Category: News

If you are on a gluten-free diet due to coeliac disease, you must always check with your doctor prior to taking any vitamin supplements, either in the form of pills, or tablets.Some supplements may contain gluten, so this must be carefully checked by a health care professional.

In many cases, people suffering from coeliac disease may have some form of vitamin, or nutrient deficiency, especially relating to iron, vitamin D and vitamin K. Some doctors have found that once a patient’s body becomes accustomed to a gluten-free diet, the situation may rectify itself. In other cases, however, the doctor will prescribe vitamin supplements.

If you are on a gluten-free diet, you must be in regular contact with both your doctor and your dietitian. Both of these health care professionals will monitor your situation. If you choose to follow a gluten-free diet out of your own accord, be sure to inform your doctor about this decision.

Amy Winehouse was admitted to hospital on Sunday following a drunken fall which left her with cuts and bruising to her face and ribs, according to a report.

The “Back To Black” hitmaker was taken to the private Hadley Clinic in London over the weekend after taking a tumble in her Camden home, which left her with bruised ribs and a cut to her forehead.

“She’d had a few (drinks). At first she thought she had broken something, so got her security to take her to hospital. The doctors were worried she might be concussed because she had a big bump on her head and a cut above her eye,” a tipster close to the 26-year-old divulged to The Sun on Tuesday.

But in typical Amy Fashion, the “Rehab” hitmaker seems to be causing mayhem even behind hospital walls.

“Amy was running up and down the corridors with her top off and reeking of booze. She has been heard complaining of pain caused by bruising on her breasts and around her ribs. The nurses had to step in and ask her to calm down. Eventually she had to be taken back to her room. The ward sister was absolutely fuming,” the source added.

The Australian has a look at interest in unconventional (shale) gas in Australia – Explorers target shale gas for Australia’s next energy boom.

A POTENTIALLY vast gas resource trapped in Australia’s outback by dense rock formations could fuel another boom in the energy sector, at least according to companies like Beach Petroleum and Santos with acreage there.

But others are skeptical that shale gas locked in Australia’s Cooper Basin can be produced economically like the Barnett and Haynesville shales in the US, or coal seam gas in Australia’s northeast.

Innovative drilling techniques that can shatter rock with high-pressure bursts of water have made shale gas competitive with more conventional supplies in North America, where people typically pay more for gas. Citigroup says shale gas accounts for 13 per cent of the US’s proven gas reserves and energy companies are staking out positions in European deposits.

They’re being driven to unconventional fuels by a shortage of oil in countries that are politically stable and open to private investment.

Rough estimates suggest there are tens of trillions of cubic feet of shale gas in the Cooper Basin, which straddles Queensland and South Australia. Shale gas deposits are present in other regions like Western Australia, where AWE has plans to drill a test well.

While there’s plenty of shale gas to plunder, the cost equation in Australia may not stack up for decades. “We remain unconvinced that the economics of the play will be able to compete with the significant coal seam gas volumes consistently being proven up in Eastern Australia,” Merrill Lynch analyst Mark Hume says of Beach’s Cooper resource.

Paul Balfe, managing director of energy consultancy ACIL Tasman, says coal seam gas costs about $2-$4 per gigajoule to produce, comparing favourably with Australian east coast domestic gas prices of $3-$4 a gigajoule and at least $7 a gigajoule in Western Australia.

The most optimistic cost estimates for shale gas are around $5 a gigajoule, with the more pessimistic at $8. Mr Balfe says a lack of drilling technology and expertise in mining shale gas in Australia may push production costs higher. “I suspect that $5-$8 might look more like $7.50-$10 here,” Mr Balfe says.

To paraphrase from words often attributed to Josef Stalin — a million bank foreclosures is a statistic, but a single family losing its home is a tragedy.

So Richard Zombeck has set out help people tell those stories — one at a time — at a Web site named ShameTheBanks.org.

There's Diane Casella from Florida, who says she can pay a considerable amount towards her mortgage, but needs a break because of sinking income and property value.

"I have never asked for mortgage help in my life, but now that I just need a mortgage that is 31 percent of my gross income, the bank acts like I do not even exist," she writes on the site. "It was so easy to reach them five years ago, but now they have turned a deaf ear to my family's plight."

And there’s Mike Dillon from Manchester, New Hampshire

"No one can live in a situation like this, for this long without breaking down. Because of being in legal limbo for all this time, my fiancée and I have postponed our wedding and been unable to start the family we both want," he says. "This has ruined me financially… I can't even refinance away from them. I go through large bottle of antacid like you wouldn't believe. I am stuck in limbo, I can't sell the house without taking a huge loss, I couldn't buy a new house because they destroyed my credit."

