A Subway employee shared on Instagram a photo of a penis at rest on foot-long sandwich bread.
A sandwich maker at a Subway franchise has been fired for putting his own meat on the bun, the company has confirmed.
See: euphemism.
"This isolated incident is not representative of SUBWAY Sandwich Artists?. These actions are not tolerated and the franchisee took immediate action to terminate the two employees involved," a Subway spokesman said in a statement emailed Tuesday to CNBC.
The questionable deeds came to public attention Monday after the Huffington Post republished images from Instagram of self-identified Subway employees misbehaving. One showed a penis at rest on foot-long sandwich bread in what appears to be the restaurant's preparation area. However, the employee told the Huffington Post the image was actually taken at his home.
Another employee picture shows a bottle filled with a frozen substance. "Today at work I froze my pee," the caption states.
Subway declined to confirm the employees names or location of the restaurant.
Plenty of other restaurant employees have been fired for public pictures of inappropriate work behavior.
The obvious question -- What were they thinking ? actually has an answer, according to the experts.
"Though people have been warned many times about what you're not supposed to do, etiquette on the Internet, a lot of people think it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really count. They often think they are invincible," said psychologist Susan Lipkins. "It's like driving fast or doing drugs. There's a huge amount of denial. They think they are invincible, it's a Superman complex. They think its' not going to happen to them."
"Kids get away with so much on the Internet, when they finally get caught it's a surprise. It's sort of like a thief, they start small," she said.
The situation isn't that much unlike powerful politicians who have been busted for sexting or frequenting prostitutes, Lipkins said. "What I think happen to people like him (former U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner) and people who are in power, they no longer see the line, their power has allowed them to do it. They are either unquestioned or able to step over the line," she said.
But as for the fast-food workers?
"I don't think the kids feel powerful in the same way. I think they feel anonymous. I think they don't think they will get caught," she said.
Other factors come into play.
"Teenagers are much more prone to stupid behavior, not thinking before they act," said psychologist Neil Bernstein. "They don't ask: 'What's going to happen if I do this?'"
"I think this is a culture of sensational outrageousness. And online is the perfect venue for expressing that," said Bernstein, who is also the author of "How to keep your teenager out of trouble and what to do if you can't,"
"Just how far are we gonna go? It's extreme," he said.
?By CNBC's Amy Langfield. Follow her on Twitter @AmyLangfield
23 July 2013, Lagos ? As part of measures put in place to boost electricity supply in the country, Nigeria and India have concluded plans to set up an off-grid solar powered system across selected locations in Nigeria.
Already, an agreement to actualise the objectives of the project has been signed by the two parties involved.
A statement from the ministry of power in Abuja disclosed that the ministry and Indian-based power firm, Bharat Heavy Electricals had put pen to paper to commence with the project.
According to the statement, from the plan, which was unveiled, Bharat Heavy Electricals has been given the nod to commence studies on the project with a view to climaxing it with the setting-up of solar based independent projects in selected locations starting with Bida in Niger State.
Although, details of the expected capacity and funding mechanism for the project were not disclosed, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Godknows Igali, had expressed delight at the prospect of the proposed project.
Igali stated that the project would unbundle the enormous potentials in Nigeria?s power sector, assuring that Nigeria?s open door policy for genuine investors in the power sector and fruitful collaboration with the Indian company would be leveraged to make a success of the project.
The Secretary of Government of India, Department of Heavy Industries, Dr. Sutanu Behuria, who led the team at the signing ceremony expressed India?s interest in the provision of funds in various forms for the development of Nigeria?s power sector.
Behuria stated that Bharat had got the necessary capacity to deliver on the project considering its experience from operations in 12 African countries, which he described as robust and will come in handy in assisting Nigeria realise its vision for uninterrupted power supply.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has said that disclosure of vital information as demanded by the Freedom of Information, FOI, Act 2010 was necessary to douse unnecessary tensions in such complex sector like Nigeria?s Electricity Supply Industry, NESI.
Chairman of NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, stated at an interactive session with chief executives of ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, of the federal government alongside the House of Representatives Committee on reform of government in Abuja that contrary to insinuations, an open government enjoys more stability and efficiency.
Amadi explained that embracing the FOI law would not provide an organisation the freedom to act in justifiable manners, adding that NERC as a regulator would remain open to required disclosures as mandated by the law.
?The most difficult challenge to the FOI law is conceptual hurdle because of the erroneous belief of what disclosure would do to an organisation, contrary to that, an open government is more stable and efficient as feedbacks from citizens and customers improve organisational processes and outcomes,? Amadi stated.
He also advised managers of government agencies to understand that without transforming the corporate culture of their agencies, making the paradigm shift required to fully embrace the FOI law would be challenging.
Abilene Christian Schools is
pleased to announce it has named Kirk Wade, from Dallas Christian School, its
new President and CEO, effective August 1.?
"We
are delighted to partner with a person of Mr. Wade's integrity and commitment
to excellence in Christian education," said Bryan Shilcutt, chair of the ACS
Board of Trustees. "Kirk was well-loved by teachers and students at Dallas
Christian, and we look forward to his leadership at ACS and in the Abilene
community."
Wade
is a product of Christian education, graduating from Dallas Christian High
School in 1990 and Abilene Christian University with a bachelor's degree in
Education in 1994. He has a decade of experience as a teacher and coach at
Dallas Christian School and Forney Middle School.
In
2006, Wade earned a master's degree in Educational Administration from Texas
A&M-Commerce, and has since served in various administrative roles at
Dallas Christian over the last six years, including service as the Middle
School principal, Upper School principal and Interim President.?
Kirk
is married to Laura (Duff), from Abilene, and they have four children. Abilene Christian
Schools will host a reception to welcome the Wade family
on Thursday, August 8, from 3-5 p.m. in the ACS Board Room. The reception is
open to ACS families and the community.
City National Corp.'s second-quarter earnings rose 9%, making the L.A.-based private bank and business lender the latest California bank to exceed Wall Street's expectations.
The parent of City National Bank said Thursday that it posted a profit of $59.7 million, or $1.04 a share, compared with $54.8 million, or $1.01, in the same quarter last year. The average estimate of analysts as calculated by Thompson Financial Network was for earnings of just 96 cents a share.
