The Mindset of the Class of 2016

OR, what are the new College Freshmen like? Read on:

Listen to radios? Watch TVs? Not for Class of '16

(AP) MILWAUKEE - Remember when suitcases had to be carried instead of rolled? Or when an airline ticket was a booklet of pages separated by carbon paper? Maybe you remember when Lou Gehrig held the Major League record for consecutive baseball games played.

This year's college freshmen don't.

They never lived in a world where Kurt Cobain was alive or an NFL team played its home games in Los Angeles. The Class of 2016 has no need for radios, watches television everywhere except on actual TV sets and is addicted to "electronic narcotics."

These are among the 75 references on this year's Beloit College Mindset List, a nonscientific compilation is meant to remind teachers that college freshmen, born mostly in 1994, see the world in a much different way.

(Scroll down to read the entire list)

The students are also accustomed to seeing women in position of leadership. They were born at a time when Madeline Albright was serving as the first female U.S. secretary of state, and women have held the position for most of their lives.

And the old Hollywood stereotype of ditzy blonde women has given way to one of "dumb and dumber males," according to the list.

[...]

The new generation gets a lot of its news from Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show." But if they miss an episode, they can always get instant news from YouTube (No. 5 on the list).

Here are some other items to make you feel old: These teens weren't born when "Pulp Fiction" came out. Instead of asking who shot J.R., they wanted to know who shot Montgomery Burns. And to them, "Twilight Zone" is about vampires, not Rod Serling.

But Thorin Blitz, 18, disagreed with that item. He said it's 13-year-old girls who watch "Twilight."

"I've seen quite a few 'Twilight Zone' episodes," said the incoming freshman from Charleston, Ill. "Most of us know what that is."

Similar list items have drawn criticism in previous years. Some teens were insulted by the insinuation that they had no knowledge of events that happened before they were born, as if they had never studied history. So Nief and McBride have softened the tone, replacing "They don't know about..." with "They never experienced..."

The theme of last year's list was how wired the incoming class was. This year's class includes students who might be bitter at the previous generation, Nief said. While their elders went to college in good times and had jobs waiting for them, these students grew up watching their parents worry about unemployment and foreclosures.

That sentiment was captured in item No. 16, which notes unemployment has risen 2 percent in their lifetimes.

But they also live in an era of potential. Gene therapy has always been available, and they don't waste time with outdated technologies like radios and point-and-shoot cameras.

They're also less likely to identify with a specific religion. McBride noted that many church denominations have been losing members, while membership is up at nondenominational churches.

"When I teach Shakespeare or Milton there are a lot of biblical allusions, and I have to explain them all," said McBride, an English professor. [...]

The list goes on for three pages.
     

South Africa's mine owners and miners.

Cry the beloved country no more

When I first went to South Africa as a callow correspondent in the last year of white rule, veteran colleagues said that of the reams of agonised apartheid literature there were just two books I needed to read: Alan Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country and Rian Malan’s My Traitor’s Heart. For the first time in many years I have found myself thinking of both books as the stark images from South Africa’s Lonmin mine massacre have played on television screens around the world.

My 1993 reading list spoke more to the preoccupations of western editors than to the travails of the Rainbow Nation. The first encapsulates the dilemmas and uncertainties of the white liberal. The second is a no-holds-barred, to be read with several glasses of brandy and coke, evisceration of Afrikaner angst and the country’s tortured racial politics. But both books have searing passages that remind the reader how the tortured narrative of South Africa over the past 140 years is woven around the saga of the excavation of some of the more lucrative – and inaccessible – mining seams in the world: first diamond, then gold and now increasingly platinum. The resilience of apartheid was founded on the gold mined each year from the Witwatersrand. It was also, as Paton and Malan show in very different ways, based on the labour of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers. The former addresses the nightmarish world of these young men separated from their families, living in fetid single-sex hostels. The latter recounts the murder of two policemen by striking miners whipped up by witch doctors and the frustrations of years.

If they read this far, old friends in the ANC will be clicking their teeth. One of the lazier syndromes in the international media of recent years has been the way that every political, social or economic drama of the post-apartheid era, from the rise of the firebrand Julius Malema to the fluctuations of the rand, has been presented abroad as an existential crisis. So, the sort of conflict of interest that in, say, India or Brazil is seen as irksome but not disastrous, is in the South African context routinely depicted as a step on the road to Zimbabwe. How many reports in the British press of gruesome murders in Johannesburg have had “Cry the beloved country” in the headline? [...]

It gives some good suggestions for dealing with/resolving the conflict, much as it might be done had it occurred anywhere else. But will they?
     

South Africa's Space Cube, "ZACUBE-1"

South Africa to Launch Mini Satellite for Space Weather Resesarch

A mini satellite weighing 1.2 kilograms will be launched from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in November to collect information about space weather, it was learned on Wednesday.

Funded by the Department of Science and Technology, the satellite -- ZACUBE-1- will be South Africa's first nano- satellite running on the same amount of power used by a 5-watt light bulb, according to researchers at the CPUT.

Comparing ZACUBE-1 to Sputnik, the first satellite in the world to be launched into space in 1957, lead researcher Robert van Zyl described the nano-satellite as an evolutionary leap in space technology.

He said ZACUBE-1 cost much less and was 84 times smaller than Sputnik, tiny enough to be put on the palm of a human hand.

The satellite will travel to Russia and ultimately to space where the satellite will be released from its pod and its 10- meterantennae will be deployed to send information to receiving stations at CPUT and the town of Hermanus near Cape Town, according to the local newspaper Cape Times.

The satellite, also known as CubeSat, will be operational for between two and five years. Researchers expect the satellite to fall to the earth and burn up in about 10 to 20 years.

ZACUBE-1 is the result of 18 months of research and development by students and staff from the French South African Institute of Technology at CPUT, according to the report.