Zombeck's raw Web site, which encourages consumers to name names and be as specific as possible about their mortgage woes, has quickly garnered attention around the ranks of frustrated homeowners.  He's also gotten at least some attention from Congress, and Zombeck is now part of the lobbying effort by consumer groups this week who are advocating for the controversial financial reform legislation currently being considered by the U.S. Senate.

Help other consumers

On Tuesday, the Massachusetts resident is meeting with staff from Sen. John Kerry's office to share his own story and stories from ShameTheBanks.com as part of a visit by The Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). He's also trying to personally deliver his package of first-person tales to his state's other senator, newly-elected Republican Scott Brown. But PIRG attorney Elizabeth Weyant, who is arranging the meetings, says Brown's office has yet to reply to requests.

"Richard has done a really good job of making himself an expert on the issue," she said. "It's really personal for him. He gives a face to the need for financial reform."

Weyant said one compelling element of Zombeck's site, in addition to the number of struggling homeowners who tell their tales, is the similarity of their sagas.

"Even if we're talking about different banks, it's the same story, again and again," she said.  Collectively, the tales show how badly the mortgage modification process is working, she said.  "To a bank, a mortgage looks like a pile of money. To a person, that's their home."

Among the sagas with similar storylines is the tale of Angie Burke, of Reading, Penn., who first contacted her bank about a possible mortgage modification in December 2008.

"I was fully unprepared for the duration and insanity this process can bring," she writes in her story. After a year of filling out paperwork and waiting for bank response, she received this dismal proposal concerning one of the two loans on her home:

"The best they could do for us was lower the interest rate from 6.75% fixed to 6% fixed, saving us a whole whopping $90 a month!  How is that going to help?!  Our income is half of what it used to be."

While the site invites complaints from any consumer who is frustrated with any bank lending practices, nearly every story Zombeck has collected so far deals with the paperwork madness that has engulfed participants in the Making Home Affordable program.  When announced last year, the program was designed to help up to 4 million struggling borrowers, but currently only 230,000 mortgages have been permanently modified.

The complains have led to a series of revisions in the program, including sweeping changes announced by the Obama administration last month — still, another 900,000 foreclosure notices were received in the first three months of 2010, according to RealtyTrac.

MSNBC.com's John Schoen has been chronicling the woes of the Help for Homeowners program (HAMP) for months. In January, I wrote about a woman named Deb Franklin, whose three-month trial modification had turned into a 10 month waiting game that included a foreclosure notice.

But Zombeck's Web site shows that Franklin's Kafka-esque nightmare is hardly an exception.

"Those stories are not unique," he says. "It is depressing and goes further…300,000 foreclosures a month further," he added referring to the estimated number of homes that will receive a foreclosure notice this month.

Virginia W., from Morgan Hill Calif, didn't want to share her last name. She's also at wit's end after being rejected, again, for a modification based on something called a "gross eligibility."

"After calling for the past two weeks to find someone at the bank who knows what 'failed gross eligibility' means and spending hours on the phone I am now being told they are going to review my package again since everyone I have talked to cannot see why we were denied,” she says. “Back at square one 8 months later all the while getting no help and slowly racking up credit card bills the whole time just trying to stay afloat and not wanting to walk away."

Zombeck has his own tale of mortgage modification "hell." He bought his house in a Boston suburb at the market's peak in September 2006. It was his first home purchase, and he followed the advice of a realtor and purchased it with no down payment, thanks to two adjustable-rate mortgages that started out at around 8 percent would climb towards 12 percent. He was promised that refinancing would be easy. It wasn't. And when his wife lost her job at Harvard University, their world began crumbling.

Two years later, he's still working on the details of his loan modification with Florida-based Ocwen Financial Corp., which is servicing his loan. During the saga, he began writing an unpaid column about his situation for The Huffington Post called the "Eyes and Ears Mortgage Specialist.”  He thinks that column has helped push his mortgage modification process forward.

"I think the banks are intentionally stalling, hoping the market will turn around, so they can then kick everybody out of their homes, sell them, and turn a profit," he said

Paul Koches, Executive vice president and general counsel at Ocwen, said he couldn’t talk specifically about Zombeck’s loan, citing privacy concerns. While he acknowledged some general frustration with the loan review process among all loan servicers, he said his firm has been aggressively arranging modifications for its customers. Of 400,000 loans it services, Ocwen voluntarily modified 90,000 even before the Help for Homeowners program was announced in March 2009.  Koches did not offer a specific of number of modifications since then, but said the pace had “proceeded at the same pace.”