It was the bank's 81st consecutive profitable quarter, said Chief Executive Russell Goldsmith, noting that assets, deposits and wealth-management fees all grew at a double-digit pace.?
Quiz: How much do you know about home loans?
Loans on the bank's books at the end of the quarter totaled $15.8 billion, excluding certain loans taken over from failed banks on which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreed to share losses.
That was up 17% year over year, making City National the latest California bank to surprise analysts with strong loan growth ? a development that bodes well for the economy as well as promising better earnings in quarters to come.
Aaron Deer, a San Francisco-based analyst at Sandler O?Neill, called the loan growth "great to see" because banks in hard-hit California??have been tripping over themselves over the past couple of years trying to find borrowers.?
?Any pickup in demand could signify that businesses are feeling better about the economic outlook and willing to invest in new opportunities,? Deer said.
City National announced the results after the close of trading. Its shares closed up $2.02, or 3.1%, at? $67.22.
The gain was a vote of confidence from investors who had seen other Southern California banks report favorable earnings after the markets closed Wednesday.
Among them were Citizens Business Bank parent CVB Financial Corp., whose shares jumped 5.6% on Thursday; Cathay General Bancorp, up 1.4%; and East West Bancorp, up 4.9%.?
ALSO:
Earnings, lending increase at Southland banks
City National: Bank to the stars -- and a lot more
Onward from Hollywood: City National tunes up in Music City
"The future is already here ? it's just not very evenly distributed," wrote William Gibson. He's right. Luckily, the future is mostly in my attic workshop. I've been lucky enough to have access to a Form 1 3D printer for the past week and have come away with a better sense of the platform, the way forward of 3D printing in general and Form 1 in particular. In short, the Form 1 is one of the simplest and most usable printers I've ever used and, barring a few minor peccadilloes, it is well worth the hype -- and price tag.
New compound excels at killing persistent and drug-resistant tuberculosisPublic release date: 17-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mika Ono mikaono@scripps.edu 858-784-2052 Scripps Research Institute
LA JOLLA, CA June 17, 2013 An international team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has identified a highly promising new anti-tuberculosis compound that attacks the tuberculosis (TB) bacterium in two different ways.
"These findings represent an effort to help solve one of the major global health crises of our timethe resurgence of TB and its dangerous drug-resistant strains," said Peter G. Schultz, the Scripps Family Chair Professor of Chemistry at TSRI, who was senior author of the study with William R. Jacobs, Jr., member of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of microbiology & immunology and of genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
"In cell cultures and in mice, this compound showed powerful activity against ordinary active TB bacteria, non-replicating TB bacteria and even extensively drug-resistant TB strains," said Feng Wang, a member of the Schultz lab at TSRI and first author of the study with Dhinakaran Sambandan of the Jacobs lab and Rajkumar Halder of the Schultz lab.
The paper appears in this week online ahead of print in an Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Global Health Crisis
Although isoniazid and rifampin, the two front-line TB drugs, came into use in 1952 and 1967 respectively, new TB infections still occur at the rate of roughly one per second. At any moment about a third of the existing human population is infectedmostly with inactive, latent TB, although active TB still kills over one million people each year. Russia, Africa, China and Southeast Asia have been especially hard hit by the epidemic.
Increased urbanization, public health complacency and immunity-weakening HIV have been major enablers of TB's spread in recent decades. But the bacterium that causes TBMycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb)also happens to be unusually well adapted for persisting in humans. Among other strategies, it frequently reverts to a dormant, non-replicating state and also creates attack-resistant cell colonies called biofilms, which contain a high proportion of non-replicating TB.
Compared to ordinary, fast-replicating TB, these other forms of TB are much less susceptible to existing drugs. Effective TB therapy thus requires months to years of regular dosing. But many patients quit before completing such long courses of treatment and end up incubating drug-resistant TB strains. Some strains are now "extensively drug-resistant" (XDR) and virtually untreatableand usually fatal.
Killing the Persisters
"The big challenge here has been to find a drug that clears TB infection more quickly, which means it has to be effective against both replicating and non-replicating TB," said Wang, now also a scientist at the California Institute for Biomedical Research (CALIBR), a non-profit organization founded by Schultz for the early-stage development of new medicines.
Most existing TB drugs work poorly against non-replicating TB, having been developed principally for their ability to kill actively replicating TB. Wang therefore set up a different kind of screening testone to detect compounds that block TB's persistence-related ability to form biofilms.
Because experiments with live TB require a special (level 3) biosafety facility, Wang used a related but non-disease-causing mycobacterium for his initial, high-throughput test. Screening a diverse library of 70,000 compounds, he quickly found one, dubbed TCA1, that stood out for its ability to inhibit mycobacterial biofilms.
Tests in Jacobs's biosafety level 3-certified laboratory confirmed that TCA1 also has powerful activity against TB. "Surprisingly, it turned out to kill both non-replicating and replicating TB," Wang said.
In cell culture tests, TCA1 on its own killed more than 99.9% of ordinary, actively replicating TB bacteria within three weeks, and in combination with isoniazid or rifampin, could kill 100% within that period. TCA1 also showed strong effectiveness against drug-resistant TB strains, removing all signs of one common strain within a week when combined with isoniazid. Against a highly fatal "super-bug" strain from South Africa, which resists all conventional TB drugs, the new compound on its own had a kill rate of more than 99.999% within three weeks.
As expected, TCA1 also showed potent effects against non-replicating TB. Tests in mice confirmed TCA1's effectiveness and suggested that the combination of TCA1 and isoniazid could be more powerful than existing drug regimens. TCA1 showed no sign of toxicity or adverse side effects in cell culture and mouse experiments, and also showed almost no tendency to induce drug resistance in TB.
A Complex Mechanism
Working with the laboratories of Gurdyal S. Besra and Klaus Ftterer at the University of Birmingham, UK, Katarina Mikusova at Comenius University in Slovakia, and Kai Johnson at Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, the team next did structural and biochemical analyses to determine how the new compound kills Mtb so efficiently.
The researchers found it works in an apparently unique way, largely by targeting two Mtb enzymes, one supporting TB replication and the other TB dormancy and persistence. "I don't know of any other antibiotic that kills replicating bacteria through one pathway and non replicating bacteria through another, as this one does," Wang said.
