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  • ¿Cuánto cuesta un accidente en el Nurburgring?

    nurburgring-accidente.jpg

    El Nurburgring, el Infierno Verde, la pista de ensueño en la que la mayoría de nosotros soñamos algún día dar unas vueltas. Los que habitualmente saben de los riesgos de girar en el Ring sin conocer cada uno de los secretos de la pista y el trazado de la propia pista (y teniendo un poco de juicio, claro) pueden evitarse malos ratos como los pasados por los tripulantes de cierto Opel Astra que luego de golpear contra las barreras, volcó y les dio un gran susto (después del salto). Accidentes como estos son frecuentes en los días en que la pista está abierta, pero además del costo de reparar el coche, se deben pagar una serie de extras en caso de accidente:

    • Precio base de la reparación de las vallas: 150€.
    • Quitar la barrera dañada: 10€ por metro.
    • Reemplazar la barrera dañada 31€ el metro.
    • Quitar los postes que sostienen la barrera 39€ cada uno.
    • Servicio del coche de seguridad 82€ por 30 minutos.
    • Cierre del circuito: 1.350€ por hora.
    • Grúa: 190€

    Salvo el costo de la grúa, a todos los demás se les debe agregar un 19% adicional de IVA.

    Vía | Jalopnik

    Más información | Nurburgring.org



  • ABC News: Kevin Costner’s machine heads to BP’s oil spill clean up

    BP has turned to “Waterworld” star Kevin Costner to help clean up the oil slick that is spreading across the Gulf of Mexico. Costner has been funding a team of scientists for 15 years in hopes of developing a technology to clean up massive oil spills, and his research has created a powerful centrifuge that he claims can separate oil from water and dump the oil into a holding tank:

  • The Power of Touch

    TouchThe largest organ on our body is the skin. Its protective layers guard our muscles, bones, internal organs, and ligaments, while its active function results in the most fundamental of our five senses – that of touch. For all our focus on maintaining optimal organ function through diet, exercise, and lifestyle, could it be that we’re neglecting the organ that figures most prominently in our daily, direct communion with the material world?

    I know that it’s awfully easy for me to go several days without real, meaningful physical contact with another human when I’m on the road promoting the book or giving a talk. Oh, sure, there are handshakes and incidental shoulder brushes and maybe even the occasional fist bump, but it’s not the same. I miss my wife and kids. You can’t exactly hug total strangers (nor would you really want to) or even business associates. When I’m away from my family and close friends, I realize just how ubiquitous our self-made, imaginary personal bubbles have become. We all walk around with them. This world is getting more crowded every day, and yet we’re somehow able to maneuver through it without so much as touching a single person unless we’re crammed into a train or city street. And still, even in those situations, people are loathe to make contact with one another, even ocular, and we manage to avoid most of it.

    Take the phrase “touchy feely,” for example. What imagery does it conjure? Positive? Its literal definition is “marked by or emphasizing physical closeness and emotional openness,” but the phrase originates as an epithet. Because language is an organic thing, a reflection of its users and their society, and because the phrase is exclusively uttered from a position of discomfort with the idea of touching or being touched, “touchy feely” arises from a society diametrically opposed to physical contact and touch. Men who can’t bring themselves to hug their fathers or male friends without feeling physically ill (or, worse, that they might “catch the gay”); young men and women unable to separate honest affection from sexual attention; kids who spend their formative years touching the cold hard plastic of an XBox controller or remote control without developing nary a scrape, bruise, or welt from physical contact with peers; entire families that text, chat, or email to communicate, even when living under the same roof – this is the legacy of our apparently social revulsion to touch and physical closeness.

    It starts with infants, of course. Many babies, upon being born, are instantly whisked away for checkups, tests, and to “let the mother rest.” It seems odd that in that most crucial of windows, where the mother-child post-womb relationship is in its infancy, many kids don’t even get to see their mothers. Instead, they’re in some room with some stranger having weird things done to them.

    The first sense infants develop in the womb is touch, and when they’re born, touch is the most pre-attuned sense, whereas stuff like sight and taste take months to fully develop. A just-born infant, I would argue, needs to be with its mother, needs to feel her warmth (and she the baby’s), needs to indulge the only viable sense available at the moment. I imagine that initial (and in the wild, unavoidable and inevitable) physical closeness between mammalian mother and mammalian child is the foundation for the rest of the child’s life. It sets the stage, so to speak. I’m reminded of that old cartoon trope, where a baby bird hatches and latches onto the first creature it sees as its mother, even if that creature is Sylvester the cat licking his chops. There’s probably some truth to that. A child’s born and, if nature has dictated, that child is in immediate intimate contact with mom. Maybe those first few moments are more crucial than we think. Maybe the lack of physical contact between newborn and new mother reverberates through life, setting the stage for an adult with a mild distaste for human touch. You populate half of society with folks who were never really touched as children, who never really learned the essential importance of touch, and maybe you get what we have now. I’m speculating here, of course.