“We're very proud of our leadership not only in HAMP but in loss mitigation in general,” he said. “We believe that keeping people in their homes is better for the homeowner and better for the owner of the loan, too.”

ShameTheBanks.com is Zombeck’s attempt to share the harsh spotlight of social media on banks and motivate them to aid other struggling homeowners.

Zombeck, a free-lance journalist and former help desk technician for software firm Adobe, has used the social media megaphone before with great success. For three years, he has run a popular Web site named SH**HEADERY.com (name intentionally obscured). It chronicles the actions of misbehaving companies and offers social criticisms.  It also gives frustrated readers a place "to rant."  The site also has nearly 10,000 Twitter followers.

Last year, Zombeck was involved in a dispute with AT&T over an $800 deposit the firm insisted on when he and his wife tried to save money by combining their iPhones into a discounted family plan. The deposit was required because Zombeck's  credit score had plummeted, even though he'd been an AT&T customers for more than 10 years. After months of frustrating back-and-forth discussion, Zombeck tweeted about the dispute to his SH**HEADERY followers.

"Wonder if Apple knows that AT&T charges an $800 deposit to merge to a family plan," he wrote in a November 2009 Tweet, and signed the note with a profanity. Only 52 minutes later, a woman representing AT&T wrote to him and offered to help. Within a few days, the issue was resolved.

"It had taken two months, but I bypassed about 15 unreasonable people," Zombeck said.   "She was very nice. Once I got to that level of customer support, (AT&T) was great."

Zombeck is hoping ShameTheBanks.com might offer similar short-cuts to "reasonable people" inside banks who are working on mortgage modifications," he said.

"I've gone from unpaid journalist, to accidental activist, to unintentional lobbyist in a matter of months," he said. Now, he hopes to collect enough tales of frustration that they will spur change in Washington.  "(The) stories will serve as irrefutable evidence that Congress needs to reform the way Wall Street has been doing business."

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Billy Corgan really, really hates Courtney Love.

The couple — who split in 2007 — have been trading barbs on the Twitterverse for months now. Corganworked with the Hole star on several songs for her new album – but now wants nothing to do with her.

Corgan lit into Love in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine last March, insisting that if Courtney releases their collaborations- as it appears she will – “it would be a real big problem, because I haven’t given my permission.”

“I have no interest in supporting her in any way, shape or form,” he added. “You can’t throw enough things down the abyss with a person like that.”

Courtney’s since apologized for upsetting Billy, but her mea culpa seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The Smashing Pumpkins singer decided to tell his ex-lover and one-time collaborator what he really thinks… along with the rest of the world. Here are some of his Court-charged Tweets:

“Thought #1: my face is my face, my heart is my heart, my money is my money. Oh, and my songs are MY songs+If you can’t write your own songs?

Thought #2: if you can’t write your own songs maybe you should just be happy that you fooled someone into doing your work for you…

Or, thought #3:maybe you should go someone nice+live off your husband’s money, u know the money he made for writing all those great songs.

Thought #4: when you issue someone an apology on YOUR facebook page you might actually mean it and take responsibility for it. But…

Thought #5: the world is aware of your lack of responsibility, as seen in the gov’t taking away your parental right. Only u could abandon such a beautiful, incredible child who is smarter than u, cooler than u, and better than u. Oops, did I say too much?

Thought #6: so have your moment, burn up in the sun that laughs at u as equally as it appears to celebrate u+sleep knowing u have no honor.”

Crikey has a look at the shelving of the government’s proposed CPRS – so after a few years of Labour government we haven’t really made any progress on global warming (a messed up insulation installation scheme and slightly improved MRET aside) – CPRS into the deep freeze.

The government today wheeled its dreadful CPRS into the political deep freeze, continuing its pre-election deck-clearing of anything that doesn’t suit the narrative it wants to sell voters between now and August. …

The fact that in putting it aside until 2013 means the government will save just under $950 million between now and then shows just how nonsensical the opposition’s “great big new tax” line is. Some tax that would have pumped nearly a billion dollars into the economy — and that was just for starters.

It bears remembering just where we started from in all this — Kevin Rudd and John Howard going to the 2007 election with a shared commitment to an emissions trading scheme. After the Nelson interregnum, Howard was succeeded by a man more determined than virtually anyone else in Parliament to take action on climate change. And yet somehow, the Prime Minister and Penny Wong managed to botch it.