Now funded by the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, Wang and his colleagues are working to devise improved variants of TCA1. "We already have analogs of TCA1 that are more potent and look very promising as TB drug candidates," said Wang.
Assuming that preclinical tests are completed successfully, he added, the group hopes to find a pharmaceutical company partner to sponsor clinical trials in TB patients.
###
Contributors to the study, "Identification of a small molecule with activity against drug-resistant and persistent tuberculosis," also included Jianing Wang, Insha Ahmad, Pengyu Yang and Yong Zhang of TSRI; Sarah M. Batt of University of Birmingham; Brian Weinrick, John Kim and Morad Hassani of Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Stanislav Huszar of Comenius University (Slovakia); Claudia Trefzer of EPFL; Zhenkun Ma, Takushi Kaneko and Khisi E. Mdluli of the Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development; Scott Franzblau of the University of Illinois; and Arnab K. Chatterjee of CALIBR.
The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (grants AI26170 and A10-97548), the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (260872), the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Center for AIDS Research (AI051519).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New compound excels at killing persistent and drug-resistant tuberculosisPublic release date: 17-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Mika Ono mikaono@scripps.edu 858-784-2052 Scripps Research Institute
LA JOLLA, CA June 17, 2013 An international team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has identified a highly promising new anti-tuberculosis compound that attacks the tuberculosis (TB) bacterium in two different ways.
"These findings represent an effort to help solve one of the major global health crises of our timethe resurgence of TB and its dangerous drug-resistant strains," said Peter G. Schultz, the Scripps Family Chair Professor of Chemistry at TSRI, who was senior author of the study with William R. Jacobs, Jr., member of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of microbiology & immunology and of genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
"In cell cultures and in mice, this compound showed powerful activity against ordinary active TB bacteria, non-replicating TB bacteria and even extensively drug-resistant TB strains," said Feng Wang, a member of the Schultz lab at TSRI and first author of the study with Dhinakaran Sambandan of the Jacobs lab and Rajkumar Halder of the Schultz lab.
The paper appears in this week online ahead of print in an Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Global Health Crisis
Although isoniazid and rifampin, the two front-line TB drugs, came into use in 1952 and 1967 respectively, new TB infections still occur at the rate of roughly one per second. At any moment about a third of the existing human population is infectedmostly with inactive, latent TB, although active TB still kills over one million people each year. Russia, Africa, China and Southeast Asia have been especially hard hit by the epidemic.
Increased urbanization, public health complacency and immunity-weakening HIV have been major enablers of TB's spread in recent decades. But the bacterium that causes TBMycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb)also happens to be unusually well adapted for persisting in humans. Among other strategies, it frequently reverts to a dormant, non-replicating state and also creates attack-resistant cell colonies called biofilms, which contain a high proportion of non-replicating TB.
Compared to ordinary, fast-replicating TB, these other forms of TB are much less susceptible to existing drugs. Effective TB therapy thus requires months to years of regular dosing. But many patients quit before completing such long courses of treatment and end up incubating drug-resistant TB strains. Some strains are now "extensively drug-resistant" (XDR) and virtually untreatableand usually fatal.
Killing the Persisters
"The big challenge here has been to find a drug that clears TB infection more quickly, which means it has to be effective against both replicating and non-replicating TB," said Wang, now also a scientist at the California Institute for Biomedical Research (CALIBR), a non-profit organization founded by Schultz for the early-stage development of new medicines.
Most existing TB drugs work poorly against non-replicating TB, having been developed principally for their ability to kill actively replicating TB. Wang therefore set up a different kind of screening testone to detect compounds that block TB's persistence-related ability to form biofilms.
Because experiments with live TB require a special (level 3) biosafety facility, Wang used a related but non-disease-causing mycobacterium for his initial, high-throughput test. Screening a diverse library of 70,000 compounds, he quickly found one, dubbed TCA1, that stood out for its ability to inhibit mycobacterial biofilms.
Tests in Jacobs's biosafety level 3-certified laboratory confirmed that TCA1 also has powerful activity against TB. "Surprisingly, it turned out to kill both non-replicating and replicating TB," Wang said.
In cell culture tests, TCA1 on its own killed more than 99.9% of ordinary, actively replicating TB bacteria within three weeks, and in combination with isoniazid or rifampin, could kill 100% within that period. TCA1 also showed strong effectiveness against drug-resistant TB strains, removing all signs of one common strain within a week when combined with isoniazid. Against a highly fatal "super-bug" strain from South Africa, which resists all conventional TB drugs, the new compound on its own had a kill rate of more than 99.999% within three weeks.
As expected, TCA1 also showed potent effects against non-replicating TB. Tests in mice confirmed TCA1's effectiveness and suggested that the combination of TCA1 and isoniazid could be more powerful than existing drug regimens. TCA1 showed no sign of toxicity or adverse side effects in cell culture and mouse experiments, and also showed almost no tendency to induce drug resistance in TB.
A Complex Mechanism
Working with the laboratories of Gurdyal S. Besra and Klaus Ftterer at the University of Birmingham, UK, Katarina Mikusova at Comenius University in Slovakia, and Kai Johnson at Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, the team next did structural and biochemical analyses to determine how the new compound kills Mtb so efficiently.
The researchers found it works in an apparently unique way, largely by targeting two Mtb enzymes, one supporting TB replication and the other TB dormancy and persistence. "I don't know of any other antibiotic that kills replicating bacteria through one pathway and non replicating bacteria through another, as this one does," Wang said.
Now funded by the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, Wang and his colleagues are working to devise improved variants of TCA1. "We already have analogs of TCA1 that are more potent and look very promising as TB drug candidates," said Wang.
Assuming that preclinical tests are completed successfully, he added, the group hopes to find a pharmaceutical company partner to sponsor clinical trials in TB patients.
###
Contributors to the study, "Identification of a small molecule with activity against drug-resistant and persistent tuberculosis," also included Jianing Wang, Insha Ahmad, Pengyu Yang and Yong Zhang of TSRI; Sarah M. Batt of University of Birmingham; Brian Weinrick, John Kim and Morad Hassani of Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Stanislav Huszar of Comenius University (Slovakia); Claudia Trefzer of EPFL; Zhenkun Ma, Takushi Kaneko and Khisi E. Mdluli of the Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development; Scott Franzblau of the University of Illinois; and Arnab K. Chatterjee of CALIBR.