    But we do know that animals touch each other all the time. It’s the Primal way. Young monkeys and apes cling to mothers’ backs. Social grooming is a staple of many animals’ lives. It’s utilitarian, because not all animals can completely clean themselves (we’ve all got hard to reach places) alone, but it also reinforces social structure and interpersonal relationships. Older apes groom each other, and this grooming affects endorphin levels. Wolf packs sleep together. Kangaroo kids hang out in that famous pouch. Or how about pets? Dogs will nuzzle and lick their masters and cats will head butt you and curl up in your lap and meow until you relent and offer your hand. It’s almost like touch is a requirement of animals; they crave and need it.

    Do we?

    Well, we’re animals, too. I’m a firm believer in listening to our bodies and to our instincts. They exist for a reason, our instincts, and though we shouldn’t surrender completely to their rule, we can use them as subtle indications of what might work best. These instincts might be muted in us big brains, but we’re animals. If they – especially the mammals, like us – yearn for touch, maybe there’s something to it. Maybe we need it, too.

    Besides, despite all the New Age talk of energy fields and the power of touch, we know that people who have loved ones to touch on a regular basis live longer, happier lives. People who have sex on a regular basis also live happier, longer lives. It’s not mystical or magical; it’s practical. You touch people and have sex when you’re comfortable and happy with the person you’re touching. Happy people are, ahem, happier. Happy people live longer, and even if they didn’t, they’re happy, and that’s arguably the whole point of sentient existence. You’ve heard of companion animals, right? They improve the health and longevity of their owners (PDF), especially the widows, supposedly because of the added companionship and touching/petting that goes on. There have been studies (having a tough time finding this one) where lab rabbits with terminal cancer living on the bottom row of the cages live longer than rabbits with cancer who live in higher cages. The only difference between the top and bottom row rabbits being that lab assistants handled the rabbits in the bottom cages more during feeding. When you’re dying of terminal cancer in a metal cage, I’ll bet you begin to really look forward to those few seconds of chin scratches each day.

    I will say that things seem to be changing. When you watch old episodes of “The Tonight Show,” it’s all handshakes between Johnny Carson and his guests. It’s very formal, whereas now the male guests typically hug the host. And in sports, ironically the most stereotypically hypermasculine arena, there’s a ton of physical contact between teammates. Butt slapping, high fives, chest bumps, team huddles – it’s all a huge display of men and women incredibly comfortable with the idea of physical touch. There was even a recent study mentioned in ESPN Magazine that noted the prevalence of high fives and chest bumps and other physical contact in pro basketball. The Cleveland Cavaliers, holders of the best record in the NBA this season (though now trounced from the playoffs), touch each other more than any other team in the league, while the teams with losing records tend to touch less. Do they touch less because they’re losing, or do they lose because they touch less and lack cohesion? Who knows, but the scientists in the article theorized that the high rate of touch definitely has something to do with it.

    Still, though, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We need to integrate touch into our lives, not in some formal, creepy way, like organizing community grooming or hugging sessions, but in a healthy, normal, organic manner. When your kid comes home bleeding and bleating from some mishap, try offering a hug instead of immediately going for the bandages and antiseptic. Hug your friend next time you see him or her. Massage your significant other, just for the heck of it. Ladies, randomly slip your hand under his shirt and scratch his back (trust me, we love it). Pet your dog/cat/rat/rabbit. When you meet someone, maybe try going for the double hand clasp, or even the medieval forearm clasp. Tousle some scruffy street urchin’s mop-head next time he’s hawking newspapers on the corner.

    A dog trainer friend of mine taught me a cool trick once: when your dog is anxious, upset, or otherwise freaking out at something, pull on its neck scruff. This immediately soothes the animal, because it’s exactly what mother dogs do to pups – they carry them around by the scruff of their necks, and adult dogs still make that subconscious connection. I’m thinking the same holds true for humans. Why wouldn’t it? How do you console a grieving friend who’s just lost their father? You hug them. It’s your first reaction and theirs, too. They go for the hug to feel better and you open your arms. How do you soothe a crying child? With hugs and caressing. What changes between childhood and adulthood that renders this treatment ineffective? Why do we console a crying adult with nervous, awkward silence and averted eyes (or powerful medicine)? Those same physiological reactions that soothe the child might just play out in the adult, too. It’s not as if our hormones stop working or we stop enjoying the soothing touch of a loved one just because we have the ability to reproduce and legally drink alcohol.

