Blog

Talk about bad timing: Scandal-snipped star Sandra Bullock has agreed to return her Golden Raspberry award after accidentally collecting the original “priceless” trophy instead of a cheap replica intended for her during last month’s ceremony.

The 45-year-old Oscar winner was awarded the Worst Actress Razzie for her role in the 2009 comedic stinker All About Steve, but last week Razzie co-founder John Wilson issued a statement claiming Sandra was handed the original trophy, which is worth thousands of dollars.

After some investigative work by her reps, The Blind Side actress has agreed to the Razzie trophy to its rightful owners.

“We were never contacted by them to return the Razzie. I contacted them yesterday to check the validity of the story and was only told then that we had been given the wrong award. We will be returning the Razzie to them shortly,” her publicist Cheryl Maisel tells E! News.

Todos somos conscientes de los numerosos rumores que circulan por la red sobre el posible abandono de Bridgestone de la Fórmula 1. Tras esto, la FIA estaría barajando diferentes posibilidades entre las que Pirelli podría encabezar el primer lugar.

Marco Tronchetti Provera, presidente de la marca de neumáticos, ha mostrado su interés en diversas ocasiones por entrar en la máxima categoría del motor. De esta manera Pirelli se sumaría a otras marcas como Michelín o Cooper-Avon que ya mostraron en su día un interes por estar en la F1.

Por el momento no hay nada claro aunque la FOTA ya ha afirmado que de tener que elegir prefieren a Michelín mientras que Bernie Ecclestone se decanta por Cooper-Avon.

Related posts:

1. Michelin podría volver a la Fórmula 1
2. Ralf Schumacher podría volver a la Fórmula 1
3. Flavio Briatore podría volver (si quiere) a la Fórmula 1

Food prices are volatile, but this move can’t be ignored given its historical significance:

Econompic:

Excluding often-volatile food and energy prices, the core PPI increased 0.1% in March and is up 0.9% compared with a year earlier. The big story in the March PPI was wholesale food prices, which rose 2.4%, matching the biggest gain in 26 years. Prices of fresh and dried vegetables soared 49.3%, the most in 16 years.

The PPI breakdown courtesy of Econompic below.

Join the conversation about this story »

Though it’s an important aspect of the Primal Blueprint, the concept of play doesn’t get enough attention around here. I guess by virtue of its very nature this is to be expected. Play should be spontaneous and freeing, and the regimentation of our leisure time is what we’re trying to avoid! Still, given the time-sucking realities of adult responsibility, maybe we all need a few suggestions for new ways to play. I’m not talking about making play dates or anything, but a few concrete examples could really help. You know, something that’s free, that you can share with friends and family, and that’s fun. How about dancing?

Dancing? Bear with me, here.

Until now, almost everything I’ve suggested in the past as Primal play activities has had an overt physical fitness slant. Pickup basketball, Ultimate Frisbee, hikes, walks with the spouse, random play with dogs/kids/wilderness – these are all great, enjoyable activities, but it’s difficult for some people to separate them from the concept of exercise. Most people see a guy on a hike and think “workout.”

Dancing is different. It can be an awesome workout, sure, but people generally don’t hit up the gym, grab that hairy guy off the elliptical, head to the full length mirror, and bust out the Kid ‘n’ Play routine from “House Party.” I kind of wish that super hairy, extremely gregarious dude at my gym who can’t seem to ever find his pants in the locker room would, just for the comedy of it all. Maybe he’s even got a mean running man in him. I wouldn’t know.

Anyway: dancing is definitely different. It takes skill and athleticism, if you’re talking about advanced techniques or styles, but anyone can dance. Not everyone can be a professional or street performer, but anyone can enjoy dancing, and that’s the whole point of it, in the end. If you’re able to give yourself to it fully (“dance like nobody’s watching”), dancing can actually be extremely rewarding.

Dancing does no harm. Dancing is fun, it’s sexual, and, like singing and music, it is universal. Dance itself can be described as an exposition of human movement patterns; dancers explore the full range of human movements through three-dimensional space, by leaping, contorting, falling, twisting, rotating, spinning. Dance can be rigid and regimented, and it can also be free and fluid. Why not take a dip?

