Usher was recently awarded primary custody of his two children, Usher V and Naviyd with ex-wife Tameka Raymond, has now dealt his ex-wife another blow. [...]
Toilets use approximately 27% of the water consumed in your home ? more than any other appliances or plumbing ? including the washing machine, dishwasher and shower.Replacing your old toilet with a low-flow model?is a great place to start when greening your bathroom. Newer homes will boast more efficient low-flow toilets installed by their contractor, but those found in older homes can use up to a whopping 7 gallons per flush. While low-flow toilets used to get a bad rap for boasting a less than desirable flush, sometimes requiring users to hit the handle twice, modern low-flow toilets provide ample flushing power while still using just a fraction of the water.
If you already have a low-flow toilet you can still cut down on water usage even more by installing a dual-flusher that gives you a choice: push one button for flushing liquid waste (around .8 gallons of water) and another for solid waste (1.6 gallons or less). The BlueSource HydroRight Dual Flush Converter is our pick ? it?s easy to install and costs just a little over $20.
If you can?t afford to purchase a new toilet at the moment, a temporary quick fix is to drop a little sand or pebbles into a 2-liter soda bottle?and put that in your tank to displace some of the water that would have otherwise filled the tank. However, note that 2-liters does not equal the up to 5.5 gallons you could be saving per flush with a low-flow toilet.
TIP 2: Install a Low-flow Shower Head
Taking shorter showers is one way to cut down on excess water use ? they say you really only need to be in there for 5 minutes anyway ? but if you?re someone who likes to linger, then you should consider installing a low-flow showerhead. A typical shower head will use anywhere between 5 to 8 gallons of water per minute, while a low-flow head will bring that down to 2.5 gallons or less with the same amount of water pressure.
By installing low-flow showerheads, you?ll be saving in two ways: 1. The amount of water you use while showering; and 2. The amount of energy you are using to heat your water. Manufacturers of low-flow showerheads claim that an average family will save hundreds of dollars annually by making this simple change. Better yet, this is a very inexpensive upgrade, and installation is easy and should require no more than a wrench, a little PTFE tape and 10 minutes of your time.
We also recommend finding a shower head with a water filter built-in, especially if you have hard water (we like the Culligan WSH C125). Like any water filter, it will remove impurities, chlorine or other chemicals, and the potential health problems that these things harbor for both the skin and your respiratory system. Filters will also curb the drying effects of chlorine (your skin and hair will become softer and healthier!) and make cleaning residue in your shower much easier. If you already have a low-flow showerhead installed, you can simply upgrade your current system by adding an attachment filter like this one here.
TIP 3: Install Motion Sensor Faucets
Another place where water is wasted at rapid rates is your bathroom sink. Despite all the best intentions, most people find themselves using more water than they need to when washing their face or hands and brushing their teeth. Think about how much unused water flows out when you simply move your hand to and fro faucet handles while going through your daily routine. One way to keep this wasted water from adding up into an wasted pool the size of the Pacific is to install a motion sensor faucet. A motion sensor will be able to expertly track when you need H2O to flow. Moreover, using a faucet like this will also help you keep your bathroom cleaner (familiar with the gunk that builds up around your faucet handles?), and prevent the spreading and recontamination of germs.
TIP 4: Change Your Light Bulbs
If you haven?t already made the switch to LEDs, now is the perfect opportunity.?Enormous technological advances have been made in the color renderings of LED lightbulbs in the past few years, and consumers can now find ?warm LED bulbs? which glow at the same cozy amber color temperature that we know and love from old-fashion incandescent bulbs.
Switching to LED light bulbs is one of the?simplest?ways to save on both your energy bill and the need to constantly buy replacement bulbs.?On average an LED bulb consumes 80 percent less energy than its outdated predecessor, and it lasts 25 times longer ? that?s a rated life of about 25,000 hours. And because LEDs operate at a lower wattage, without sacrificing lumens or light quality, a single bulb alone can help knock hundreds of dollars of your energy bill. For example, the Phillips EnduraLED A2117 watt bulb, an LED-based replacement for the 75-watt incandescent light bulb, boasts an energy savings of $160 per bulb. LEDs are quickly growing in popularity, and there are plenty out there to choose from.
Another great reason to make the switch is because high wattage lightbulbs (those over 50-watt, aka most of the common incandescent bulbs) will be gradually be phased out of stores over the next 3 years. ?You?ll want to stock up on low energy bulbs now to get ready for the phase-out. If you want more details on how to make the switch, check out our how-to video.
Photo:?Green blue antique luxury bathroom?via?Shutterstock
TIP 5: Switch to an Energy-Efficient Vent Fan
How?s the?ventilation?in your bathroom? If you depend on a vent fan to keep moisture at bay, a great way to cut down on energy usage is to replace that standard fan with an?ENERGY STAR-rated fan. While it may only be switched on briefly a few times a day, an energy-efficient?replacement fan will provide you with a 60% energy savings over your old model.?And if you don?t already, it?s important to keep your fan running during your shower and for 15 minutes after to make sure moisture in the air doesn?t become mold in your walls. Just a little can build up into a seriously unhealthy, not to mention costly, situation.
TIP 6: Buy Eco-friendly and Sustainable Bath Products
From bath towels to hand soap to toilet paper, all the products that you?ve got packed into your bathroom can all be made more green. Purchasing green and certified organic?products ensure that you?re bathroom routine has a lower environmental footprint ? and just as importantly, is safe and healthy for your body and skin. Ingredients in conventional toiletry products are frequently laden with petrochemicals and toxic preservatives like parabens, have often been tested on animals, and the source of ingredients are frequently shrouded in mystery (?Parfum? anyone?)