    It’s in these powerful, incredibly painful moments of trauma that we reconnect with our animal instincts and the walls of social grace or personal hang-ups come crashing down – and we relent to interpersonal touch. We submit, because its draw is inexorable and the relief it offers is instantaneous. There’s that famous saying, “No atheists in foxholes.” What about “No emotional stoics when personal tragedy strikes”? It doesn’t quite have the same easy grace about it, but I think it works.

    We should work on touch, folks. We shouldn’t need tragedy to touch each other. We should give in to our Primal urge to touch as a way to connect with others in a meaningful way and to express joy, not just counteract misery.

    Let me know what you think in the comment board and thanks for reading.

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  • Arsenal Medical, Startup Linked to Langer and Whitesides, Adds $10M

    arsenal logo
    Ryan McBride wrote:

    Arsenal Medical, a stealthy biotech startup based in Watertown, MA, has tapped its existing base of investors to pump in another $10 million in the second installment of its Series C round of funding, R. Scott Rader, the company’s CEO, says. The financing, which was initially revealed in an SEC filing that went online yesterday, brings the firm’s third round to $18.2 million.

    Investors in the latest round included North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners, both of Waltham, MA, as well as Durham, NC-based Intersouth Partners, Rader says. The developer of bioactive materials has raised nearly $41 million since its launch, the CEO says. He declined to discuss the specific purpose of the latest financing.

    Arsenal has generated buzz for its big-name founders, most notably Bob Langer, the MIT inventor of acclaimed drug-delivery technologies, and the standout Harvard chemist and Genzyme (NASDAQ:GENZ) co-founder George Whitesides. Jeff Carbeck, Arsenal’s co-founder and former chief technology officer, provided a few details about the firm’s technology last year. Carbeck says that Arsenal’s chairman and co-founder, Carmichael Roberts, recruited him to help build the startup. Roberts is a partner at North Bridge and a former member of Whitesides’s lab at Harvard.

    Arsenal (formerly WMR Biomedical)  provides additional information about its “bioactive composites” on its website. It highlights its “ElastaCore” biomaterial, which can provide some of the strength of metal while still allowing the body to absorb it. Also, the firm touts its “AxioCore” technology, which is another absorbable material that is designed to provide controlled release of drugs.

    Rader says that the company might shed more light on its technology in the near future.












  • Jason Alexander Lost 30 pounds

    Seinfeld actor and comedian Jason Alexander lost almost 30 pounds by using Jenny Craig diet and weigh loss program in 20 weeks of time. Jason joined this weight loss program after thinking about every aspect of it, people even said Jason is using Girlie weight loss method to lose weight, but he did not care for that.

    Usually men don’t go for such programs, but Jason was strong enough to take this decision for himself. He was concerned how he is going to stay on the plan while traveling. But he was lucky to have Jenny Craig Centers in almost all major US cities. He said he was very careful while eating at the restaurants. He even called Jenny Craig’s consultants and told him what he had eaten the whole day and they told him what he should be doing or eating.

    Jason said, Jenny Craig’s food is really good and he did not feel hungry at all while on this plan. He said he couldn’t even finish the whole mean in first couple of weeks. “I would huff and puff to jog just one-tenth of a mile,” he said. “Now, I run a quarter or half a mile. I’ve really been able to stretch my cardio ability.” And we say “Way to go Jason”.

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  • Google Wants to Save Web Video With the New "WebM" Format [Google]

    HTML5 video has a few hurdles to leap before it can fully replace Flash, but one looms larger than all others: Opposition to proprietary video formats, like h.264. Conveniently, Google has just open-sourced their own format, called WebM. More »







  • Former Miss Russia Apprehended For Narcotics-Related Fallacies

    Former Miss Russia Apprehended For Narcotics-Related FallaciesFormer beauty titlist from Russia was arrested for serious criminal charges. Anna Malova was charged for illegal possession of narcotics and drugs, forgery and illegal imposture as a doctor. The said report was made by special narcotics officers in New York City.

    Malova was taken into custody by authorities after her over the counter purchase in a pharmacy situated at 6th Avenue, Greenwich Village, New York City. Few minutes after she stepped out of the drug store, police gathered enough evidence to charge her with criminal suits.

    In 1998, she was remembered as the tall Russian beauty that graced her way into Miss Universe’s top 10. The pageant made her very famous that she found job and home in the Big Apple.

    Going back to the said case, Maldova’s doctors suspected that she stole a prescription pad from her last visit. She faked prescriptions for painkillers and the physician’s signature. This is clear forgery, as the law dictates.

    Although she received admiration from fellow contestants and judges during the Miss Universe pageant as she claimed to be a medical doctor in her homeland, still she does not hold any permits to practice inside the territory of the United States.