Doesn't say much though, about what kind of information about Space Weather it will be gathering.
     

"Wave Power" off of the Oregon Coastline

Oregon wave power project gets green light to go forward

Wave power developers planning a project off the Oregon Coast now have the nation's only federal permit to develop a commercial wave power park.

Ocean Power Technologies Inc., based in Pennington, N.J., said Monday it will deploy the first buoy for testing sometime this year off Reedsport.

Charles Dunleavy, CEO of the publicly held company, said it hopes to have the country's first commercial wave power park online within two or three years of securing full financing.

The project will include 10 buoys anchored 2 1/2 miles off the coast and covering about 30 acres. They will produce 1.5 megawatts — enough to power about 1,000 homes. An undersea cable will carry the power to a site slated for the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, and connect to the grid at a substation in Gardiner.

Belinda Batten, director of the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Facility and a professor of mechanical energy at Oregon State University, said the Ocean Power facility is small by European standards but presents a big step forward in development of alternative energy from the ocean in the U.S.

The Oregon Coast has become a hotspot for wave power research and development. Waves are bigger on the West Coast than the East Coast by virtue of the prevailing westerly winds, and waves get bigger the farther they are from the equator, Batten said.

She noted that Atmocean Inc., in Santa Fe, N.M., plans to test three buoys this year off Coos Bay; the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Facility last weekend towed out to sea near Newport the nation's first publicly available wave power test facility, called Ocean Sentinel; a wave power generator from New Zealand is to be towed out to the test facility this week; and Oregon State is looking for a site to build a larger grid-connected test facility known as the Pacific Marine Energy Center, which would be patterned after the European Marine Energy Center in Scotland.

[...]

The cylindrical buoy harnesses the power of the ocean's waves through a float encircling it. The float goes up and down with the water while the buoy remains relatively stable. That motion is transferred to turning a generator, which produces electricity.

The final cost of the project is not determined, Dunleavy said. The company has a $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, $420,000 from the Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative, and a state business energy tax credit worth $900,000. [...]

"... The final cost of the project is not determined..." Gosh. Ya just hope it doesn't turn out to be another Solyndra, flushing tax dollars down the drain.

Here is a picture of one of the bouys on a dock in Scotland. They are HUGE:

Botched Art Restoration Inspires Parodies

I read something that said a famous painting of Jesus that had been restored, made him look like Sasquatch. I thought it was a joke, but it's not:

The three versions of the “ecce homo” fresco of Jesus. From left, the original version by Elías García Martínez, a 19th-century painter; a deteriorated version of the fresco; the restored version by Cecilia Giménez.


Despite Good Intentions, a Fresco in Spain Is Ruined

MADRID — A case of suspected vandalism in a church in a northeastern village in Spain has turned out to be probably the worst art restoration project of all time.

An elderly woman stepped forward this week to claim responsibility for disfiguring a century-old “ecce homo” fresco of Jesus crowned with thorns, in Santuario de la Misericordia, a Roman Catholic church in Borja, near the city of Zaragoza.

Ecce homo, or behold the man, refers to an artistic motif that depicts Jesus, usually bound and with a crown of thorns, right before his crucifixion.

The woman, Cecilia Giménez, who is in her 80s, said on Spanish national television that she had tried to restore the fresco, which she called her favorite local representation of Jesus, because she was upset that parts of it had flaked off due to moisture on the church’s walls.

[...]

Ms. Giménez said she had worked on the fresco using a 10-year-old picture of it, but she eventually left Jesus with a half-beard and, some say, a monkeylike appearance. The fresco’s botched restoration came to light this month when descendants of the 19th-century artist, Elías García Martínez, proposed making a donation toward its upkeep.

News of the disfiguring prompted Twitter users and bloggers to post parodies online inserting Ms. Giménez’s version of the fresco into other artworks. Some played on the simian appearance of the portrait. [...]

The article has links. Some of the simian parodies are hilarious.

Health Articles, 08-25-12

6 Quit-Smoking Tips for COPD
How to quit smoking, starting today, if you have COPD.

Quitting smoking is a top priority for all smokers, but if you have COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) it's even more urgent.

Here's why: If you quit, it might be possible to slow down the disease and lessen the toll it takes on your breathing, but only if you cut out cigarettes permanently -- and soon.

Here's how to do it, starting today. [...]

Partner Depression Common After Heart Attack
Anxiety and Even Suicide Risk Higher Than for Other Spouses

[...] Depression is common among heart attack survivors, and now a new study finds that this is also the case for spouses.

Depression, Anxiety Common in Spouses

When researchers compared the spouses of people in Denmark who had heart attacks to the spouses of people who had other major health issues, they found that the husbands and wives of heart attack patients were at higher risk for depression, anxiety, and even suicide after the event -- even if their spouse survived the heart attack.

Cardiologist and researcher Emil L. Fosbol, MD, PhD, of Denmark’s Gentofte University Hospital, says the suddenness of a heart attack may be a factor.

“These are usually events that come out of the blue,” he says. “One minute the partner may appear perfectly healthy and the next minute they may be critically ill or dead.”

The study was conducted using data from a comprehensive Danish health registry when Fosbol was a research fellow at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.

The analysis revealed that more than three times as many people whose partners died from heart attacks were using antidepressants in the year after the event compared to the year before.

Spouses of people who survived heart attacks were 17% more likely to have a prescription for an antidepressant in the year following the event, whereas spouses of patients surviving other health scares were no more likely to be prescribed antidepressants. [...]

     

Oh, Deer! What could the matter be?

A few days ago, we had a back-yard visitor:


She seemed VERY interested in the fresh greens we had growing under netting. Fortunately she couldn't get at them.

