not deemed to be acceptable for Under 18 year olds without prior consent from their legal guardian...

Does High-Fructose Corn Syrup Have to Be in Everything? by Wilton D. Alston The Usual Suspect – Again Of course the culprit for the presence of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in all sweetened foods in the U.S. is the state. The mechanism is the incredibly high tariff on sugar produced in other countries. The U.S. government would rather force manufacturers to use inferior and hazardous high fructose corn syrup, which can be created from corn – a crop grown in the U.S. – than allow them to use more natural sugar from places that seem rather obvious. I don’t know about you, but when I think of sugar, I think of sugar cane in South America, but when the USDA thinks of sugar, apparently they think of cornfields in Nebraska! But Really, Who Cares? What if corn sweetener is just as good as sugar from cane in South America? Wouldn’t it make sense to support our "local" producers? Well, no, not with legislation. If corn sweetener were really better than cane sugar, legislation artif...

Solar power eliminates utility bills in U.S. home Reuters.com : "EAST AMWELL, New Jersey (Reuters) - Michael Strizki heats and cools his house year-round and runs a full range of appliances including such power-guzzlers as a hot tub and a wide-screen TV without paying a penny in utility bills. His conventional-looking family home in the pinewoods of western New Jersey is the first in the United States to show that a combination of solar and hydrogen power can generate all the electricity needed for a home. The Hopewell Project, named for a nearby town, comes at a time of increasing concern over U.S. energy security and worries over the effects of burning fossil fuels on the climate. 'People understand that climate change is a big concern but they don't know what they can do about it,' said Gian-Paolo Caminiti of Renewable Energy Associates, the commercial arm of the project. 'There's a psychological dividend in doing the right thing,' he said. Strizki run...

The Seattle Times: Local News: Smoking foes bring the fight to apartment buildings : "A year after a statewide smoking ban took effect at workplaces, restaurants, bars and other public places, a new battlefield over secondhand smoke is emerging: apartment buildings. Spurred on by nonsmoking tenants and public-health leaders, more private landlords are considering restricting smoking inside their rental units. And local public-housing agencies are also looking at banning smoking in the units of some buildings. Since the ban took effect, people have gotten used to going out in the community and not being exposed to secondhand smoke, and that's prompted some to ask, 'Why do I have to take it in my home?' says Roger Valdez, manager of the tobacco-prevention program for Public Health — Seattle & King County, which enforces the smoking ban here. 'We've been surprised by the increased level of interest to make their apartments smoke-free,' he said."

Is 'Quick' Enough? - washingtonpost.com Some of the newest players in health care are rubbing doctors the wrong way. You may know them: those small clinics at your neighborhood Wal-Mart, Target or CVS that promise quick attention for routine visits -- sore throats, minor aches and pains, flu shots -- with no appointments needed. The clinics, which go by such names as MinuteClinic, RediClinic, QuickClinic, Medpoint Express, Curaquick and MediMin, offer convenience and low price -- scarce commodities in today's medical marketplace. But while consumers are taking to the concept, physician resistance is building. Buy This Photo At the MinuteClinic inside a CVS pharmacy in Potomac, Rachel Herman, 6, checks in with nurse practitioner Anne Pohnert. Rachel's sore throat is typical of problems seen at retail-based clinics, which are gaining in popularity. At the MinuteClinic inside a CVS pharmacy in Potomac, Rachel Herman, 6, checks in with nurse practitioner Anne Pohnert. Rach...

Robo-builder threatens the brickie - Newspaper Edition - Times Online : "Robo-builder threatens the brickie Robert Booth IS THE writing on the wall for the brickie? Engineers are racing to unveil the world’s first robot capable of building a house at the touch of a button. The first prototype — a watertight shell of a two-storey house built in 24 hours without a single builder on site — will be erected in California before April. A rival design, being pioneered in the East Midlands, with �1.2m of government funding, will include sunken baths, fireplaces and cornices. There are even plans for robots to supplant painters and decorators by spraying colourful frescoes at an affordable price. By building almost an entire house from just two materials — concrete and gypsum — the robots will eliminate the need for dozens of traditional components, including floorboards, wooden window frames and possibly even wallpaper. It may eventually be possible to use specially treated gypsum instead...

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State :: $300 parking permit OKd for realty agents, others Chicago aldermen held their noses Wednesday and expanded a residential permit parking program that has spread like wildfire -- creating a $300-a-year parking permit for real estate agents, social workers and home health care providers. [...] But the changes were not enough to satisfy a parade of aldermen who say Chicago "created a monster" when it established residential permit parking 27 years ago -- and that the new permit will make it worse. The 44-4 vote came only after Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) informed aldermen they had no choice. If they failed to approve the new permit, it would blow a $2.4 million hole in Daley's 2007 budget. "I don't want to institute an elitist system that gives real estate brokers or any other business people [who] make lots of money [the right] to park anywhere. I don't want anybody having their windows broken -...

Equal Cheers for Boys and Girls Draw Some Boos - New York Times WHITNEY POINT, N.Y. — Thirty girls signed up for the cheerleading squad this winter at Whitney Point High School in upstate New York. But upon learning they would be waving their pompoms for the girls’ basketball team as well as the boys’, more than half of the aspiring cheerleaders dropped out. The eight remaining cheerleaders now awkwardly adjust their routines for whichever team is playing here on the home court — “Hands Up You Guys” becomes “Hands Up You Girls”— to comply with a new ruling from federal education officials interpreting Title IX, the law intended to guarantee gender equality in student sports. “It feels funny when we do it,” said Amanda Cummings, 15, the cheerleading co-captain, who forgot the name of a female basketball player mid-cheer last month. Whitney Point is one of 14 high schools in the Binghamton area that began sending cheerleaders to girls’ games in late November, after the mother of a female...

The Local - Full fat milk makes you thinner - Swedish study : "Full fat dairy products are more likely to keep you slim than comparable low fat foods. That's the apparently topsy-turvy conclusion of a new Swedish study, which shows that the fat encourages calcium uptake. Researchers at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute now reckon that daily consumption of full fat dairy products will lead to a reduction of obesity, reported Svenska Dagbladet."

Procrastination Theories : "Discounted Expectancy Theory This theory represents the very cutting edge of motivational research. It suggests that the reasons why people make any decision can be largely represented by the following equation: utility = Expectancy[E] times Value[V]/Sensitivity to delay[G] times Delay until reward[D] Utility indicates preference for a course of action. Naturally, the higher the utility, the greater the preference. On the top of the equation, the numerator, we have two variables: Expectancy (E) and Value (V). Expectancy refers to the odds or chance of an outcome occurring while Value refers to how rewarding that outcome is. Naturally, we would like to choose pursuits that give us a good chance of having a pleasing outcome. On the bottom of the equation, the denominator, we also have two variables. G refers to the subject’s sensitivity to delay. The larger G is, the greater is the sensitivity. Finally, D represents Delay, which indicates how long, on av...

In The News: Procrastination Dr. Piers Steel, a professor in the Haskayne School of Business and an expert in the research technique known as meta-analysis, has completed a three-year study of just about everything ever written on procrastination. He's analysed almost 700 professional papers from the fields of psychology, economics, philosophy and sociology, and looked at related historical material that dates back 3,000 years. "We procrastinate because we are built - right in the root of our minds - to value pleasures today more than pleasures tomorrow," Steel says. "Procrastination is an over-valuation of the short term over the long term. It's probably just an evolutionary holdover from a time when a bird in the hand was worth more than two in the bush." The kind of modern and civilized world we've constructed for ourselves, however, assumes that humans behave rationally. That's clearly not the case, Steel says. "We've built our world aro...