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  • Truce Between Green Groups & Timber Companies Could Save Canadian Forests | 80beats

    CBFA-map-largeIf you need a breather from all the bad news coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, take a look way up north. In Canada this week, environmental groups and big industry—timber, in this case—actually agreed on something. With the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, the groups reached a truce in their fight over the forests of Northern Canada. The breakthrough could protect vast swaths of forest that, if added up, would be bigger than the state of Nevada.

    Signatories include AbitibiBowater, one of the world’s biggest newsprint producers; Seattle-based Weyerhaeuser, and Canfor, British Columbia’s biggest softwood lumber producer, as well as nine environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy and Forest Ethics [Financial Times].

    The environmental groups agreed to suspend their “don’t buy” campaigns in exchange for timber firms agreeing not to cut down forests that constitute endangered caribou habitat until at least the end of 2012. In the meantime, the parties will try to hash out a long-term plan. If this step does result in a more permanent conservation plan, it could have benefits not just for the caribou, but for the planet as well.

    Over the past decade, boreal-forest preservation has increasingly been seen to be as vital as tropical-forest preservation in efforts to combat global warming. Although tropical forests cover more of Earth’s surface than boreal forests, boreal forests store nearly twice as much carbon, mainly in their soils [Christian Science Monitor].

    As you can see in the map here, Canada is home to one of the two great belts of boreal forest in the world; the other stretches across Russia. The timber companies involved in this pact have government-approved leases to 178 million acres of the forests. This agreement covers roughly 72 million acres, and the companies will suspend logging and road-building immediately in 29 million of those acres (the light green portions seen on the map above), with rules for the remaining 43 million acres to come.

    While a reasoned truce is nice to see, this fight will go on. Chloe O’Loughlin of Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society argues that the Canadian governments need to restrict other industrial development in the areas to ensure they remain pristine.

    She said there was no way forest companies would abide by the new agreement unless oil and gas companies were also required to respect the habitat. “I’m sure they wouldn’t agree to defer something and then see it thrashed by the oil and gas industry,” she said. “Put it off limits to forestry and then put it off limits to oil and gas” [The Province].

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    Image: Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement


  • Report shows UK’s offshore wind power could easily outstrip oil and gas in North Sea

    Green Right Now Reports

    The leading renewable energy trade association in the United Kingdom, Renewable UK, is celebrating a report released today that shows that offshore wind power generation in the North Sea could eclipse the power generated by oil and gas production in the same region.

    Offshore wind in the UK could supercede oil and gas production in the North Sea

    Offshore wind in the UK could supercede oil and gas production in the North Sea

    “This is a hugely exciting piece of research which sets out compelling factual evidence of the huge potential of the UK’s offshore renewable energy resource,” said Peter Madigan, head of Offshore Renewables at RenewableUK.

    “As an association we have long been saying that the North Sea will become the Saudi Arabia of wind energy, and today’s tonne of oil and employment comparisons amply bear this out. Just as 30 years  ago, the North Sea could be our ticket for economic growth. We are looking forward to the new Government putting in place the policy framework to make this happen”

    The report, published by The Offshore Valuation Group, a coalition of government and industry organizations, concluded that using less than one third of the “available offshore wind” could generate electricity equivalent to that of 1 billion barrels of oil — the amount produced annually by North Sea oil and gas production. It defined the wind available as that which could be practically developed using known technologies.

    Job growth also would soar with the robust development of offshore wind, the report found. Using one-third of the wind capability of the North Sea would produce an estimated 145,000 new jobs in the UK.

    Developing about one-third of the amount of “practical” wind power also would enable Britain to export wind by 2050. This would be possible if the EU developed an interconnected super grid and Britain pursued wind aggressively until it had an installed capacity of 169 GigaWatts of wind power.

    “The infrastructure deployment required is similar in scale to that of oil and gas in recent decades. The major expansion of the supply chain this needs will not happen on its own, however, but will take strong and continuing support from government and industry in the coming years,” according to the report, developed by the Boston Consulting Group.

    This degree of wind development also would save 1.1 billion tons of carbon emissions, reducing emissions by 30 percent relative to 1990 levels.

    The Boston Consulting Group developed the analysis in collaboration with the Public Interest Research Centre.

  • The BP oil disaster is a health disaster, too

    How do we protect public health in the aftermath of major disasters?  CAP’s Lesley Russell and Ellen-Marie Whelan have the answer.

    The tragic BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has taken 11 lives. The immediate economic and environmental damages are still unfolding as the 7,500 square mile oil slick oozes toward the Atlantic Ocean. But Louisiana’s vibrant fishing and seafood industries have been shut down in anticipation of oil contamination.

    The oil gusher also poses a less visible, but just as dangerous, threat to public health from the oil, its fumes, and the dispersants—the chemicals used to clean up the oil. All can be highly toxic and harm the health of those exposed to them, especially volunteers and workers engaged in cleanup operations and those with respiratory ailments, the elderly, and young children living on the Gulf Coast.