The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (grants AI26170 and A10-97548), the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (260872), the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Center for AIDS Research (AI051519).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The park that was the center of defiance against the rule of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been cleared by riot police after more than two weeks of protests. As thousands of demonstrators try to regroup in Taksim Square, smaller skirmishes between police and protesters have broken out in other parts of Istanbul.
Here's a gallery of images from the past two weeks of protests and pushback in Turkey.
Follow AP photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo
FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2012 file photo, television personality Kim Kardashian poses for photographers at the red carpet during the 40th anniversary of Cosmopolitan magazine in Spanish in Mexico City. Kardashian reportedly gave birth to a baby girl Saturday, June 15, 2013 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2012 file photo, television personality Kim Kardashian poses for photographers at the red carpet during the 40th anniversary of Cosmopolitan magazine in Spanish in Mexico City. Kardashian reportedly gave birth to a baby girl Saturday, June 15, 2013 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? It looks to be a baby girl for Kim Kardashian and her rapper boyfriend Kanye West. Or does it?
The couple was keeping silent Sunday in the wake of multiple reports that Kardashian has given birth over the weekend, about a month premature.
But Kardashian's sister Khloe appears to have let a rather cryptic cat out of the bag on Twitter.
"I can not even begin 2describe the miracle that is now apart of our family. Mommy/baby are healthy &resting. We appreciate all of the love," she tweeted Sunday.
She quickly followed with a second tweet: "More info will come when the time is right! Thank you all for understanding! We love you all dearly! Overwhelmed with love right now."
Kardashian mom Kris Jenner linked to both tweets on her Twitter account. She was scheduled to be a presenter at Sunday night's Daytime Emmy Awards.
The reality TV star's pregnancy was almost as anticipated as the royal pregnancy of Kate Middleton, who is due in mid-July. That's about the time the Kardashian baby had been due.
The 32-year-old has often been photographed since announcing she was pregnant, opting to continue to wear designer clothing. She told The Associated Press in April that she eventually embraced being an expecting mom after getting past "the awkward phases and stages."
The couple had initially kept the baby's gender a secret, but the sex was revealed earlier this month during one of Kardashian's doctor appointments on "Keeping up with the Kardashians."
News of the birth has been swaddled in unusual secrecy. Representatives for West and Kim Kardashian did not respond to emails and calls from The Associated Press, nor did any representatives for family members, friends and professional associates. And all of the weekend media reports on the birth were attributed to anonymous sources.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, West said he didn't like talking about his family or the arrival of his child.
"Like, this is my baby. This isn't America's baby," he said.
Earlier, we posted a blog about the recent publication in Climbing Magazine on Training for Off-Width Climbing written by local Missoula rock climber, Pamela Pack, with guidance by Alpine?s Leah Versteegen. Part I of the two part series published in May 2013 reviewed the basic foundation of a training cycle to prepare a climber for the grueling sport of off-widths. Part II, released in the June 2013 edition of Climbing Magazine, is on the shelves now. Check it out!
I want to highlight a specific area of Pamela?s training program, stabilization. At Alpine Physical Therapy, we put a lot of emphasis on stabilization training, for the core of course, but also the hips and lower extremities, shoulder girdle and upper extremities. Understanding core stability is an aspect of training that is important for everyone, but becomes absolutely necessary for elite athletes such as Pamela. After suffering dislocating ribs, herniated discs in her lumbar spine, a torn rotator cuff, torn MCL?the list goes on, optimal stability and biomechanics are allowing Pamela to continue her pursuit of tackling the most difficult off-width climbs imaginable.
For more information on Alpine?s sports performance outreach for climbers, visit our clinic webpage on the topic by?clicking here.
?
As part of her article on training for off-width?s Pamela describes the role of Pilates in her program:? ?One of your greatest challenges may be working around injuries. If you are injured, addressing that should be a priority. Trying to get stronger around an injury means other areas are overcompensating, and you?ll never truly heal yourself and be full-body strong. In my experience, Pilates has been the single most effective form of injury prevention and rehabilitation. Shoulder, back, hip, and other pain/damage require more stabilization work to get your entire body back to full strength, and Pilates can create deep core stability while maintaining flexibility and mobility.?
Pamela attributes much of her success climbing to the detailed workouts that have been developed specific to her sport by a combination of exercise specialists during the off-season in Missoula. While Leah has guided her overall rehabilitation and training program, Samantha Schmidt at Alpine PT and Samantha Glaze at The Core Studio have taken her to the next level in stabilization training with fine-tuned mechanics and isolated stability utilizing Pilates and Core Align. Well done ladies.
PARIS (AP) ? The Paris Air Show, which opens for business on Monday, brings hundreds of aircraft to the skies around the French capital, the usual tense competition between aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus, and a slew of innovations large and small. Here's what to look for over the show:
BATTLE OF THE WIDE-BODIES
The much-anticipated Airbus A350 flew for the first time on Friday, launching a new air race between the European plane maker and Boeing for long-haul wide-body aircraft.
Boeing has dominated the market so far, but troubles with the lithium ion batteries in its 787 Dreamliner are giving customers a reason to give a close look at Airbus' first all-new plane in eight years. The CEO of Airbus parent EADS, Tom Enders, has said he expects a "few hundred" new orders. Boeing executives, meanwhile, downplayed the air show's importance for orders, noting that the two companies have historically split the commercial aircraft market.
A year ago, at the Paris Air Show's sister event in Britain, Boeing beat Airbus for the number of orders announced. The U.S. company took in $37 billion in orders and commitments, well above Airbus' $16.9 billion.
But the announcements during the air shows are not always a reliable indicator of business since prices are often negotiated down heavily and big orders don't always coincide with the event.
The race for the title of biggest plane maker is as tight as ever. Over the whole of 2012, Airbus delivered 588 planes. That was a record, but one Boeing beat with 601 deliveries, the first time since 2003 it came out on top.
