How wings are attached to the backs...
Possibly the most awesome bird EVER!
The plight of the butterflies...
8 ways nature can make you healthier...
Can we coexist? No really can we coexist?
Hanging out with J.C. and the gang...
The 7 types of stress...and how to fight them...
So buy, buy an American pie...
Avoid GMO food!
The top 10 worst contracts in MLB...
I Hear Flies by Gaggle...
Maybe we should all start smoking...
Perhaps the best, weirdest, and over the top music video ever made...
5 "women's" diseases that men can get too...
Do Wah Doo by Kate Nash...
How movie studios got their logos...
13 foods that fight pain...
Is oversleeping bad for your health?
Surreal and psychedelic man...
When food mascots go rogue...
Sharing really large files over the Net...
Food ingredient as addictive as cocaine...
Monsanto is an evil company...
Beware the double dip coming...
Sick street performer... (props to Greg)
The magnificence of the universe...
Cardiocerebral resuscitation or “CCR” is the most important advance in the care of patients in cardiac arrest since cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was first described. Some physicians refer to CCR as the new form of CPR, whereas others refer to it simply as the replacement for traditional CPR.
Critics of traditional CPR have stated that the emphasis on early ventilation is misguided. These airway interventions take time away from performing adequate chest compressions, and they also produce an increase in intrathoracic pressure, decreasing venous return and thus cardiac output -- not a good thing in a patient in cardiac arrest.
CCR includes continuous chest compressions with no early ventilations. A recent study that compared CCR with standard CPR in patients demonstrated that both survival and percentage of survivors with good neurological outcome were significantly improved in those who underwent CCR.
Knowledge
Infoplease AtlasInfoplease bills itself as the site providing 'all the knowledge you need;' their Atlas supports this billing, providing a wide array of geographic information. There is a clickable world map for accessing particular countries and their cities; country profiles with demographic and geographic data, a brief history of the region in addition to flags are provided from the linked Almanacs. Easy-to-use, this site should be your starting point for your geographic quests!
Lenovo Skylight Smartbook
| The Lenovo Skylight is an ARM-based processor smartbook device based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset platform. Skylight harnesses the best of smartphones and netbooks to create a new mobile consumer device. The Lenovo Skylight smartbook will be available starting in April in the U.S., and it will be available in China and in Europe later this year. |
Africa, PBS
Here's your opportunity to explore the dark continent of Africa with PBS as your guide. You can research the different regions, tour 43 separate countries, groove to African music, take a taste of African food and even go on an African Safari. After your exploration, there is an Africa Challenge that includes a history game, a Photoscope, an Africa for Kids section and Teacher Tools. There is so much to learn, see, and do in Africa, you’ll want to spend days on this continent in the various sites!
The Best Way to Cut Excess Calories from Your Diet!
Cutting calories by eating slower will have little impact unless you also pay attention to the single largest source of calories in the typical American diet, namely fructose!
While chewing slowly will increase the release of some satiety-inducing hormones, ingesting fructose will clearly counteract this benefit.
Fructose diminishes your feelings of fullness because it does not stimulate a rise in leptin, one of the most powerful hunger- and fat storage regulators in your body. Fructose also reduces the amount of leptin crossing your blood-brain barrier by raising triglycerides.
Leptin resistance, in turn, is perhaps one of the most significant factors underlying human disease. For example, it plays a significant if not primary role in the development heart disease, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, reproductive disorders, and perhaps the rate of aging itself.
Additionally, whereas glucose suppresses ghrelin (also known as “the hunger hormone,” which makes you want more food), fructose, again, does not.
Fructose also increases your insulin levels, interfering with the communication between leptin and your hypothalamus, so your pleasure signals aren’t extinguished. Your brain keeps sensing that you’re starving, and prompts you to eat more.
As you can see, consuming fructose suppresses feelings of satiety in several ways, which eventually will have serious consequences for your weight and overall health.
As a standard recommendation, I strongly advise keeping your fructose consumption below 25 grams per day.
However, for most people it would actually be wise to limit your fruit fructose to 15 grams or less, as it is virtually guaranteed that you will consume “hidden” sources of fructose from just about any processed food you might eat.
That said, avoiding as many processed foods as possible should be at the top of your list. For example, just ONE can of soda contains about 40 grams of high fructose corn syrup, which is already well over any kind of healthy limit!
