Blog

Fermented foods are not yet accepted into mainstream America. However, fermented foods are a rich source of antioxidants and micronutrients with the potential to help manage chronic Hepatitis C infection.

by Nicole Cutler, L.Ac.

After living for just a short period of time with any kind of chronic disease, it quickly becomes clear that the foods we eat can have a dramatic impact on our health. Advocates of a healthy diet as a means to deter the advancement of chronic disease typically promote the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables and lean sources of protein. However, many people fail to appreciate that fermented foods also can play a major role in health maintenance.

As the organ that must cleanse the blood of impurities and perform a substantial portion of necessary life functions, the liver is especially sensitive to what we ingest. Thus, those with chronic liver disease from Hepatitis C are becoming increasingly aware that their food choices can either help or hinder their liver’s health.

Many in the U.S. rarely consider fermented foods to be health food fare. Despite this distinctly American oversight, other cultures have prized fermented foods for their impact on digestion and liver health since ancient times. Upon recognizing some of the properties fermented foods share, it appears that people with Hepatitis C could benefit from this distinctively pungent and sour genre of food.

Initially used as a means to safely store food, humans have been fermenting foods to aid the digestive process for centuries:

· Stored in goat bags and dropped over the back of camels in the North Africa’s hot deserts, camel milk yielded some of the first yogurts.

· In ancient Egypt, the Greeks and Romans consumed pickles to promote liver and gallbladder health.

Fermentation is a controlled process of food decomposition. With the addition of a specific culture in the absence of oxygen, food is broken down. Fermentation creates new nutrients and beneficial digestive bacteria that help us digest and assimilate food. Since it doesn’t involve heat, fermentation retains enzymes, vitamins and other nutrients that are usually destroyed by food processing. Some of the more well-known fermented foods, include:

· Kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage)
· Sauerkraut (unpasteurized: made with bacteria, not vinegar)
· Natto (a traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans)
· Brewed soy sauce
· Kefir (a fermented milk drink)
· Umeboshi (pickled Japanese plums)
· Yogurt (containing live cultures)
· Kombucha (fermented tea)
· Miso (a fermented paste made from either rice, soybeans, barley or chickpeas)
· Pickles (made with bacteria, not vinegar)
· Poi (fermented, mashed tarot root)

Besides the recognition that eating fermented foods helps with the digestion and assimilation process, several studies have shown even more benefit to those with chronic liver disease.

· A well-known substance used by virtually every cell of the body to neutralize toxins, glutathione can protect the liver from being damaged by Hepatitis C. Unfortunately, clinical studies have demonstrated that the level of glutathione is significantly depressed in many people with Hepatitis C. In a 2007 edition of the journal BioFactors, Japanese researchers investigated the antioxidant activity of a fermented grain. They found that fermented grain resulted in a significant increase in cellular glutathione levels, an obvious benefit to those with Hepatitis C.

· As published in the April 2006 edition of Oncology Reports, investigators studied the effects of fermented brown rice on the development of hereditary hepatitis in rats. They found that the fermented food helped prevent the development of hepatitis. In addition, they concluded that fermented brown rice played a role in protecting the rat’s liver from free radicals, an event that could potentially delay the progression of Hepatitis C in humans.

· In the May 2009 edition of the journal Nutrition, German researchers studied the effects of a fermented food concentrate (Regulat) in healthy volunteers. They found that the intake of this fermented food significantly strengthened immune function by enhancing intracellular glutathione content.

Up to this point, no large-scale clinical trials on fermented foods and Hepatitis C have been conducted. However, the general digestive benefits and reported properties of fermented foods make it a culinary delicacy worth investigating further. We know that food can have a dramatic impact on the liver’s health. Thus, consuming a fermented food that is known to boost glutathione levels is a logical choice for those who are managing chronic Hepatitis C.

References:

http://iospress.metapress.com/content/d7043727n3175631/, Assessment of antioxidative activity of extract from fermented grain food mixture using chemical and cellular systems, Yoko Ogawa, et al, BioFactors, 2007.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/fermented-foods-essential-digestive-aids.html, Fermented Foods: Essential Digestive Aids, Delia Quigley, Retrieved December 17, 2009, Care2.com, Inc., 2009.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16525673?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=4, Inhibitory effects of fermented brown rice and rice bran on the development of acute hepatitis in Long-Evans Cinnamon rats, Shibata T, et al, Retrieved December 18, 2009, Oncology Reports, April 2006.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19061947?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=1, Niuchangchih (Antrodia camphorata) and its potential in treating liver diseases, Ao ZH, et al, Retrieved December 18, 2009, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, January 2009.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19121921, Regulatory effects of a fermented food concentrate on immune function parameters in healthy volunteers, Schoen C, et al, Retrieved December 18, 2009, Nutrition, May 2009.

http://www.regulat.net/, Regulat ®, Retrieved December 18, 2009, eCommerce Engine, 2009.

http://www.treelight.com/health/nutrition/Fermentation.html, The Importance of Fermentation, Eric Armstrong, Retrieved December 19, 2009, treelight.com, 2009.

FFDI will be available this Wednesday for 800 points.

Emerging gold producer Gammon Gold Inc. had a rough first quarter, with worse-than-expected production results at its Ocampo mine as it ran into void areas that were mined out in the past. Analysts were also disappointed with cash costs, which were higher than expected.

On the other hand, the analysts are pleased with Gammon's announcement that it is nominating four new independent directors to its board, each of which has more than 20 years of mining industry experience. The new chairman will be Colin Benner, who has held many key management and board positions in the industry.

"We believe the addition of these independent directors improves the company's corporate governance and could provide investors a degree of comfort on [Gammon's] ability to turn things around operationally," UBS Securities analyst Dan Rollins wrote in a note to clients.

According to analyst Brian Christie of Desjardins Securities, the new director appointments offset the bad news from the Q1 production report.