    There is no clear public health infrastructure to monitor and address these potential human health hazards or any others that may arise in the future. So we need to learn from the health disasters of the past, such as those that occurred from the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and the World Trade Center attack of 2001, and not wait for this to become a public health emergency before responding.

    The human health problems evolving from the BP oil disaster are insidious and unknown. The first and most obvious are the health effects from the oil itself. This is mostly a risk for those in the immediate Gulf region and the cleanup workers. More concerning is the ill effects that may come from the way that BP cleans up these oil disasters using dispersants. These are chemicals sprayed directly on the oil slick to break it up into much smaller particles. This does not remove the oil, but the dispersal makes it less visible and prevents it from washing up on the shoreline by breaking the oil into droplets that then often sink to the ocean floor.

    First, consider the effects of the oil itself. We know that Exxon Valdez cleanup workers faced average oil mist exposure that was 12 times higher than government-approved limits, and those who washed the beach with hot water experienced a maximum exposure 400 times higher than these limits. Many of those workers suffered subsequent health problems and in 1989, 1,811 workers filed compensation claims, primarily for respiratory system damage, according to National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. The cleanup efforts in Louisiana’s coastal marshes may look very different, but cleaners can also face heavy exposure to oil mist. In fact, some are reporting that EPA studies now show that airborne levels of dangerous chemical compounds from the oil far exceed pre-determined safety standards.

    But what may be an even larger problem are the unknown, long-term health effects of the dispersants. BP has reportedly bought up more than a third of the world’s supply of these dispersants. The issue is that we do not actually know what chemicals are in many of these dispersants, or what their long-term effects will be since their exact makeup is kept secret under competitive trade laws.

    There are some things we learned after the dispersants were used following the Exxon Valdez spill. Studies performed on organisms exposed to these chemicals after the cleanup found that the dispersants accumulate in living organisms at very high concentrations and harmed the developing hearts of both Pacific herring and pink salmon embryos. The salmon appear to have recovered in the years after the Exxon Valdez disaster, but the herring were not as fortunate. The herring population has never rebounded, even 20 years after the spill, due to a combination of issues including disease and poor nutrition from decreased plankton production. How sure can we be that these chemicals will not also affect humans? And what happens when oysters in the gulf harvested for consumption are exposed to the dispersants and eventually consumed?

    BP has taken an unprecedented step of testing these chemicals underwater at the source of the oil in a desperate attempt to stem the flood of oil coming from the ocean floor. This has never been done before, and the EPA has authorized BP to test and monitor this approach. But are we letting the fox guard the hen house by letting the oil companies determine the safety of these cleaning agents?

    Although the exact chemical content of the dispersants is not public, the National Academies of Science 2005 report on these dispersants included several sobering cautions, including how the chemicals are tested in the first place. Most lab studies use the fluorescent lighting usually found in the labs when they test toxicity and chemical breakdown, but research conducted under conditions more equivalent to natural sunlight indicate that toxicity increases significantly after sun exposure—by 12 to 50,000 times as much. Worse still, The New York Times reports that BP chose to use dispersants manufactured by a company with which it shares close ties, “even though other U.S. EPA-approved alternatives have been shown to be far less toxic and, in some cases, nearly twice as effective.”

    As the President’s Cancer Panel recently noted, exposure to chemicals in the air, food, and water pose a serious risk to Americans’ health. The panel notes that dangerous chemicals in the environment are a much larger threat to the nation’s health than was previously identified, and calls for a new national strategy to focus on these threats. The panel found that federal chemical laws are weak, funding for research and enforcement is inadequate, and regulatory responsibilities are split among too many agencies. The panel called for a new national strategy to focus on these threats.

    President Obama will likely soon appoint an independent commission to investigate the BP oil disaster soon. Part of its responsibility should include assessing the on and offshore health risks posed by the oil gusher and efforts to stop it. This should include finding out what is in those dispersants and whether there were cleaner, safer alternatives. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has begun the process of overhauling the Toxic Substances and Control Act, an important step in protecting public health by setting government standards for safe chemical exposure in workplaces and the environment based on the most up-to-date science. This will require appropriate enforcement authorities and resources. But this important regulatory reform will come too late for those involved in the gulf oil cleanup and those who live nearby.

    It is not too early to implement an ongoing monitoring program aimed at ensuring the utmost minimization of negative health effects. This will require intensive, long-term testing and monitoring of people, food, water, and air; timely analysis of the data; and transparent communications with the people most exposed and most likely to be harmed. It will also require the coordinated, best efforts of a raft of federal and state agencies working together with businesses and local groups. Strong leadership from the very top of government and an ongoing commitment of needed revenue are essential. An integral part of this monitoring program must be a mechanism for people who may have been affected to report their health problems and have them addressed.