And they really botched it, first by letting every rent seeker in the country come in for their chop, and then by thinking climate change was a great weapon with which to split the coalition, rather than a “great moral and economic challenge”.

It’s a singular achievement for which Rudd and Wong can take credit — with some thanks to Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin and the rest of the coalition climate crazies.

The Greens, perhaps with one eye on holding the balance of power from July 1, have urged the government to again consider their interim carbon levy proposal, which would cap permit prices and slash handouts to polluters to 20% of revenue (rather than 27% of revenue, where it starts, before rising above one-third of revenue in later years).

However, that ignores the political reality that the government has gone cold on climate change because it failed to sell its CPRS properly and denialists, engaged in a systematic economic war on future generations, have leapt into the gap.

Sadly, this is the perfect time to be implementing an emissions trading scheme, with the economy again poised to enter an extended boom led by the resources sector. Any negative impacts on polluters of the scheme — and the Grattan Institute has conclusively shown that impacts will be almost trivial — would be minor compared to the benefits of strong economic growth. Australia’s emerging economic challenge is to manage high levels of growth. The introduction of an effective ETS would provide an additional tool for policy makers dealing with too much demand and unbalanced growth.

Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff believes that far more IMF European bailouts are on the way, in addition to Greece.

Bloomberg:

“It’s more likely than not that we’ll need an IMF program in at least one more country in the euro area over the next two to three years,” Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist who has co-authored studies of financial and sovereign debt crises, said in a telephone interview. “The budget cuts needed in Europe in many countries are profound.”

He sees a higher than 50% chance that other Eurozone nations will need IMF financial support. He also affirms that Greece will require far more financial support than is currently being negotiated. Note that yesterday, it was suggested that Greece could require as much as 300 billion euros.

“The stakes are very high for Europe as it wants to avoid contagion,” said Rogoff, who in 2008 predicted the failure of some large U.S. banks prior to the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

“I wouldn’t say they have to have an IMF program, but it’s possible,” said Rogoff of Spain, Portugal and Ireland. “It’s hard to say, as so much depends on political will and the numbers.”

…

“Recovery will mitigate the debt problems,” Rogoff said. “It’s very hard for Europe to get a sustained recovery.”

Forget bailouts, that’s the real bomb he just dropped.

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Luke Timmerman wrote:

Writing about life sciences innovation around the country, I hear stories every day of companies that envision transforming medical standards of care through new drugs or devices. San Diego-based NuVasive is living the dream right now.

NuVasive (NASDAQ: NUVA), as its name suggests, has developed a less invasive way for surgeons to do spinal fusion surgeries. It was a bold and innovative idea when the company was founded in 1995, and when it first brought this system to the U.S. market more than five years ago. Now the leading edge is becoming mainstream as more doctors learn the procedure, and patients like basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton share their NuVasive success stories. Not even hard questions from insurers who balked at paying the bills seem to have slowed the company’s success—or the growth of NuVasive’s shares on Wall Street.

More than 5 million Americans suffer from some form of chronic back pain, and that has created a spinal fusion surgery market worth an estimated $5.1 billion a year in the U.S. Big medical device players like Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, and Synthes are leaders in this market with replacement disks, screws and rods that surgeons use to hold the vertebrae in place. But NuVasive has been grabbing market share, and boosting sales at a greater than 40 percent annual clip for years. The company expects to grow sales by more than 30 percent this year, on its way to estimated annual sales of as much as $500 million.

When a couple major private insurers, Aetna and UnitedHealth, publicly stated last year they wanted to see more evidence that the NuVasive system was as good as advertised, spinal surgeons and patients leapt to the company’s defense. The insurers backed off within six months and said they would go back to reimbursing the product. Walton, who suffered from excrutiating back pain for years, recently told a Union-Tribune sports columnist that “I’m getting back into the game of life,” after he had the NuVasive surgery done.

“At the end of the day, this is a higher efficacy procedure. We really have a better, faster, cheaper procedure for our patients, the people we serve,” says Michael Lambert, NuVasive’s chief financial officer.

I got an in-depth overview of the company, and the spinal market, from Lambert and Patrick Williams, the company’s vice president of finance and investor relations, when I visited their office in San Diego a couple weeks ago. What NuVasive does is really different from what its competitors have been offering surgeons and their patients.