Reducing your fructose consumption also includes carefully measuring your fruit intake to make certain that you’re not inadvertently consuming too much fructose. The table below will give you an idea of how much fructose is in your favorite fruits.
| |
| Fruit | Serving Size | Grams of Fructose |
| Boysenberries | 1 cup | 4.6 |
| Tangerine/mandarin orange | 1 medium | 4.8 |
| Nectarine | 1 medium | 5.4 |
| Peach | 1 medium | 5.9 |
| Orange (navel) | 1 medium | 6.1 |
| Papaya | 1/2 medium | 6.3 |
| Honeydew | 1/8 of med. melon | 6.7 |
| Banana | 1 medium | 7.1 |
| Blueberries | 1 cup | 7.4 |
| Date (Medjool) | 1 medium | 7.7 |
| Apple (composite) | 1 medium | 9.5 |
| Persimmon | 1 medium | 10.6 |
| Watermelon | 1/16 med. melon | 11.3 |
| Pear | 1 medium | 11.8 |
| Raisins | 1/4 cup | 12.3 |
| Grapes, seedless (green or red) | 1 cup | 12.4 |
| Mango | 1/2 medium | 16.2 |
| Apricots, dried | 1 cup | 16.4 |
| Figs, dried | 1 cup | 23.0 |
Is This the New Silver Bullet for Cancer?
Doctors have known that low levels of vitamin D are linked to certain kinds of cancers as well as to diabetes and asthma, but new research also shows that the vitamin can kill human cancer cells.
Researchers took human breast cancer cells and treated them with a potent form of vitamin D. Within a few days, half the cancer cells shriveled up and died.
The vitamin's effects were even more dramatic on breast cancer cells injected into mice. After several weeks of treatment, the cancer tumors in the mice shrank by an average of more than 50 percent. Some tumors disappeared.
Similar results have been achieved on colon and prostate cancer tumors in mice.
Vitamin D Helps Prevent Heart Disease, Diabetes
Further, middle aged and elderly people with high levels of vitamin D could reduce their chances of developing heart disease or diabetes by 43 percent, according to researchers.
A systematic literature review of the relationship between vitamin D and cardiometabolic disorders looked at 28 studies including nearly 100,000 participants.
The studies revealed a significant association between high levels of vitamin D and a decreased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
All studies included were published between 1990 and 2009, with the majority published between 2004 and 2009. Half of the studies were conducted in the United States, eight were European, two studies were from Iran, three from Australasia and one from India.
 | New Inspirational Quotes Database Brighten your morning and inspire your day with our famous inspirational quotes. There are thousands of uplifting quotes to choose from. Start your day with one--or more! |
Bugscope
"The Bugscope project was developed by the Bugscope Project Team and the Imaging Technology Group at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign." This project is geared towards kindergarten through twelfth-grade students allowing them to remotely operate a scanning electron microscope and view these insects at high magnification. There are full instructions for participating in the project but everyone can go to the Classroom Integration where at the bottom of the page, a tome of information about insects as well as the copious links to external resources for further information can be found. You can also browse selected images such as a grasshopper tibia claw, ridges on the tongue of a fly, horsefly hair follicle, and mouth of a tick through the 'Look Around' search facility. The submitting subscriber invites everyone to 'get close and personal with bugs' through Bugscope!
Insight
TRUTHIt takes two seconds to tell the truth and it costs nothing. A lie takes time and it costs everything.
Randi Rhodes
The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
Fun
Protesting Too MuchArrested on a robbery charge, our law firm's client denied the allegations. So when the victim pointed him out in a lineup as one of four men who had attacked him, our client reacted vociferously.
"He's lying!" he yelled. "There were only three of us."
Flirting Trouble
Clearly, my husband and I need to brush up on our flirting. The other night, after I crawled into bed next to him, he wrapped his large arms around me, drew a deep breath, and whispered, "Mmm … that Vicks smells good."
Today's Quotes
CREATIVITY“Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people’s lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.” —Stephen R. Covey
“It is wonderful to be in on the creation of something, see it used, and then walk away and smile at it.” —Lady Bird Johnson
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun.” —Mary Lou Cook
“If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning. The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living.” —Marion Woodman
Bits & Pieces
ENDURANCESomeone told me life is a water wheel. It turns. The trick is to hold your nose when you're under and not get dizzy when you're up.
James Baldwin
Run when you can, walk when you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.