Gammon has been a major underperformer of late, losing about 40% of its value since mid-January. BMO Capital Markets analyst David Haughton wrote that achieving operating targets is key to restoring investor confidence.

Peter Koven

This morning the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee released a statement, which said that it’s premature to declare the recession that started in December 2007 is over, but that doesn’t mean we’re still in a recession.

First a little background: the committee is considered the official arbiter of when U.S. recessions begin and end. Currently, there are seven economists who serve on the nonpartisan, nonprofit group, which was formed in 1978, though the NBER has been dating recessions since 1929. The NBER doesn’t define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP, a definition that is often cited as a rule of thumb. Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.

Since the definition of recession takes so many factors into account, the committee often takes its time to determine the end date. It didn’t officially declare until July 2003 that the 2001 recession, which ran from March to November of that year, was over.

The committee’s dating procedure is basically an academic exercise and it is more concerned with accuracy than speed. Though signs are looking up for the economy and most economists think the recession ended sometime in the middle of last year, broad risks remain. GDP began to grow again in the middle of last year, but fourth quarter GDP was still 2% below the peak it registered in 2008, adjusting for inflation. Meanwhile, last month the economy posted a big gain in jobs, but those numbers remain preliminary and could be revised.

Think of the committee as an oncologist treating a cancer patient. The preliminary tests may look good, but until the final results of the MRI come in, you don’t want to declare that the cancer has been totally eliminated.

I am lucky to live in the Northeast, at least when it comes to trains. We’ve got the only “high speed” rail service in the country, and I can hop a train to just about anywhere in between Boston and Washington D.C. It is cheaper and less aggravating than driving during rush hour, though it isn’t what I’d call a smooth ride.

But that hasn’t stopped riders from taking to the rails in increasing numbers. Amtrak posted an overall 4.3% increase in ridership for the first half of their fiscal year in 2010, and they say they are on the path to beating their annual ridership record. One of the biggest jumps was seen on the Acela “high speed” rail service, which posted a 14% jump in ridership. Are Americans ready to take back to the rails en masse?

(more…)

by Jake Schmidt

The first global warming negotiations post Copenhagen have just wrapped up here in Bonn (as I discussed here). It was a 3 day session and was mostly focused on establishing the
process and expectations for negotiations this year. While there was
some complaining about the Copenhagen Accord from some quarters, the
complaining was timid compared with my expectations. That was positive
so countries could focus more on what could realistically be achieved
in Cancun (the expectations for the year) and how to get there (the
process).

So where do things stand on the process and expectations for the year?

Process—how are things organized and what “text” do we use? Countries are grappling with two questions related to the process of the negotiations this year.

Could you streamline the negotiations by creating a more formal “smaller group” negotiating session? One proposal would have created a 40 country negotiating group that
would sit around the table and be the only ones speaking in the formal
plenary. These countries would get input from the other countries not
“sitting around the table” as they would be representing some regional
or other country grouping (e.g., the least developed countries,
Alliance of Small Island States, etc). This would create a format
where not all 194 countries provided input at every moment in the
process. Such a smaller setting is critical to achieving progress in
global warming negotiations but lost a lot of trust in Copenhagen (as I
discussed here).

How would you integrate the Copenhagen Accord into the other negotiating texts that were produced throughout the year and were presented with lots of
[brackets]—disagreements—in Copenhagen? Since the Accord was
“taken note of” by all 194 countries and only some 110 of the 194
countries have “associated with the Accord” (as I discussed here)
there is pushback from some countries to inclusion of the Accord
agreements into the process in a more formal manner—notably the ALBA countries (led by Venezuela with Bolivia and Cuba also weighing-in for this group) countries and League of Arab States (led by Saudi Arabia with Egypt as their spokesperson). Saudi Arabia
has a long track record of blocking progress in the global warming
negotiations (as Andy Revkin discusses here) so this was no surprise.

So given these divisions countries agreed to let the Chair produce a
text “under her own responsibility” and present it before the next
meeting of this process—back here in Bonn this coming June. There
was a huge debate about whether she could draw upon the Copenhagen
Accord to inform the development of this text (I tweeted the play by
play on this at jschmidtnrdc). It was painful and there were times that it looked like we weren’t
going to agree, but the Chair basically said I’m going to produce
whatever text I think appropriate no matter what texts you allow me to
look at. So that framework was agreed and she’ll produce a draft
negotiating text which will help the world focus on the implementation
of key building blocks. Luckily many countries aren’t waiting for this
text before implementing actions to address global warming as I
discussed here.  

Expectations for the year—“all or nothing” (comprehensive) or make progress on what can be agreed? As I discussed here,
there is huge value in agreeing to the details on individual pieces—such as deforestation reductions, transparency, and finance—at the
meeting in Cancun this December. I would call this the “agree to what
can be agreed” method. I’m skeptical that we can agree to everything
in Cancun and also to the legal form of the future agreement, which is
why I argued to implement key building blocks necessary for international agreement and to focus on actions in Cancun. Under the alternative framework—“all or nothing”—agreement on one piece is only allowed if everything else is agreed
(this stalled getting agreement on deforestation and adaptation in
Copenhagen and we can’t afford that again).

This wasn’t expected to be resolved in Bonn, but there were some
emerging themes. The U.S. argued that the Copenhagen Accord reflected a
balanced set of agreements and were all woven together—you can’t
eliminate one without the others also falling apart.

Stay tuned on how this debate unfolds this year as it will be
critical to determining whether Cancun can be used to rebuild trust and
to begin the critical work of implementation. Too much dependence on
“all or nothing” will likely result in stalemate as some individual
pieces are unlikely to progress as far as others this year. I think
this comes down critically to ensuring that there are decisions to
implement the transparency (a key for the U.S.) and finance (a key for
developing countries) provisions of the Copenhagen Accord. So those
two interwoven issues need to be agreed with greater detail in Cancun
in order to provide confidence to the U.S. to move on finance and for the
developing countries to move on transparency. Once those two groups
feel comfortable that these issues are resolved, the other “building
blocks” of the international effort—reducing emissions from
deforestation and adaptation—can be resolved this year.

