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Article from Men’s Fitness. Link.

Thanks, Matt!

Here’s a look at GE’s LED light bulbs, which should be hitting stores sometime in the next year. What makes them special? Well, aside from the fins that you see in the image, these bulbs will last a good 17 years(!) when used for four hours per day, every day. They also distribute the light evenly, in all directions, rather than focused on one area. Most of all, they are super-efficient. The nine watt bulbs give off the same amount of light as a 40 watt incandescent bulb, so you are saving some serious power, and only replacing them two or three times in a lifetime. The downside? They’ll cost somewhere between $40-50 each. Yeah, that’s pricey for a light bulb, but did you think the future would be cheap?

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It’s a big deal when Consumer Reports awards a “Don’t Buy” rating to a vehicle, and when it announced earlier today that the 2010 Lexus GX 460 should be avoided because of safety risks, the story started popping up all over the web. Now only 12 hours later, Lexus has announced that it is asking dealers to temporarily stop selling the vehicle while it looks into the situation, and that it’s taking the Consumer Reports claim “very seriously.”

After putting the 2011 Ford Mustang GT against the 2010 Camaro SS and the 2010 Dodge Challenger SRT8, Motor Trend got its hands on the 2011 Ford Mustang V6 and decided to compare it against its competitors including the 2010 Hyundai Genesis 3.8, 2010 Chevrolet Camaro RS and the 2010 Dodge Challenger SE.

Click here to get prices on the 2011 Ford Mustang.

Wondering who takes first place (hint take a close look at the image above)? Watch the video after the jump.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Hyundai Genesis.

Hit the jump for the video.

Refresher: The 2011 Ford Mustang V6 is powered by the 3.7L V6 Ti-VCT making 305-hp and 280 lb-ft. The 2011 Ford Mustang GT is powered by a 5.0L 4-valve Twin Independent Variable Camshaft Timing (Ti-VCT) V8 engine producing 412-hp with a peak torque of 390 lb-ft. Transmission choices for both models include a 6-speed automatic with a 6-speed manual offered as standard.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Motor Trend

Following up on Meredith's post, there has been a lot of reporting in the Australia/New Zealand press about the decision.  Here is a sampling:

I thought one of the most interesting points was in this piece:

Local fruit retailers also have a problem with the imports proposal and say they will not stock the New Zealand fruit.

Benny Parsons, of The Nut House at Ulverstone, said the seven different varieties of apples he sells are grown in the Mersey Valley area and it would stay that way.

Grower Shane Weeks, of Ayer's Orchards, said the two big supermarkets would probably be the only retailers looking for the imported, and most likely cheaper, product.

He hoped NZ apples would be labelled as such if they ended up in local supermarkets.

So let's say Australia does eventually remove the restrictions.  How will Australian retailers and consumers react?

One of Downtown’s most unheralded successes in recent years is the growth and expansion of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus located northeast of Fifth Street and Van Buren.

The campus is currently comprised of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGEN), Arizona Biomedical Collaborative (ABC), and three restored historic buildings on the north side of Van Buren that make up the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix. All three have enjoyed success with TGEN having an estimated $77.4 million annual impact on the Arizona economy and the U of A Medical School increasing enrollment from 24 students to 120.

Last month, the State Joint Committee on Capital Review gave the go-ahead to begin construction on the Health Sciences Education building to be located north of the northwest corner of Seventh Street and Van Buren (shown left). The approval came after months of waiting and a public support campaign of citizens who understood the importance of the building to the future of bioscience development in Downtown Phoenix.

For an understanding of the public support for the Health Sciences Education Building and its future economic impact, I invite you to read two letters to the editor published last month by the Arizona Republic: Medical wonders at the heart of Arizona’s future and Health-sciences building to mean more doctors, jobs.

Construction on the $187 million, 268,000-square foot building is expected to begin shortly.

In recent months, we have seen a flurry of activity and news coming from TGEN. Partnerships have been formed with entities around the world including a recently announced local effort to partner with John C. Lincoln’s Breast Health Research Center to provide tumor samples for research. The stellar work at TGEN is not only reflected in partnerships with some of the biggest names in the bioscience industry but also in funding. The non-profit biomedical research institute has attracted more than $18 million in grants from the National Institute of Health in the first few months of 2010. Recent awards have included large contributions from Safeway, the Life Foundation  and Stand Up To Cancer. For more information on TGEN please visit their Web site: TGEN.