    Many agencies are ramping up monitoring particular effects of this disaster—including the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—but none are ultimately responsible for the overall coordination of what could be a public health emergency. We saw in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack that haphazard responses were not enough to adequately address health problems for the first responders and workers. No one could predict at the time of the building collapse what effect the dust would have on those at the scene. What followed were numerous hearings, studies, and pieces of legislation to mount the proper federal response, including a number of new programs at CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. And many still wonder if we’ve done enough.

    We were also worried about what health effect the flood waters would have after Hurricane Katrina, yet the federal government left this monitoring up to the local governments. Despite the lessons from these very real public health emergencies, we are now facing what some are calling the worst-ever ecological disaster without an appropriate public health response in place.

    The good news is that there has recently been a major increase in federal investment in public health infrastructure and workforce. The public is reassessing the importance of the public health system after the disasters of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and the threatened pandemics of Avian Flu, SARS, and H1N1.

    The recently enacted health care reform legislation provides additional tools to begin to ramp up the nation’s public health infrastructure. It establishes a National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council to help coordinate activities across agencies and numerous provisions to strengthen the public health workforce. These include a public health services educational track to train health care professionals that will emphasize public health, epidemiology, and emergency preparedness; a public health workforce loan repayment program; and a Ready Reserve Corps within the Public Health Commissioned Corps for service in times of national emergency. These are the people with the expertise and the mission to protect the public’s health.

    But there is much more that needs to be done to protect public health at times of natural and man-made disasters. The principal aim at this time must be for the federal government to act quickly and put monitoring and response systems in place in the threatened Gulf communities. These can be models of a system that could routinely be implemented at such times, regardless of where in the United States it occurs. We can hope that these systems are not needed and that the cleanup work can be done quickly and safely with no adverse after effects. But as we learn more about this disaster, this does not seem to be the case, and action now must occur to ensure that there is no public health version of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

  • Movies don’t interrupt you. So, don’t interrupt them, says Sprint.

    Sprint is trying to do the right thing by telling people not to talk or text during movies, but the full effect of this 3-D cinema ad is lost in 2-D, since its focal points are the gimmicky 3-D immersion sequences. Still, we’ll assume it looks awesome on the big screen! It’s nice to see Sprint getting involved in the vital cell-phone-etiquette education process, as makes them look like a responsible company instead of a irresponsible, avaricious one. Which is handy, because Sprint could use a karmic balance reset after selling out its customers to the government last year.

    —Posted by David Kiefaber

  • Burgerville To Print Custom Calorie Info On Receipts

    If you’d like to stare, horrified at the fact that you have just ordered a lunch of 1,213 calories, Burgerville is your new favorite burger joint.

    The chain, located in Washington and Oregon, has set up the registers to print a customized calorie count of your order on our receipt– and will even suggest ways you could have ordered fewer calories. (For example: “If you are trying to eat healthier, try ‘holding the chipotle mayo’ on your sandwich and save 180 calories and 18g of fat.”)

    From their press release:

    “We want our guests to know exactly what they are getting when they order from us,” said Jeff Harvey, Burgerville president and CEO. “That way guests can take control of their food choices and make sure that they feel satisfied and empowered when they eat at Burgerville. The Nutricate program offers a very clear view into how each meal fits into our overall eating habits.”

    The WSJ notes that according to the chain’s menu, their hypothetical order: a pepper bacon cheeseburger (including the mayo), regular fries and regular Coke set them back 1,213 calories. Yum.

    Here’s Your Burger and Your Change, and By the Way, That’s 1,213 Calories [WSJ Health Blog]

  • Senate committee sets Kagan confirmation hearings for June 28

    Photo source or description

    [JURIST] Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official websites] announced in a committee hearing Wednesday that confirmation hearings for US Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan [official profile; JURIST news archive] will begin June 28 [press release]. Leahy’s confirmation schedule mirrors the timelines followed for recent nominations, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The schedule should allow the confirmation hearings to be completed before the senators go on a week-long break in early July. Leahy said:

    There is no reason to unduly delay consideration of this nomination. Justice Stevens announced on April 9 that he would be leaving the Court. He noted that “it would be in the best interests of the Court to have [his] successor appointed and confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the Court’s next Term,”; and I wholeheartedly agree with Justice Stevens. That is in the best interests of the Court, and the country.

    The Committee’s ranking Republican Jeff Sessions (R-AL) [official website] responded [press release] to Leahy’s announcement requesting that the hearings start after the July 4 recess in order for the senators in order to properly review Kagan’s questionnaire and accompanying documentation. “At this time, it remains to be seen whether the schedule set by the Chairman will be adequate to allow us to meet our important constitutional responsibility to thoroughly review Ms. Kagan’s record on behalf of the American people.” Leahy’s proposed timetable will put Senate on track to meet the president’s goal of confirming Kagan by the time the court begins its new session in the fall.