NO HANDS ON DECK
They have swooped into wildfires to take temperatures and tracked animals across Africa. They have guided a fuel tanker to safety through icy waters. Drones are increasingly being used for non-military purposes and are expected to feature prominently at the Paris Air Show.
There are still tough restrictions on their flight for safety reasons, but while the Federal Aviation Authority works on new rules, the makers of drones will aim to show off innovation and technical prowess at the show. Eurocopter, a company based in France, will showcase new technology that can transform a manned helicopter into one that flies without a pilot.
EVEN IN PARIS, SEQUESTRATION TAKES TOLL
American fighter jets aren't taking to the skies above Paris, nor will they be seen on the ground, for the first time in more than two decades thanks to the U.S. government's spending cuts - the infamous 'sequestration'.
The U.S. pavilion remains the largest, but the event will be less of a sales showcase for latest military hardware and more a place for suppliers to meet up with potential customers.
Russia, on the other hand, is looking to make a splash by presenting fighter jets and military helicopters at the show for the first time since 2001. The Sukhoi manufacturer will showcase its Su-35, a twin-engine multipurpose fighter, for the first time outside Russia. Britain and France also will have fighter jets on display.
"It's two different trends between commercial aircraft and defense," said Eric Bernardini, a consultant for AlixPartners who follows the aerospace industry.
EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS
Less flashy but just as important for the industry will be the myriad technological innovations that parts suppliers will come to Paris to present. The biggest issue? The cost of fuel.
The price of jet fuel has more than tripled worldwide since 2003 ? a trend both jet manufacturers and airlines expect to continue. Electric- or solar-powered commercial flights are wildly improbable and biofuels aren't yet economically viable, so airlines are looking to improve mileage any way possible.
For long-haul flights, that means more carbon-fiber in airplane bodies and other design tweaks, such as electric motors for taxiing. For passengers, it means no end in sight on extra baggage fees.
___
Follow Lori Hinnant at: https://twitter.com/lhinnant
Local resident Michael Schaaf knew something was wrong when his day-to-day worries began to interfere with his life. After consulting with a doctor, he decided to seek help for his generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) at Loyola University Medical Center.
Schaaf?s doctor, Aparna Sharma, says it?s important to remember that anxiety is a normal human emotion that aids in survival. However, when it becomes excessive and interferes with everyday life, people need to seek professional help.
Often, individuals with generalized anxiety experienced something traumatic as a child. Sharma says a coping mechanism, is to worry about trivial, day-to-day matters because these serve as a distraction from the real emotions at play. Memories may be traumatic and are often difficult to deal with.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, there are two main kinds of treatment for GAD. Cognitive behavior therapy can be used to change how the patient thinks, behaves, and reacts to certain situations. Medication is another alternative and typically patients are prescribed either anti-depression or anti-anxiety medications. As always, it?s important to talk with a doctor before obtaining any medication.
Sharma says that other solutions can as simple as doing enjoyable, relaxing activities such as reading, journaling, or exercising. If you or someone you know may have GAD, it?s important to seek professional help and know that anxiety is curable.
Tags: Anxiety, CLTV, featured, generalized anxiety disorder, Jane Monzures, Loyola University, Loyola University Medical Center, Mental Health, stress, WGN, worry
Redmond, Wash.?At Microsoft's Xbox Campus today, the company gave a first look at its next-generation console, the Xbox One, which is coming out later this year (in time for Christmas). Microsoft clearly noticed the drubbing Sony got a few months ago when that company unveiled the PlayStation 4 without showing off any hardware and learned a lesson. Xbox hardware was definitely shown today: a rectangular vented box with glossy black panels accompanied by a new, smaller Kinect that will come standard with the console, and a controller that looks very much like the existing one.
Many of the capabilities of the new Xbox were leaked ahead of time, including the eight-core X86 processor, Blu-ray drive, and new HD Kinect. But it's far more convincing to see it all work in a demo. On stage, Microsoft president of interactive entertainment Don Matrick booted up the Xbox One with an "Xbox On" command. The interface uses the familiar Microsoft Live Tiles, but now integrates a Trending category that combines items that are popular with your friends with those favored by the Xbox community at large. With a command of "Xbox Watch Live TV," Matrick called up "The Price Is Right," then switched to an interactive, voice-controlled TV programming guide called OneGuide that puts every cable box to shame.
This is a new strategy for Microsoft, which for years has been trying to work with cable companies to integrate a tuner into the Xbox. Now the company has obviously abandoned that strategy in favor of an HDMI passthrough with an informational overlay similar to Google TV?though it's worth mentioning that, at first glance, the Xbox UI seems far superior to Google's. That probably means the Xbox One will have no access to your cable box DVR. But the 500 GB on board might allow Xbox to act as its own DVR, a possibility that would undoubtedly unleash an army of lawyers.
Xbox One allows instant switching between games, music, movies, and TV. It even plays live TV within a live tile on the home screen. It also has a Snap Mode similar to Windows 8 that can display additional content next to TV programming. For instance, Xbox has worked out deals with both ESPN and the NFL that will integrate extra angles, real-time commentary, and updates of personalized content such as fantasy leagues while you watch the game. This content can also be pushed to second screens through Microsoft's Smart Glass software that already exists for tablets and smartphones. ?
Snap Mode also can support Xbox One's integrated Skype client, which works with the new 1080p camera in Kinect. Prepare for a new era of divided attention spans as video calls can coexist on your TV screen as you switch back and forth between TV and games. The Kinect accessory has advanced significantly, hardware-wise. Its camera array can handle 1080p at 30 fps and has active infrared sensing and time-of-flight measurement for individual photons. The company claims that the camera tech is sensitive enough to measure a player's heartbeat, which, when you get past the visceral creepiness of the idea, could be enormously useful for exercise games. ?
It took a while during the presentation to get to gaming, but a demo of upcoming EA Sports titles was jaw-dropping. Both EA and Call of Duty developers Infinity Ward have created new game engines that produce super high-fidelity rendering of human movement as well as textures that dwarf the capabilities of the current generation of consoles. In addition to EA Sports franchises, demos today included a preview of the next Forza racing game and a sneak peek of Call of Duty Ghosts (now with a playable special forces dog), which will all launch exclusively on the Xbox One. ?