Moreover, buying eco-and sustainable products?has a larger global implication ? these products often use natural ingredients sourced from organic farmers and fair-trade organizations, meaning that you are supporting ethical business practices that put environmental and human interests above monetary interest.?And lest you fear that green products are significantly more expensive than their non-environmentally friendly equivalents, remember that as more people demand green products, and economies of scale kick in, the cost will eventually come down. Also, the old mantra ?you get what you pay for? really rings true in this case. Isn?t your health, beauty and the state of your environment worth a few extra dollars?
Photo: Cleaning products via Shutterstock
TIP 7: Clean With Homemade Products
Plenty of studies show that conventional harsh cleaning products can be detrimental to your health, not to mention the planet?s health (products labelled with a skull and crossbones and the word ?HAZARDOUS? will hopefully have tipped you off). But there?s no need to purchase caustic cleaning solutions when you?ve got everything you need right in your?kitchen?cupboards?to get the job done of cleaning the bathroom. If you?re looking for ways to clean your bathroom safely and ecologically, a bit of baking soda and vinegar is enough to get your bathroom sparkling. Simply sprinkle some baking soda on problem areas add a little white vinegar, let it foam and sit for about 5-10 minutes, and then scrub the area down with an eco-friendly sponge or brush. You can also use a little lemon or your favorite essential oils to help mask the vinegary scent. Moreover, oils such as tea tree, lavender, eucalyptus, lemongrass and rosemary boast antiseptic and antibacterial properties in addition to smelling great!
More on how to green-clean your bathroom HERE >
Some other quick mixes:
Window wash: Mix 3 tablespoons vinegar with 2 cups of water (or for a bigger job ? 1/2 cup vinegar to 1 gallon water) and spray it right on your windows. Club soda and lemon will also work wonders.
All-purpose disinfectant:? Mix 2 cups water, a few drops of natural soap, and 15 drops each of tea tree and lavender organic essential oil. Use this on floors, countertops and generally any surface except glass, as it will streak.
After shower cleaner:?Make your own daily shower cleaner by mixing two cups of water and three drops of tea tree oil in a spray bottle. After you shower, simply shake your spray bottle, mist, and then walk away. This should help keep mildew at bay between cleanings.
As the #1 faucet brand in North America,?Moen?offers a diverse selection of thoughtfully designed?kitchen?and?bath?faucets,showerheads,?accessories,?bath safety products?and?kitchen sinks?for residential and?commercial?applications ? each delivering the best possible combination of meaningful innovation, useful features, and lasting value.
Kenyan authorities say a hand grenade has ripped through a church in the capital, Nairobi, killing one child and wounding three others.
Police say the attack appeared to target a Sunday school class for children.
There has been no claim of responsibility for Sunday?s attack on the St. Polycarp church on the outskirts of Nairobi. However, authorities suspect the Somali militant group al-Shabab.
Kenya has seen a series of similar deadly attacks on churches since the country sent troops into neighboring Somalia last year along with African Union forces to fight al-Shabab.
The group, linked to al-Qaida, abandoned its last stronghold in Somalia on Saturday, vowing to retaliate against Kenyan and AU forces.
Can you guess which country these monkey call home? I'll give you one hint. It's country that Delta, a parter of this weekend's Travel + Leisure's Global Bazaar, flies to.
Log in and leave your guesses below.
Check back on Monday for the answer!
Lyndsey Matthews is an assistant digital editor at Travel + Leisure. Follow her on Twitter @matthewslyndsey
'Carmaheaven': Closure of 405 in 2011 improved air quality up to 83 percentPublic release date: 28-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Alison Hewitt ahewitt@support.ucla.edu 310-206-5461 University of California - Los Angeles
Take the time to enjoy a deep breath next weekend when the 405 freeway closes for Carmageddon II. If it's anything like last year, the air quality is about to get amazing.
In study findings announced Sept. 28, UCLA researchers report that they measured air pollutants during last year's Carmageddon (July 15) and found that when 10 miles of the 405 closed, air quality near the shuttered portion improved within minutes, reaching levels 83 percent better than on comparable weekends.
Because traffic dipped all over Southern California that weekend, air quality also improved 75 percent in parts of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica and an average of 25 percent regionally from Ventura to Yucaipa, and Long Beach to Santa Clarita.
The study was led by two professors at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability: Yifang Zhu, who is also an associate professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and Suzanne Paulson, who is also a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
While the researchers expected cleaner air, they didn't expect the improvement to be so dramatic.
"The air was amazingly clean that weekend," Paulson said. "Our measurements in Santa Monica were almost below what our instruments could detect, and the regional effect was significant. It was a really eye-opening glimpse of what the future could be like if we can move away from combustion engines."
The research gives a peek at what the air would look like in a healthier Los Angeles with a vast majority of hybrid and electric vehicles and shows how quickly less driving can improve key measures of air quality. But to get a regional effect, the researchers said, you need a regional drop in traffic, like what Los Angeles saw during the first Carmageddon and it doesn't last if traffic returns.
"The effect was gone by the next week," Paulson said. "We measured fresh emissions: pollutants that come directly from cars. It's a very short-term effect."
Taking measurements
The researchers measured ultrafine particles (less than 0.1 microns in diameter), which are key indicators of real-time traffic levels, and also fine particulate matter known as "PM2.5" (less than 2.5 microns in diameter), which includes tailpipe emissions and new particles created when the emissions interact with the atmosphere. PM2.5 can spread farther from the freeway and last longer than ultrafine particles, but both are pollutants with health risks. Exposure to near-roadway pollutants has been linked to increases in asthma, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, low birth weight, pre-term births and other ailments, the researchers noted.
Zhu and Paulson found that when traffic dropped more than 90 percent on the closed 405, with only construction vehicles still on the move, ultrafine particles dropped by 83 percent. PM2.5 concentrations dropped 36 percent.
More broadly, ultrafine particles and PM2.5 levels dropped 75 percent across a swath of West Los Angeles near the I-405/I-10 interchange stretching from Santa Monica to Westwood. Elsewhere, they measured PM2.5 and found the air 31 percent cleaner in Ventura, 19 percent cleaner in Yucaipa, 30 percent cleaner in Long Beach, 23.2 percent cleaner in Santa Clarita and 19.9 percent cleaner in Northridge.