The anatomy is quite interesting. Around age 30, people have the maximum amount of water in the intravertebral tissues, which work like shock absorbers in the spine, Lambert says. But that gradually goes downhill as we age. The space between vertebrae shrinks, nerves get pinched, and …Next Page »

UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

There’s always a fantasy story in Colorado, so let’s start in the thin air with our Monday recap, then slowly work our way back towards sea level.

• Miguel Olivo(notes) only had one hit in Monday’s loss to Arizona but on a slow roto day, I’m going to use this space to promote the underrated backstop. Olivo’s ownership level is still under 50 percent and that’s not right; he’s off to a .311 start with five homers in his new city and he’s basically thrown Chris Iannetta(notes) (.133 average) out of the way. The 2010 catcher pool looked spotty in March and it’s been even worse in actuality (losing Miguel Montero(notes) really hurts); when production shows up with someone like Olivo, you need to take advantage.

Olivo’s career batting average (.244) gets some fantasy owners off the scent, but this isn’t the time to get sensitive to that number. He hit .251 as a semi-regular in Kansas City the last two years, and the Colorado backdrop could help Olivo push the average into the .260 range. And keep in mind the position we’re talking about; for every Joe Mauer(notes) that hits .300-plus behind the plate, you can find 3-4 backstops who can’t hit their way out of a paper bag. Even if we take a mild average hit here, it’s probably worth it for the power exchange; Olivo’s quietly collected 67 homers the last four years and he should be good for 20-plus in the Rocky Mountains.

Olivo’s not a great defender but that hasn’t been a big issue with Colorado to this point; he’s started 60 percent of the games through three weeks and the ratio has been even more slanted to Olivo lately. Forget what you thought about Olivo in years past, he will be a fantasy asset in all formats in 2010.

• Clint Barmes(notes) went 0-for-3 with a pair of strikeouts, pushing his average down to .192. Not the best time for a slump with Eric Young in town; Young had a double off the bench and later scored a run. Knowing how Jim Tracy likes his lineup bingo, you get the idea Young might see a start at some point in this series.

• Justin Upton’s(notes) sore shin turned out to be no big deal, as he took his usual spot in the lineup Monday and gave us a 4-1-1-1 line with a stolen base. Upton’s .208 batting average has some fantasy owners a little jumpy, but see the big picture here: he’s on pace to hit 25 homers, steal 34 bases and score 119 runs. He’s fine.

• Dan Haren’s(notes) got a history of pitching well in Coors Field and Monday was no exception (8 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 10 K). Worry not if you’re tied to the Colorado offense; Kris Benson(notes) comes calling Tuesday.

• Sometimes you lose with your best stuff and sometimes you get by with your mediocre stuff; that’s been the case with Jonathan Sanchez(notes) lately. He was utterly untouchable against San Diego last week (one hitter over seven innings, 10 K) but had to settle for a loss when his mates couldn’t solve Mat Latos(notes). Contrast that to Monday’s ballgame: Sanchez only went five innings against Philly and was in constant trouble (three hits, five walks), but he limited the damage to just one run while his teammates were able to consistently score against Roy Halladay(notes) (7 IP, 10 H, 5 R, 0 BB, 5 K).

Sanchez remains the same conundrum we saw last year – the stuff is jaw-dropping (33 K in 24.1 IP) but he’s not throwing enough strikes (13 BB). He’s gotten a break so far with three home starts out of four; last year he had 19 road assignments compared to 13 at home. He’ll get another Bay Area assignment Sunday when Colorado comes to town.

• Maybe it’s just time to accept that Josh Beckett(notes) isn’t the ace he’s cracked up to be. The Blue Jays kicked him around for eight runs Monday, pushing his ERA up to 7.22, but crooked numbers are nothing new with Beckett. He’s made 127 starts since joining the Red Sox, and on 30 occasions he’s allowed five or more runs (h/t, Boston Herald). It might seem a little cruel to criticize Beckett given that Monday’s game featured 25 runs and 34 hits, but it comes with the ADP territory. You didn’t spend a sixth-round pick on Dana Eveland(notes).

You name it, it wasn’t working for Beckett at Toronto. He couldn’t locate his fastball, a pitch that’s been surprisingly mediocre for him since the beginning of 2009 (the Pitch Type Values on Fangraphs illustrate this nicely). Beckett hung a couple of curves and the Jays didn’t miss them. His change didn’t fool anyone, either.