We had seen evidence that there had been deer in the yard, but this is the first one we have actually seen during the seven years we've lived here.

So what could the matter be? Nothing, yet. It's just that when I went out in the yard, she didn't seem too bothered, and took her time leaving. Not very skittish. I just hope I won't have to start thinking of them as pests. So far so good.
     

Hydroponics + Fish Tanks = Aquaponics?

An interesting idea:

Your One-Stop Shop for everything Aquaponic:

[...] Aquaponics is a hybrid food growing technology combining the best of aqua-culture (growing fish) and hydroponics (growing veggies without soil), and it’s completely organic because the fish waste is your natural fertilizer and that means no pesticides. Aquaponics USA is dedicated to sharing information, developing products and bringing awareness of this life sustaining technology to every American home and School because it’s time Americans become Food Independent. [...]

I found this interesting, because for some time we have been breeding Guppies at home. One member of our household has often opined that, too bad we aren't growing something more practical, that could be used as food.

The Aquaponics system seems to be using large tanks of fish (Tilapia!) as a food source, but also using hydroponic plant bins as filter systems for the fish tanks, thus using the fishes waste products as nutrients for the plants, and using the plants (and beneficial bacteria with them) to keep the fishes environment clean and balanced.


What I'm not sure of though, is the greenhouse they are housed in. How is it to be heated in the Winter? They are in the high desert of California, where it even snows sometimes. And would the cost of heating the greenhouse, void the benefits of the food production? What I mean is, how could it be cost-effective? A quick look around the site did not reveal the answer. I will be looking around the site more, it has lots of links.

Also, I've seen seen Tilapia at the Supermarket. Damned UGLY fish. Don't know what it tastes like though. I suppose we'll have to try some soon.
     

Health Articles, 08-19-12

Blood Types and Heart Disease? Is there a connection?

Blood Type May be a Risk Factor for Heart Disease

The thought of having a heart disease is more than enough to stress an individual. But what if you find out that your blood type may also put you at risk of developing heart problems?

A group of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston reviewed 20-year data from two large studies involving adult participants and found a link between blood type and the risk of developing heart disease. Compared to people with blood type O, those whose blood type is AB are found to have 23% increased risk for heart disease while those with type B had an 11% increased risk. Individuals with blood type A have 5% risk for heart disease.

While the researchers did not delve into the mechanisms that cause blood type to affect heart disease risk, evidence from other studies revealed some clues.

Blood type AB, the rarest blood type, is linked to inflammation which can affect how blood vessels work. Blood type A has been associated with higher levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, also known as the “bad” cholesterol, that clogs up arteries. Meanwhile, people with blood type O have higher levels of a compound that has a beneficial effect on blood flow and clotting.

But despite the findings, the researchers noted that a healthy lifestyle still play a significant role in protecting people with the higher risk blood types.

So if you are vulnerable to developing heart diseases based on several different factors, including family history, race, age, obesity, stress, or blood type as the recent study suggests, it’s about time you start making some healthy adjustments in your lifestyle.

Does Keen Attention and More Neurons = a more youthful brain?

Probing The Youthful Brains of ‘SuperAgers’

A Northwestern University researcher has identified an elite group of elderly people age 80 and older whose memories are as sharp as people 20 to 30 years younger than them.

Emily Rogalski, Ph.D., who dubbed these seniors “SuperAgers,” said that on 3-D MRI scans, their brains appear as young as the brains of middle-aged people.

[...]

“These findings are remarkable given the fact that grey matter or brain cell loss is a common part of normal aging,” said Rogalski, an assistant research professor at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

By identifying older people who seem to be protected from the deterioration of memory and atrophy of brain cells that accompanies aging, Rogalski hopes to unlock the secrets of their youthful brains so those secrets can be used to protect others from memory loss or even Alzheimer’s disease.

“By looking at a really healthy older brain, we can start to deduce how SuperAgers are able to maintain their good memory,” Rogalski said. “Many scientists study what’s wrong with the brain, but maybe we can ultimately help Alzheimer’s patients by figuring out what goes right in the brain of SuperAgers.”

“What we learn from these healthy brains may inform our strategies for improving quality of life for the elderly and for combatting Alzheimer’s disease.”

Measuring the thickness of the cortex gives her a a sense of how many brain cells are left, Rogalski explained.

“We can’t actually count them, but the thickness of the outer cortex of the brain provides an indirect measure of the health of the brain,” she said. “A thicker cortex suggests a greater number of neurons.”

The study also found that in SuperAgers, another region deep in the brain, the anterior cingulate, was actually thicker than in the 50 to 65 year olds.

“This is pretty incredible,” Rogalski said. “This region is important for attention. Attention supports memory. Perhaps the SuperAgers have really keen attention and that supports their exceptional memories.”

Only 10 percent of the people who “thought they had outstanding memories” met the criteria for the study, she noted. To be defined as a SuperAger, the participants needed to score at or above the norm of the 50 to 65 year olds on memory screenings, she said.

“These are a special group of people,” Rogalski said. “They aren’t growing on trees.” [...]

     

How SpaceX is Saving America Money

By being more efficient than NASA:


Why SpaceX is setting the pace in the commercial space race

[...] Dec. 7, 2012, will mark the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 17. That was the last time the United States ever launched an astronaut beyond Earth orbit. The reason why the operational era of human exploration beyond Earth orbit lasted a mere three and a half years, from July 1969 to December 1972, is that early in the Space Age, and continuing with the space shuttle, the nation tied itself to an infrastructure and a way of doing business that was too expensive to sustain.

NASA acknowledged this reality in 2006, even as it was pursuing its plan to send astronauts back to the moon — known as Project Constellation or “Apollo on Steroids” — by establishing the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The purpose of the COTS program was to see if there was a better, more sustainable model for achieving access to space by forgoing the traditional approach of top-down, sole-source , cost-plus contracting — and instead harnessing the innovation and drive of private industry while still maintaining a close partnership with NASA.