Bioscience development in Downtown Phoenix was considered a longshot  just a few years ago, but the investment is already paying off. Keep an eye on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus – good things are in store.

Filed under: Car Buying, Convertible, Coupe, Performance, Ford

They can keep their retail therapy, we have configurator therapy. It soaks up just as much time, you can get your “help” in your jammies, and provided you don’t go through with a purchase, it’s much, much cheaper.

Ford’s 2011 Mustang configurator is now up and taking virtual orders, and to go along with the pony car’s movin’-on-up attitude, there are some increasingly swanky options. But remember, the challenge isn’t just to see how expensive you can make the car, it’s how expensive you can make the car you’d actually want to buy. The best part about it: everybody wins. And did we mention it’s free?

Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

[Source: Ford]

Saddle Up! 2011 Ford Mustang configurator comes online originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FoMoCo’s focus on quality is paying off as the automaker announced today that the resale value of its vehicles grew 23 percent in the past year alone, outpacing the industry average by 4 percentage points. Ford said that warranty repair rates on its vehicles have declined by an average of more than 40 percent globally in the past three years.

The Dearborn automaker said that Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles’ initial quality in the U.S. has improved for five straight year and that vehicles now have the fewest number of defects of any full-line manufacturer.

Click here for prices on the 2010 Ford Taurus.

For example, on average, the redesigned 2010 Ford Taurus is selling 50 percent higher at auction than the 2009 Taurus after one year in service. Similarly, the 2010 Ford Fusion V6 was up 26 percent at auction than the 2009 model after one year in service.

“Wholesale price performance was extremely strong throughout 2009, and during this period Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products matched or exceeded the performance of the overall market,” said Tom Webb, chief economist, Manheim Consulting, the world’s largest provider of automotive remarketing services. “And, in 2010, Ford products have outperformed the overall market, especially in the increasingly important segments of compact cars, midsize cars and crossover vehicles.”

Click here for our review of the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO.

– By: Omar Rana

Mind-controlled toys are one of those little things that remind you we’re sort of living in the future today (also: Disney FastPass). If you have some brain/computer schemes of your own, here’s a thorough guide to hacking those toys. More »

By Matt Hawes

Congressman Paul has officially introduced his legislation to repeal the federal health insurance mandate.  The bill (officially titled “End the Mandate”) number is HR 4995, and the text should be on the Library of Congress’ Thomas website very soon.

Like Mother, Like Daughter: Aspiring singer Alexa Ray Joel is making her debut as the new face (and hair) of Prell Shampoo, nearly 25 years after her model mom Christie Brinkley showed off her luxurious locks in a 1986 commercial for the one-time haircare giant.

How did she do?

This is Alexa’s first ad campaign for Prell, but she’ll also be shooting a fall campaign for the brand. Looks like Alexa’s bouncing back very well after she was hospitalized for taking a handful of homeopathic pain pills in her Manhattan apartment on Dec. 5.

The series of major water main breaks that occurred around Los Angeles last year was caused by the city’s water conservation program, which put too much pressure on aging cast iron pipes, according to a city report released Tuesday.

The report is a step forward in solving a mystery that has bedeviled city officials and engineers and enraged some residents who had to endure the flooding and road damage.

A team of scientists and private-sector experts charged with looking at the pipe breaks concluded that the city should rework its conservation plan, which limited the use of sprinklers to Mondays and Thursdays.

The team recommended that the Department of Water and Power find ways of “avoiding abrupt variations in water pressure as much as possible.”

“These findings conclude that the sudden changes of water pressure in the system, attributable to the water-rationing system, had a negative impact on cast-iron pipes with lower fatigue resistance (i.e. especially corroded cast iron pipes,” the report stated.

One alternative would be to require homes with even-number addresses to conserve on even-numbered days and requiring homes with odd-numbered addresses to conserve on odd-numbered days, the team said.

“The bottom line is, you want to create a more even usage of water pressure so you don’t have a sudden drop of water pressure at a given time of the day,” said Jean-Pierre Bardet, professor and chairman of USC’s civil and environmental engineering department, who headed the team.

A DWP spokesman said scientists at the utility "have not yet analyzed Dr. Bardet’s findings but look forward to doing so."