Working in the AL East is a nasty place for a pitcher to do his business. Beckett has a 7.34 ERA for his career against Toronto, he’s at 5.51 for his career against the Yanks, and he’s got a 4.53 ERA whenever he pitches at Fenway. His career numbers are sharp against Tampa Bay but you can make a case that the Rays have the AL’s best offense in 2010. Beckett isn’t going to be this bad all year, we all know that, but is he going to be All-Star good again? If you’ve got cause for optimism, pitch for Beckett in the comments.

• The Indians have the worst offense in the American League through three weeks and they didn’t put up much of a fight against the underrated Jeff Weaver(notes) Monday, but we should at least mention Austin Kearns(notes), who’s been active of late. Kearns went 3-for-4 with a homer, steal and walk at Anaheim, and he also had a three-hit game (with a steal) on the weekend. The average mixed-league owner doesn’t need to react to this news, but if you play in a jumbo-sized group, maybe you’ll want to kick the tires on Kearns for a few days. Then you can come back on Friday or so and kick me for mentioning Kearns in the first place.

• Josh Johnson(notes) hasn’t had the most consistent year to this point – he’s racked up 29 strikeouts over his three best starts but just five whiffs (against seven walks) in his other two turns – but when you add it all together he’s one of the most bankable arms in the majors. The Padres couldn’t figure him out Monday, as Johnson allowed just three hits in a complete game masterpiece (1 R, 1 BB, 12 K). If you’re one of the Friar faithful, don’t click through to the highlights. Mat Latos turned in his worst start of the year (seven runs) and didn’t make it out of the third inning.

• For some reason the Brewers have absolutely taken the Pirates out behind the woodshed in their four meetings this year, taking each game and outscoring the Bucs 53-4. It’s a good thing Milwaukee hit just two homers in Monday’s 17-3 victory, we wouldn’t want to see Bernie Brewer suffer a herniated disc in his back. The frustrated Pirates held a 30-minute, closed-door meeting after the game, but it’s hard to like their chances Tuesday with unheralded Brian Burres(notes) taking the hill. If you’re invested in the Milwaukee offense, here’s the box score and bon appetit.

Pittsburgh’s struggles to the side, there’s an interesting buying opportunity on reliever Evan Meek(notes). He worked two scoreless innings in the middle of Monday’s mess, and his seasonal stats are calling for your attention (13 IP, 11 H, 1 R, 4 BB, 13 K). He’s got a fastball in the 94 mph range and so far he’s been successful with his entire arsenal in 2010 (slider, cutter, change). Joel Hanrahan(notes) hasn’t thrown the ball well out of the gate so far and he’s still a work in progress anyway; if you’re looking to hedge against Octavio Dotel(notes), Meek would be my pick.

Handshakes: Feel free to ignore the rogue save from Bruce Chen(notes) in Kansas City (yes, he’s still in the league). Chen retired Ichiro Suzuki(notes) for the last out; Joakim Soria(notes) received the night off after throwing 47 pitches the two previous days. … Jonathan Papelbon(notes) picked a good time for his second 1-2-3 inning of the year, setting down the Jays quickly and putting an end to Monday’s keg tapper. … Brian Fuentes(notes) struck out the side against Cleveland and Chad Qualls(notes) did the same at Colorado, albeit Qualls also allowed two hits and a run. … Ryan Franklin(notes) keeps skating by; he allowed two ninth-inning hits to the Braves but a double play helped him finish the job. … Jose Valverde(notes) had no problems with the Rangers, hitting the strike zone on 7-of-10 pitches. He’s only got four strikeouts over nine innings, but his other numbers look fine.

Speed Round: Carlos Zambrano(notes) retired five of the six men he faced Monday, coming through in a clutch situation, a tie ballgame in the eighth and ninth. The Cubs eventually put away the Nats in the tenth on a bases-loaded walk, picking up a victory for Carlos Marmol(notes) (scoreless inning, one hit allowed). … Maybe the Tigers have figured something out on Neftali Feliz(notes) that no one else has. Miguel Cabrera(notes) and Brandon Inge(notes) hit back-to-back homers off Feliz in the ninth Monday, brewing up a 6-6 tie, and the Tigers also roughed up Feliz Friday night (1 IP, 3 H, 2 R). … Justin Smoak(notes) is just 1-for-11 through four games, though he has walked five times. … Jason Heyward(notes) is in a 1-for-17 slump since his homer against the Phillies last week (pushing his average down to .234), and he’s also whiffed 24 times over 64 at-bats. Of course, plenty of good things are happening when he makes contact (four homers, 16 RBIs).

Nothing would set a better eco-conscious example to the people of the United States than the White House going solar powered itself. And that’s exactly what companies are trying to convince the White House to do. So much, that these companies are even offering these panels for free, not that the White House can’t afford a whole array of them.