"There is no safe level of PM2.5 concentrations, where you would no longer observe health impacts, so any reduction is an improvement," Zhu said. "This study shows that with such dramatic traffic reductions, there are specific air-quality improvements. It gives policymakers and the public incentives to put more effort into reducing traffic emissions."
Zhu's team set up instruments 50 meters upwind and downwind of the 405 near UCLA, where Constitution Avenue crosses the freeway, and measured pollutant levels for 12 hours each Friday, Saturday and Sunday the weekend before, during and after the first Carmageddon.
Zhu used a condensation particle counter and a scanning mobility particle sizer to measure ultrafine particles, a dusttrack to measure PM2.5 amounts, and a video of traffic on the 405 that allowed her team to count and compare traffic volumes.
"People knew about the closure, so we started to see a traffic reduction early Friday, and our data showed a similar trend almost immediately," Zhu said. "Pollutant levels drop in real time."
Paulson's team drove instruments around in their "mobile measurement platform" a late-1990s electric Toyota Rav-4 equipped with a fast mobility particle sizer to detect ultrafine particle levels and a dusttrack to measure PM2.5 concentrations. The team has used the same route since 2008 and can compare measurements over the years, from Santa Monica's Sunset Park neighborhood to the Santa Monica Airport, and from north of the 10 freeway, across the 405, and into Rancho Park and Westwood.
For measurements across the Southern California basin, Zhu and Paulson used South Coast Air Quality Management District measures of PM2.5 levels and CalTrans measures of traffic.
Carmageddon II: To breathe, or not to breathe?
Though the pair will not duplicate their research for Carmageddon II this weekend, if there's less traffic again, the basin will get a brief reprieve from pollution.
"It has to be a significant, regional change, not just 10 miles of freeway closing," Paulson said. "It was really, really, really clean in Santa Monica, and I don't think that was due just to the 405, because the wind blows in from the ocean. I think it was due to people not driving around in Santa Monica."
Indeed, traffic was measurably lower across the Southland, compared with a normal weekend: down 56 percent in Northridge, 21 percent in Ventura, 17 percent in Santa Clarita and Westminster, and 4 percent to 7 percent in Yucaipa, Long Beach, Pomona and Chino.
In fact, without fancy instruments like the dusttrack or a fast mobility particle sizer, traffic may be the only way the average person will know whether air quality is better this weekend.
"These pollutants are too small to see," Zhu said. "The public will notice if there's less traffic, but they won't detect the particles in the air."
It's not clear whether Los Angeles will get a repeat of last year's "Carmaheaven" traffic, but now we know to take advantage, Paulson said.
"If it turns out there's very little traffic on the freeways," she said, "everyone should go out and experience what clean air can be like."
###
The UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability is an educational and research institute that unites disciplines: physical, life and social sciences; business and economics; public policy and urban planning; engineering and technology; and medicine and public health. IoES includes multiple cross-disciplinary research centers, and its environmental science undergraduate degree program is one of the fastest growing majors at UCLA. IoES advises businesses and policymakers on sustainability and the environment and informs and encourages community discussion about critical environmental issues.
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.
[ | 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.
'Carmaheaven': Closure of 405 in 2011 improved air quality up to 83 percentPublic release date: 28-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Alison Hewitt ahewitt@support.ucla.edu 310-206-5461 University of California - Los Angeles
Take the time to enjoy a deep breath next weekend when the 405 freeway closes for Carmageddon II. If it's anything like last year, the air quality is about to get amazing.
In study findings announced Sept. 28, UCLA researchers report that they measured air pollutants during last year's Carmageddon (July 15) and found that when 10 miles of the 405 closed, air quality near the shuttered portion improved within minutes, reaching levels 83 percent better than on comparable weekends.
Because traffic dipped all over Southern California that weekend, air quality also improved 75 percent in parts of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica and an average of 25 percent regionally from Ventura to Yucaipa, and Long Beach to Santa Clarita.
The study was led by two professors at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability: Yifang Zhu, who is also an associate professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and Suzanne Paulson, who is also a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
While the researchers expected cleaner air, they didn't expect the improvement to be so dramatic.
"The air was amazingly clean that weekend," Paulson said. "Our measurements in Santa Monica were almost below what our instruments could detect, and the regional effect was significant. It was a really eye-opening glimpse of what the future could be like if we can move away from combustion engines."
The research gives a peek at what the air would look like in a healthier Los Angeles with a vast majority of hybrid and electric vehicles and shows how quickly less driving can improve key measures of air quality. But to get a regional effect, the researchers said, you need a regional drop in traffic, like what Los Angeles saw during the first Carmageddon and it doesn't last if traffic returns.
"The effect was gone by the next week," Paulson said. "We measured fresh emissions: pollutants that come directly from cars. It's a very short-term effect."
Taking measurements
The researchers measured ultrafine particles (less than 0.1 microns in diameter), which are key indicators of real-time traffic levels, and also fine particulate matter known as "PM2.5" (less than 2.5 microns in diameter), which includes tailpipe emissions and new particles created when the emissions interact with the atmosphere. PM2.5 can spread farther from the freeway and last longer than ultrafine particles, but both are pollutants with health risks. Exposure to near-roadway pollutants has been linked to increases in asthma, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, low birth weight, pre-term births and other ailments, the researchers noted.
Zhu and Paulson found that when traffic dropped more than 90 percent on the closed 405, with only construction vehicles still on the move, ultrafine particles dropped by 83 percent. PM2.5 concentrations dropped 36 percent.
More broadly, ultrafine particles and PM2.5 levels dropped 75 percent across a swath of West Los Angeles near the I-405/I-10 interchange stretching from Santa Monica to Westwood. Elsewhere, they measured PM2.5 and found the air 31 percent cleaner in Ventura, 19 percent cleaner in Yucaipa, 30 percent cleaner in Long Beach, 23.2 percent cleaner in Santa Clarita and 19.9 percent cleaner in Northridge.