Joe Ramallo added that DWP’s internal investigation explored water rationing as a factor, but "found the data … to be inconclusive." The internal investigation found that a more likely cause was corroded, aging cast-iron pipes.
That finding is not inconsistent with Bardet’s report, however.

Bardet pointed out that pressure fluctuations put increased pressure on the cast iron pipes, causing them to rupture sooner than they may have otherwise

The investigation team, which appeared before the council’s Energy and Environment Committee, found a connection between the city’s water-rationing program and the increase in pipe breaks last summer, particularly with cast iron pipes.

At various locations in the DWP water distribution system, water pressure fell significantly on Mondays and Thursdays after the beginning of the water-rationing program on June 1, 2009, the report said.

“Those water pressure drops on these days were caused by an increased water flow during the watering of lawns,” the report said. “As a result, the cyclic levels of water pressure increased and accelerated the metal fatigue failures of aged and corroded cast-iron pipes.”

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the council and the DWP agreed last year to restrict the use of sprinklers to 15 minutes a day on Mondays and Thursdays. No watering is allowed between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Hand-watering — using a hose with a nozzle — is allowed on a daily basis, although not between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The city had 101 breaks during summer 2009, compared to 42 in summer 2008 and 49 in summer 2007, according to the report.

So far, the city has been hit with 108 legal claims regarding water
pipe breaks, 41 of them from homeowners. Of the latter number, 25 claims
have been paid, three have pending documents, two were denied and 11
are awaiting more documents, according to one DWP lawyer.

Last fall, The Times reported that some experts believed the city’s recent decision to allow sprinklers to run only on Mondays and Thursdays may have played a role in the breaks.

They say that if more water flows through the system on those two days when people water their lawns and then pressure suddenly changes on other days, it could put added stress on already aging pipes.

— David Zahniser and Phil Willon at L.A. City Hall, and Jessica Garrison in Los Angeles

UnitedHealth Group and Walgreens say they’re teaming up with the YMCA on a program that will reimburse pharmacists and lifestyle coaches to help insured patients prevent and control diabetes.

The program, which will be announced Wednesday at the CDC Diabetes Conference in Kansas City, Mo., will have two parts, says Tom Beauregard, executive vice president of UnitedHealth and executive director of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform and Modernization. The prevention arm will use UnitedHealth claims data and other demographic information to flag people at risk of developing diabetes and invite them to a free, 16-session exercise and nutrition class at a local YMCA. They’ll have monthly follow-up after the class is over, and instructors will be paid bonuses if participants meet certain modest weight-loss goals.

The control part of the program will be administered with Walgreens. Participants who already have diabetes will receive a 45-minute assessment and then other health-care coaching sessions, covering both medical and lifestyle management, says Colin Watts, chief innovation officer at Walgreens.

Beauregard notes that the Diabetes Prevention Program is based on an NIH- and CDC-funded efforts that showed a 5% weight loss translated into a 58% reduction in the likelihood of the development or progression of diabetes. He said UnitedHealth would pay the YMCA around $300 for someone who completed the program and it could rise to $500 for someone who met weight-loss goals. Neither he nor Watts would disclose the reimbursements to Walgreens, but Watts says it includes a strong pay-for-performance element.

The Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance will be rolled out first in six markets in four states, and will be expanded nationwide through 2012, says Beauregard.

Photo: Bloomberg News

Filed under: Recalls, Safety, Crossover, Acura, Luxury

It’s only been on the market since December, but the 2010 Acura ZDX has already gotten its first official recall. According to AutoWeek, Acura believes that less than two percent of the 1,850 ZDXs built so far were assembled with a dashboard material that was incorrectly cut. The problem could cause the passenger-side front airbag to deploy improperly.

If you think you may have one of the affected vehicles, you are urged to take your minty-fresh ZDX to your local Acura dealer so the vehicle can be inspected. If there is indeed an issue, the entire dashboard will be replaced at no expense to the owner.

Owners should be getting notifications through the mail any day now. Alternatively, you can also call (800) 382-2238 for more information.

