New Hampshire Health News Digest

We're sorry this is late; we really meant to post it sooner We're sorry this is late; we really meant to post it sooner Research into procrastination shows surprising findings A University of Calgary professor in the Haskayne School of Business has recently published his magnum opus on the subject of procrastination – and it's only taken him 10 years. Joking aside, Dr. Piers Steel is probably the world's foremost expert on the subject of putting off until tomorrow what should be done today. His comprehensive analysis of procrastination research, published in the recent edition of the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin, presents some surprising conclusions on the subject, such as: * Most people's New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure * Most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination, and * Procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equa...

My Way News - al-Qaida Chief in Somalia May Be Dead By SALAD DUHUL (AP) Hussein Aidid, deputy prime minister of the Transitional Federal Government Somalia, in Nairobi,... Full Image MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - A senior al-Qaida suspect wanted for bombing American embassies in East Africa was killed in a U.S. airstrike, a Somali official said Wednesday, a report that if confirmed would mean the end of an eight-year hunt for a top target of Washington's war on terrorism. There was no immediate confirmation from the United States. In Washington, an intelligence official said the U.S. killed five to 10 people in an attack on an al-Qaida target in southern Somalia but did not say who was killed. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity, said perhaps four or five others were wounded. The report came as U.S forces apparently launched a third day of airstrikes in southern Somalia. Witnesses said an AC-130 gunship attacked a suspected al-Qa...

Desktop fabricator may kick-start home revolution - tech - 09 January 2007 - New Scientist Tech A cheap self-assembly device capable of fabricating 3D objects has been developed by US researchers. They hope the machine could kick start a revolution in home fabrication – or "rapid prototyping" – just as early computer kits sparked an explosion in home computing. Rapid prototyping machines are already used by designers, engineers and scientists to create one-off mechanical parts and models. These create objects by depositing layer upon layer of liquid or powdered material. These machines typically cost from $20,000 to $1.5 million, says Hod Lipson from Carnegie Mellon University, US, who launched the Fab@Home project with PhD student Evan Malone in October 2006. The standard version of their Freeform fabricator – or "fabber" – is about the size of a microwave oven and can be assembled for around $2400 (£1200). It can generate 3D objects from plastic and various other ...

China says terror raid finds ties abroad - Yahoo! News BEIJING - Police found links to international terrorist groups during a raid on an alleged terror camp in China's restive western Muslim region last week, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT Police said they raided a training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, in the mountainous Xinjiang region on Friday, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17 others. "There is a large amount of evidence that shows, including evidence we got from this raid, that the ETIM is associated with international terrorist forces," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. He also said that the group "planned, organized and carried out a series of violent terrorist activities in China." Liu gave no specific details about the alleged evidence or attacks and did not say which overseas terror groups those arrested were linked to. China has said before that ETIM has links to al-Qaida. China labels ETI...

Telegraph | News | Why dithering gets you nowhere Trust your gut instincts when decision-making gets tough, a study published today suggests. The research, published in the journal Current Biology, shows that, in some cases, snap decisions are more reliable than endless pondering using higher-level cognitive processes. Participants were asked to pick the odd one out on a screen covered in more than 650 identical symbols, including one rotated version of the same symbol. advertisement They performed better when given no time to linger and were forced to rely on their subconscious. Dr Li Zhaoping, of University College London, said: "You would expect people to make more accurate decisions when given the time to look properly. "The conscious or top-level function of the brain, when active, vetoes our initial subconscious decision — even when it is correct – leaving us unaware or distrustful of our instincts and at an immediate disadvantage. "Falling back on our inbuilt, inv...

The Prophet as a Man — 108: War Preparedness Despite what the enemies of Islam say, particularly nowadays, and what impression some fringe groups of Muslim hard-liners advocate, Islam is a religion of peace, which prefers to live with all communities in an atmosphere of mutual respect and true understanding. However, Islam does not shrink from fighting a war imposed on it by its enemies. This could be by launching a straightforward attack on Muslim population or Muslim land, such as Israel did when it attacked Gaza and Lebanon in recent months, or by imposing some sort of siege, which prevents Muslims from advocating their faith through free speech. In fact Islam does not require from anyone more than the basic freedom of speech and conviction, which are as essential to human existence as food and drink. Without such freedom, man’s life will not be different from that of animals. Such a serious approach to life which allows for the possibility of war, should the enemy force it on Musli...

Wired 15.01: START : "If you mashed up Survivor, Second Life, and a Florida timeshare, you’d have Tribewanted.com, the latest experiment in Internet-enabled democracy. For about $230 a year, you get membership in a global tribe located on the undeveloped island of Vorovoro – just a short connecting flight, a jeep ride, and a boat excursion from Fiji’s Nadi International Airport. The fee entitles Vorovorans to a weeklong stay on the 200-acre paradise (travel costs not included), but more important, it gives citizens access to the tribe’s online presence, where they can participate via email and forums to make consensus decisions, select leaders, and even designate holidays. Since April 2006, when recruitment started, more than 1,000 of a projected 5,000 people have joined. Last fall, the first band of 100 members – including Ben Keene and Mark James, the earnest twentysomething Brits behind the effort – arrived on Vorovoro to establish basic infrastructure, like a garden and the Gr...

George F. Will - The Right Minimum Wage - washingtonpost.com : "Democrats consider the minimum-wage increase a signature issue. So, consider what it says about them: Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the 0.6 percent (479,000 in 2005) of America's wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor. Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum lives in families with earnings below the poverty line. Sixty percent work part time, and their average household income is well over $40,000. (The average and median household incomes are $63,344 and $46,326, respectively.) Forty percent of American workers are salaried. Of the 75.6 million paid by the hour, 1.9 million earn the federal minimum or less, and of these, more than half are under 25 and more than a quarter are between ages 16 and 19. Many are students or other part-time workers. Sixty percent of those earning the federal minimum or less work in restaurants and bars and earn tips -- o...