"There is no safe level of PM2.5 concentrations, where you would no longer observe health impacts, so any reduction is an improvement," Zhu said. "This study shows that with such dramatic traffic reductions, there are specific air-quality improvements. It gives policymakers and the public incentives to put more effort into reducing traffic emissions."
Zhu's team set up instruments 50 meters upwind and downwind of the 405 near UCLA, where Constitution Avenue crosses the freeway, and measured pollutant levels for 12 hours each Friday, Saturday and Sunday the weekend before, during and after the first Carmageddon.
Zhu used a condensation particle counter and a scanning mobility particle sizer to measure ultrafine particles, a dusttrack to measure PM2.5 amounts, and a video of traffic on the 405 that allowed her team to count and compare traffic volumes.
"People knew about the closure, so we started to see a traffic reduction early Friday, and our data showed a similar trend almost immediately," Zhu said. "Pollutant levels drop in real time."
Paulson's team drove instruments around in their "mobile measurement platform" a late-1990s electric Toyota Rav-4 equipped with a fast mobility particle sizer to detect ultrafine particle levels and a dusttrack to measure PM2.5 concentrations. The team has used the same route since 2008 and can compare measurements over the years, from Santa Monica's Sunset Park neighborhood to the Santa Monica Airport, and from north of the 10 freeway, across the 405, and into Rancho Park and Westwood.
For measurements across the Southern California basin, Zhu and Paulson used South Coast Air Quality Management District measures of PM2.5 levels and CalTrans measures of traffic.
Carmageddon II: To breathe, or not to breathe?
Though the pair will not duplicate their research for Carmageddon II this weekend, if there's less traffic again, the basin will get a brief reprieve from pollution.
"It has to be a significant, regional change, not just 10 miles of freeway closing," Paulson said. "It was really, really, really clean in Santa Monica, and I don't think that was due just to the 405, because the wind blows in from the ocean. I think it was due to people not driving around in Santa Monica."
Indeed, traffic was measurably lower across the Southland, compared with a normal weekend: down 56 percent in Northridge, 21 percent in Ventura, 17 percent in Santa Clarita and Westminster, and 4 percent to 7 percent in Yucaipa, Long Beach, Pomona and Chino.
In fact, without fancy instruments like the dusttrack or a fast mobility particle sizer, traffic may be the only way the average person will know whether air quality is better this weekend.
"These pollutants are too small to see," Zhu said. "The public will notice if there's less traffic, but they won't detect the particles in the air."
It's not clear whether Los Angeles will get a repeat of last year's "Carmaheaven" traffic, but now we know to take advantage, Paulson said.
"If it turns out there's very little traffic on the freeways," she said, "everyone should go out and experience what clean air can be like."
###
The UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability is an educational and research institute that unites disciplines: physical, life and social sciences; business and economics; public policy and urban planning; engineering and technology; and medicine and public health. IoES includes multiple cross-disciplinary research centers, and its environmental science undergraduate degree program is one of the fastest growing majors at UCLA. IoES advises businesses and policymakers on sustainability and the environment and informs and encourages community discussion about critical environmental issues.
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.
[ | 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.
TAHLEQUAH ? As the remnants of summer linger, providing warm and sunny weather, it may seem hard to consider a fall home maintenance plan. With the first day of autumn in the rearview mirror, however, chilly temperatures and freezing precipitation are just around the bend.
Preparing the home to stand up to the harsh elements of winter is essential, and fixing potential issues ahead of time will save money and headaches.
?The first thing that they?ll need to do is check and replace air filters for HVAC units, particularly when they?re about to turn the heat on and so forth,? said Tahlequah Lumber Store Manager Bill Kissinger. ?It?s a good time to check the flue pipes on wood stoves, and make sure birds haven?t put any nests in the top of the cap.?
Of course, maintaining sources of heat isn?t enough. Home owners will also want to keep the cold air out.
?You need to check your weather stripping around the doors to make sure you don?t have any wind going through the cracks, or heat escaping,? said Kissinger. ?Sometimes there is some insulation or weather stripping that will fit across the bottom of the door. People might also look into expanding foam for severe drafts around windows and doors, but that?s an extreme situation.?
Kissinger also recommends setting a consistent air temperature within the home.
?Set your thermostats and try to leave them the same all of the time,? he said. ?Some people like to get a programmable thermostat that will automatically maintain heat within the house. That way your heater won?t overwork and you?ll save energy. We?re all about saving energy.?
Clogged gutters and loose roof tiles can also cause problems around the home. Colorful autumn trees are beautiful, but falling foliage prevents proper drainage, and incessant build up on roofs can destroy tiles, leading to major leaks. A full home inspection will cover all bases and, while fairly costly ? between $240-$400 ? will prevent an even more expensive problem.
Of course, heating the home is the most obvious necessity of winter, and there are several elements to ensuring efficiency and safety.
?I would recommend that people have their gas furnaces checked because of carbon monoxide,? said Adams Heating and Air Owner Ron Adams. ?Also, they may get themselves a carbon monoxide detector. A lot of home improvement stores sell those. Of course, every one needs to keep their filter clean, as well. Make sure it is checked by a professional to see that you don?t have kind of fumes getting into the house.?
According to Adams, saving on the utility bill often comes down to common sense.
?The cooler you keep it in your house, the more you?ll save on your utility bill,? he said. ?That?s a common sense thing there. The warmer you keep it, the more it?ll cost.?
While carbon dioxide exhaust is a concern related to the furnace, it doesn?t stop there.
?You want to make sure that the heat exchanger isn?t cracked and the heater is clean on the inside,? said Kinsey?s Heat Air Conditioning and Plumbing Owner Wayne Kinsey.