After plowing nearly $8 billion into the Ares 1 booster program, Project Constellation did in fact prove too expensive to sustain. Instead, it was the COTS approach for cargo delivery to the space station that became the basis for NASA’s commercial crew program.

Success for SpaceX
SpaceX’s first demonstration cargo flight to the space station was accomplished in May as part of the COTS program. That flight took longer than expected, but the results were well worth NASA’s time and money. Thanks to its investment of $396 million, plus a great deal of advice, NASA has made it possible for SpaceX to produce not just a new launch vehicle but something much more profound: a new space transportation system consisting of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, the recoverable and reusable Dragon spacecraft, and the infrastructure to support those spacecraft.

For comparison’s sake, the cost to NASA for doing this was less than what the space agency spent on one suborbital test launch of the Ares 1-X booster in 2009. It was less than NASA has spent on the development of its deep-space Orion crew capsule in the first half of this year alone.

Now SpaceX has a contract to launch 12 cargo flights to the space station at a cost to the American taxpayer of about $133 million per flight — putting America back in the orbital transport business. The SpaceX Falcon-Dragon transportation system arguably represents the best investment NASA has ever made. In light of that success, a failure to include the company in the top two for NASA’s commercial crew program would signal an almost unfathomable retreat, unworthy of the best of American ingenuity.

The stunningly low-cost and expansive nature of the Falcon-Dragon system represents much more than a rare bargain for taxpayers, in an era when most such stories have a very different ending. It offers indisputable proof that a new approach to space transportation can work far more effectively than the old ways. It’s absolutely vital to keep the company and the space transport system which has pioneered this path in the vanguard. [...]

I did a post about SpaceX last year. It's a truly amazing company.

NASA was necessary to get manned space exploration started. It's done that. But now it's role is changing; it gets to hold the door open for others to follow.
     

Musical Education for Formerly Deaf Man

Deaf man with new hearing aid hears music for the first time, asks, ‘What I should listen to next?’

Austin Chapman says he was "born profoundly deaf" and has "never understood" music--or the people moved by it.

"My whole life I've seen hearing people make a fool of themselves singing their favorite song or gyrating on the dance floor," Chapman, a 23-year-old filmmaker, wrote in a post on his studio's blog. "I've also seen hearing people moved to tears by a single song."

"[It] was the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around," he continued. "All music sounded like trash through my hearing aids."

But that changed earlier this week, Chapman says, when he tried a new pair of hearing aids for the first time in years:

I sat in the doctor's office frozen as a cacophony of sounds attacked me. The whir of the computer, the hum of the AC, the clacking of the keyboard, and when my best friend walked in I couldn't believe that he had a slight rasp to his voice. He joked that it was time to cut back on the cigarettes.

That night, a group of Chapman's close friends "jump-started" his musical education" with a crash-course: Mozart, the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Sigur Ros, Elvis and Radiohead.

When Mozart's "Lacrimosa" came on, I was blown away by the beauty of it. At one point of the song, it sounded like angels singing and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I was able to appreciate music. Tears rolled down my face and I tried to hide it. But when I looked over I saw that there wasn't a dry eye in the car. [...]

I found "Lacrimosa" on YouTube, and it's lovely. I also found "Radiohead". ACCCCHHH! There is no comparison. The two must not even be used in the same sentence! But they frequently are. Welcome to our Brave New World.

Read the rest of the article to find out the further advice he was given for his musical education.

Oregon's New Growth Industry?

Oregon Unveils New Alzheimer's Care Plan

The state unveiled its new plan to improve care for people with Alzheimer's Monday. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of Oregonians with Alzheimer's or a related dementia has increased by one third.

That growth is a result of people living longer. The older we get, the more likely we are to see the symptoms.

Speaking on OPB's Think Out Loud, Jon Bartholomew, the public policy director of the Oregon chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, says about 76,000 Oregonians now have the disease.

"That's approximately the entire population of the city of Bend. And by 2025 we're expected to add enough to raise that to 110,000 people in Oregon and that's like adding all of Clatsop County to Bend."

Similar growth is being seen across the nation. In fact, there's already a federal Alzheimer plan. Oregon is just the latest state to set up its own.

Oregon's plan has a number of goals, including providing treatment; optimizing the quality of care and improving access to care -- especially in rural areas. [...]

I expect it's happening in other states too, that have lots of retirees.
     

New Euro Weather Satellite Sends 1st Image

MSG-3 Spins Out The Weather Report ...First Images
[SatNews] It scans Earth’s surface and atmosphere every 15 minutes in 12 different wavelengths, to track cloud development.

Today, the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) instrument on MSG-3 captured its first image of the Earth. This demonstrates that Europe’s latest geostationary weather satellite, launched on 5 July, is performing well and is on its way to taking over operational service after six months of commissioning.

The European Space Agency (ESA) was responsible for the initial operations after launch (the so-called launch and early orbit phase) of MSG-3 and handed over the satellite to EUMETSAT on 16 July.

The first image is a joint achievement by ESA, EUMETSAT, and the European space industry. For its mandatory programmes, EUMETSAT relies on ESA for the development of new satellites and the procurement of recurrent satellites like MSG-3. This cooperation model has made Europe a world leader in satellite meteorology by making best use of the respective expertise of the two agencies.

[...]

MSG-3 is the third in a series of four satellites introduced in 2002. These spin-stabilized satellites carry the primary Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager, or SEVIRI. The prime contractor for the MSG satellites is Thales Alenia Space, with the SEVIRI instrument built by Astrium.