Well, for some people, dancing is a frightening prospect. It may not be quite so dire a situation as that small town in “Footloose,” where dancing was actually banned, but people are definitely somewhat restrained when it comes to dancing. It takes guts to let yourself go, I mean really go, and do so with a smile on your face. Dancing renders the dancer completely vulnerable, to outside criticism and prying eyes, but mostly to his or her own thoughts about what’s expected of a normal adult. Unless the alcohol is flowing, the lights are dimmed, and someone’s daughter is getting married, we’re not supposed to be dancing like wild men and women. We’re supposed to be composed, to – at the most – maintain a polite, inoffensive sway, preferably on beat, or at least adjacent to it. We’re rational, higher animals! We are above the frenzy of the ecstatic or the emotive… aren’t we?

Absolutely not. If we were, life would be incredibly boring and reptilian. Dancing itself is Primal – there’s certainly strong precedent for its inclusion in the human experience. Look at basically every traditional culture and you’ll find dance, along with music. In fact, the two are never really separated. You dance to music, after all. And since music is present in every culture, it’s a safe bet that Homo sapiens were banging on drums or singing chants since at least 50,000 years ago, which is roughly when the widespread dispersal of man out of Africa occurred. Some archaeologists even suggest dance has been around for over a 1.5 million years, perhaps manifesting as a literal “mating dance” between potential partners looking for the right mate. Anyone who’s ever been to a nightclub has seen this phenomenon in action – nothing really changes, huh? Regardless, a musical tradition had been established which spread as man spanned the world, and dance with it.

Even if dancing was useless and purely frivolous – that is, it conferred no concrete physiological benefits – it would still be worth doing, because frivolity is part of what makes us human. We do things for the hell of it. We’ll sing nonsensical songs, make strange noises when we’re alone, twiddle our thumbs, play with our hair, think of distant jokes and laugh all over again. Do we need a reason? No. We just do it to amuse ourselves and occupy our minds.

Dancing should serve the same purpose in our lives. Like other forms of play, it can reduce stress, get us moving, help us spend quality time with loved ones and friends, and improve our coordination, mobility, and flexibility. If you’re learning a particularly complex set of steps or moves, dancing requires concentration and memorization. If you’re dancing with a partner, your brain has to anticipate the other’s movements and respond accordingly. This all works out to exercise for your brain and your body. In potential dementia patients, dancing even reduced the incidence of dementia, better than other leisure activities.  And hey, if you’re good enough, dancing can make you pretty damn attractive – talk about the conferment of an evolutionary advantage.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you necessarily incorporate bi-weekly dance sessions, but they can’t hurt. Just think of dance as a potential tool in your bag of tricks. Take your wife or husband to salsa lessons. Turn off the TV and blast some music one night, and just let loose. Gather some friends and do the bonfire/drum circle thing at the beach or in the woods somewhere. Pass around a bottle of wine, if you have to, and dance. It might even be enough to just bob your head when a favorite song comes on, or dance with your upperbody while at a stoplight. You may look silly, but who cares? You’ve got to get over that stuff, especially when it stands in the way of you truly enjoying life and all it has to offer. Recall the last person you saw rocking out behind the wheel; did you laugh at and pity him, or were you slightly envious of his obvious joy? Exactly.

Dance is many things, simple being foremost among all other characteristics. It doesn’t have to be deep or overly technical. Just dance for fun. It should come naturally, ideally. This last bit of advice might be the toughest to follow, but it’s also the most crucial.

What do you think about dance? Does it have a playful place in the Primal lifestyle? Do you let go every now and again? Share your thoughts in the comment board and Grok on!

Get Free Health Tips, Recipes and Workouts Delivered to Your Inbox

Related posts:

1. The Definitive Guide to Play
2. 10 Primal Exercises for Elder Apples

by Jeff Goodell

EyjafjallajokullPhoto courtesy Ludie Cochrane via FlickrIn America, we don’t care much about science. We care about sex and violence and
money. That makes it hard to sustain a
conversation about geoengineering, given that there is very little sex or money
involved, and the only violence is likely to be brought on by future climate
catastrophes.

A good volcano, however, does
remind people that there are larger forces in the world than Oprah Winfrey.

First, let me say that
Eyjafjallajokull, the mountain which erupted in Iceland last week, is a pretty
whimpy volcano. No rolling rivers of
lava, very little sulfur dioxide injected into the stratosphere. The volcano was only notable, in fact,
because the wind currents took the ash right over some of the busiest airports
in the world, shutting down air traffic and marooning travelers in airport bars
around the world.