President Jimmy Carter had taken a green step in 1979 had installed some of these soak-in-the-sun devices, which were stripped off in 1986. A 17.85 kilowatt solar array can help the White House reduce its bills by a sweet 81%. That’s about $1,610 per month. 102 solar panels, each generating 175 watts on the roof of the White House will help offset carbon emissions that equal 1.5 million cars annually. Looks like it’s about time for the White House to add a shade of green to its roofs!

[CoolerPlanet]

You aren’t the only one who loves a nice juicy beef steak. This train loves it just as much as you do. To run between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer is powered up 20% by a beef based biofuel. 80% is powered up using regular diesel. With a grant of $274,000 from the Federal Railroad Administration, this train will run for the next 12 months on this route.

Using cow tallow or fat from cattle, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions are reduced by 10%. It also decreases particulates by 15% and sulfates by 20%. This sure is a cleaner alternative compared to diesel. And no, cows will not be killed specifically for this purpose. The fat is obtained from animals that are to be used for meat. The guys at PETA are sure to skip travelling by this train though.

[FastCompany]

Continuing our digestion of recent sector and industry performance data, this chart below shows how multiple U.S. transportation industries (namely Trucking, Water Transport, Railroads, and Air Freight) underperformed the S&P 500 last week, despite outperforming during the last trailing month.

This is highlighted by the dark grey vs. red bars below.

On a year-to-date basis, all industries below have underperformed the S&P 500 except for Air Freight.

Thus the one-month rally vs. the S&P 500 has been aborted (we’re talking relative performance here), perhaps due to concerns over the strength of the global recovery going forward. Continued high oil prices might be another factor, which translate into elevated fuel prices for both transport companies and the U.S. consumers whose retail demand many transport names depend on. Note everything above is on a relative basis to the S&P 500, absolute total returns are below.

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The film studios apparently should have spent as much time making sure their DVD new release DRM actually works with popular Blu-Ray players as they did on their new 28 day new release delay scheme. Avatar, which of course Netflix and Redbox users now won’t be able to rent for a month, was released on DVD last Friday. While the title’s hype and box office success easily translated to disc sales records, AdamR writes in to note that some customers were rewarded for their purchase by finding out the disc wouldn’t play on many Blu-Ray players. While some users are able to fix the problem if they can manage to download new firmware that plays nice with the new Avatar DRM, new firmware for players like the Samsung BD-UP5000 doesn’t (and may not ever) exist. It’s almost as if the studios are trying to perfect the art of annoyance when it comes to Blu-Ray — something that has helped contribute to the platform’s less-than-anticipated adoption rates. While DVDs have always been loaded with unskippable crap (that ironically pirates don’t have to deal with) newer Blu-Ray DVDs seem to enjoy taking this to an entirely new level — with even more unskippable previews, promotions and warnings downloaded to your player via broadband.  Somehow the studios continue to believe that layers of seemingly-endless annoyances (DRM, delaying new releases, unskippable "features" — none of which pirates experience) are actually going to help keep piracy at bay and physical media relevant forever.

 

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Everyone’s waking up to eco-consciousness now and most of us have probably realized the need to save our environment from the certain doom it’ll face as time goes by if we continue endangering it further. The best we can do at our home is recycling most of the stuff we usually dump in our garbage cans. Recycling helps decrease the amount of junk piled up at landfills and saves a whole lot of energy too!

Switzerland currently is the country with the highest percentage of garbage recycling, around 52% that is, followed by Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Norway. Some countries use recycling as a profitable business, especially in Asian countries like Japan that met a profit of 360 billion dollars with recycling. China has 2.5 million people are involved in recycling activities.

US currently recycle just 31.5% of its garbage. Using recycled paper would help save 544,000 trees in the United States, 9 cubic yards of soil from being used as landfill for every ton of cardboard recycled and 5% energy if aluminum is recycled instead of being produced.

Numbers sure make people think harder. Hopefully these statistics do.

[TheNewEcologist]

Available now if you live in Europe or are particularly handy with an IP override, Spotify’s just released the latest version of the desktop client. iTunes libraries can be uploaded to Spotify for accessing anywhere, and social features added too. More »

San Francisco took the required steps. Maybe the rest of the United States should have a tree census too! The country is losing trees faster than any around the globe. Between the years 2000 and 2005, the US has lost a larger area of forest land and trees than any other country. It is one of the seven most heavily deforested nations around.