Dean Karnazes
Trust… and Verify!
Many people would never question a store like Whole Foods, but it’s important to remember that although their company values may be higher than some others, Whole Foods is an "industrial organic" company, with more than 270 stores throughout North America, Hawaii, and the UK, and will operate as such.
Their focus is no longer being a distribution center for locally-grown organics. You’re just as likely to find imported asparagus from Argentina as you are finding a locally-grown seasonal crop. Aside from nullifying the environmental benefits of locally grown organics, are those “organic” veggies from the other side of the world truly organic?
Beware that there’s a 50/50 chance they do not meet the American USDA organic standards.
It’s easy to become discouraged with the entire business of organics, and begin to fret about ever being able to get your hands on truly healthy food. But as I said the other day in “Buying Local Should Include Buying Organic,” the ground rules for healthy food shopping have never changed, merely the labels.
And many of Whole Foods’ canned or boxed items contain ingredients most health conscious shoppers would not expect to see, like high fructose corn syrup (which is a major source of genetically modified corn, and the number one source of calories in the US diet) and MSG (a neurotoxin. For a great resource on how to find hidden MSG, please see the website www.MSGMYTH.com for detailed listings.)
Whole Foods is clearly a superior source of wholesome foods than most grocery stores,and I regularly shop there. However, they are still a Fortune 500 Company that owes its allegiance to its shareholders, so blind trust is not advised.
Remember that only about 30 percent of their fresh produce comes from local producers, and they DO carry conventional produce and other conventional food items as well. So label checking is perhaps even more important here, since local and imported organics, along with conventional goods, are freely intermingled throughout the store.
The Organic Label
There are a few different organic labels out there, but only one relates directly to foods: the USDA Organic seal.
This seal is one of your best commercial assurances of organic quality, so when in doubt: if it doesn’t carry the USDA Organic seal, you might not be getting what you’re paying for.
Growers and manufacturers of organic products bearing the USDA seal have to meet the strictest standards of any of the currently available organic labels.
The USDA's National Organic Program (NOP) took effect October 21, 2002, and regulates the standards for any farm, wild crop harvesting, or handling operation that wants to sell an agricultural product as organically produced.
The labeling requirements of the NOP apply to raw, fresh products and processed products that contain organic agricultural ingredients. In order to qualify as organic, a product must be grown and processed using organic farming methods that recycle resources and promote biodiversity.
Crops CANNOT be grown with any of the following:
- Synthetic pesticides
- Bioengineered genes
- Petroleum-based fertilizers
- Sewage sludge-based fertilizers
Organic livestock must have access to the outdoors and cannot be given antibiotics or growth hormones.
Organic products cannot be irradiated, are not allowed to contain preservatives or flavor enhancing chemicals, nor can they contain traces of heavy metals or other contaminants in excess of tolerances set by the FDA.
The pesticide residue level cannot be higher than 5 percent of the maximum EPA pesticide tolerance.
For the complete National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances under the USDA organic label, see this link.
Tip: Check the PLU Sticker Too!
Although I wouldn’t rely on this as your one and only strategy, checking the PLU stickers on fresh produce can also offer an indication as to its true nature.
- Conventionally-grown produce will carry a PLU sticker beginning with the numbers 3 or 4
- The PLU sticker on organic produce will start with the number 9
How to Prioritize Your Spending on Organics
With every food manufacturer jumping on the organic bandwagon and all the shenanigans going on, you can easily overspend on mislabeled, or downright fraudulent, organic purchases.
Here are some tips on how to prioritize your spending, so you know you’re getting the most bang for your buck:
Meats and Poultry – If you’re on a tight budget, but want to improve your diet by shopping organic, this is definitely where you’ll want to start.
Since animal products tend to bioaccumulate toxins, concentrating them to far higher concentrations than are typically present in vegetables, I strongly recommend you buy only organically-raised meats.
When choosing organic beef, taking the additional step to make certain the cows are grass-fed exclusively, especially the three months before they are slaughtered, can make a big difference in the quality, taste, and nutrient content of the beef.For chickens, it would be important to make sure they are cage-free, or free-range, chickens.
Fresh produce – When it comes to produce, if you can’t find the best of both worlds, which is locally-grown organics, then buying fresh, vibrant locally grown conventional produce may actually be better than wilted organics. However, it can be tricky, since some conventionally grown produce simply LOOKS fresher due to all the chemicals they’ve been treated with.