Mt. Pinatubo, which erupted in the Phillipines in
1991—now that was a volcano. Pinatubo injected 20 million tons of sulfur
(in the form of sulfur dioxide) into the upper atmosphere and had a global
impact climate (the sulfur particles act as tiny mirrors, reflecting sunlight
away from the planet.) In the year after
the eruption, the temperature of the earth dropped by a degree or so. Scientists had previously considered the idea
of injecting particles into the stratosphere to cool the planet—in a sense, Mt. Pinatubo
was the mother of all field tests for this idea. And it worked reasonably well.

Eyjafjallajokull is unlikely to have any such global
impact. But perhaps because it exploded
in the week leading up to Earth Day, it has inspired a lot of talk about the
power and glory of Mother Nature. Who
can look at fiery images of hell and brimstone erupting out of a mountain and
not be impressed by Her Awesomeness? 

The volcano also reminded us of the
fragile technological web that weaves together modern life. I mean, this little smoker in Iceland nearly
stalled the economy of the E.U. Who knew
that a few pounds of ash could bring down an airliner—one of the crowning
glories of western technology? A few
months of continued eruptions, and you could imagine the U.K. turning into a
scene right out of the Cormac McCarthy’s The
Road.

But for me, Eyjafjallajokull was metaphor for something else entirely:
bad engineering. When I looked at
images of all that billowing ash, I saw lots of energy being released for no
“purpose” whatsoever. I saw gases and
particles dumped into the atmosphere at too low an altitude to have any effect
on cooling the planet—or even to be useful in the study of how particles can
cool the planet. I saw a volcano
erupting at an inconvenient place (too close to airline routes), and with not
enough power to accomplish much useful or interesting beyond reminding us of
the awe and wonder of nature. Well, what
about nature with a purpose? What about good design?

Ok, so that’s still a long way from
sex, violence, and money. But perhaps
this is one of the unintended consequences of thinking too long and too hard
about geoengineering—you start to see the whole planet as a big construction
project that can be tweaked and optimized and improved. You start seeing sublime events like the
eruption of a volcano and you think: Can’t
we humans build a better volcano than that?

——-

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of posts from Jeff Goodell, author of How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth’s Climate. Here’s his first, second, and third posts. And here’s an interview with Goodell about his book, and an earlier interview about Big Coal.

Related Links:

Ash and floods threaten Icelanders

Who gets rich in a geoengineered world?

What does coal mining have to do with geoengineering?

Waiting for details about the plan to take NYTimes.com metered in early 2011? Keep waiting. CEO Janet Robinson told analysts on the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Q1 call that the company has made progress, including decisions on what content will be metered and how search queries will be handled, but didn’t say how. But she did confirm that the NYT, which so far has given away nearly 4 million downloads of its ad-supported iPhone news app, will add a paid iPad app to the free limited Editors Choice app currently covered by an exclusive deal with Chase Sapphire.

Robinson spent significant time highlighting the success of the NYT’s multi-platform mobile strategy: 78 million pageviews in March, the iPhone downloads, the upcoming paid iPad app, getting on the Sony (NYSE: SNE) Reader and the Nook. Again, though, no real sense of what it means in terms of money. As intriguing as the numbers are to us and as important as they might be one day, for now they’re a blip. More to come

Related

• Updated: Online Ad Revs Up 18.3 Percent At NYTCo But Don’t Cheer Yet

Last week, Ford announced details on its new “intelligent four-wheel-drive (4WD) control system,” that will debut on the 2011 Ford Explorer. Known as the Terrain Management System, the feature allows drivers to pick from various conditions including: Snow, Sand, Mud, Hill Descent and Normal.

Well, Land Rover is reminding Ford (and all of us) where the actual system was originally invented.

“Naturally we’re flattered that our friends at Ford are planning to mimic Land Rover’s award-winning Terrain Response system for their upcoming 2011 Ford Explorer,” Andrew Polsinelli, General Manager of Product Planning, Land Rover North America, wrote at the company’s blog.

Polsinelli also takes a little shot at the system saying that “while appearing to be similar in concept… it won’t have the six years of sophistication and refinements of Land Rover’s Terrain Response system.” He ended his piece by saying “We wish our friends the best of luck with their new vehicle.”

Click here for our original post on the 2011 Ford Explorer Terrain Management System.