    On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee released [JURIST report] a bipartisan questionnaire [text, PDF] submitted by Kagan regarding her prior experience, financial status, potential conflicts of interest, and various other details of her past. The majority of the questionnaire is made up of various cases handled during her tenure with the solicitor general’s office, which is responsible not only for litigation before the Supreme Court, but also for deciding which district court rulings will be challenged in the appeals courts. Kagan submitted the questionnaire on Tuesday along with thousands of pages of documentation supporting her responses [materials]. She will return to Washington, DC on Wednesday for individual meetings with senators who will vote on her nomination after the hearings are completed.

  • Porsche website reveals U.S. pricing for 2011 Cayenne, MSRP starts at $46,700

    Filed under: , , , , ,

    2011 Porsche Cayenne Hybrid – Click above for high-res image gallery

    Porsche North America has revealed American pricing for the all-new 2011 Cayenne on its consumer website, including the company’s first hybrid model. When the Cayenne goes on sale in the coming months, the base 3.6-liter gasoline V6 model will apparently start at $46,700, with the normally aspirated 4.8-liter V8 S taking the tab up to $63,700.

    The new hybrid model, which combines the 333 horsepower supercharged 3.0-liter V6 with an electric motor and battery will cost customers a minimum of $67,700. While that is $21,000 more than the base model, it is massively less than the $99,000 price tag for a similar Volkswagen Touareg hybrid in Germany. The Deutsche prices, of course, include a hefty Value Added Tax. The better comparison here would be the between the V8 powered S and the hybrid, which is also at the S trim level. There the price premium is only $4,000, which seems much more reasonable.

    The EPA has not yet published fuel economy numbers for the new Cayenne, but in Germany, the S is rated at 22.4 mpg (U.S.) while the hybrid is rated at 28.7 mpg. The Europe-only Cayenne diesel is rated at an even more impressive 31.8 mpg.

    Finally, while base pricing is live on Porsche’s website for the 2011 model, the configurator is still that of the outgoing 2010 edition. Thus, if you’d like to see how much it’s going to run you to outfit your dream Cayenne, you’re going to have to wait a while – or at least call your local dealer. Thanks for the tip, Matt!

    [Source: Porsche]

    Porsche website reveals U.S. pricing for 2011 Cayenne, MSRP starts at $46,700 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 19 May 2010 11:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Springpad Is a Free Android Scrapbook (For Everything) [Android Apps]

    Springpad, the note-taking, idea-remembering, picture-snapping, list-keeping, location-remembering, bookmark-storing, task-keeping iPhone app has spawned an Android twin. My favorite thing about it? Every scrap of info-junk you collect is saved to Springpad’s servers, accessible through their website. [Android Market, Springpad] More »







  • Miranda Kerr Topless & Sizzling In GQ June 2010

    Aussie stunner Miranda Kerr — who is penning a book on self-esteem in young women — strikes a sizzling pose on the June issue of GQ Magazine.

    And if you think that’s sexy, wait until you see the video!


    The dimple-cheeked cutie kindly suggests GQ send an autographed copy of her latest feature in the mag to the Australian guy who was busted on live TV oogling steamy photos of her on the pages of the tomb a few months back. Earlier this year, a young banker became an Internet phenomenon after he was caught looking at racy snaps of the Victoria’s Secret model at work. In fact, the poor sap was nearly fired until the outcry of online supporters convinced his bosses to let the incident slide.

    Miranda was among those sympathetic to the cause.

    “It was a huge deal,” Kerr told GQ over tea in New York City. “I wasn’t offended. I just felt sorry for the poor guy.”


  • America’s 11 most endangered historic places for 2010

    California's Big Basin (Photo: California State Parks Foundation)

    From Green Right Now Reports

    The National Trust for Historic Preservation today unveiled the 2010 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, an annual list that highlights important examples of the nation’s architectural, cultural and natural heritage that are at risk of destruction or irreparable damage. The list includes Virginia’s Wilderness Battlefield, site of one of the most important engagements of the Civil War and the first meeting of legendary generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, now battling a big box retailer.

    National Trust president Richard Moe announced the 2010 list at another of the most endangered places — Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, which is the national cathedral of African Methodism and a landmark of African-American heritage and civil rights advocacy.

    The 2010 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places (in alphabetical order):

    California's Montana de Oro State Park (Photo: Steve Sieren | National Trust for Historic Preservation)

    America’s State Parks and State-Owned Historic Sites — This year, nearly 30 states have experienced cuts to parks’ and sites’ budgets, and a recent survey estimates as many as 400 state parks could close. These state park systems include places of national significance — from Native American historic sites to Revolutionary War forts to Civil War battlefields to country estates — and welcome an estimated 725 million visits every year.