Perhaps your best bet, if you can’t find locally grown organics, is to opt for USDA certified organic, but not imported organic, over the conventionally grown variety.
Just be aware that wilted organic produce is not going to provide the nutrition that a fresh one will, even if it’s conventionally grown.
That said, organic produce has been shown to have a much higher nutrient-content than conventional fresh produce, which should offer plenty of incentive to locate organic produce that has also been grown locally. On average, conventional produce has only 83 percent of the nutrients of organic produce.
Personal care products – A good rule of thumb is that if it’s not safe to eat, it’s not safe to put on your skin either, since the ingredients are absorbed directly into your blood stream.
One of the best sources for finding safe personal care products is the Organic Consumer’s Association’s Skin Deep database.Also remember that the only way to ensure your personal care product is truly organic is to look for the USDA Organic seal, which certifies that it complies with organic food standards and is free of petrochemicals.
Pay Now, or Pay Later…
My personal view of why you’d want an organic lifestyle is that although you may spend more money on organic food and personal care products today, your payoff of good health should more than make up for it – and reduce your health care costs in the future.
It makes sense to me to invest a little bit more now so I can avoid paying LARGE medical bills later on, but more importantly, I can avoid the physical and mental disability and dysfunction that inevitably follows from a careless, unhealthy lifestyle.
Making sure you’re not being misled by labels in your search for a healthier lifestyle is unfortunately part of this process. However, by educating yourself about what to look for, talking to your grocer, and sharing information with family, friends and neighbors, you can help the movement toward healthier food choices and honest labeling.
Water is Too Cheap!
By Chris Mayer
The city of Milwaukee is starting to figure out it has a great resource in its backyard – access to the fresh water of Lake Michigan.
The history of Milwaukee is a history of that plentiful water supply. Water-intensive businesses such as breweries and tanneries flourished here. They helped build this city on the shores of Lake Michigan. By the early 20th century, Milwaukee was the nation’s chief brewer. Pabst, Miller, Schlitz and Blatz – they all called Milwaukee home.
Things topped out in 1960, and since then, Milwaukee’s population has been in decline. The tanneries left. The big breweries are gone. What remains, though, is the water system. Pipes, tanks, pumping stations, treatment plants… Today, it runs at only a third of its capacity.
So the city plans to use this as a lure for so-called “wet businesses,” or businesses that use a lot of water. Come to Milwaukee and it’ll give you a break on water rates for up to five years. The city is not alone. Erie, Pa., has been offering Lake Erie water at 40% off for businesses that relocate there.
The fact that Milwaukee and Erie can do this at all tells you something about America’s water supply. It is – or is in the process of becoming – unreliable. I’ve written about this unfolding water crisis for years, and it always interests me. I think water will be one of the most important investment themes over the next decade, at least.
So when offered a spot at the Gabelli Water Investment Summit in New York, I duly took it. The folks at Gabelli do a good job of bringing together a dozen or so executives of water companies from around the country. It’s a worthwhile day, and I always learn something. I also can’t help but come away thinking bad thoughts about the way the US runs it water supply.
The most eye-opening presentation was by Nick DeBenedictis, the CEO of Aqua America, which is the second largest investor-owned water utility in the country. (It trades on the NYSE under the ticker WTR.)
He gave a good overview of the water utility industry. In a word, I’d have to say “messy” is an apt way to think of it. As DeBenedictis said, “You would never design it this way.” First, there are way too many systems. We have 55,000 water systems in this country. Second, most are too small, serving fewer than 3,000 people. The whole thing is inefficient, like trying to sled uphill.
But for whatever reasons, most people in this country think access to water is some kind of right and that we shouldn’t charge a market price for water. So market forces have not shaped the water industry as much as they might have. In the US, the government runs most of these systems. Only about 10% of the population gets its water from a private entity such as Aqua America.
In other parts of the world, the story is different. In England, 100% of the people get their water from private sources, and they have just 10 water systems. Even in France, 90% of the people get their water from private companies. In the US, we let government officials run amok. It was not always so. In 1850, about 80% of the country got its water from private companies. By 1900, it was 50%. So we’ve taken decades to get where we are today. Where we are today is an expensive place to be.