SEVIRI delivers enhanced weather coverage over Europe and Africa in order to improve very short range forecasts, in particular for rapidly developing thunder storms or fog. It scans Earth’s surface and atmosphere every 15 minutes in 12 different wavelengths, to track cloud development.

SEVIRI can pick out features as small as a kilometer across in the visible bands, and three kilometres in the infrared. In addition to its weather-watching mission and collection of climate records, MSG-3 has two secondary payloads.

The Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget sensor measures both the amount of solar energy that is reflected back into space and the infrared energy radiated by the Earth system, to better understand climate processes. In addition, a Search & Rescue transponder will turn the satellite into a relay for distress signals from emergency beacons. [...]

New technology, and more data that should help improve weather prediction.
     

Numerous Health Articles, 08-11-12

Restless Legs Syndrome and Sleep
5 changes to try for better sleep if you have RLS.

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) steals sleep. It's usually worst in the evening and overnight, which can mean little rest and fatigue the next day.

"Most people with RLS have fragmented sleep, with difficulty falling asleep and repetitive jerking motions that can wake them up," says neurologist Nancy Foldvary-Schaefer, DO, director of the Cleveland Clinic's Sleep Disorders Center.

The good news, she says, is that many people with RLS respond to simple treatments -- and that can mean better sleep.

Here are five simple changes to try: [...]

Read on and count the ways.


Exercise May Fight Depression in Heart Failure
Regular Aerobic Activity Improves Mood About as Well as Antidepressants, Talk Therapy

July 31, 2012 -- Exercise helps people with heart failure feel a bit better, physically and emotionally, a new study shows. It may also lower a person's risk of dying or winding up in the hospital.

Up to 40% of people with heart failure grapple with depression. The combination often leads to poor health outcomes. One study found seriously depressed people with heart failure were more than twice as likely to die or be hospitalized over the course of a year compared to other people with heart failure who weren't depressed.

"Whenever patients are more depressed, their motivation goes down. Their ability to keep up with their doctors' recommendations goes down. Their ability to get out and do basic physical activities like walking goes down," as does their health, says David A. Friedman, MD, chief of Heart Failure Services at North Shore-LIJ Plainview Hospital in New York. "It's a vicious cycle."

"This [study] ... shows a non-drug way to try to improve patients' mood and motivation. That's the best thing you can do," says Friedman, who was not involved in the research. [...]

Read the rest for details of the study.


Fewer Lies, Better Health?
People Who Lied Less Reported Better Relationships, Improved Mental, Physical Health: Study

Ecstasy Pills Cause Memory Problems
Taking 10 or More Pills a Year Linked to Immediate and Short-Term Memory Problems

July 27, 2012 -- People who use the club drug ecstasy (MDMA) can develop memory problems, a new study shows.

In the study, new ecstasy users who took 10 or more ecstasy pills during their first year showed problems with their immediate and short-term memory.

The researchers say the memory problems may not be immediately apparent. Ecstasy users may not notice the problems until permanent damage has been done. The memory issues are associated with damage of an area of the brain called the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory.

The study compared 23 new users of the drug to 43 people who didn't use any illicit drugs besides cannabis. On average, study participants who used ecstasy took 33 pills over the course of one year.

"Given the specific memory impairments, our findings may raise concerns in regard to MDMA use, even in recreational amounts over a relatively short time period," says study researcher Daniel Wagner, in an email. He is a psychologist at the Klinik fur Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie in Cologne, Germany.

The study is published in the journal Addiction. [...]

It's also highly addictive, has other risks and "may even have a greater effect on all cognitive function". That's ALL cognitive function.

I found it interesting, because I've often thought of people who take Ecstasy as being... not too bright? A sandwich short of a picnic? Or just plain shallow and stupid. This study kinda backs that impression up with some science.


Drug May Slow Memory Loss in Early Alzheimer's
Medication Approved to Treat Patients With HIV May Do Double Duty for Dementia


Walking for Exercise: Americans Making Strides
Still, Less Than Half of Adults Meet Federal Exercise Guidelines

Aug. 7, 2012 -- No exercise is more popular than walking, and more people walk these days than they did five years ago, according to a new CDC report.

Nonetheless, the majority of adults still need to increase the amount of exercise they get each week in order to meet federal health guidelines. Nearly a third of American adults still get no exercise at all.

"Fifteen million more American adults were walking in 2010, and that's a great first step," CDC director Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, told reporters during a news briefing. "It's a great way to get started meeting the 2 1/2 hours per week of physical activity."

And, Frieden says, people who walk are more likely to meet that goal; 60% of walkers get the recommended amount of exercise each week, about twice as many as those who don't walk.

"That's much higher than those who don't get that 10-minute walk," he says, adding that for people who follow the guidelines, "physical activity really is a wonder drug that makes you healthier and happier... even if you don't lose weight, physical activity decreases your risk of diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, and other chronic diseases."

The CDC estimates that more than 145 million American adults -- 62% of the population -- took at least one 10-minute or longer walk per week in 2010. That's a 6% increase since 2005. And increases occurred across all populations.

"Because walking or moving with assistance is possible for most persons, does not require special skills or facilities, and can serve multiple purposes, it represents a way many U.S. residents can achieve a more physically active lifestyle, regardless of sex, race/ethnicity, age, or education level," the report's researchers write.

About two-thirds of adults in the West get out and walk, the highest rate in the country. But the South showed the greatest increase of any region, up about 8% in five years. That's good news for a region that, Frieden points out, consistently shows higher rates of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and other chronic health problems.

"This is significant progress we are reporting," he says.

The ideal walk, says Frieden, is a brisk one. "You should get a little winded," he says.

And the ideal exercise is one that you like doing. "The key concept is to do something you enjoy, to build it into your routine, and to keep doing it throughout your life." {...}

I've read in other places too, that walking, as much as you can, when you can, just during your everyday activities, can help you lose weight and keep it off. And that people who live in cities, where driving a car can be inconvenient, walk more and also tend to have less weight problems. I know that when I lived in a city, I often walked to many places, and I also weighed less.