2011 Ford Explorer Terrain Management System:

–  By: Omar Rana

Source: Land Rover (via AutoBlog)

It seems obvious that thinking about something will help you to remember it better, but it might be more surprising to know that this process works even more efficiently when we’re asleep. Erin Wamsley from Harvard Medical School has shown that people who are trained to navigate a virtual maze learn the best route through it more quickly if they dream about their experiences.

The last decade of research has clearly shown that sleep is one of the best aide memoires that we have. During this nightly time-out, our brain can rehearse information that it has picked up during the day and consolidate them into lasting memories. Wamsley’s new study supports that idea but it also shows that dreaming while you nap can strengthen our memories even further.

She asked 99 volunteers to learn the layout of a complex virtual maze so that they could reach a specific landmark after being dropped at a random starting point. Five hours later, they were tested again. Those who had stayed awake in the intervening time beat their previous times by 26 seconds, but those who had had a 90-minute nap improved by a whopping 188 seconds.

But those who dreamt about the task fared even better. Wamsley either asked her recruits directly about whether they dreamt about the labyrinth, or asked them to give an open-ended report of everything that was going through their mind while they were asleep. Either way, those who had thought about the maze during their short nap improved far more than those who didn’t. They also beat those who mentally replayed their training again while awake. These striking results suggest that there’s something special about the mental rehearsals that happen during dreaming sleep.

However, the dreams weren’t straightforward replays of previous experiences. When the volunteers described their dreams, they didn’t mention specific objects, locations or routes through the maze. Instead, some talked about isolated parts of their experience, like the music or the prospect of a re-test. Others discussed tangential memories, like other mazes or being stuck in a bat cave (heh). Interestingly, scientists have found the same thing in rodents. A sleeping rat will show similar brain activity to its prior bout of wakefulness, but the two patterns won’t quite match up.

It’s a very exciting set of results. We know that forcefully repeating pieces of information can make them stick in our minds. But this study shows that we can do even better through a passive unintentional process where the material to be learned is only tangentially referenced!

Wamsley doesn’t think that dreams themselves improve our memory – they’re a side effect of processes that do this. While our bodies lie still, our brain is busily working away processing the day’s memories. The brain doesn’t simply replay those memories, as the volunteers’ descriptions show. Instead, Wamsley thinks that it works the old into the new, slowly integrating parts of our recent experiences into our more established memory networks. Dreams, then, are like the tip of a mental iceberg – the visible sign of a tremendous body of work going on behind-the-scenes.

Certainly, people who dreamt about the maze at all included those who found the training most difficult. It seems that their initial difficulties meant that their brains were more likely to continue processing the information they learned after they nodded off. Based on this idea, it’s tempting to suggest that the best time to study intensely is just before you go to sleep, or that a quick nap after an afternoon swotting session is a good idea.

Reference: Current Biology http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2010.03.027

More on sleep:

• Memories can be strengthened while we sleep by providing the right triggers
• Sleeping on it – how REM sleep boosts creative problem-solving
• The point of sleep, or, Do fruit flies dream of six-legged sheep?
• Even without practice, sleep improves memory of movements
• Portable brain activity-recorder shows that sloths aren’t all that sleepy

London newspaper the Evening Standard reported a very interesting rumor following Apple’s quarterly financial report Tuesday. According to the British paper, Apple is in talks with ARM Holdings, the UK company that designs the chip used in the iPhone, along with a huge percentage of the chips found in mobile devices in general.

The sources cited by the Evening Standard are well-informed “gossips,” but there’s evidence to suggest that this rumor may have more too it than just idle speculation, since the stock price of ARM rose significantly on the news as five-thousand shares of the company were traded, making it the biggest gainer on the day.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the company, ARM isn’t actually a chip maker itself, but instead it licenses its designs to hardware manufacturers like Apple, who will then build the tech into their own products. A prime example is the A4 chip that powers the iPad, which Apple developed in-house. The A4 is based on an ARM design. It isn’t the only one, either. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, a popular Android processor, also uses an ARM-based design. In fact, 75 percent of global devices that use 32-bit processors use ARM tech.

The Advantages of Acquisition

Apple’s bid is said to be around the $8 billion range, which sounds crazy, until you consider that Apple apparently has cash reserves of $41.7 billion on hand to fund ventures and acquisitions exactly like this one. Once acquired, ARM would allow Apple certain privileges. First of all, it wouldn’t have to license its own tech in order to develop new chips, so you can bet more projects like the A4 would go ahead, especially for Apple’s growing stable of mobile devices.