?That way, it doesn?t stop up any of the burners, because a lot of the older units start flaking rust. You want to make sure that everything is functioning properly so that you don?t emit carbon dioxide. It generally takes less than an hour to have this done.?
Kinsey said that the majority of programmable thermostats are battery powered, requiring owners to be cognizant of remaining battery life.
?You?ll want to keep an eye on your thermostat,? he said. ?All of the new thermostats that we have now are programmable stats that have batteries in them. If the batteries die on you, it will actually keep the unit from kicking on. Anyone can change a thermostat battery. There?s an access door right there on the front of them.?
Finally, as the aphorism goes, pressure busts pipes ? a problem that no one wants to encounter during the dead of winter.
Several precautions can prevent just such a scenario.
?
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Earlier this week, Cancer Research UK announced that within 20 years, deaths from cancer will fall dramatically. So what, then, will people die of? Maybe we?ll become like the struldbrugs in Gulliver?s Travels, increasingly opinionated and cranky. Some of us are on that road already. If memory serves me right, at 80 years of age their marriages were dissolved because no two people could stand each other for ever, and they became legally dead, no longer able to own property. This is not unattractive. No taxes, no responsibilities, no leaking roofs to worry about (yes, the Rectory roof still leaks). As centuries pass, the struldbrugs could understand nothing since language changes. Hmm, immortality has something to be said for it.
Is there such a thing as a good death? Some people say they want a sudden death. No suffering for them,? but hard for family. A lingering death gives time for family to come to terms with, even welcome, it, but can be trying for the dying person. When my mother knew she was on her last legs (secondary cancer filling her liver), she was put on morphine and had a couple of months at home. I said if I was her, I?d get myself a freedom of UK train ticket and go places, though by then she was too ill to bother. After she died, my father then bought a deep fat frier, and that was the end of him within 2 years. If we don?t die of cancer, I suppose heart disease would be up there as a killer. Or murder?if the struldbrug character changes are an indicator.
What will it be for me? Road traffic accident? Heart disease (I like eggs)? Cancer? Quite possibly cancer: I am a bit of a worrier and that always give me bellyache, and anyway there seems to be some evidence for cancer-genes in the family. Cancer is a side-effect of getting older: the longer you live, the more likely your cells are to go out of control. The sad thing is that it can strike the young.
I have slight experience of religious communities, and am always impressed by their attitude to someone?s death: here today, gone tomorrow, we have stuff to do so let?s get on with it. There?s Gospel backing for that one. I suspect that much distress at a death is the result of survivors? guilt at the way the dead person was treated when alive.
The claim by Cancer Research UK is in truth one of breathtaking stupidity and arrogance. Everyone is going to die of something. How about most of the world?s population who don?t live long enough to get cancer at all?
ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2012) ? A team of researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), headed by CNIO Director Mar?a Blasco, has demonstrated in a pioneering study on mammals that longevity is defined at a molecular level by the length of telomeres. The work -- which is published September 27 in the online edition of the journal Cell Reports -- opens the door to further study of these cellular components in order to calculate the rate at which cells age and thus be able to determine life expectancy for a particular organism.
Chromosomes -- the cellular containers holding the genetic information in living creatures -- have repetitive sequences of DNA at their extremities called telomeres. These sequences act as hoods that protect the genetic material in the face of any external agent which might damage it and compromise the function of the cells.
Several transversal population studies -- measuring telomere length once over time in a large group of individuals -- show a relationship between the length of the telomeres and the risk of suffering illnesses -- cardiovascular disease or cancer, for example.
Until now, however, the use of telomeric measurements to predict real life expectancy in mammals had not been evaluated.
"In the transversal studies, it appears that individuals with short telomeres have a significantly increased probability of developing illnesses, including cancer. But this information is not applicable to a specific individual," says Blasco.
To determine a real aeing prediction method, the authors of the present study have carried out longitudinal studies of telomere length in mice, in which a single individual is followed over a period of time.
After taking periodic blood samples from the same individual, from which cells were extracted for study, they found that those mice which managed to live longer were not the ones that had longer telomeres at any given age but those in which showed less telomeric shortening over time.
"The important thing is not so much the long telomeres at any given time as the tendency or the evolution of the length of the telomeres over time," says Elsa Vera, lead author of the study.
With this study, Blasco's team suggests using mice as an animal model in longitudinal studies that allow for health prognoses in humans. Blasco says that: "while telomere length in normal mice is much greater than in humans, we have found, surprisingly, that the telomere shortening rate in mice is 100 times faster than in humans, so the old dogma of normal mice not getting old due to the shortening of their telomeres is wrong."
This study further opens the possibility of studying, via the longitudinal examination of these genetic guardians, the real effect of lifestyle choices such as diet, smoking or exercise on individual aging rates.
These studies might therefore be crucial in preventing illnesses or in developing new medicines to treat them.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncologicas (CNIO).
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Elsa Vera, Bruno Bernardes?de?Jesus, Miguel Foronda, Juana?M. Flores, Maria?A. Blasco. The Rate of Increase of Short Telomeres Predicts Longevity in Mammals. Cell Reports, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2012.08.023
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Some 44,000 thunderstorms rage worldwide each day, delivering as many as 100 lightning bolts to the ground every second. These dramatic, deafening flashes of electricity recharge the global battery by keeping the ground flush with negative electric charge and maintaining the ionosphere's positive charge. Lightning turns the Earth into an electric circuit, and it may have even delivered the spark that got life started in the primordial soup.
But for all we know, lightning might as well come from Zeus. Counting Ben Franklin's kite-and-key experiment as the starting point, 250 years of scientific investigation have yet to get to grips with how lightning works.
Atmospheric scientists have a basic sketch of the process. Positive electric charges build up at the tops of?thunderclouds?and negative charges build up at the bottoms (except for perplexing patches of positive charges often detected in the center-bottom). Electrical attraction between these opposite charges, and between the negative charges at the bottom of the cloud and positive charges that accumulate on the ground below, eventually grow strong enough to overcome the air's resistance to electrical flow.