Pets for Depression and Health
Can your depression problems improve when you interact with your pet?
This might seem like a no-brainer, but the answer isn't always "yes".
     

A Romney-Ryan Ticket? I'd be pleased.

Ryan to be named Romney's running mate

NORFOLK, Va. – Rep. Paul Ryan will be named Mitt Romney's running mate on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the No. 2 slot on the GOP ticket.

The Associated Press and several TV networks confirmed the news.

Ryan, 42, is best known as the chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of a dramatic plan to overhaul Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for senior citizens.

Romney is set to reveal his running mate here at a museum next to the U.S.S. Wisconsin, a retired battleship, before setting out on a bus tour of key swing states to highlight his economic plans for the middle class.

In an interview with NBC on Thursday, Romney said he was looking for someone with "a strength of character" and "a vision for the country that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country."

With Ryan as his running mate, Romney appears ready to have a national conversation about federal spending and the growth of entitlements with one of the GOP's leading budget authorities at his side.

Ryan, a House member since 1999, has proposed to dramatically change both Medicare and Medicaid, the programs that have been a hallmark of the nation's compact to provide health care to senior citizens and the poor.

[...]

The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial Thursday that choosing Ryan as Romney's running mate would underscore "the nature and stakes of this election."

"More than any other politician, the House Budget Chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest-group dominated decline," the Journal editorial said. [...]

I'll still wait for the announcement. I'll be pleased if it's true, but it will be a tough time for Ryan. It will be tough for ANY Republican.
     

The 2012 Perseids Peak Tomorrow

Don't miss the Perseids on the starry night of August 12th

How can I best view the Perseids meteor shower?

The Perseids have been observed by humans for about 2000 years, with the earliest knowledge of their existence emerging from the Far East. It is one of the finest meteor showers to observe, producing up to 60-100 bright, fast, and colorful meteors per hour during their peak. This annual meteor shower is active from July 23 through August 22, and usually peaks on August 11 and 12.

Perseids is extremely consistent in its timing and can potentially be observable for several weeks in the summer sky, conditional on your whereabouts, lighting conditions, and weather. Meteor showers are commonly named after their radiant point, the perspective point in the sky from which the meteors appear to come from. In the case of Perseids, it is named after the constellation Perseus, which is positioned in approximately the same point in which the Perseids meteor shower appears to originate from.

While this summer spectacular appears to radiate from a constellation, they are actually caused by the Earth passing through the dust particles of the comet Swift-Tuttle. Each summer, Earth passes into a trail of dust left by this comet, and as a result, all the dust and debris burning up in our atmosphere, travelling at a very fast 132,000 miles per second (59 km/s), produces the spectacle known as the Perseids meteor shower, or what are popularly recognized as “shooting stars”. There's no danger to sky watchers, though. The fragile grains disintegrate long before they reach the ground.

While the meteors are certainly bright, they are typically not much larger than a grain of sand. However, as they travel at immense speeds, these tiny particles put on an impressive show. Due to the way the comet’s orbit is tilted, dust from the Swift-Tuttle falls on Earth’s northern hemisphere. Unfortunately, this leads to extremely low visibility for those in Australia, New Zealand, and portions of South America.

In 2012, the waning crescent moon occurring on August 12 will not have a negative impact on the visibility of the Perseids. Due to the lack of bright moonlight, the fainter meteors will not be concealed from view. It is advisable to observe the meteor shower during the predawn hours on the mornings of August 11, 12, and 13. With up to 60-100 meteors per hour predicted, observers may catch plenty of bright meteors streaking along in the light of the moon.

How do I know the sky is dark enough to see meteors?

If you happen to live near a brightly lit city, if possible, we recommend that you drive away from the glow of city light. After you’ve escaped the glow of the city, find a dark, safe, and possibly isolated spot where oncoming vehicle headlights will not occasionally ruin your sensitive night vision. Look for state or city parks or other safe dark-sites.

Once you have settled down at your observation spot, look approximately half way up the sky facing northeast. This way you can have the Perseids’ radiant within your field of view. Looking directly up at the sky or into the radiant is not recommended since this is just the point in which they appear to come from. You are more likely to see a trail when looking slightly away from this point. Looking half-way up into the sky will lead to the best show in the house!

     

Ramshorn Snails in the Aquarium: Good or Bad?

Ramshorn Snails as Pets and Pests - Guide on care, controlling population, pictures & forum

Snails in an aquarium are not to everyone’s taste, a lot of fish keepers regard them as a nuisance that gets out of control, other keepers believe that there are good points out weigh the bad points so therefore they should be included in the tank. I have an open mind on this as I have kept them and still do but I can see both sides to the argument.

Ramshorn snails can include a variety of species of snails that all get classed as one breed in the aquarium trade, the differences between the snails is negligible so many keepers are quite happy with this general classification. Their shells are planispiral, this means that they are similar to a coiled piece of rope or a rams horn, hence the name that they are given.

They all belong to the Family Planorbidae which is the largest family of aquatic pulmonate gastropods; they can be found on most continents throughout the world. They are lung breathers, having no gills they have a large pulmonary sac for the gaseous exchange, this is found on the outer whirl of the shell, and if you shine a light through the shell it should be possible to see the air filled space. The air is collected and trapped by large folds of skin. Another distinguishing feature is that they only have one pair of tentacles which host an eye at the base of each. It is reported that the Planorbidae species can be hosts to pathogenic nematode worms but whether this is correct I cannot say.