Of course, that’s not the only advantage. ARM would still likely continue to be the place most mobile device makers go to get their chip design licenses, so Apple would then gain all the revenue from that branch of the business, too. And not only would they get that revenue, but they would also be in the power position of owning the technology most of its competitors license whenever they create a new device.

Antitrust and other industry regulations would obviously prevent them from doing anything as brash as blocking competitors like those using Google’s Android OS from being granted licenses, but that’s not the only way Apple could use its new found authority. Since other hardware makers would have to apply for a license before beginning their chip development, Apple would be privy to information about its competitors’ product release plans well in advance of usual, and Cupertino would be paid for the privilege.

An Arms Race

If this is an arms race between Google and Apple, an ARM acquisition would definitely put Apple ahead in the chip department. Google only recently nabbed AdMob out from under Apple’s own bid for the company, forcing the Mac maker to look elsewhere to help back its iAds plan.

It’s only just come out that Google has since answered Apple’s acquisition of chip maker P.A. Semi with the purchase of AgniLux, a startup chip company founded by P.A. Semi employees who left that company when Apple originally acquired it. Ars Technica doesn’t think Google acquired the company with any intent of making its own chips, but as a preemptive defense against possibly having to route its chip licensing plans through Apple…it could make sense.

The most likely outcome if an ARM acquisition actually does go through? Nothing but good things for future iPhone, iPod and iPad owners. All iDevices could conceivably receive significant boosts in battery life and processor power with an entire chip design company working ’round the clock to eke more out of ever more energy conserving designs, with direct access to prototype Apple hardware to test them out on. So cross your fingers for this one, even if it does put more power in the hands of Apple than it should rightly have.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: As Devices Converge, Chip Vendors Girding For a Fight

Que Volvo no haya tenido tantos modelos deportivos como otros en su historia, dedicada más que nada a los coches familiares y a las berlinas, no significa que ningún preparador se haya dedicado a ellos. El Volvo C30 en su versión tal como sale de la planta de la compañía, es uno de los coches más bonitos y vistosos que uno puede comprar por su rango de precio y que ahora ha sido modificado por Polestar con el C30 Polestar Prototype Concept, un C30 basado en los exitosos coches de la marca del campeonato sueco de turismos.

Para quienes no lo conocéis, Polestar es el preparador oficial de Volvo con 15 años de trayectoria sobre sus espaldas en esto de meter mano a varios modelos y motores de la marca y parte del equipo oficial de Volvo en la competición. El año pasado ganaron el STCC con un C30, cuyas modificaciones serán ahora ofrecidas al gran público.

El C30 Polestar cuenta con el mismo motor de cinco cilindros, pero llevado a los 400 caballos, casi el doble del original de 222 caballos. La tracción está controlada por diferenciales mecánicos de Quaife, junto con un sistema de tracción total de Haldex, el mismo tren motriz usado en el coche de carreras, según Polestar.

Vía | Piston Heads

Más información | Polestar

Cash-strapped former reality star Jon Gosselin has parted ways with his attorney.

The annoucement comes one day after the lawyer — who had been representing the father of eight in a custody battle with his ex-wife Kate — issued a disparaging public statement about America’s latest Dancing With The Stars castaway.

“Mr. Anthony List Sr. Esq. Is not my representing attorney,” Jon Tweeted early Thursday. “I terminated him on April 15, 2010. “He has no legal right to speak to the press or anyone on my behalf,” Jon’s Tweets continued. “Kate, her attorneys and I are moving forward to work out things privately and amicably,” he later added.

The Gosselins are due in court on the custody matter on May 25.

Filed under: Etc., Recalls

Ever since Toyota issued the largest recall in U.S. history late last year for faulty floor mats and subsequently found itself under the gun for more issues involving sudden unintended acceleration (click here to read all about that mess), it seems the number of recalls issued by automakers has risen sharply. It could be just that we’re paying attention to recalls more now, or it could be that other automakers are taking advantage of the cover offered by Toyota’s troubles to issue their own recalls under the radar.

Either way, recalls have been around since 1966 and some 390 million vehicles have been called back for repairs because of this tool designed to protect consumers from mistakes in manufacturing and design that could be dangerous. Follow the jump for our latest infographic that offers some interesting facts about recalls big and small.