————————

All of this effort towards Cancun depends on whether the U.S. passes a
comprehensive clean energy and global warming legislation this year. Without the U.S. driving forward with implementing solutions to global
warming it will be hard to have any positive outcome in Cancun this
year.

I feel like a broken record, but please leader’s in the Senate now
is the time to act. You have ample reasons to find solutions that put
the U.S. on a path to creating clean energy jobs, reduce our dependence
on foreign oil, and reduce our global warming pollution.

Others are acting whether or not the U.S. does (as I discussed here), so it is time for the U.S. to get in the game for real.

Related Links:

U.N. climate talks in Bonn wrap up after fresh fights

U.N. climate talks in Bonn are off to a rocky start

Major economies to hold climate talks in U.S. this month

People with Williams syndrome are some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. They are incredibly sociable, almost unnervingly so, and they approach strangers with the openness that most people reserve for close friends.

Their sociable streak is the result of a genetic disorder caused by the loss of around 26 genes. This missing chunk of chromosome leaves people with a distinctive elfin face, a risk of heart problems, and a characteristic lack of social fear. They don’t experience the same worries or concerns that most of us face when meeting new people. And now, Andreia Santos from the University of Heidelberg has suggested that they have an even more unique trait – they seem to lack racial bias.

Typically, children start overtly gravitating towards their own ethnic groups from the tender age of three. Groups of people from all over the globe and all sorts of cultures show these biases. Even autistic children, who can have severe difficulties with social relationships, show signs of racial stereotypes. But Santos says that the Williams syndrome kids are the first group of humans devoid of such racial bias, although, as we’ll see, not everyone agrees.

Santos compared the behaviour of 20 white children with Williams syndrome, aged 7 to 16, and 20 typical white children of similar backgrounds and mental ages. To do so, she used a test called the Preschool Racial Attitude Measure (PRAM-II), which is designed to tease out traces of gender or racial biases in young children.

PRAM-II consists of a picture book where every page includes a pair of people of different genders or skin types. The researcher tells a selection of stories to accompany the images and the children have to point to the person whom they think the story is about. As they hear positive or negative adjectives, they reveal any underlying racial bias if they point to light-skinned or dark-skinned people, or men or women, more frequently.

The typical children showed a strong tendency to view light-skinned people well and dark-skinned people poorly. Out of their responses, 83% were consistent with a pro-white bias. In contrast, the children with Williams syndrome only showed such responses 64% of the time, which wasn’t significantly different from chance.

Santos suggests that children with Williams syndrome don’t develop the same biases that their peers do, because they don’t experience social fear. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, who led the study, says, “There are hyper-social, very empathetic, very friendly, and do not get danger signals.” And because they’ll freely interact with anyone, they are less likely to cultivate a preference for people of their own ethnic groups. Alternatively, it could be that because they don’t fall prey to stereotypes, they’re more likely to socialise with everyone.

Santos is quick to rule out alternative explanations for this result. Some of the children with Williams syndrome were more intelligent or mentally advanced than the others, but they behaved in the same way. Nor could it be that they suffered from a general inability to assess people’s features, for both groups of children showed a bias towards their own gender.

But not everyone is convinced. Aliya Saperstein from the University of Oregon praised the study’s “clever research design” and said that it shows the Williams Syndrome children are clearly less biased than normal ones. That is interesting in itself, but Saperstein is sceptical that they lack racial bias entirely. In the PRAM-II test, Santos claims that children without any biases should make pro-white responses half of the time, but she showed that the Williams syndrome children did so 64% of the time. This wasn’t significantly different from a chance result but the estimate was based on a very small sample size. Given larger numbers, those extra fourteen percentage points might indicate an important difference.

Robert Livingston from Northwestern University agrees. He says, “I think that it’s problematic to make strong conclusions on the basis of null findings, particularly with a sample as small as 20 WS children.”

It’s also worth noting that the PRAM-II test doesn’t give children the option of a truly unbiased response. They can’t say that the story could fit either image equally – they can only give fewer pro-white answers. As Saperstein says, “The results don’t demonstrate or prove an absence of bias. And like all similar tests, the study may tap partly into one’s knowledge of social stereotypes not just one’s personal biases.”

Livingston also notes that when we’re talking about racial bias, there is a difference between stereotypes, which are based on our beliefs, and prejudices, which are based on our feelings and evaluations of other people. The Williams Syndrome children may not show prejudice, but Livingston says, “Very few if any people who do not show stereotypes.”

Regardless of whether the Williams Syndrome children lack racial bias altogether, it’s clear that they aren’t affected by it to the same extent as normal children. Santos’s results also suggest that racial and gender biases have different origins. The former is borne at least partly out of social fear while the latter has different roots.

The link between social fear and racial stereotypes fits with the results of previous brain-scanning studies. In people with Williams syndrome, the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in processing emotional memories, is far less reactive to threatening social situations. The connections between the amygdala and the fusiform face area, which is specialised for recognising faces, are also unusually weak.

The same areas might play a role in understanding information about people’s race: the fusiform face area tends to be more active when we look at people from the same ethnic group; and one study found that the amygdala is more active when both white and black people look at black faces. This will, of course, need to be tested in more experiments.

Reference: Current Biology; citation unavailable at time of writing

More on race:

• Even on mute, TV can perpetuate racial bias
• Social status shapes racial identity
• People overestimate their reactions to racism
• They don’t all look the same – could better facial discrimination lead to less racial discrimination?
• Simple writing exercise helps break vicious cycle that holds back black students

Bloomberg is out with a widely referenced report this morning that states that Palm is seeking bids for the company as early as this week. The report claims that Palm has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer according to the source. Last week’s rumored suitors Taiwan’s HTC and China based Lenovo have reportedly already looked and are potentially interested. Texas based Dell Inc is said to have already looked at Palm, but passed on a deal.

