Science Saved My Soul

Wow.  This is really something.  Long and must be in the right frame of mind to enjoy.  Very Carl Sagan/Hawkins.   May not be the message you want, but very compelling.

So Funny!

The Joy of Christmas

 

100 Years Ago

The Funniest Exam Answers Of All Time

http://nedhardy.com/2010/09/22/20-of-the-funniest-exam-answers-of-all-time/

Free Kindle Books: A Guide

http://mashable.com/2010/12/25/free-kindle-books/#

This is Amazing and So Funny

Hefner Engaged Again

 

Hugh Hefner was apparently a very good boy this year. The 84-year-old Playboy founder announced his engagement to his 24-year-old girlfriend, Crystal Harris, a Playboy Playmate on Sunday. Hefner tweeted, "When I gave Crystal the ring, she burst into tears. This is the happiest Christmas weekend in memory...I got what I was hoping for for Christmas...Crystal's love." This will be his third marriage: Hefner was married to his first wife Mildred from 1949 to 1959 and then in 1989, he went on to wed former Playmate of the Year Kimberly Conrad, who he legally divorced last year. Hefner has four children from his previous marriages— Christie, 58, David, 55, Marston, 10, and Cooper, 9.

Want to know more about The Wall?

Everything you ever wanted to know about Pink Floyd’s The Wall including lyrics and song by song explanations seems to be here.  Aside from being a reference (if such a thing is needed), this introduction provides a good base understanding of the story told by the album.

 http://www.thewallanalysis.com/Intro.html

Taxpayer Dollars at Work

 

Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) released today his annual Wastebook, which details lavish government funding on obscure projects.

“As you look at these examples, ask yourself: at a time when we are borrowing over $44,000 for every person in the country, are these items a priority and are they a federal responsibility?” writes Coburn in the introduction, adding that the cost of the 100 projects he highlights totals over $11.5 billion. Here’s some of the “best” taxpayer-funded items:

● $1.8 million to the Neon Boneyard Park and Museum, which collects and displays discarded neon Las Vegas signs.

● $2.9 million to a group of professors at University of California-Irvine for research on internet games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life and how, according to the university’s press release, they “can help organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in the global marketplace.”

● $239,100 to Stanford University for a study on how people date and find love online.

● $137,530 to a Dartmouth professor Mary Flanagan to make, according to Wastebook, a “video game called ‘Layoff,’ a puzzle-style game in which players fire as many people as they can as quickly as possible.”

● $150,000 to the Vermont town of Monkton to erect signs warning drivers to look out for salamanders crossing the road.

● $47.6 million to Atlanta, Georgia to build a streetcar system — on the exact same route as an existing subway system.

Implanted Computers Control Pain

Researchers at Sydney's National ICT Australia (NICTA) have spent the past two years developing an incredibly futuristic invention which could bring relief to those who suffer from chronic pain. What it amounts to is a series of 'smart' chips inserted into biocompatible devices and strung together. These are then sewn into a very small (1.22mm wide) lead made of a polymer yarn and wires, which are then inserted into the spine. The device is them connected to a battery and computer which can measure and gather information about the pain-carrying nerves signalling the brain. The device can also respond by sending 10 volt electrical pulses to block the signals' path to the brain, tricking the brain into thinking there is no pain. There are devices such as this one already in existence, but they are much larger than this new device, and its smaller size increases accuracy as it can be implanted closer to the spine than previous models. The NICTA's device is set to go into human trials next year. Video after the break.

The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast - NYTimes.com

 

December 15, 2010, 12:01 am

Phys Ed: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

Ian Spanier/Getty Images

The holiday season brings many joys and, unfortunately, many countervailing dietary pitfalls. Even the fittest and most disciplined of us can succumb, indulging in more fat and calories than at any other time of the year. The health consequences, if the behavior is unchecked, can be swift and worrying. A recent study by scientists in Australia found that after only three days, an extremely high-fat, high-calorie diet can lead to increased blood sugar and insulin resistance, potentially increasing the risk for Type 2 diabetes. Waistlines also can expand at this time of year, prompting self-recrimination and unrealistic New Year’s resolutions.

But a new study published in The Journal of Physiology suggests a more reliable and far simpler response. Run or bicycle before breakfast. Exercising in the morning, before eating, the study results show, seems to significantly lessen the ill effects of holiday Bacchanalias.

For the study, researchers in Belgium recruited 28 healthy, active young men and began stuffing them with a truly lousy diet, composed of 50 percent fat and 30 percent more calories, overall, than the men had been consuming. Some of the men agreed not to exercise during the experiment. The rest were assigned to one of two exercise groups. The groups’ regimens were identical and exhausting. The men worked out four times a week in the mornings, running and cycling at a strenuous intensity. Two of the sessions lasted 90 minutes, the others, an hour. All of the workouts were supervised, so the energy expenditure of the two groups was identical.

Their early-morning routines, however, were not. One of the groups ate a hefty, carbohydrate-rich breakfast before exercising and continued to ingest carbohydrates, in the form of something like a sports drink, throughout their workouts. The second group worked out without eating first and drank only water during the training. They made up for their abstinence with breakfast later that morning, comparable in calories to the other group’s trencherman portions.