[Source: Auto Insurance for Autoblog.com]

Continue reading 390 million vehicles recalled since 1966… and other fun recall facts

390 million vehicles recalled since 1966… and other fun recall facts originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

German developer Spellbound has revealed Ravensdale, a new fantasy action game in development for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Its the usual fantasy game with orcs and such, only the orcs here are lugging around steam-powered gatling guns.

[JURIST] The Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) war crimes court on Thursday convicted Radomir Vukovic and Zoran Tomic for their alleged roles in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian civil war. The accused were found guilty of genocide under Article 171 paragraph a) of the BiH criminal code and were each sentenced to 31 years imprisonment. As members of the 2nd Sekovici Special Police Detachment, the court found that Vukovic and Tomic participated in capturing Bosniak men from the UN safe area and in securing a road to allow the transfer of Bosniak women, children, and elderly. The court also held that the accused knowingly aided in the event in which 1,000 Bosniak men were imprisoned in a warehouse and then executed by Serb police firing automatic weapons and throwing hand grenades. Vukovic participated by throwing hand grenades and Tomic fired an automatic rifle at the captured men. The court extended custody of the accused for up to nine months or until the court issues a new decision.
In March, the BiH indicted Nedjo Ikonic, a former Serb commander of a special police brigade, for his alleged role in the Srebrenica massacre. The BiH war crimes court was set up in 2005 to relieve the caseload of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and is authorized to try lower-level war crime suspects. The court delivered its first sentences against war crimes suspects from Yugoslavia’s violent ethnic conflicts of the 1990s in July 2008, convicting seven of genocide for their involvement in killings committed at the Srebrenica prison camp. The ICTY retains jurisdiction over high-level war crimes allegations, such as those against Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic.

In part one, we gave you a glimpse into two devices that are expected to be in Dell’s roadmap of mobile devices between 2010 and 2011.  Here you’ll see two more devices that are considered to be part of Dell’s midrange lineup, and geared toward slightly different demographics.  We’ll finish up with part three which will be a look into Dell’s proposed tablet devices, but until then, we give you the Dell Flash and Smoke.  Enjoy.

Flash

This next device, gorgeous as it may be, doesn’t appear to be headed to market until some time in 2011, according to Engadget.  According to the specs, the Flash will come equipped with a 3.5 inch WVGA touchscreen, 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 processor, 5MP auto-focus camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, WiFi, 512MB RAM/ROM, up to 64GB microSD storage (impressive!), and will be sporting Android 2.2 (Froyo).  Engadget is calling this device a midrange phone (based on the processor), and by the looks of it, the Flash will be very close to stepping over the line between midrange and high-end devices.  This device is expected to be released in early 2011 to AT&T and perhaps others, and may be offered as an unlocked device (think Nexus One).

Dell seems to be targeting a similar demographic for the Flash as they are the Thunder.  “Creative Explorers” and “Affluent Professionals” are the kind of people that should migrate toward the Flash.  It’s interesting that they go as far as to say that people who are “looking for a premium, cutting edge brand that’s a status symbol,” will adopt this device.  Perhaps they’re referring to the 54% of women who would rather date men with iPhones?  I’ll let you be the judge of that.

For more information and pictures on the Flash, go here.

Smoke

The Smoke has been likened to a better looking Palm Pixi.  It too will be sporting Froyo along with a 2.8-inch QVGA screen and a full QWERTY keyboard.  The device will have the same processor as the Flash (Qualcomm MSM7230, 800MHz), along with 512MB RAM and 256MB ROM and up to 32GB microSD external storage.  It’s also expected to come equipped with the usual Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS.

The smoke is intended for “Strivers” and “Accomplished Productives,” which seems to mean that while they still need some of the features of the higher-end devices, they are more practical individuals who place value as an important piece of the productivity puzzle.  The smoke differentiates itself from competing phones (Palm Pixi, BlackBerry) and is considered (by Dell, of course) to be a “Trend setting, pocketable portrait QWERTY at a price that won’t break the bank.”

For more information and pictures on the Smoke, go here.

Via Engadget

Several market commentators feel the 40% year-over-year run-up in U.S. equities is a bearish indicator. As a result, they are telling investors to brace for a pullback.

However, stock market research firm Birinyi Associates has crunched some numbers that suggest otherwise.

Since 1918, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has seen 20 periods where the index has risen 40% from the previous year. On average, from the beginning of each of these periods the market is higher 68% of the time one month, three months and six months later, Birinyi noted. One year later, it is up 89% of the time.