Naturally Palm, HTC and Lenovo have denied commenting on the latest developments so far. The article goes on to mention that other large Chinese phone companies, Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp., might also be potential suitors. Clearly something is in the air given the intensity of recent stock swings and the perpetual M&A rumors. Just last week CEO Jon Rubinstein was out giving interviews talking up the Palm turnaround narrative, while continuing to defend Palm’s performance under the current challenges.

Ever since its debut in 2004, the BMW 1-Series has accounted for one million units sold, BMW announced today.

The 1 millionth model was a three-door BMW 118d built at BMW Plant Leipzig. It was delivered to its owner by Frank-Peter Arndt, Member of the Board of BMW AG for Production, and Stanislaw Tillich, the Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony, to a customer from Leipzig at the 2010 Leipzig Motor Show.

Don’t worry, we already dug the press release for any mentions of a M1 or “M version of the 1-Series” details – there’s nothing there.

Click through for the press release.

Press Release:

The BMW 1 Series Success Story: First Million Units Built. Efficiency and Driving Pleasure Made in Leipzig and Regensburg. Anniversary Model of the BMW 1 Series Handed Over at the Leipzig Motor Show on 12 April 2010.

Munich. Five years of production, four body variants and one million times Sheer Driving Pleasure in the compact class. The BMW 1 Series has already reached a seven-digit production volume in its first model generation, clearly confirming its status as a genuine best seller in the international car market.

Accounting for one million units sold since its debut in 2004, the BMW 1 Series is also one of the driving forces for the outstanding success of the world’s leading manufacturer of premium cars.

The anniversary model was delivered to its proud owner on Monday, 12 April, on the occasion of the Leipzig Motor Show, the Auto Mobil International (AMI). The car, a three-door BMW 118d built at BMW Plant Leipzig, was handed over jointly by Frank-Peter Arndt, Member of the Board of BMW AG for Production, and Stanislaw Tillich, the Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony, to a customer from Leipzig.

The BMW 1 Series offers an incomparable combination of sporting driving pleasure and outstanding efficiency. Now available as a three-door Sedan, a five-door Sedan, a Coupé and Convertible, the BMW 1 Series stands out clearly as the only car in the compact segment with rear-wheel drive. High-tech suspension technology unparalleled in this class to this very day also serves to guarantee characteristic driving pleasure in the BMW 1 Series.

As yet a further essential feature, the BMW 1 Series is available with Active Steering varying not only steering assistance, but also the steering angle as a function of speed.

Germany’s leading premium manufacturer also proves the unique position of the BMW 1 Series versus its competitors through new concepts and philosophies in communication. Young, fresh, unconventional – this is how BMW’s highly successful compact model has been presented from the start. Highlights unforgotten to this day are the launch campaign starring Kermit, the frog from the Muppets Show, sitting at the wheel, or the highly dynamic launch campaign introducing the BMW 1 Series in the USA, where at an imaginary place in Bavaria the BMW 1 Series is to be “shot” straight to the USA on a gigantic ramp.

And last but certainly not least in this context, the launch campaign for the BMW 1 Series Coupé was lauded as the best advertising by Auto Trophy, the German car magazine, under the title “Condensed Intensity”.

BMW 1 Series as the pacemaker in reducing both fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

From the start, the BMW 1 Series played a significant role in giving BMW EfficientDynamics a broad impact in the market. The wide range of BMW EfficientDynamics technologies including Auto Start Stop, a Gearshift Point Indicator, Brake Energy Regeneration, Electric Power Steering as well as other ancillary units activated and operated on-demand – naturally all this featured as standard – highlights the four-cylinder models in the BMW 1 Series introduced in the 2007 model year for the first time.

Ever since, the ongoing popularity of the BMW 1 Series has helped to consistently reduce both fleet consumption and average CO2 emissions. In 2009, for example, the average CO2 emissions of all BMW Group cars registered in Europe was 150 grams per kilometre, equal to fuel consumption of just 5.9 litres/100 km (47.9 mpg imp). This once again makes BMW far superior to the most important competitors in the premium segment in terms of CO2 management and emission control.

Boasting a model range larger than ever before, the BMW 1 Series once again emphasises its unique position in 2010 as the pacemaker for efficient mobility combined with supreme driving pleasure in the compact class. In all, the four body versions of BMW 1 Series now come with a choice of six petrol and, respectively, four diesel engines. The power range extends from 85 kW/ 115 hp in the entry-level BMW 116d all the way to 225 kW / 306 hp in the two top athletes in the segment, the BMW 135i Coupé and the BMW 135i Convertible.

Currently no less than five models in the BMW 1 Series already come with a CO2 emission rating of less than 120 grams per kilometre. The absolute leader in terms of fuel efficiency and emission management in the series is the BMW 116d, its 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel delivering maximum output of 85 kW / 115 hp, peak torque of 260 Newton-metres/192 lb-ft, and, in combination with various BMW EfficientDynamics technologies also featured as standard on this model, average fuel consumption in the EU test cycle of just 4.4 litres/100 kilometres – equal to 64.2 mpg imp – and a CO2 rating of 118 grams per kilometre.

The unusually good balance of driving pleasure and fuel economy makes the BMW 116d particularly attractive also for the operator and owner of company and commercial car fleets. Immediately after its launch into the market, BMW’s entry-level diesel scored a class victory in the campaign for the “Company Car of the Year 2009″. In this contest organised jointly by the German motor journal “Firmenauto” and the DEKRA Technical Inspection Company, the BMW 116d came first in the category of compact cars.