[Source: AutoWeek]

2010 Acura ZDX recalled for airbag issues originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“The main objective of this study was to compare the heating patterns of chicken fingers deep-fried conventionally and using a microwave. Two dimensional internal temperature maps of fried chicken fingers with rectangular geometry were measured post frying using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Frying was performed in a microwave oven at 365 W power level for 0.5 and 1.5 min after bringing the oil temperature to 180 +/- 1 degrees C. Samples were also fried in a conventional fryer at 180 degrees C for 2 and 5 min for comparison. Variations in internal temperature distribution increased proportionally to frying time in both microwave and conventional frying. Internal thermal equilibrium is reached in all samples after 13 min of holding time. Internal structural changes, void formation, were also visualized in the images. Void formation did not significantly impact cooling rates.”

Photo: flickr/adamjackson1984

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Researchers at Stanford University have engineered an ultrasharp nanoscale electrode made of gold that can be used to harvest a small electric current from individual algae cells.  In experiments so far, the algae cells survive the intrusion, which could mean that larger electric currents could someday be drawn from entire algae colonies.

Algae have been emerging as the biofuel heroes of a sustainable future and the Stanford development could bring it to a new level, by bypassing the carbon footprint of harvesting plants and processing liquid biofuels.

(more…)

Facebook said today that it’s upgraded its Safety Center — which contains advice for parents, young people, teachers, law enforcement and other groups about how to use Facebook responsibly and safely — based on suggestions from its Safety Advisory Board. But the site stopped short of adding a so-called “panic button” to its pages that would take users younger users directly to a page of safety information, which is something critics and advocacy groups in Britain have repeatedly requested, most recently in a meeting between Facebook representatives and the head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

British groups want a button that would take younger users to a page with information about how to respond to various behavior such as cyberbullying and sexually suggestive material or otherwise inappropriate content. Chief constables from England and Wales, including the head of Scotland Yard, have signed a letter supporting the panic button. The campaign gained steam following the death of a 17-year-old female student last October: Ashleigh Hall was raped and murdered by a man she met on Facebook, who is now in prison. It’s not clear, however, what use a panic button would have been in the girl’s case, or how it would have stopped her from meeting the man.

The Facebook blog post describes how the site has changed its Safety Center:

It offers new safety resources for parents, educators, teens and members of the law enforcement community. We’ve quadrupled the safety content available, and we’ve created cleaner, more navigable interfaces to help you find answers to safety questions fast. This portal — which we’ve been testing during the past few weeks — draws multimedia content from Facebook and from independent organizations specializing in safety and security online.

The site’s Safety Advisory Board consists of representatives from several organizations in the U.S. and Europe, who describe themselves as follows:

• Childnet International: a UK-based charity working domestically and internationally to help make the Internet a great and safe place for children and young people, alongside enabling them to use interactive technologies safely and responsibly.

• Common Sense Media: an independent non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing trustworthy information and education that kids and families need to thrive in a world of media and technology.

• Connect Safely: the leading interactive resource on the web for parents, teens, educators — everyone — engaged and interested in youth safety on the fixed and mobile social web.

• The Family Online Safety Institute: works to make the online world safer for kids and their families by identifying and promoting best practice, tools and methods in the field of online safety, that also respect free expression.

• WiredSafety: the largest online safety, education and help group program in the world and provides help, information and education to Internet and mobile device users of all ages, especially on cyberbullying matters.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Why New Net Companies Must Shoulder More Responsibility

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In October 2009, a man and two women walked into a renowned Los Angeles restaurant called The Hump and ordered some sushi. This seemingly innocuous act was the start of a fascinating chain of events that would involve hidden cameras, genetic sequencing, a few arrests, and the first solid proof of an illegal international trade in whale meat.

The man in question was Charles Hambleton, a keen diver and assistant director of The Cove, an Oscar-winning documentary that exposed the annual killing of dolphins in a Japanese national park. Hambleton had heard that The Hump was serving whale meat and decided to investigate.

Hambleton ordered an “omakase meal”, a challenging assortment of different meats chosen by the chef, only offered to the “adventurous” and priced at a hefty $800. Sure enough, the platter included four strips of whale sashimi. The receipt said as much, but Hambleton wanted proof. When the waiters and chef weren’t looking, he slipped a sample of the meat into a plastic bag and sent it to Scott Baker from Oregon State University.