Like a herd of elephants wading across a river, negative charges venture down from the bottom of the cloud into the sky below and move haltingly toward the ground, forming an invisible, conductive path called a "step leader." The charges' path eventually connects to similar "streamers" of positive charges surging up from the ground, completing an electrical circuit and enabling negative charges to pour from the cloud to the ground along the circuit they have formed. This sudden, enormous electric discharge is the flash of lightning.?[Infographic: How Lightning Strikes]
But as for how all that happens ? well, it just doesn't make much physical sense. There are three big questions needing answers, said Joe Dwyer, a leading lightning physicist based at the Florida Institute of Technology. "First, how do you actually charge up a thundercloud?" Dwyer said. A mix of water and ice is needed to provide atoms that can acquire charge, and updrafts are required to move the charged particles around. The rest of the details are hazy.
One theory holds that high-energy cosmic rays from space shoot down through the cloud, stripping off electrons from atoms as they go and dragging these negatively charged particles toward the cloud base, creating a charge imbalance. Dwyer said that although this process may play a role, it doesn't seem sufficient to explain the huge imbalance that scientists observe.
The consensus among scientists, he told Life's Little Mysteries, is that charge separation is mainly achieved in a process called "non-inductive charging mechanism."
"You have a mixed phase of ice and water up above 5 kilometers [3 miles] or so, and somehow those interact with each other and you have some kind of precipitation, and you have updrafts blowing up," he said. "Somehow the ice and water interact and manage to separate into oppositely charged particles. The lighter particles acquire positive charge and get blown to the top, and the heavier ones are negative and fall down."
That aforementioned positive patch near the bottom of the cloud remains a head-scratcher. [The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]
The second point of confusion is called the "lightning initiation problem." Measurements of the electric fields inside thunderclouds have consistently yielded peak values that are an order of magnitude weaker than is needed to break down the insulating properties of air. Man-made spark plugs require a much bigger electric field, or voltage difference between one electrode and the other in order for a current to tear across the gap. So the question is, "How do you get a spark going inside a thunderstorm? The electric fields never seem to be big enough inside the storm to generate a spark. So how does that spark get going? This is a very active area of research," Dwyer said.
And once the spark gets going, the final question is how it keeps going. "After you get it started, how does lightning propagate for tens of miles through clouds?" Dwyer said. "That's an amazing thing ? how do you turn air from being an insulator into a conductor?"
Lightning confounds much of scientists' understanding of basic physics. But according to Dwyer, progress has recently picked up the pace. "We have a lot of ways of measuring lightning and storms that weren't available a few years ago. We can look at the radio signals coming out of them. We can trigger lightning, so that we can know where to point our cameras and instruments. Ten years ago we realized that lightning produces X-rays and gamma rays, which was unexpected. This has given us new insight into what's going on. So we're making a lot of progress."
As of yet, it seems Zeus' wrath has?technically not been ruled out.
Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover?or Life's Little?Mysteries @llmysteries. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.
Copyright 2012 Lifes Little Mysteries, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Even though we teach it, SEO isn?t everything for online marketing. I was reading an article in Inc. Magazine today, and the CEO of Fab.com, Jason Goldberg?s business goal is as follows, ?If we make people smile, lots and lots of money will follow over time.? He recently told his employees that he didn?t care what the exact sales numbers were. Instead, ?I care about the brand we?re building and the emotional bond we have with our customers.?
So many of us who do any type of online marketing, spend a lot of misguided time worrying about the ?best? magic keyword phrase to put in our title tag, or finding the latest hot SEO technique to bring the masses in droves to our website.
I?m a huge fan of David Meerman Scott?s book, ?The New Rules of Marketing and PR?. When you read his book, now in its third edition, you?ll quickly learn that title tags and trying to reverse engineer the Google Panda rules is completely pointless and a wasted effort.
Instead, if we focus on what Goldberg says is his business goal ? to deliver what the customer wants and give them a smile in the process ? people (our customers) will come to us without having to worry about ?doing? SEO.
In reality, isn?t that what Google attempts to deliver to us? The programmers at Google spend a lot of effort (think Panda and Penguin here) to cut out the websites that have artificially inflated rankings, and instead deliver results that have true value to us.
Content Marketing Wins Every Time
So what exactly is content marketing, and what does that have to do with SEO and keyword research?
Just over three years ago, I had a student, Larry Waight, fly up from Belize in Central America and take my SEO workshop in California. He is the Marketing Manager for a Belize eco-resort called Chaa Creek. He had a little web experience, but not really much technical experience. The lesson he learned in the class (among many) is that he has to deliver what people are looking for when they?re searching the internet. By doing the keyword research first, finding out what his customers want, then delivering the content, is so much more powerful.
Larry went back to Belize with a copy of Scott?s book in hand, and spent the last three years building lots of content on his website that his potential customers want to learn about traveling in Belize. In his content, he?s talking about the area and all the wonderful attractions Belize has to offer, not just his resort. He understands that everyone wins if people are coming to Belize to spend money.
Recently, Larry was lucky enough to host David Meerman Scott in a marketing summit in Belize, and when Mr. Scott interviewed him (see video here), Larry said that a whopping 80% of their tourist business comes from the web, because they are delivering the content their customers want to consume.?He gets the value to his company and the region, and has essentially stopped all ?traditional? advertising efforts because it works so well.
Another company that I?ve worked with, Selling Timeshares, is a vacation timeshare resale business. I had seven of their employees in a private corporate SEO training class, and they?ve spent the last nine months building lots and lots of articles on their website. These articles are designed to draw their ideal customers to their site by giving them real value and information. Their SEO rankings and traffic have steadily increased month over month the more they have put effort into this.