This award proves once again that fleet managers appreciate efficient driving pleasure in two respects as a feature helping to motivate a company’s employees and at the same time keep the company’s budget as low and economical as possible.

Internationally, the BMW 1 Series has likewise gained an outstanding reputation through its supreme efficiency: As early as in 2008, the three-door BMW 118d was chosen as the “World Green Car of the Year”. This special award presented by an international jury of motor journalists honours vehicles and technologies making a specific contribution to the reduction of emissions and in this way symbolising the outstanding environmental awareness of the respective manufacturer.

The BMW 118d powered likewise by a 2.0-litre 105 kW / 143 hp diesel is now available in all body variants of the BMW 1 Series.

Premium quality and innovative model features for even greater driving pleasure in the compact class.
The BMW 1 Series is made even more appealing by its uncompromising premium quality and a wide range of model features quite unique in the compact segment. One example is the latest generation of BMW’s trendsetting iDrive control system also available in the BMW 1 Series. Originally conceived and developed for the luxury class, BMW iDrive ensures particularly easy and intuitive management of entertainment, communication, navigation, and comfort functions.

Another highlight again unique in the compact segment is the extremely wide range of driver assistance systems and mobility services offered by BMW ConnectedDrive. Hence, the BMW 1 Series may be fitted with features either not available at all from the competition or only in their top class and luxury models. These include a High-Beam Assistant, Adaptive Headlights or the Park Assistant, as well as unrestricted use of the internet in the car.

The services offered through BMW Assist and BMW Online may be used throughout Europe in the language of the car’s respective owner. Additional safety and comfort is ensured by the Enhanced Emergency Call function informing rescuers in the event of an accident of the type of damage and the likelihood of injury and thus ensuring appropriate medical services from the start, the Driver’s Profile function for convenient application of personal settings, or the Mobile Office / Online Office enabling the driver to use various office functions in his mobile phone, for example presenting and processing mails received in the car’s display.

Further highlights are the enhanced integration of Smartphones and external entertainment devices.
When going on a journey, the owner of a BMW 1 Series may download his route planned in advance through BMW Online into the car’s navigation system, putting together destinations and sights on the way or going to special destinations directly through Google Local Search.

The latest weather information, to present yet another example, may be shown in the navigation map and the Enquiry Service is able to provide data on automatic cash machines, local pharmacies as well as cultural events, flights, restaurants or hotels, specialists at the BMW Call Center making bookings or reservations on request for the driver and his passengers.

Particularly attractive, sophisticated and carefully matched features are available in the 2010 model year in both the Lifestyle and Sport Edition models of the three-door and five-door BMW 1 Series.

Production of the BMW 1 Series at BMW’s ultra-modern Leipzig Plant stands for maximum efficiency, flexibility, and quality. The outstanding level of quality is also borne out by the lasting value of the car and its superior reliability confirmed time and again in non-partisan tests. Currently, for example, the BMW 130i holds the top position in the ranking of endurance car tests carried out by the German car magazine “Auto Bild”: Covering a distance of 100,000 kilometres or 62,000 miles, this sporting version of BMW’s most compact model scored the best result of all cars tested in 2009. Giving the BMW 130i a 1+ mark, the journal’s professional testers lauded it clearly as the “Best Auto Bild Endurance Test Car of All Times”.

BMW Plant Leipzig plays an important role in the current and future plans of Germany’s leading premium car maker. Currently both the BMW 1 Series and the BMW X1 are built in Leipzig. At the same time, however, BMW Plant Leipzig is being prepared for production of an all-electric production model currently being developed by the BMW Group. The plan is to establish an integrated production network with two sites in Bavaria, important components being built in Wackersdorf and Landshut and the car itself, the Megacity Vehicle planned as part of BMW project i, coming off the production line in Leipzig.
BMW Plant Leipzig was built in the north-east of the city at an investment of more than Euro 1 billion and is conceived as a production plant with an integrated Delivery Centre for external suppliers. Some 5,000 employees work throughout the entire premises on the production of premium cars for the BMW brand, making BMW the biggest employer in Leipzig.

Applying flexible working time concepts and shift systems, BMW Plant Leipzig currently builds up to 700 cars a day and more, depending on demand in the market.

Ever since the Plant started production in 2005, no less than 662,000 cars have come off the line here. In Germany alone, sales of the BMW 1 Series amount to 336.017 units since the introduction of this model.

– By: Kap Shah

The L.A. Times reports Americans’ love of eating and immense poverty have combined to help our people set a new record for food stamp consumption in a month.

From the story:

About 39.4 million Americans, the most ever, received food stamps in January, the government said.

The number of recipients was up 22% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The total of Americans getting the subsidy has hit records for 14 consecutive months.

No word on stats for February or March just yet, but hopefully this is a record-breaking surge that ends sometime soon.

Food stamp rolls break record again [L.A.Times]
(Thanks NORMLgirl!)

by Tom Laskawy

This is Part 2 of 2 posts of in-depth analysis into the breakthrough work on High Fructose Corn Syrup and weight gain by Princeton researchers.

_______________

How much “proof” do we need that the pervasiveness of cheap, HFCS-sweetened junk is making us ill? As a follow-up to my email exchange with Princeton HFCS study lead author Dr. Bart Hoebel, I thought I might dig into some of the underlying issues surrounding the HFCS Wars. I understand and accept that a healthy skepticism is necessary in scientific debate. But reading the responses from “independent” voice (i.e. people not affiliated with Big Food or King Corn), it’s hard not to feel that some of this skepticism is far from healthy.

Some of it, I fear, involves many critics having bought in to generalized industry demands of absolute certainty when evaluating the risks presented by industrial additives (and yes, though derived from corn and defined as “natural” by our government, high fructose corn syrup is nothing if not an industrial additive). We allow corporations to wield this requirement of absolute certainty as a shield against any reasonable use of regulators’ “precautionary principle,” i.e. the point where the need for government regulation to protect individuals or the environment trumps corporate interests.