SPACE.com -- Super Soldiers: Tomorrow's 'Army of One' Technology : "Within three years, soldiers could begin testing futuristic devices that make them each 'an army of one' by granting them unprecedented capabilities, such as the ability to see through walls thanks to advanced radar scopes and super-protection and super-strength conferred by high-tech armor. Although some of the technologies could take years to reach actual battlefields, novel devices developed by the U.S. Army's Future Force Warrior initiative such as advanced sound equipment and smarter lasers should be available to active soldiers as soon as 2010, promising to make them more lethal than ever. They'll also be better protected. For example, current armor can keep bullets and shrapnel from wounding soldiers directly, but they can carry shock waves to the body that can break ribs and cause other injuries. Improvements will provide a more protective 2-inch gap between soldiers and their ...

Secret to a long life - get even more often - SeniorsHealth - Health In Focus PEOPLE who smile a lot and say "have a nice day" are headed to an early grave while the grumpy stay fit. Researchers at a German university - a land where surliness is an Olympic discipline -say enforced jolliness on the job is much more likely to make people fall ill. They cite flight attendants, sales personnel, call centre operators, waiters and others in contact with the public for extended periods of time as being at risk of seriously harming their health. Psychologists at Frankfurt University said the fake friendliness led to depression, stress and a lowering of the immune system itself, which in turn can trigger more serious ailments. "Every time a person is forced to repress his true feelings there are negative consequences for his health," said Professor Dieter Zapf, a researcher into human emotions. The study tested students working in an imaginary call centre who were subject to...

My Way News - U.S. Toll in Iraq Lower Than Past Wars A four-figure number hovers 50 feet over a busy Philadelphia street, visible in an office window. It changes maybe once or twice a day like the cost of something. A janitor once stopped, just to stare. "I see that number, and it makes me cry," he told Celeste Zappala, who keeps the running tally. It is a number that strongly moves American opinion: the U.S. military's death toll in Iraq. Zappala's son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, is one of the dead. Other makeshift memorials rise up across the country as reminders of the war's human cost: flags planted in honor of the dead on the National Mall in Washington, symbolic tombstones at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, signs with fallen soldiers' names plastered to telephone polls outside Boston. Americans may question this war for many reasons, but their doubts often find voice in the count of U.S. war deaths. An overwhelming majority - 84 percent - worry that the war ...

FOXNews.com - Brainroom: Saddam Hussein's Atrocities Chronicle of the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein: Hussein's regime killed, tortured, raped and terrorized the Iraqi people and its neighbors for over two decades. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of Saddam's actions. Saddam had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered. 1980-88: Iran-Iraq war left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000 Iranians dead. 1983-1988: Documented chemical attacks by Iraqi regime caused some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths. 1988: Chemical attack on Kurdish village of Halabja killed approximately 5,000 people. 1987-1988: Iraqi regime used chemical agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages. 1990-91: 1,000 Kuwaitis were killed in Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. 1991: Bloody suppression of Kurdish and Shi'a uprisings in northern and southern Iraq killed at least 30,000 to 60,000. At least 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of ter...

deus ex machina � I’m a Resident of Second Life WUT? I’m a Resident of Second Life WUT? I was recently directed to an article by Clay Shirky blasting Second Life for its inaccuracy in reporting number of users. Second Life throws around a number that is actually only the number of avatars created in the world, NOT the number of unique human users. Their latest numbers report 2.2 million “Residents” (avatars), 833,000 logged in the last 60 days, and roughly 14,000 people currently online at the time I write this post (peak concurrency has been reported as high as 18,000 users at once). That’s 0.64% of their so-called “Residents” online at a time! Why so low? Maybe because they are all the same people? Compare this to WoW, where 7.5 million customers actively subscribe or play the game, with 660,000 concurrent users. 8.8% of the WoW player base is online together at a given time. Eve Online, which runs off of a single shard, has roughly 150,000 active subscribers and a peak user concurre...

LiveScience.com - Why We Have Sex: It's Cleansing Scientists have long wondered why organisms bother with sexual reproduction. It makes a whole lot more sense to just have a bunch of females that can clone themselves, which is how asexual reproduction works. Turns out sex might have evolved as a way to concentrate lots of harmful mutations into individual organisms so they could be easily weeded out by natural selection, a new computer model suggests. The classic explanation for the onset of whoopee, about 1 billion years ago, is that it provides a way for organisms to swap and shuffle genes and to create offspring with new gene combinations that might survive if the environment suddenly changes. But some scientists think this isn't enough of a justification to outweigh the many costs of getting together to make little ones. Just ask any single person—sexual organisms have to spend valuable time and resources finding and attracting mates. If all organisms were like starfishes a...

The Columbus Dispatch - Editorials : "‘Dispatch’ editorial on terrorism simplistic Wednesday, June 28, 2006 I respond to the June 20 Dispatch editorial 'Out of the frying pan.' What has happened in Somalia, for the majority of Somalis inside and those who are abroad, is a positive change. I truly suggest that we should not prejudge this change, or any change for that matter, based on the religious affiliation of those in power. It seems to me that there is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to Muslims, Islam, Arabs and Palestinian issues. A view of the big picture seems to be missing. The assertion in the editorial, 'President Bush is right to be concerned about these developments. Regions of strict Muslim control and haters of Western culture tend to breed terrorists,' is overly simplistic. The line they hate us and our way of life has really become old. This is a ridiculous and simplistic response to a complex problem of major magnitude." This is a CAIR...