Normally these are found with two different skin colorations, either black or red. The red coloration is the color of their blood, unlike other snails that have a green coloration (this is caused by the presence of hemocyanin), these snails blood actually contains hemoglobin. The lack of melanin in the skin reveals the redness. Their shells can be found in a wide range of different colors, opaque right through to a dark brown or black, and with a mixed collection of these I think that they are very pleasing to the eye.

Introduction to the aquarium is often by them being brought in with aquatic plants as clusters of eggs or even juvenile snails, but they are also sold to keepers who purposely wish to use their tank cleaning abilities and prize them for this.

As I have just stated they will rid the tank of algae, also cleaning surface algae of the plants, in general they will not actually eat healthy plants apart from the delicate species such as cabomba or anacharis.

They will travel about digesting rotting leaves or even any fish carcasses that have been missed so they are to me classed as part of a good clean up crew. [...]

In a previous post about Guppies, I had linked to some posts by a Guppy breeder who had mentioned Ramshorn snails as providing beneficial infusoria to the aquarium environment, which lead me to want to know more about them.

Read the rest of this article to find out more details. I've been allowing Ramshorn snails in my tanks, and so far, so good. Some of the plants have had problems with algae on the leaves, I'm hoping they will help manage that.
     

Would we be better off with a CEO president, instead of an ideological one?

If so, Mitt might well be the man for the job:

Mitt Romney is not a flip-flopper

[...] Is Romney truly a man "without a core"? The simple answer: No. Romney has a distinct core -- not that of a politician, but of a CEO.

What do I mean? We have become accustomed in these highly partisan times to politicians who adhere rigidly to their ideological positions. They don't change their views to attract supporters. Rather, they want voters to agree with the positions they advocate.

In contrast, a CEO is not shackled by ideology. A CEO's success is measured by the bottom line, not by how many principles he or she sticks to.

To the CEO, if a product is not selling, you don't stick with it until the product destroys your business. Instead, you tweak it. You rebrand it. You try a new slogan or new packaging. And if people are still not buying it, like New Coke, you drop it. You regroup, come up with a new product and then start selling again.

Romney is first and foremost a businessman. In fact, Romney has repeatedly made this very point to us with statements like: "I spent my life in the private sector, not in government. I only spent four years as a governor. I didn't inhale. I'm a business guy."

I'm not defending Romney's acrobatic flips on issues. In fact, if Romney loses this election, he would make a great circus performer. I can see the ads: "The Amazing Romney -- he can change positions in midair." At times, I truly wonder if Mitt realizes we have Google and can look up his record on issues.

But Romney's "evolution" on certain key issues does not technically constitute a "flip-flop," which is defined by Dictionary.com as, "A sudden or unexpected reversal as of direction, belief, attitude or policy."

Romney's changing views are neither sudden nor unexpected. Rather, they are astutely calculated by Romney the businessman to appeal to the customers he's targeting at that very moment. This is a man clearly driven by the adage: "The customer is always right." [...]

If that is true, then with Romney, we could end up with a non-ideological president who will simply work to give us what the majority of Americans want.

The majority of Americans are registered as "independant", and are not rigidly ideological. They are the swing voters that decide elections. A CEO president might suit THEM fine.

But Romney would have to overcome massive media bias against him, and the mistrust by the more ideological conservatives in his own party, who fear he is just like this article describes him.

As for me, well. The president we have now, said he was going to halve the deficit in his first term. Instead, he's tripled it.

He promised more transparency. Instead we got "We have to pass the bill before you can see what's in it."

He said my health care would not change as a consequence. I got a letter from my insurer, explaining that the sharp increase in rates was due to Obama care. It did indeed change.

I could go on and on, but the fact is, I stopped being a Democrat years ago, because I stopped believing what they were saying; they say ANYTHING to get elected, then they do whatever they want when they get power. I don't believe that the Democrat leadership says what they mean, or mean what they say.

Would a CEO president like Mitt Romney be better? I can't say for sure. But I can say that I'd rather take my chances with the CEO, than four more years of what we've had.
     

The Actual Problem with Pit Bulls

I've seen numerous articles lately, extolling the virtues of Pit Bulls. Here is a prime example:

Pit Bulls: What's Hype, What's Not
Do pit bulls get a bad rap? Experts weigh in.

Doberman pinschers, rottweilers, and German shepherds topped lists of dogs some considered dangerous in the not-too-distant past.

These days, pit bulls often make headlines and it’s rarely good news. If it isn’t about an attack on a child or a shooting by police, it’s a tale of neglect or abuse. The heat of such reports has forged a frightening image of the pit bull as having a hair-trigger temper and a lock-jawed bite.

But pit bull advocates and some experts say the dogs get a bad rap. They say the dogs are not inherently aggressive, but in many cases suffer at the hands of irresponsible owners drawn to the dog's macho image who encourage aggression for fighting and protection.

Indeed, the ASPCA web site gives the breed an endorsement that could fit a golden retriever. It says, “A well-socialized and well-trained pit bull is one of the most delightful, intelligent, and gentle dogs imaginable.”

In general, pit bulls aren’t aggressive with people but are “less tolerant” of other dogs than many other breeds, says Pamela Reid, PhD, vice president of the ASPCA’s Animal Behavior Center in New York. They also have “great tenacity. They put their mind to something, and they do it. That’s what makes them great dogs for sports like weight pulling. They are very strong, athletic animals," Reid says.

Owning a pit bull should not be taken lightly. Some cities and towns have banned the breed. You also may face rising insurance rates or cancellation of your policy, difficulty renting, and the watchful eye of neighbors and passersby. [...]

The article goes on to give a detailed, realistic, balanced and fair assessment of the pros and cons of owning a pit bull. I don't disagree with it. I was a foster parent to a pit bull for a while, so I know what they are saying is true. They can be wonderful, wonderful dogs.

BUT. I've yet to see one of these articles mention an important fact.