The experiment lasted for six weeks. At the end, the nonexercising group was, to no one’s surprise, super-sized, having packed on an average of more than six pounds. They had also developed insulin resistance — their muscles were no longer responding well to insulin and weren’t pulling sugar (or, more technically, glucose) out of the bloodstream efficiently — and they had begun storing extra fat within and between their muscle cells. Both insulin resistance and fat-marbled muscles are metabolically unhealthy conditions that can be precursors of diabetes.

The men who ate breakfast before exercising gained weight, too, although only about half as much as the control group. Like those sedentary big eaters, however, they had become more insulin-resistant and were storing a greater amount of fat in their muscles.

Only the group that exercised before breakfast gained almost no weight and showed no signs of insulin resistance. They also burned the fat they were taking in more efficiently. “Our current data,” the study’s authors wrote, “indicate that exercise training in the fasted state is more effective than exercise in the carbohydrate-fed state to stimulate glucose tolerance despite a hypercaloric high-fat diet.”

Just how exercising before breakfast blunts the deleterious effects of overindulging is not completely understood, although this study points toward several intriguing explanations. For one, as has been known for some time, exercising in a fasted state (usually possible only before breakfast), coaxes the body to burn a greater percentage of fat for fuel during vigorous exercise, instead of relying primarily on carbohydrates. When you burn fat, you obviously don’t store it in your muscles. In “our study, only the fasted group demonstrated beneficial metabolic adaptations, which eventually may enhance oxidative fatty acid turnover,” said Peter Hespel, Ph.D., a professor in the Research Center for Exercise and Health at Catholic University Leuven in Belgium and senior author of the study.

At the same time, the fasting group showed increased levels of a muscle protein that “is responsible for insulin-stimulated glucose transport in muscle and thus plays a pivotal role in regulation of insulin sensitivity,” Dr Hespel said.

In other words, working out before breakfast directly combated the two most detrimental effects of eating a high-fat, high-calorie diet. It also helped the men avoid gaining weight.

There are caveats, of course. Exercising on an empty stomach is unlikely to improve your performance during that workout. Carbohydrates are easier for working muscles to access and burn for energy than fat, which is why athletes typically eat a high-carbohydrate diet. The researchers also don’t know whether the same benefits will accrue if you exercise at a more leisurely pace and for less time than in this study, although, according to Leonie Heilbronn, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who has extensively studied the effects of high-fat diets and wrote a commentary about the Belgian study, “I would predict low intensity is better than nothing.”

So, unpleasant as the prospect may be, set your alarm after the next Christmas party to wake you early enough that you can run before sitting down to breakfast. “I would recommend this,” Dr. Heilbronn concluded, “as a way of combating Christmas” and those insidiously delectable cookies.

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The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast - NYTimes.com

Rejected?

I love these things

 

Jets suspend strength coach for tripping incident

(Reuters) - The New York Jets have suspended their strength and conditioning coach without pay for the rest of the season for tripping a Miami Dolphins player, the team said Monday.

Sal Alosi was also fined $25,000 for sticking his leg out and causing rookie cornerback Nolan Carroll to stumble during Sunday's 10-6 Dolphins victory in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Carroll was shaken up after being tripped by Alosi on the sideline while covering a punt during the third quarter but later returned to action.

"After reviewing the facts and consulting with the league office, we determined that this was the most appropriate discipline," Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum said in a statement issued by the team.

Alosi apologized after the game and again Monday during a news conference at the Jets' training facility in Florham Park, New Jersey.

"It's an honor and a privilege to work every day and coach every day in the National Football League," Alosi said.

"I come into contact with a lot of good people in our building every day -- players, staff, coaches -- and I let everybody down yesterday with my actions."

The Banks have us all by the balls

An in-depth article about the derivatives business.  Posted here more for future reference and not for general reading unless you feel ambitious.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12advantage.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Look Out!

Using Google Maps to Find Foreclosures

I haven’t tried this, but I thought it may contain some useful procedures.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/12/using-google-maps-to-find-foreclosures/67773/

Metrodome Roof Collapse

Actual video of the roof giving in.  It’s a Teflon skin, which sheds water and ice, but apparently the snow was just too much for it.

Interpretation of Facts

 

4 Fun Ways to Help Prevent Prostate Cancer

Guess I should be in good shape, huh?

http://health.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=31737&content=45538400&pageNum=-1

Video Test

Just a test to see how this works.  Assuming it does work, it is worth a look for a few chuckles.

Cages In The Zoo

This is a perfect example of the crap that permeates blogging, internet news, newspapers and the pseudo-political garbage they attempt to sell as information.  On the other hand, it is quite humorous and worth the chuckle if one recognizes the uselessness of the information.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/08/AR2010120806537.html

Credit Where It’s Due

A somewhat wordy and pontificating opinion piece which outlines the new and positive direction of the Obama White House since the election.  This guy is a serious conservative and his limited praise is significant. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/254893/obama-revives-conrad-black

Aspirin IS the wonder drug

NYTimes Story

Much Better Than Florida

You think Florida is paradise?  Check this out.  Real Paradise

Want To Know Why WikiLeaks Guy Was Arrested?

Unbelievable!  What an obvious government plot.

Read it here: Reuters WikiLeaks Article