By sequencing the meat’s DNA, Baker confirmed that it came from an endangered sei whale. In fact, the meat was an exact genetic match to products bought in Japan in September 2007. The whale in question must have been killed in those years during one of Japan’s controversial “scientific hunts”. From there, its meat had been illegally exported to the US, flouting a strict ban on the international trade of whale meat.

Together with Cove director Louis Psihoyos, Hambleton took his evidence to officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). When the duo returned to California to attend the Academy Awards, they conducted their final stings. Psihoyos says, “Charles and I did two more operations to buy whale meat from the same restaurant with federal officials watching so we could establish a chain of custody.” The Hump was forced to close its doors a few weeks later. On 10 March 2010, federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against both the restaurant and its chef.

The Hump wasn’t the only restaurant to be stung by the team. They found whale meat being sold in other diners in LA and Seoul, proving that the international trade spanned South Korea as well as the US. The Seoul restaurant served no less than 13 whale meat products, which came from minke, sei and fin whales, and one Risso’s dolphin. Once again, genetic analyses revealed that the fin whale meat came from a single animal that had been caught in Japan and had been sold in Japanese markets since September 2007.

Baker is just one of a wave of scientists who are using modern scientific techniques to track the trade of endangered species. Last year, Jacob Lowenstein found that some sushi restaurants were selling endangered southern bluefin tuna, despite claiming otherwise. And Ullas Karanth used photo-recognition software to match illegally sold tiger skins to animals once photographed in India’s national parks.

Needless to say, whale hunting is controversial – it’s cruel and unethical to some, but economically and culturally necessary to others. In 1982, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) set up a moratorium on commercial whaling that came into force in 1986. Both sides of the debate have pushed for the moratorium to be shifted, but Japan has neatly skirted around it by claiming to hunt whales for scientific research.

Japan’s Institute for Cetacean Research says that it aims to provide “information on the role of whales in the ecosystem and the effects of environmental changes on whales”. It allegedly studies population structures, age and diet, although critics are hardly convinced. Baker says, “It is widely recognised that scientific whaling is primarily a front for limited (but expanding) commercial whaling.” And Psihoyos adds, “There has not been a single peer reviewed paper the Japanese whalers have done since 1987, when their “scientific whaling” program began, to justify the killing of a single whale.”

Under the banner of research, Japanese boats kill minke, Bryde’s and sperm whales, as well as the endangered sei and fin species. Meanwhile, whales are sometimes killed as “bycatch”, ensnared within fishing nets that target smaller swimmers. If caught in this way, their flesh can be sold commercially, and they sell very well. Despite this thriving national trade, it’s generally assumed that Japan’s slaughtered whales stay within national boundaries.

The IWC regulates 13 species of whale and according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), none of these species can be traded commercially between countries. Japan, Iceland and Norway have permits that allow for some limited trade between each other, but they’re absolutely forbidden from trading whale products with countries that don’t hold permits, including the US and South Korea. Nonetheless, this new study clearly shows that this legislation is being flouted.

Both Norway and Japan keep DNA registers of whales that are killed for “scientific” purposes, or that are sold after being accidentally killed. You could easily work out if a suspicious product came from an authorised source by comparing it to these registers. But neither country makes their records freely available, even to the IWC’s Secretariat. Nor have they sanctioned market surveys to monitor the origins of whale products.

Baker says that independent surveys and open access to the registers are vital for controlling trade and confirming that countries are staying within their catch quotas. “Like the smuggling of drugs, we cannot hope to stop illegal trade in wildlife,” he says, “but we can impose monitoring and inspection schemes to limit and prosecute these cases.” To that end, Baker’s team have submitted a request to the Government of Japan, via the IWC Secretariat, to access the country’s whale DNA registers.

Reference: Biology Letters http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.0239

Image: whale meat by Stefan Powell; fin whale by Lori Mazzuca

More on conservation:

• Photo-recognition software catches tigers by their stripes
• Buzzing bees scare elephants away
• Genetic study puts damper on gray whales’ comeback
• Noise pollution drives away some birds, but benefits those that stay behind
• How research saved the Large Blue butterfly
• Human hunters unwittingly shrink their prey species at incredible rates

The new Intel Core i5/i7 MacBooks come with “automatic graphics switching technology” to instantly toggle between Intel’s onboard graphics and more powerful Nvidia hardware. Sound familiar? Well, weirdly, it’s not Nvidia’s Optimus switcher—it’s something entirely new. More »