And that's not the only exclusive content. Microsoft also announced that Xbox will be a platform for original TV content. Xbox Entertainment Studios is teaming up with Steven Spielberg to create a live action series based on the popular Halo franchise. ?
The crowd here was definitely impressed, but there are still are plenty of unanswered questions and a few caveats that could dull the anticipation for the new console. The biggest question is price. If Microsoft can't bring this thing in at under $500, it will be a tough sell as a mass-market consumer device. Also, what about the content that will be allowed to play on the device? Early word had it that the system won't allow play of used games, which are a big market on existing consoles, allowing people to snatch up older games at a discount. Also, from what we can tell, the new console won't play any games designed for the current Xbox, which will severely limit the available content at launch. Finally, it's about time that Microsoft stopped charging for Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, which put much of the online service's best functionality behind a paywall. The company gave no indication that was going to change. ?
If Microsoft nails the pricing on Xbox One, they've got a hit on their hands. At least it seems that way from here.
(Reuters) - Best Buy Co Inc reported lackluster sales in the first quarter and warned that efforts to entice shoppers could squeeze profits in the near term.
The news overshadowed its better-than-expected, first-quarter profit and sent shares of the world's largest consumer electronics chain down 4 percent on Tuesday.
Under Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly, who took the helm last fall, it has been matching rivals' online prices, dedicating more in-store space to faster-growing products such as smartphones and tablets, and investing in employee training and revamping stores.
Joly has also removed layers of management, cut jobs, closed some underperforming stores and decided to shed non-core assets such as its stake in a European joint venture with Carphone Warehouse Group to lower costs.
The results showed Best Buy might need to cut costs further to compete more effectively with the likes of Wal-Mart Stores and Amazon.com.
"The company has plenty of fat to cut, which management can then reinvest into improved price competitiveness; upgrading its e-commerce capabilities; and better customer service," BB&T Capital Markets analyst Anthony Chukumba wrote.
On a conference call, Joly told investors that Best Buy has taken a host of steps to boost its online traffic and sales. It has invested in targeted marketing and added more relevant product recommendations.
The retailer plans to invest more to make its website easier to navigate and replace its decade-old search platform with one that will produce more relevant results.
Best Buy's financial chief, Sharon McCollam, said she did not expect any financial benefits from the new platform for bestbuy.com until the next financial year, which begins on February 1, 2015.
"While many of these online initiatives may sound like just basic functionality upgrades, they are actually game changing for an online retailer of our size as we have historically underinvested in the online channel," Joly said.
ONLINE BATTLE
Some critics have in the past complained that Best Buy had become a showroom for Amazon.com Inc and other online chains as shoppers go to its stores to check out electronic items like televisions, but then buy them elsewhere for less.
Best Buy expects that to change as Amazon starts collecting sales tax in more states by the end of the financial year January 2014.
"In states that are already collecting we're seeing an incremental benefit in our online and retail store sales," Joly said on Tuesday.
Critics of Amazon argued it had an unfair advantage because brick-and-mortar retailers, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Target, have had to collect state sales tax on online sales for years because they have stores and other physical operations in these locations.
The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly earlier this month to give states the power to enforce sales tax laws on online purchases, but the legislation faces a tougher fight in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Best Buy's net earnings from continuing operations fell to $97 million, or 29 cents a share, from $169 million, or 49 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding restructuring charges but including Europe, it earned 36 cents a share, above the analysts estimate of 25 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Its sales fell 9.6 percent to $9.38 billion. Sales at stores open at least 14 months fell 1.3 percent, including declines domestically and internationally.
Best Buy tied the revenue weakness partly to a shift in the timing of Super Bowl-related sales. Football's Super Bowl took place on February 3, when the first quarter began, so pre-game sales of big-screen televisions happened in the fourth quarter.
(Reporting By Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Leslie Gevirtz)
Teachers carry children away from Briarwood Elementary school after a tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma City, Okla, Monday, May 20, 2013. Near SW 149th and Hudson. (AP Photo/ The Oklahoman, Paul Hellstern)
Teachers carry children away from Briarwood Elementary school after a tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma City, Okla, Monday, May 20, 2013. Near SW 149th and Hudson. (AP Photo/ The Oklahoman, Paul Hellstern)
Briarwood Elementary P.E. teacher Mike Murphy comforts Aiden Stuck, 7, as he waits for his mother at the school after a tornado destroyed Briarwood Elementary and struck south Oklahoma City and Moore, Okla., Monday, May 20, 2013.(AP Photo/ The Oklahoman, Nate Billings)
Rebekah Stuck hugs her son, Aiden Stuck, 7, after she found him in front of the destroyed Briarwood Elementary after a tornado struck south Oklahoma City and Moore, Okla., Monday, May 20, 2013. Aiden Stuck was inside the school when it was hit. (AP Photo/ The Oklahoman, Nate Billings)
An aerial view of Briarwood Elementary that was damaged in Monday's tornado Tuesday, May 21, 2013, in Moore, Oklahoma. A huge tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburb Monday, flattening an entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
A parent rushes to embrace her child as a teacher escorts her away from Briarwood Elementary school after a tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma City, Okla, Monday, May 20, 2013. Near SW 149th and Hudson. (AP Photo/ The Oklahoman, Paul Hellstern)
MOORE, Okla. (AP) ? The principal's voice came on over the intercom at Plaza Towers Elementary School: A severe storm was approaching and students were to go to the cafeteria and wait for their parents to pick them up.
But before all of the youngsters could get there, the tornado alarm sounded.
The plan changed quickly.
"All the teachers started screaming into the room and saying, 'Get into the hallway! We don't want you to die!' and stuff like that," said sixth-grader Phaedra Dunn. "We just took off running."
In the moments that followed, some of the children at Plaza Towers Elementary would, in fact, die. At least seven were killed by the twister Monday afternoon. Others would crawl out of the rubble, bloodied and bruised, utterly terrified.
The tornado that devastated this Oklahoma City suburb of 56,000 people destroyed Plaza Towers and also slammed Briarwood Elementary, where all the children appear to have survived. Students and parents recounted stories Tuesday of brave teachers who sheltered their pupils, in some cases by herding them into a closet and a restroom amid the fear and panic.