Jonathan Ratner

Today we commemorate the 40th annual Earth Day, a cause for celebration but also a reminder that more work than ever remains to be done to protect our planet. As Rabbi Saperstein said today:

The environment we take for granted will not be here for our children and theirs if we fail to move swiftly away from fossil fuels that dirty our air and warm our planet. We have the resources and the willpower to move to a clean energy future, and as we celebrate this Earth Day we call on Congress and the President to lead the way.

We know we face great environmental challenges but also have incredible opportunities to do better, and protect people living in poverty, create green jobs, and encourage sustainable development worldwide in the process. (Read our full statement on the 40th annual Earth Day here.)

And while Earth Day is a great rallying point for all those working for a more sustainable future, we cannot speak up on this day alone. Yesterday we were proud to have Rabbi Saperstein’s words about our religious obligation to protect the earth published in a special section on environmental leadership in the Washington Post (read the full op-ed here or at the bottom of this post). Rabbi Saperstein’s op-ed, which appears alongside words from leaders like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, reminds us that, while Earth Day is important:

For many people of faith, the tradition of setting aside time to honor our environment and our work to guard it predates by centuries the modern-day environmental movement. Influential strands of our religious traditions have long argued that the treatment of our natural world is a pressing human and moral issue.

On this day, as every day, our Movement and our allies throughout the faith community speak out for a safe and healthy environmental future for all people; on this Earth Day we commit once again to work toward a future powered by clean sources of energy, in which all people enjoy abundant clean water and breathe clean air. We’ve made great progress since the first Earth Day, but together we remain dedicated to taking greater strides forward in the years to come.

It’s not too late to celebrate – plan an Earth Day event this weekend with our programmatic and advocacy resources, and let us know what you are doing to commemorate the 40th annual Earth Day!
 
 

In 1947, 15,000 cases of malaria were reported in the United States. In 1950, after a well-funded campaign by the government to beat the disease sprayed over 4,650,000 houses with insecticide, there were 2,000 cases were reported. By 1951 the disease was eradicated in our country. If such a history makes it seem like malaria is a fairly easy disease to combat, that’s because it is: artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), the leading anti-malaria treatment, has a 95% cure rate. And yet, more than half of the world’s population is still at risk for contracting malaria. One million people will die from the disease this year – including one child every thirty seconds – and 10 new cases of malaria are contracted every second.

However, all hope is not lost. This April 25th is World Malaria Day, a day to reaffirm the global commitment to fighting this disease. At the first World Malaria Day three years ago, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called for universal coverage to end to malaria by the end of 2010. (Rollback Malaria has a handy webpage detailing everything needed to ensure universal coverage by the end of the year.) The Union for Reform Judaism has been doing its part, as we have been partners in the Nothing but Nets campaign, raising money for insecticide-treated bed nets, which studies have shown reduce contraction of malaria by 90%. (You can donate an insecticide-treated bed net for only $10 in honor of World Malaria Day sleep-outs,” events showing large-scale support for malaria eradication. You can find an event in your area by going to the World Malaria Day official website. Find out more ways to help here, at Nothing but Nets’ official website! The disease is beatable, but it will take a world of concerned citizens to complete the task. So sign up, donate, or attend a sleep-out, and make malaria history by 2011!

According to new research, patients may face a higher risk of death from colon surgery if their operation is performed at a teaching hospital. 

The results of the new study are published in this month’s issue of the Archives of Surgery medical journal, and indicate that those who have colon surgery in a teaching hospital are hospitalized longer and face a slightly increased mortality rate. Teaching hospitals were often found to have performed the colon surgery procedures less often.

In the study, U.S. researchers from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, looked at more than 115,000 patients in 1,045 hospitals who had colon surgery from 2001 through 2005. They found that the mortality rate for colon surgery patients was 3.9% at teaching hospitals, compared to 3.7% at non-teaching hospitals. In addition, those who had the surgeries performed at teaching hospitals tended to remain hospitalized a half a day longer, on average, when the operations were done at teaching hospitals. The average length of stay, overall, was about 10 days.

Researchers say that, though small, the difference is important. They concluded that how the hospitals handle benign disease among the patients seems to be a “tipping point” that non-teaching hospitals seem to handle slightly better. Researchers said that the findings emphasize that diagnosis of a patient’s conditions before surgery should be considered as important as the procedure itself, particularly when determining where that surgery should be performed.