A good definition comes from the European Commission, which requires government regulation of a substance or industrial practice when “scientific evidence is insufficient, inconclusive, or uncertain.” The existence in Europe of such a strong precautionary principle is the reason that millions of people there are protected from a slew of toxic chemicals and dangerous practices—from GMOs to atrazine to artificial food coloring (yes, there is a large body of research on the dangers of artificial food coloring)—while we remain exposed.

In fact, I think there’s even more at work here. One way to look at the effect of something like HFCS is at the individual level—how does it affect your health to consume it? What additional risk (or not) of disease or early death does it confer on you? For many, that difference compared to table sugar is relatively small and thus is deemed irrelevant—perhaps even dangerous to discuss. Cut way back on all sweeteners and you’re better off, goes the logic, so what’s the point in fighting over which sweetener is worse. This, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is a large part of the objection many have to continued research into the health effects of HFCS.

But it’s also important to look at population-level effects. The increase in an individual’s health risks in consuming HFCS rather than table sugar may indeed be small, but when you scale it up to a nation of 300 million people (much less billions of people worldwide), those small individual increases in risk may add up to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of cases of diabetes and heart disease and billions of dollars in additional health costs to society. And while there may be some cases where HFCS severely and acutely affects an individual’s health, the largest effects probably happen at the population level and over a longer time frame. That fact, however, shouldn’t make the study results any less valid—but I suspect that, to many analysts, it does.

I’d add one more thing—why exactly does HFCS need any defenders? I mean, why shouldn’t the bar to ban it be incredibly low? It was introduced on a mass scale 1) as a means to soak up excess corn—corn that humans couldn’t eat unprocessed—and 2) as an unintended consequence of the continued existence of a powerful sugar cartel. ADM—otherwise not in the sugar business—has become one of the top supporters of continued sugar quotas and tariffs since they have kept sugar prices high and thus kept HFCS competitive.

HFCS is the love-child of misguided protectionist trade polices along with misguided agricultural policies and by no means does it represent real “innovation.” In my view, even the hint of health issues should be enough to invoke the precautionary principle. But not in the US, where if something sickens us (or even kills us) slowly enough, companies get to market it, profit from it and, if and when it ever does get banned, receive full immunity from future lawsuits.

If the debate over climate change is any indication, there is no scientific result of sufficient clarity or certainty that can overpower huge financial or political incentives to ignore it. And that’s where we find ourselves with HFCS, as well with dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of other industrial chemicals. We ignore this phenomenon at our growing peril.

Related Links:

Note to Environmentalists: Economists are on your side

A high-fructose corn syrup researcher answers his critics

Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Are you a possum?

LEDs are again in the spotlight this week, with GE Lighting announcing today that retail powerhouse Target is installing energy-efficient light-emitting diode systems in refrigerated display cases in 500 stores nationwide. As you can see in the video below, they’ll cut energy use by approximately 60 percent compared with older fluorescent systems — and they only flick on when motion is detected. It comes as bright buzz continues to flow from Friday’s big announcement that GE is introducing a 40-watt LED bulb that can last for 17 years — “virtually lighting your kid’s bedroom desk lamp from birth through high school graduation,” as the Lighting team says.

The new system at Target operates at 29 watts per door, compared with an average of 73 watts with existing fluorescent lamps. The entire industry is rapidly investing in energy efficient lighting — with the Target technology the same one being used by 40 of the top 50 U.S. grocers and supermarkets and 19 of the top 25 convenience store chains. Globally, GE has sold more than 700,000 LED refrigerated display case lights since inventing the category in 2006.

Meanwhile, GE — which also invented the first visible LED — is drawing attention in tech circles for its new bulb. As PC Magazine describes it, “GE has unleashed a little monster of an LED bulb that does its best to imitate the common features (including brightness and lighting angles) of a conventional incandescent bulb. And since it’s based on light-emitting diodes, rather than a heated-up filament, it will use one-fourth of the typical power draw of an incandescent bulb.”

Bright idea: As the writers at The Kansas City Star quipped in their story about the bulb: “When the guys at GE got this idea, the light bulb over they heads must have looked like this.” Its 17-year life span is based on four hours of use each day. The LED bulb will last 3 times longer than a standard 8,000-hour rated life CFL and 25 times as long as an incandescent bulb.

Tech blog GreenBeat notes: “GE also plans to market the new product as safer than regular bulbs. It doesn’t contain mercury, making it easier to dispose of without worrying about toxic waste or watershed contamination. And it doesn’t need to heat up to cast off light, making it less of a fire hazard than its predecessors.”

Get down! GE has already filed multiple patent applications for the bulb, which is expected to cost $40 to $50 and will be available later this year or in early 2011.

* Read the Target announcement
* Read the LED bulb announcement
* For more information, visit www.whatsyourlightingstyle.com
* Learn more about LED quality standards

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
* “Bendable OLEDs and next-gen LEDs grab the spotlight”
* “Our (lighting) heroes have always been Cowboys!”
* “From geothermal power to LEDs: Two ‘firsts’”
* “Starbucks gets a ‘green’ light; Pop. Sci. picks a winner”
* “Hey, what’s your sign? At AT&T it’s GE’s LEDs”
* “GE’s LEDs: A greener sign of the times at Holiday Inn”
* “GE’s OLED research: I saw the light — and it bends!”
* “Introducing the zero energy home”

(This is a guest post from Jeff Clark at Casey Research.)

The U.S. Mint just reported another record, but this time it wasn’t for gold. The Mint sold more Silver Eagles in March and in the first quarter of the year than ever before. A total of 9,023,500 American Silver Eagles were purchased in Q110, the highest amount since the coin debuted in 1986.