After the tornado alarm went off, students at Plaza Towers scrambled into the halls. But the halls ? some of which were within the view of windows ? did not appear safe enough.
Sixth-grader Antonio Clark said a teacher took him and as many other youngsters as possible and shoved them into the three-stall boys' bathroom.
"We were all piled in on each other," the 12-year-old said. Another teacher wrapped her arms around two students and held Antonio's hand.
Twenty seconds later he heard a roar that sounded like a stampede of elephants. His ears popped.
Then it all stopped almost as suddenly as it started. Crouched down, his backpack over his head, Antonio looked up. The skylight and the ceiling were gone, and he was staring up into a cloud filled with debris.
Antonio and a friend were among the first to stand up. They climbed over debris where their classroom had been just moments earlier. Students and teachers were struggling to free themselves from under the bricks, wooden beams and insulation. Some people had bleeding head wounds; blood covered one side of someone's eyeglasses, Antonio said.
"Everybody was crying," Antonio said. "I was crying because I didn't know if my family was OK."
Then Antonio saw his father ride up on a mountain bike, yelling his son's name.
Phaedra survived, too. Her mother rushed to the school just moments before the tornado hit, covered Phaedra's head with a blanket to protect her from hail and ushered her out the door. Phaedra's 10-year-old sister, Jenna, didn't want to budge from the school.
The principal "grabbed her backpack, put it over her head and literally said, 'You're mom's going to open the door. Get out. You're safer with your mom,' and pushed her out the door," said Amy Sharp, the girls' mother.
At Briarwood Elementary, the students also went into the halls. But a third-grade teacher didn't think it looked safe, so she herded some of the children into a closet, said David Wheeler, one of the fathers who tried to rush to the school after the tornado hit.
The teacher shielded Wheeler's 8-year-old son, Gabriel, with her arms and held him down as the tornado collapsed the school roof and starting lifting students upward with a pull so strong that it literally sucked glasses off kids' faces, Wheeler said.
"She saved their lives by putting them in a closet and holding their heads down," Wheeler said.
Gabriel and the teacher ? whom Wheeler identified as Julie Simon ? had to dig their way out of the rubble. The boy's back was cut and bruised and gravel was embedded in his head, Wheeler said. It took nearly three hours for father and son to be reunited.
Other parents waited even longer, as they drove from one emergency shelter to another in search of their children.
At St. Andrews United Methodist Church, 15-year-old Caitlin Ulrey waited about seven hours before her parents found her. Her high school had not been hit by the tornado. But her nerves were frayed.
"I was starting to panic and shake and have an anxiety attack," Caitlin said.
At Plaza Towers, several students were pulled alive from under a collapsed wall and other heaps of mangled debris. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain of parents and neighborhood volunteers. Parents carried dazed and terrified children in their arms to a triage center in the parking lot.
Hundreds of Oklahoma schools have reinforced tornado shelters, but not the two that were hit on Monday.
Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said it is up to each jurisdiction to set priorities for which schools get funding for safe rooms. But he said a shelter would not necessarily have saved more lives at Plaza Towers. The tornado was an EF5 twister, the most powerful type, with winds of at least 200 mph.
"When you talk about any kind of safety measures ... it's a mitigating measure, it's not an absolute," Ashwood said. "There's not a guarantee that everyone will be totally safe."
Moore School Superintendent Susan Pierce said teachers and administrators put their well-rehearsed crisis plan into action as the tornado approached. But she suggested there are limits to what people can do in the face of such a powerful storm.
"Safety is our main priority," Pierce said. "We monitored the weather throughout the day and when it was time to shelter, we did just that."
___
Associated Press writer Ramit Plushnick-Masti contributed to this report.
After the stir several weeks ago, buzz surrounding Defense Distributed's 3D-printed gun has begun to (somewhat) die down. This is probably due in part to Kim Dotcom's removal of the gun's blueprint from Mega and the fact that, frankly, the gun itself isn't much of an immediate threat. But as one potential threat dissipates, just like clockwork, a new one has appeared on the horizon. And any fear creeping up on you with this newest incarnation of the 3D-printed gun might actually be warranted.
While Defense Distributed's heavy-handidly named Liberator was good for about one (highly expensive) shot before becoming effectively useless, its successor only costs about $25, can be printed on a consumer-grade printer, and is good for, as the video shows, at least nine rounds?with the potential for many more.
Designed by a Wisconsin engineer who identifies himself anonymously as "Joe" and his creation troublingly as the "Lulz Liberator," the gun is made out of generic Polylac PA-747 ABS, otherwise known as the type of plastic most commonly used in consumer-grade 3D printers. According to Joe, this cheaper material is actually stronger than the ABS plastic used in the much more expensive, Stratasys pro printer that Defense Distributed used. Apparently attempts to use the Stratasys resulted in the gun's barrel exploding, something that is, generally, not ideal.
Contributing to its sturdier status, the Lulz Liberator also holds a bit more metal hardware than its predecessor: traditional hardware store screws replaced the flimsy plastic printed pins. Then, to make everything good and (arguably) legal, the same piece of non-functional steel placed in the Liberator exists in the Lulz variety, allowing it to set off metal detectors and comply with the Undetectable Firearms Act.
Of course, like you'd expect with any plastic gun, it still doesn't work perfectly. Some of the screws as well as the firing pin had to be replaced over the course of the video, and after every shot, while the ammo cartridge didn't explode, it did expand enough to require some hammer pounding before it was ready to go again. But even with its flaws, the message is clear: much more threatening printed guns are possible?and they have the potential to be dirt cheap.
Unlike Defense Distributed's big coming out, though, Joe still hasn't put the plans for his Lulz Liberator online. And his hesitance thus far isn't surprising given the fact that the State Department forced Defense Distributed to remove their plans, citing export control violations.
Joe doesn't claim anarchist roots like Cody Wilson, Defense Distributed's founder. But he does believe him and Wilson are after the same ultimate goal. According to Joe, "I agree with Cody's idea that this is a perfect fusion of the first and second amendments."
The word "perfect," apparently, being a highly subjective term. [Forbes]
In the age of ubiquitous computing, we've grown fairly used to infrastructure, objects, and even furniture that adapt to the presence of humans. But what if you could control the behavior of a wall or room simply by thinking harder?