Summit Asset Management recently put out a white paper, The Case for Water Equity Investing 2010. (It’s available free on the Web and is well worth the read for the broad overview it gives.) In the paper, the authors sum up the damage. “In the US alone, the network of drinking water pipes extends almost a million miles – more than four times the length of the National Highway System. This aging infrastructure, much of which is more than 100 years old, has long exceeded its useful life and in many areas is in a state of utter disrepair.”
To fix it will cost at least $500 billion over the next 20 years. That’s a lot of new pipes, treatment plants, security upgrades and more. I bet it costs twice that. These projects always cost more when you start digging and pulling stuff out of the ground.
You would be appalled at the pictures of government-run water systems, which look like something out of the old Soviet Union. Dirty, old, rusted plants…water pipes filled with crud and buildup…little outhouse-like structures with no security that tap right into the drinking water supply…
“Cities around the country are playing the game of pay me later,” DeBenedictis says. “Leave it for the next mayor.” That’s always the problem. Who wants to be the politician to raise water rates to pay for needed repairs and maintenance?
And so the systems plunge deeper into decrepitude. The city does nothing until it has to. But the day of reckoning has arrived!
By Chris Mayer
Water is too cheap in the US…and it is also too cheap in the global stock markets. These are the main thoughts I took away from the Gabelli Water Investment Summit in New York earlier this year.
The most eye-opening presentation was by Nick DeBenedictis, the CEO of Aqua America, which is the second largest investor-owned water utility in the country. (It trades on the NYSE under the ticker WTR.) DeBenedictis told us about a city that “wondered why it couldn’t put fires out anymore.” The reason was the pipes were so old and clogged that there was only two inches for water flow. You’re never going to get enough water flow out of a pipe that size to put out a fire. “That’s not even enough to take a shower,” DeBenedictis said.
Speaking of showers, DeBenedictis told us about another water system where people wondered why they couldn’t take a shower and wash the dishes at the same time. Again, an old dilapidated water system was the culprit. “This is Middle America,” he said. “It can’t afford the pension for the police, much less new pipes.”
When a water system gets bad enough and the public finances strained enough, then a city will look to sell it. Sometimes, it is so bad and has so many problems that the municipality will sell it at any price. “We’ve picked up some for $1,” DeBenedictis said. “They just wanted to give it away.”
Or as Don Correll, CEO of American Water Works (the largest investor-owned utility in the US) put it, “We’re seeing financial distress in municipalities today that we’ve never seen in our lifetime… The more we keep printing money and running deficits, the more we’ll turn toward private investment.” That means more opportunities for the investor-owned water utilities.
Water is still too cheap in America. We subsidize water and hold it to an artificially low price. Most people pay a fraction for water compared with what they pay to an electric or telephone utility. But based on what I see and hear about the quality of our water systems, we’re going to have to pay up soon. As the Dennis Doll, CEO of Middlesex Water Co. said, “Many of these systems are disasters waiting to happen.”
It’s also going to affect us in ways you may not think of. It’s more than just the health and safety of our drinking water and the care of our wastewater – though that ought to be reason enough for concern. Our water supply will also dictate our choice of energy sources. (It takes water to make energy and energy to make water. This area of overlap is known as the energy-water nexus. It will be much more important in the 21st century than ever before.)
For instance, the renewable biofuels targets put out by the US Department of Energy are “completely dependent upon water supplies that simply do not exist at this point,” according to Summit. California’s goal of producing 1 billion gallons of ethanol per year, for example, will consume 2.5 trillion gallons of water. That’s more than “all the water from the Sacramento River Delta that currently goes to Southern California and Central Valley farmers combined.”
So what does all this mean for an investor? The water utilities look interesting again. Some are starting to enjoy rate increases. I like SJW Corp., a stock I recommended a few years ago. It’s now back below the price where I originally recommended it. SJW owns excess land and trades below its takeover value. Another good one is Aqua America, as the stock has not rallied much from the bottom and it has many opportunities to grow. Both stocks pay decent dividends.
The other stocks I’m following in this space are the many industrials that make the pipes, pumps, valves and other goods that support water. This has been a good place to fish for stocks. As Summit’s research over the last 30 years shows, “These businesses have tended to outperform other industrial sectors.”
Insight
TRUST
The willingness to trust others even when you know you may be taken advantage of is the cornerstone of becoming civilized.
O. A. Battista
To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.
George MacDonald The Marquis of Lossie
Peace, love and happiness...until next time...
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