  • Facebook Privacy ? Who Cares?

    if you are in the media enough, you recognize that the media lives for the next headline. Facebook Privacy ? What a great headline.  We all care about privacy, right ?

    Wrong.  Privacy is a boogie man for the media to play with. Unless you are in the internet business in some manner, where discussing privacy issues with other internet people makes everyone feel like they are part of the “smart people”. Facebook privacy is a media issue (which in turn of course makes it a politicians wet dream), nothing more.

    If you join Facebook, by definition you want to give up some of your privacy. You want to share pictures, updates and statuses with friends. You want friends you haven’t seen in a long time to find you.   Items and information that would never see the light of day pre social networks, are now regularly uploaded from our phones. No DRM on those pictures. No requests for DRM on those pictures. No copyright on our status updates. No requests for copyrights on our status updates. Facebook is a social network.  The operative word being social.

    Let me put this another way. In every FB profile there is a question called “Interested In”.  You know you answered the question in your profile.  When you tell 500mm people that you are interested in finding  something, friends, business, whatever,  did you really think that only applied to your immediate circle of friends ?  And what about the interests you shared ? Why would you need to share that information to your immediate friends ? They should already know that stuff shouldn’t they ?  When you published your political or music views and interests, you didn’t do that for the benefit of your immediate friends did you ?  Of course not. You did it to expand your circle of friends. If you want to expand your social circle, you need to share information  to people you don’t know.  You can’t share information with strangers in hopes of possibly adding them to your social network and then bitch about the lack of privacy.

    The privacy advocates among us would tell us that sharing with friends and even potential friends  is one thing, making it available to everyone  is another.  Well guess what, while FB doesn’t have the equivalent of a Retweet function, it doesn’t have a Muzzle function either.  Facebook can’t control downstream discussions today any better than you could when you told stories to your buddies at the bar the other night.  Whether you like it or not, posting on FB is a publishing function. You are publishing to your “friends” and whether you like it or not, they have every right, opportunity and possibly inclination to share what you say, do and show.

    Facebook privacy is very simple at its core. You joined because you wanted to give up some of your privacy in exchange for the benefits that FB offers.  If you think its a problem, de-activate your account.  If you think its a problem, but really want to be on FB, RTFM (Read the Frickin Manual).  The functionality is there. Since when did it become law that software can’t have some level of depth in order to provide the breadth of features and services that all levels of users require ?

    The complaints about FB privacy are pretty much a joke.  It’s a social network, not your voting record.

  • HTML5 Going To Be On Most Modern Browsers By End of 2010 [HTML5]

    From the Google I/O keynote: HTML5 support will be more or less complete on all “modern” browsers, says Google. That slight dig by Google is intended, I’m sure. More »







  • How Steve Jobs Blew $10 Billion

    So, you bought a house right before the property bubble burst? Got out of gold a year ago? Invested in Pets.com back in the 90s? Well, guess what? No matter how many dumb investment decisions you’ve made, they likely pale next to a little mistake Steve Jobs made a few years ago, which cost him about $10 billion. Ain’t schadenfreude grand?

    Back in 2003, according to Marketwatch, Jobs traded in some “overpriced” Apple options for a smaller number of shares, in a sort of “bird in the hand” deal that left him with more money, assuming that Apple’s stock price never shot through the roof again.

    Stock options they had been granted during the boom now seemed completely worthless. After all, Apple stock would have to climb all the way back up to those giddy heights before the options even started to show a profit again.

    As for Jobs: He volunteered to cancel all his options in return for a far smaller number of shares, worth about $75 million at the time. The trade made sense — unless Apple boomed again.

    Ahem.

    The shares Jobs received are worth $2.5 billion at today’s stratospheric prices.

    But what would those options have been worth?

    Digging through the old proxies reveals a remarkable tale.

    Jobs held 15 million options at an exercise price of $9.15, which meant they started to gain value only if Apple stock exceeded that price, and 40 million options at an exercise price of $21.80. Apple at the time was little more than $7 a share. (These prices have been adjusted to reflect the subsequent stock split.)

    Total value: $12.8 billion.

    In other words, Steve Jobs missed out on $10.3 billion in extra profits.

    To be fair to Steve, nobody could have known how high Apple’s stock would go in subsequent years — even the man largely responsible for driving it to such lofty heights. However, this wasn’t the first time the Apple co-founder lost big by betting against his own company. Back in the 80s, when he was booted out of Apple by then-CEO John Sculley, Jobs sold off all of his Apple stock — 6.5 million shares — for about $70 million. You don’t even want to know how much they’d be worth now.

    Apple’s Jobs blunders on options swap Brett Arends’ ROI [MarketWatch]
    Apple History [Markus Ehrenfried]