Benefits of Content Marketing
Aside from all that I mention above, content marketing has so many benefits too:
The website will be found for many more keyword phrases than you optimize it for
It will attract many more natural links to the site, than trying to artificially ?build? links
Customers will continue to refer to your website as a reference. This builds trust with them and when they are ready to buy, they will remember you
Guess what? We at the Search Engine Academy believe this philosophy to the core too. That?s why we have such an active blog with so many contributors.
PARIS (Reuters) - Negotiators working on a $45 billion merger of Airbus parent EADS and BAE Systems faced mounting calls on Thursday to extend their talks, but any extension to an imminent deadline next month is in doubt.
German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere joined France in pressing for more time to address concerns over strategic interests and jobs as the October 10 deadline set by UK regulators emerged as a flashpoint in the talks.
"Perhaps we need more time. It depends on the answers for our questions and so I think we need more time," de Maiziere told reporters at a meeting in Cyprus.
The French and German governments want to safeguard their influence over EADS while special arrangements will be needed to ringfence sensitive operations, including work BAE does in the United States and on Britain's nuclear submarines.
The U.S., Spanish and Saudi governments could have preconditions for the deal to succeed, as well.
Yet with two weeks left, EADS and BAE have little incentive to seek an extension to the deadline.
In the past two weeks, investors uncertain about the deal have stripped 4 billion euros from the value of EADS, illustrating the risk Chief Executive Tom Enders could face if he agrees to expose the stock to a further month of negotiation.
BAE shares have also shed their initial gains and analysts warn they may struggle to carry investors with them beyond October 10 if the talks show no signs of progress.
For these reasons, experts say a bid for an extension could indicate progress. They argue if there is stalemate running up to the deadline, leaders of both companies could be forced by investors to abandon the plan.
INFLUENCE AND TRADE-OFFS
The merger to create the world's biggest defense and aerospace company would dilute the influence of the French, German and Spanish governments in the company, prompting negotiations over their roles in the future.
German reservations include how to safeguard jobs and protect the merged firm from any future hostile takeover, a government document obtained by Reuters on Monday showed.
On Wednesday, a French government source said France would want to retain certain rights, as well.
EADS is standing firm, reiterating its "intention and current expectation" to provide further clarity by that date.
Technically, extensions to the UK stock market deadline are relatively simple and are usually granted, lawyers say. Indeed, one adviser to BAE said the two companies were likely to ask for more time.
"BAE and EADS will almost certainly seek an extension to the October 10 deadline because there is still so much to discuss. Between the companies themselves and with all of the governments involved," the adviser, who did not want to be named, said.
Yet in classic European negotiating style, as seen on issues from farm subsidies to national bailouts, talks generally go down to the wire.
Raising the threat of a missed deadline, or demanding it be kept, is a tried and tested tactic in the brinkmanship so often seen among the 27 nations of the European Union.
De Maiziere called talks with his British and French counterparts on Wednesday evening "constructive".
"This is a complex situation, there are a lot of questions and conditions, nothing has (been) decided yet ... We will keep in contact," he said.
European governments all face severe spending pressures, but a stand-off between France and Germany over control of EADS is seen as the bigger roadblock, rekindling a climate of mistrust which set in during management rows from 2005 onwards.
France holds a 15 percent stake in EADS and wants to retain its right to influence group strategy. Spain owns 5 percent.
Germany is not a direct shareholder but sees the transaction as a chance to enlarge its influence. At the same time, EADS and BAE are pressing for less political influence.
Signs of discord first emerged at the weekend when Reuters reported that France appeared to rebuff German proposals for a common position.
EADS and BAE have said they will offer the governments of France, Germany and Britain a "special share" in the new company, allowing them to block any future hostile takeover, but are determined to prevent any meddling in management decisions.
German carmaker Daimler has refused to be dragged into the dispute, even though with 22.5 percent of the voting shares and a position as core shareholder alongside France's Lagardere its influence is critical.
"It is not our key responsibility to determine the future strategy of the aerospace industry," Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche said at the Paris Auto Show.
(Additional reporting by Michele Kambas, Adrian Croft, Rhys Jones, Gernot Heller, Mark John; editing by Jason Neely)
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Two heads are better than one, or so the saying goes. But in a high school classroom, are two teachers better than one?
"It's all in how you implement it," says Susan Fitzell, an educational consultant. "It doesn't work if you just have two bodies in the room."
To be effective, both teachers need to be interacting with students, breaking them into small groups, and teaching to the needs of individual students, says Fitzell, a former special education teacher who began coteaching at Londonderry Senior High School in New Hampshire in 1993 and now coaches other educators on how to coteach.
While Fitzell says she's seen an increase in schools pairing two general education instructors in one classroom to manage larger classes, coteaching teams typically pair a special education teacher with an instructor specializing in general education areas, such as math or science. This allows students with learning disabilities to take the same courses as their peers while still receiving individualized instruction, she says.
[Find out why high school students aren't prepared for college.]
Coteaching can also give educators an opportunity to accommodate students who learn at different paces, Fitzell says.
"When you've got five, six kids in the class that didn't get the core instruction you taught the first 15 minutes of class, you can zero in on what they need immediately, right there in class," she says. "If you've got two teachers in the room, you could do a quick assessment, then reteach the students who need reteaching while allowing other students to accelerate--all within the same class."
[Learn how students with disabilities can find the right college.]
Sharing responsibility for planning, grading, and teaching can benefit educators as well as students, but only when there is buy-in from both teachers.
"If teachers share the same work ethic, and have skillsets that complement versus compete with each other ... coteaching can help prevent teacher burnout," says Brenda Zofrea, who taught reading and language arts to freshmen at Central High School in Florida, but resigned after one year.
"Having another teacher in my overcrowded classroom to help with lesson plans, discipline, and being able to provide more one-on-one attention to my students would have made all the difference," she says.
While collaboration and communication are key elements to a successful coteaching partnership, ceding control over their classroom can be a hurdle for some teachers, Wendy Murawski and Lisa Dieker, two professors, note in an article for the Council for Exceptional Children.