While this is certainly bullish, there’s something potentially more potent developing in the background. Namely, how this matches up with U.S. silver production. Like gold, the U.S. Mint only manufactures Eagles from domestic production. And U.S. mine production for silver is about 40 million ounces. In other words, we just reached the point where virtually all U.S. silver production is going toward the manufacturing of Silver Eagles.

Yikes.

This is especially explosive when you consider that roughly 40% of all silver is used for industrial applications, 30% for jewelry, 20% for photography and other uses, and only 5% or so for coins and medals.

To be sure, mine production is not the only source of silver. In 2009, approximately 52.9 million ounces were recovered from various sources of scrap. Further, the U.S. imported a net of about 112.5 million ounces last year. (Dependence on foreign oil? How about dependence on foreign silver!) So it’s not like there’s a worry there won’t be enough silver to produce the Eagle you want next month.

Still, why so much buying? The silver price ended the quarter up 15.5% from its February 4 low – but it was basically flat for the quarter, up a measly 1.9%. We tend to see buyers clamoring for product when the price takes off, so the jump in demand wasn’t due to screaming headlines about soaring prices.

I have a theory.

For some time, silver has been known as the “poor man’s gold.” Meaning, silver demand tends to increase when gold gets too “expensive.” The gold price has stubbornly stayed above $1,000 for over six months now and spent much of that time above $1,100. You’d be lucky to pay less than $1,200 right now for a one-ounce coin (after premiums), an amount most workers can’t pluck out of their back pocket. But Joe Sixpack just might grab a “twelve-pack” of silver.

What would perhaps lend evidence to my theory is if gold sales were down in the face of these higher silver sales.

The U.S. Mint reported a decline in gold bullion sales of 20.8% this past quarter vs. the same quarter in 2009. Further, other world mints have seen sharp declines in gold bullion coin sales as well: the Austrian Mint reported an 80% drop in sales for the first two months of the year and the Royal British Mint a 50% decline in gold coin production for the first quarter.

What’s even more dramatic is the difference in the dollar value of the sales. Gold Eagle sales in the U.S. dropped $10,263,500 from a year earlier – but silver sales increased by $61,855,290. So, not only did silver sales make up the drop in gold sales, they exceeded them by $51,591,790.

Is the rush into “poor man’s gold” underway?

Why the answer to that question is significant is that a shift toward silver for this reason could signal we’re inching closer to the greater masses getting involved in the precious metals arena. And that – for those of us who’ve been invested for awhile now – would be music to the ears. Because when they start getting involved, the mania will be underway, and from that point forward, it’s game on.

I’m not saying the mania is starting, and I actually think we could see another sell-off before things take off for good. Gold could dip to $1,000 and maybe even $950, with silver going to the $14-$15 range. But as clues like these begin to build up, we’ll know we’re getting closer. (And any drop to those ranges would clearly be a major buying opportunity.) Everyone talks about gold, myself included, but a meaningful portion of one’s precious metals portfolio should be devoted to silver. The market is tiny, making the price potentially explosive. Remember that in the ‘70s bull market gold advanced over 700%, but silver soared over 1,400%.

Don’t be a “poor man” by ignoring gold’s shiny cousin.

Read more at Casey Research –>

Join the conversation about this story »

Later today, the Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote on House-passed legislation extending the filing deadline for unemployment benefits through the end of the month — a proposal not to be confused with the creation of a new insurance tier. That deadline came and went April 5, pushing an estimated 200,000 folks out of the program since then.

Trouble is, the House-passed bill isn’t retroactive. That means that Senate lawmakers, if they hope to help those people falling off the rolls this month, would have to alter the bill on the Senate floor. Depending on whether or not the Republicans agree to speed debate on the bill, passage might not come until the of this week, leaving tens of thousands more unemployed workers to lose their benefits in the meantime.

And even then, the altered bill would have to return to the House for a second approval.

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today that the Democrats still don’t have a plan for retroactivity.

Filed under: Coupe, SUV, Etc., Crossover, Chevrolet, Hyundai

For now, at least, car sales seem to be on an upward trajectory in the States, and according to AutoTrader, Chevrolet and Hyundai seem likely to be beneficiaries of the newfound consumer interest. In March, the most viewed new car on AutoTrader remained the Chevrolet Camaro, outpacing the Ford F150 and Mustang. Now that Ford is releasing all new powertrains for the 2011 Mustangs it will be interesting to see if the Camaro can retain its momentum.

Speaking of momentum, Hyundai continues to pick up velocity with its new Sonata. While the Sonata was only ranked 10th overall, it was #1 among mid-sized sedans for the first time ever, beating the standard-bearing Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, and Ford Fusion. The Sonata jumped from 22nd place in March 2009, while the Accord dropped from seventh to 12th. Another big winner was the new Chevy Equinox, with a 186 percent increase in pageviews, taking it from 12th to eighth place overall.

[Source: AutoTrader]

Continue reading Chevy Camaro, Equinox and Hyundai Sonata top AutoTrader research in March

Chevy Camaro, Equinox and Hyundai Sonata top AutoTrader research in March originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

I’ve been getting more phone calls than usual from reporters, and I was wondering about it a bit until it struck me – of course! Earth Day is coming.

April 22, 2010 will mark the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day. As the Earth Day Network says, “Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever. While climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, it also presents the greatest opportunity – an unprecedented opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous, clean energy economy now and for the future.”

Building a healthy and prosperous economy sounds like the kind of thing that deserves media attention. So call me a grumpy environmentalist, but why do we have to wait for April 22 each year to hear about it? Practically every day there are companies building wind farms and solar cells across the country, scientists making break-through discoveries in vehicle and energy technology and citizens choosing to get involved.

And while it’s true that many companies pitch environmental stories on Earth Day – it’s their best chance of getting coverage – more and more of them are acting on it every day.

A recent study by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship revealed that, despite the recession, an increasing number of American businesses are expanding environmental efforts like greening of products, services and operations and integrating citizenship into their business strategy, with 75% of CEOs leading the agenda.