People who have gotten out of prison and are on parole, are forbidden to own weapons like guns or knives. But they are allowed to have pets. So frequently, they get a pit bull, and train it to be aggressive and use it like a weapon, or at the very least, to intimidate people.

I make this observation as a landlord. It's not the dogs I object to, it's the owners. Yet as a landlord, I'm not supposed to discriminate, i.e., treat some tenants differently than others. I'm not allowed to say to one, "You are a responsible and kind person, so you may keep a pit bull." and then say to another, "You are an irresponsible and cruel person, so you may NOT keep a pit bull."

I have to treat them both the same, so as not to "discriminate". So the answer has to be to not allow either tenant to have them. Not because of the dogs, but because of some of the people. And the law (and my Insurance!).


Here is a pit bull story with a happy ending:


Daisy the dog recovering after Gresham rock quarry rescue, tired but happy owner says

Daisy's home.

On Wednesday morning, hours after the dramatic rescue of the 3-year-old pitbull mix from a deep Gresham rock quarry, she was still asleep in Tammie Johnson's Gresham home. Johnson let a giant yawn escape as she talked on the phone.

"I hardly slept," Johnson said. "I kept getting up during the night and just petting Daisy. It's so good to have her back."

On the Internet and national cable news, the world watched as Gresham firefighter Bob Chamberlin rappelled down onto a ledge in the Knife River Quarry at 1339 N.W. Eastwood Ave., and retrieved Daisy shortly after 9:30 p.m.

Johnson believes Daisy, missing for a week, became stuck on the ledge days ago. "She was so thirsty and hungry," the dog's owner said.

Daisy has a mischievous streak. For instance, the brown and white dog likes to walk a quarter of the way down Johnson's long driveway just to tease Johnson's other dog, a Rottweiler named Angel that gets excited at the sight.

"But she had never left the driveway," Johnson, 49, said.

Well, not until June 27 anyway. That was the night Johnson returned home from her job at Oregon Health & Science University's customer-service department to find Daisy missing.

Worried that the dog had been stolen, Johnson spent countless hours searching the eastern suburb, calling Daisy's name and hanging up fliers.

Gresham police, neighbors and the local animal shelter joined in, calling Johnson whenever they had a tip. At one point, Johnson said, the police took a pitbull mix from a homeless couple that they suspected was Daisy.

"It wasn't her," Johnson said.

Last Friday, Johnson was supposed to head to the ocean to spend time with family members. She told her husband to go without her. She wanted to be home if Daisy came walking up the driveway.

It was actually Johnson's daughter, Jennifer, who bought Daisy as a puppy. Johnson didn't know what to think of her daughter's new pet.

"We said, 'What are you doing? It's a pit bull,'" Johnson recalled. "We had watched the news. We weren't thrilled that it was a pitbull."

A few months later, Johnson's daughter, a mechanic with the Oregon National Guard, found out she was being sent to Iraq for a tour of duty in the waning war. She asked her mom if she would look after Daisy while she was gone.

"She was shipped off to Iraq," Johnson said, "and Daisy was shipped to my house."

The two bonded. When Johnson's daughter returned from the war, she saw that Daisy had settled in. Taking her away would be unfair. Jennifer Johnson told her mom to keep the dog.

After a week of unsuccessfully searching for Daisy, Johnson was "feeling devastated" on Tuesday. Then she received a phone call about 3:30 p.m. from a Multnomah County Animal Services worker saying Daisy had been located.

Johnson asked, Is she alive?

Yes, the caller reportedly told Johnson, "but she's in a bit of a pickle." [...]

The poor little snookie. But it's a good story, with a happy ending.
     

Google's New "Kindle Crusher", the Nexus 7

Google’s Nexus 7 Tablet Crushes Kindle

[...] Google (GOOG)’s new Nexus 7 is aimed directly at the Kindle Fire, the seven-inch color tablet that was the runaway hit of the last holiday season. The Nexus 7 obliterates every reason for buying the current Kindle, and sets a high bar for whatever Amazon comes up with to replace it.

The Nexus 7 is Google’s first foray into selling a tablet under its own brand. It’s currently available for pre-order from Google Play, the company’s online store, with customer deliveries expected to begin next week. It costs $199 for a model with eight gigabytes of storage, same as the Kindle, or $249 for 16 gigabytes.

The device is manufactured by Taiwan-based Asustek (2357), and Google chose its partner wisely. Asus makes some of the prettiest tablets and personal computers this side of Apple, and the Nexus 7 is as attractive and smooth as the Kindle Fire is chunky and clunky.

At 7.8 inches tall and 4.7 inches wide, the Nexus 7 is compact enough to slide into a jacket pocket. A rubbery, textured back makes it easy to grip. Like the Kindle Fire, it works only over a Wi-Fi connection; while the screens are the same size, the Nexus 7’s has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, compared to the Kindle Fire’s 1024 x 600.

More and Better

The Google tablet also has a more powerful, quad-core processor from Nvidia (NVDA), twice the internal memory and better battery. At four-tenths of an inch thick and 12 ounces, it’s also thinner and 18 percent lighter.

Go down the list of standard tablet features, and the Nexus 7 wins every one. Camera? None for the Kindle; the Nexus has a front-facing camera and microphone for video calls.

Bluetooth? The Kindle doesn’t have it; the Nexus 7 does.

GPS? Yes on the Nexus, along with a newly-enhanced Google app that lets you save maps for use even when you’re offline. The Kindle has nothing like it. [...]

Read the whole thing for more details.

I had considered getting a Kindle, but many of the reader reviews I've read on Amazon.com have said that the latest Kindle model has been plagued by "Freezes", making it unreliable. I was really put off by the customer complaints.

The Nexus 7 sounds interesting, but I think I'll wait for more reviews. Thank goodness for competition.