The United States has lost around 46,000 square miles of forest area in those five years. That’s an area as big as Pennsylvania itself! The number is sure to have increased in the last five years too. Globally, our planet has lost around 400,000 square miles of forest cover. It’s about time we wake up and start planting more trees taken that their number is fast depleting.

[USA Today]

Last week I was emphasizing the fact that someone from Max Planck seemed to really be positive about the University of New Mexico research which indicates that there has been “archaic” admixture into the modern human lineage derived from Out-of-Africa. This was curious because Svante Pääbo is at the Max Planck Institute, and he’s reconstructing the Neandertal genome. I wasn’t going to do more than hint at rumors, so I’ll point to Thomas Mailund (after linking to posts on the topic of admixture or not) :

I really look forward to reading the Neandertal paper and see what it has to say about gene flow between us and Neandertals. A few month ago, while I visited his group in Leipzig, Svante Pääbo actually promised to show me the draft, but it never happened. In Ohio in February I talked to one of the authors on the paper and he wouldn’t reveal anything… I guess I just have to wait and can only hope that it won’t be too long.

Remember that I didn’t say anything, Thomas Mailund did. Though he wasn’t explicit either, so whatever conclusions you draw are your own. But perhaps a reminder that when people are talking about things in public that might seem curious or a bit farther than the evidence warrants, it may be an issue of you not knowing what they know.

The next time you visit Japan, you’ll probably ride in an emission free taxi. Three new electric taxis hit the asphalt today, and probably more will follow suit in future. Japan currently has around 60,000 taxis, each guzzling gas and polluting the environment causing around 20% of the countries CO2 emissions. Together with a US firm, Better Place, Japan will soon wipe away these blemishing numbers with electric taxis.

These taxis use switchable batteries. Instead of docking up every time the taxi runs out of juice, the battery can simply be switched for a charged one, while the drained one is left charging. This obviously increases the cars range to an extent. This concept is sure to grab the attention of taxi operators around the globe.

[Techvert]

Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Don’t Eat This

As you likely already know, the latest buzz allover the Internet at the moment is the new fast food monstrosity, the KFC Double Down – a “sandwich” with no bread but rather two pieces of fried chicken with cheese sauce and bacon in between. I’ve resisted the urge to post on this up until now simply because I don’t think this thing deserves any more press. But, after doing my best to keep quiet on it, the flood gates can be held closed no longer. This thing is evil.

It hardly seems worth the time to explain why this revolting thing with no food value isn’t good for you, however, in addition to the few articles I’ve read complaining that the Double Down won’t be making an appearance in Canada (hallelujah) I have actually read posts from people trying to justify its existence with comments like “not as bad as you might think” or “not even in the top ten of worst fast foods on the market.”

Continue reading KFC Double Down Is Not Healthy, In Case You Had Any Doubts

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Ryan McBride wrote:

Health insurers have wasted billions of dollars on reimbursing drugs that don’t work for certain patients. But Cambridge, MA-based Gene Network Sciences might have a cure for this spending ailment. It is using supercomputing technology to build databases that can match patients with the most suitable drugs or other treatments, company CEO Colin Hill says. Xconomy.

This is a major change for Gene Network Sciences, which has formed a new subsidiary called GNS Healthcare to focus on the healthcare market. Since the Cornell physicists Hill and Iya Khalil formed the startup in 2000, it’s been known mostly for performing computer-simulated drug research with its signature reverse engineering/forward simulation technology for such major companies as Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:BIIB), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE). While Gene Network Sciences is continuing to work in drug research and development, Hill says, the healthcare market has been a major focus for the firm over the past year.

Within the healthcare market, the company is initially seeking partnerships with pharmacy benefit management firms. These outfits, such as CVS Caremark (NYSE:CVS) and Medco Health Solutions (NYSE:MHS), handle prescription drug plans for more than 210 million Americans, the majority of the total U.S. population, according to the Pharmacy Care Management Association, an industry group based in Washington, DC. The PBMs, as they are often called, have already adopted e-prescribing to reduce errors and streamline how doctors order prescriptions for patients, and Hill says these companies have also implemented computer models. But the drug benefit mangers don’t have the artificial intelligence capabilities that his firm offers he says.

“For the payers, it’s really about using innovation to deliver smart, more cost-effective medicines,” Hill says. “The next generation analytics, like GNS Healthcare provides, will match the right drugs to the right patients for the right price.”

The company is taking a different technical approach from its drug R&D work to solve problems for healthcare customers, Hill says. For drug companies, Gene Network Sciences has …Next Page »