Why? There are many reasons – a renewed focus on cost management, opportunities to capture market share, supplier pressures and a new level of corporate transparency, to name just a few. Or perhaps it’s just that it makes good business sense to understand how your products and operations impact and are impacted by the world around you. When natural resources are running scarce and prices for basic business necessities like water, fuel and raw materials are so volatile, smart execs know that environmental innovation must be a core part of their business strategy.

This is reinforced in a new report by the management consultants at A. T Kearny, which showed that companies focused on sustainability outperformed their peers by 15% during the financial crisis. I’d love to see a story written on April 23^rd about that trend!

The Los Angeles Police Department will hold a closed-casket visitation starting at noon Monday for SWAT Officer Robert J. Cottle, a Marine reservist killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.

The viewing for the 45-year-old Yorba Linda resident, who was a sergeant major in the Marines, will be held in downtown L.A. at police headquarters on First Street.

Cottle and Lance Cpl. Rick Centanni, 19, also from Yorba Linda, were traveling with other Marines in the Marja region of Afghanistan last month when their armored vehicle struck an improvised explosive device, killing the two men and seriously wounding two others.

Cottle and Centanni, who became friends during their deployment, were part of the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, based at Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County.

Cottle began working for the LAPD in 1990 and joined SWAT six years later. He is the first active LAPD officer to be killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

His private memorial service will be held Tuesday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown Los Angeles.

Cottle leaves behind a wife, Emily, a naval officer stationed in Hawaii, and a 9-month-old daughter. He was a veteran of two tours in Iraq and will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

— Richard Winton

Photo: Undated photo of Sgt. Maj. Robert  J. Cottle , 45, a member of the Los Angeles Police Department’s elite SWAT unit, who also served as a U.S. Marine and was killed in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb. Credit: LAPD

Adobe launched CS5 this morning, which has a bevy of features that can help create mobile content. And what phone/platform did they use to show off the end results? Well, it sure ain’t Apple the iPhone. Thanks, David!

Netflix recently decided it would be a good idea to strike a deal with Warner Brothers that involved delaying all new Warner Brothers releases by 28 days. Film industry executives somehow believe this strategy is going to help them sell more DVDs, though as we’ve been discussing, the deal as designed seems just as likely to confuse the hell out of consumers as it tries (and fails) to prop up less innovative companies. Why would Netflix agree to such a deal? It was the only way they could get Hollywood to loosen their vice-like licensing grip on the number of titles they allow Netflix to stream via broadband.

Of course the deal doesn’t apply to Blockbuster, who ponied up the cash to the studios so they can apparently mock Netflix and Redbox in advertisements instead of actually innovating. None of this, including the fact that Netflix is facing a class action lawsuit, has apparently fazed Netflix or the studios — as Netflix has now signed similar delayed-release deals with both Twentieth Century Fox and Unviersal Studios. As with the Warner Brothers arrangement, this will ramp up Netflix’s access to both studios’ libraries for streaming, though it looks like it won’t necessarily save Netflix any money:

Netflix says its deal with Universal will give it the "benefits of reduced product costs;" it does not make a similar assertion about Fox. Both deals do however let Netflix build up its instant-streaming catalogue. Fox, for instance, says it will make all prior seasons of several hit TV series, including 24, Bones and King of the Hill, available to Netflix instant-streaming subscribers, while Universal says it is doing the same with some "premium domestic titles," like Gosford Park.

Not too surprisingly, the press release announcing the deal tries to pretend that the deal is about "providing consumers with attractive options" when it does the exact opposite. Netflix goes on to insist that by restricting how consumers can consume studio content, they’re actually making film delivery more "flexible" and "convenient" and that the deal is just "a win all around."

Granted, Netflix customers who really only use Netflix’s streaming service may not care about this, especially if they’re not all that interested in new releases. Still, that doesn’t make keeping your product out of customer hands any smarter of a business plan when you’re trying to compete with piracy. One of the first major titles to be impacted by the deal will be Avatar, which thanks to this "convenient" deal won’t be available on Netflix in any form until 28 days after its April 22 street release date. Customers annoyed by that delay might go buy the DVD, or hey, they might just go download it via Bit Torrent, where they aren’t forced to wait for no particularly good reason.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Google today is hosting a cloud computing conference for CIOs — dubbed Atmosphere — at its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters, where we’ll be reporting from throughout the day. First up on the agenda is the unveiling of a rewritten Google Docs, tweaked to present information in real time as well as to enable better syncing across browsers. The goal here it to persuade CIOs that instead of upgrading to Microsoft Office 2010 they should switch to Google Docs.

Though this isn’t a big new product, the Docs rewrite should be a significant improvement. Part of what was holding Docs back from going feature-for-feature with Office was the fact that different browsers displayed the layouts of Docs differently. “We hit a bit of a wall in capabilities of browsers and HTML,” said Anil Sabharwal, enterprise product manager for Google Docs, in a pre-briefing. “For true document layout flexibility we built a document object model layout that runs through our own JavaScript layout engine. Then we convert it into appropriate HTML for each browser.”

The result is “every person sees exactly what the other person sees,” said Sabharwal. So now Docs has actual character-by-character, real-time editing by multiple users; in-document presence and IM; and advanced formatting such as floating images, rulers and data stops.

Sabharwal said the Docs real-time collaboration technology is not Google Wave, nor does it include any of Google’s recent productivity acquisitions, such as AppJet.

The new features for document and spreadsheet editors are available as an opt-in preview today for both consumers and enterprise users, with a revamped drawing editor available to all users today. Users will be able to edit spreadsheets through mobile browsers on Android, BlackBerry and iPhone, but they can only view docs and presentations on their phones. The launch disables offline accessibility, a feature Sabharwal said that very few users partake in, though his team is working to bring it back using HTML 5.

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

Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?