"Secondary [school] teachers are by nature often more territorial because of the subject-specific environment, and are often accustomed to teaching in isolation," they wrote.
The combination of high-stakes testing and the in-depth subject knowledge of teachers at the high school level can make teaching in tandem tricky, but the payoff for students makes it a challenge worth navigating, says Fitzell, the coteaching expert.
"Before I did coteaching and inclusion, I never saw a kid on an IEP go to college," she says, referring to individualized education plans tailored to students based on their learning challenges. "By having students in general education courses at a level that's respected by colleges ... and coteaching to make sure that these kids can be successful, we have kids that will go to college that would never have that opportunity otherwise."
"There?s a debate right now in Washington about rules that could discourage the innovative on-demand car service company, Uber. Not hard to guess which side I?m on ? I?m on the side of innovation," said Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Julius Genachowski, in an unusual show of political support for an issue he has no authority over. The move shows the growing opposition to DC's taxi union which is continuing its yet unsuccessful bid to regulate the popular on-demand cab service,?after a very public online protest shut down the union's first attempt earlier in the summer.
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks with supporters during a campaign stop at American Spring Wire, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012, in Bedford Heights, Ohio. (AP Photo/ David Richard)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks with supporters during a campaign stop at American Spring Wire, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012, in Bedford Heights, Ohio. (AP Photo/ David Richard)
NEW YORK (AP) ? New Republican-leaning independent groups entered the presidential advertising fray Wednesday as polling suggests Mitt Romney's campaign may be losing ground against President Barack Obama in key swing states.
The commercials, aimed at voters who supported Obama in 2008 but are undecided now, join those from the campaigns and outside groups swamping a narrow and possibly shrinking map of competitive states in the fast-moving presidential contest.
Americans for Job Security launched an ad in six swing states as part of an $8.7 million ad buy disclosed last week. The group, which does not have to disclose its donors, has actively supported Republican congressional candidates but has stayed out of the presidential campaign until now. The Ending Spending Action Fund, a new conservative group bankrolled by billionaire Joe Ricketts, was set to debut a $10 million, four-state ad campaign beginning Thursday.
The two groups have joined a crowded field of players in a presidential advertising landscape that has largely narrowed to nine states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. All are states Obama carried against Republican John McCain in 2008 but have been tightly contested this time.
A pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, is advertising in Michigan, while another Republican-leaning group, the American Future Fund, announced Wednesday it would run ads supporting Romney in Minnesota. But polling shows those states tilting heavily toward Obama and neither is considered a top-tier battleground this time because the candidates themselves aren't on the air in those states.
It's a vast change from 2008, when the Obama and McCain campaigns advertised in 21 states that were considered competitive. Several of those have seen virtually no advertising this year, including Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Polls show Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana and West Virginia all safe for Romney this time ? Obama carried Indiana in 2008 but is not expected to again because he's not competing in earnest there ? while Maine, New Mexico and Pennsylvania are expected to favor the president as they did in 2008.
The decision by Romney's campaign and allied groups to abandon advertising in Pennsylvania particularly surprised political observers, since the state was a top battleground 2008 and is home to many of the white, working-class voters who polls show have been skeptical of Obama since his first run for the presidency. Pro-Romney independent groups including Crossroads GPS and Restore Our Future advertised there but have since pulled out, as did the pro-Obama group Priorities USA Action. Neither the Obama nor the Romney campaigns actively advertised in the state.
Elizabeth Wilner, vice president of the advertising tracking group Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis, said that except for the recent addition of Wisconsin as a battleground, the states that have seen presidential campaign advertising have not changed since the spring. Independent groups, not the Obama and Romney campaigns, have pushed to make states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota and even Wisconsin more competitive, Wilner said.
"The cake was basically baked in May. The states you're seeing in play have stayed the same," Wilner said. "The candidates never made real investments in any other states. The independent groups are the first to go in to a state and the first to go out."
The ads from Americans for Job Security and the Ending Spending Action Fund are targeting disaffected Obama voters who may be persuaded to support Romney this time. They also focus on women, who polls show favor Obama by a wide margin in many swing states.
The Americans for Job Security ad, "Running," depicts a woman jogging with a baby stroller. She said she voted for Obama but is disillusioned by his economic policies and adds that her husband has been "laid off twice" during Obama's first term.
"Now we're facing another recession," she says in the ad. "The future is getting worse under President Obama." The ad is airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
The Ending Spending ad campaign was expected to launch ads Thursday in Virginia, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin. In one 60-second ad, female voters who backed Obama look into the camera and say they now regret their decision.
"I had huge hopes but ? you know what? ? I got burned in 2008," says a voter identified as Jodi C., a registered nurse from Illinois. "He has failed to address my two most important things, which are debt and divisiveness."
"I didn't feel that he was doing enough to unite the country," says a voter Connie F., a mother and grandmother of four from Green Bay, Wis.
In another spot, former Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama explains why he left the Democratic Party. "This year, I'm casting my vote for someone who can fix the problems facing us. That's Mitt Romney," Davis says in a 30-second ad that is part of the Ending Spending campaign.
Online, the voters expand on their reasons for voting against Obama.
"I'm a factory worker, just barely hanging on," says a voter identified as Anita L. from Woodville, Wis. "If Obama gets back in, there is no future for anybody."
The ads and videos were produced by Stephen Bannon, the conservative filmmaker behind Citizen United's recent documentary about disaffected voters, "The Hope and the Change." They are being paid for by Ricketts, the billionaire founder of the Nebraska-based TD Ameritrade Securities. Earlier this year he rejected overtures from some Republican strategists to fund an independent group that would run ads focusing on Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
The Ricketts ads were set to be coupled with radio and online advertising, direct mail and door-to-door voter contact programs led by former Bush White House political director Sara Taylor Fagen.
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Public release date: 28-Sep-2012
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