That?s the impetus behind Cerebral Hut, an installation by the Turkish architect Guvenc Ozel. The hut, which is made up of ten hexagonal panels programmed to expand and contract on command, was part of a show at the last Istanbul Biennial. Ozel bought a commercially available brainwave reader?like this NeuroSky headset?and wrote a script that turns the brain activity of the user into motion cues for the panels. Standing beneath the curved half-wall, visitors could control the size of the panels and the pace of their deformation simply by concentrating and blinking.
It?s a crude example of where brain science and architecture could eventually intersect, as sensor technology evolves. ?We traditionally assume that the built environment, whether in the architectural or the urban scale, influences our psyche,? Ozel explains. ?What if we can reverse that relationship? What if a kinetic architecture could establish a direct connection between the thoughts of its user and itself in order to reconfigure its physical boundaries accordingly??
Neurologists and architects have long been drawn to each others? professions?hell, there?s even an institute devoted to their union?but until recently, research into how architecture directly affects the brain (and vice versa) has been limited by tech that?s either clunky or wildly expensive. Now, we?re entering an era when off-the-shelf hardware is making it possible for designers with minimal experience in either field to experiment at the intersection of brains and buildings. [The Dish]
That cat's out of the bag a day early, it seems. Yahoo's board has approved a $1.1 billion cash deal to purchase the blogging site Tumblr, according to The Wall Street Journal. We were expecting Yahoo to announce the acquisition during tomorrow's NYC media event -- CEO Marissa Mayer may instead use the last-minute gathering to detail the company's plans for integrating the popular platform.
Dear Consumers: A disturbing trend has come to our attention. You, the people, are thinking more about health, and you're starting to do something about it. This cannot continue.
Sure, there's always been talk of health in America. We often encourage it. The thing is, we only want you to think about and talk about health in a certain way--equating health with how you look, instead of outcomes like quality of life and reduced disease risk. Your superficial understanding of health has a great influence over your purchasing decisions, and we're ready for it, whether you choose to go low-calorie, low-fat, gluten-free or inevitably give up and accept the fact that you can't resist our Little Debbie snacks, potato chips and ice cream novelties. Whatever the current health trend, we respond by developing and marketing new products. We can also show you how great some of our current products are and always have been. For example, when things were not looking so good for fat, our friends at Welch's were able to point out that their chewy fruit snacks were a fat free option. Low fat! Healthy! Then the tide turned against carbohydrates. Our friends in meat and dairy were happy to show that their steaks, meats and cheeses were low-carb choices. Low carbs! Healthy! But we're getting uneasy. In 2009, Congress commissioned the Inter-agency Working Group (IWG) to develop standards for advertising foods to children. The IWG included the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Congress identified these organizations as having "expertise and experience in child nutrition, child health, psychology, education, marketing and other fields relevant to food and beverage marketing and child nutrition standards." We were dismayed when the IWG released its report in 2011. The guidelines said that foods advertised to children must provide "a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet." For example, any food marketed to children must "contain at least 50% by weight one or more of the following: fruit; vegetable; whole grain; fat-free or low-fat milk or yogurt; fish; extra lean meat or poultry; eggs; nuts and seeds; or beans." This report was potentially devastating. These organizations, experts in nutrition, were officially outlining what constituted "a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet." Thankfully, we have a ton of money and were able to use it to get the IWG to withdraw the guidelines. In a public comment posted on the FTC website, our friends at General Mills pointed out that under the IWG guidelines, the most commonly consumed foods in the US would be considered unhealthy. Specifically, according to General Mills, "of the 100 most commonly consumed foods and beverages in America, 88 would fail the IWG's proposed standards." So you see? If you people start eating the way the nutrition experts at the CDC and USDA recommend that you eat, that would delegitimize almost 90 percent of the products we produce! Do you realize how much money that would cost us? According to the General Mills letter, if everyone in the US started eating healthfully, it would cost us $503 billion per year! That might affect our ability to pay CEOs like General Mills' Ken Powell annual compensations of more than $12 million. But revamping the food environment will also cost you money. The General Mills letter stated "a shift by the average American to the IWG diet would conservatively increase the individual's annual food spending by $1,632." Sure, we've heard talk about costs to the individual that arise from being obese. One 2010 paper from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services estimated that the annual costs to an individual for being obese can be upwards of $8,000. We like to think of this as a small price to pay for consumer freedom. Of course, we don't necessarily want you to be unhealthy. It's just that it's so much more profitable to provide foods that happen to be unhealthy. We've been able to industrialize the food system so that we can produce massive amounts of the cheapest ingredients available, in the cheapest, most efficient way possible. On top of that, we understand human biology. Humans evolved in situations in which food was scarce. This led to an evolutionary adaptation that causes you to crave salty, sugary and fatty foods. Consuming foods with these characteristics actually lights up the same pleasure centers in the brain as cocaine. Who wouldn't play upon that biological craving to increase profits? If one company didn't, their competitors would, so we all kind of have to do it. We are also able to provide you with perceived value. Because it doesn't cost us that much more to make a soda, say, 42 ounces instead of 22, we can almost double the size of a beverage and only charge you 20 percent more. How could you resist a deal like that? You can't. Trust us, we know. So you see, dear consumer, everything is fine. We've got a good thing going here. There's no need for you to start worrying about the industrial food system. If you do start thinking about your weight, check out our line of Healthy Choice frozen meals. If that doesn't work, our friends over in the pharmaceutical industry, the health and fitness industry and the healthcare industry will be happy to help you to continue to fulfill your role as an American Consumer. Images: by the author ? Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news. ? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
23 July 2013, Lagos ? As part of measures put in place to boost electricity supply in the country, Nigeria and India have concluded plans to set up an off-grid solar powered system across selected locations in Nigeria.
"The future is already here ? it's just not very evenly distributed," wrote William Gibson. He's right. Luckily, the future is mostly in my attic workshop. I've been lucky enough to have access to a ![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tk94j_F_WtR3KEVcYmW2rYgXqVMEGc39srx6vFUCRC75gfemRnwBwABAipyZp592klEQKTZ7NTuM9IWPfYFtpxpZmeKmLLphB0UZ9IYRM=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 17-Jun-2013
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