October 16, 2006, 8:24 PM CT
October "it" Girl, Kate Moss
I never used to care much for Kate Moss. Ok, maybe I was a bit fascinated by what Johnny Depp saw in her during their tumultuous relationship, but mostly I was very confused with the attention given to the waif of all waifs.
Ever since Kate's life exploded in Sept 2005, when she was caught "powdering her nose" with an illegal substance, there seems to be more depth to her. She was dumped by H&M and other major contracts, but a year later the waifish style icon's comeback has seen her profile reach new heights.
Her annual income is believed to have risen to about $45 mill USD working with Rimmel, Agent Provocateur, Virgin Mobile, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Roberto Cavalli, Stella McCartney, Bulgari, Chanel, Nikon, Versace, Calvin Klein Jeans and Burberry. Now she's set to start designing a new collection for UK's TopShop (read more Couture in the City).
Here's a fashionista that doesn't need a stylist (ala Rachel Zoe) to set her look. Moss takes risks with her style, career and life and that is why she is this month's "it" girl.
Story Cont'd.
And if that isn't enough - she counts F. Scott Fitzgerald among her favorite writers eventhough she also once admitted that her bedside reading was The Tao of Pooh Bear. Come on! that has to speak to this "it girl" and a dynamic personality behind the couture frocks.........
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October 15, 2006, 9:02 PM CT
IRocker IPod Chair
We have earlier told you about gaming chairs with built-in speakers and subwoofers that would increase your gaming fun multifolds! So, this time its for the music-lovers, iRocker - a chair with an iPod dock! The chair features an iPod dock, speakers, a LED indicator for the volume and other goodies to let you enjoy your music.
The chair is also compatible with other players besides the iPod. The iPod chair comes in six cool colors in a variety of models that range from $99 to $319 depending upon the features.........
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October 15, 2006, 8:56 PM CT
Software To Calculate Heart Attack Risk
Pioneering computer software is helping doctors to decide how best to treat patients admitted to hospital with suspected heart attacks.
An international consortium of researchers, led by the University of Edinburgh, has developed a programme that enables doctors to swiftly assess the severity of a patient's condition. The new 'risk calculator' is already being used in British hospitals.
Doctors using the new system take key data from patients at their bedside, and input it into the specially-devised programme. Key facts - such as a patient's age, medical history and blood pressure - are recorded by doctors, as well as information derived from on-the-spot blood samples and kidney tests.
The new patient's statistical profile is then input into a computer and matched with data derived from thousands of other coronary cases. Using the outcomes of these previous cases as a guide, the computer will not only give an accurate assessment of the new patient's conditions, but also recommend possible treatment. Significantly, it will be able to predict the likelihood the patient suffering a heart attack, and even their chances of dying in the next months.
Chest pain accounts for more than a quarter of all emergency medical admissions in the United Kingdom. Spotting high risk heart patients quickly can be difficult, but Professor Keith Fox, of the University of Edinburgh, says the new tool will help: "Identifying those with threatened heart attack from the very many patients with chest pain is a real clinical challenge, but critically important in guiding emergency and subsequent patient care. Higher risk patients need more intensive medical and interventional treatment".........
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October 15, 2006, 8:20 PM CT
Internet Users May Be Taking Phishing Bait
A higher-than-expected percentage of Internet users are likely to fall victim to scam artists masquerading as trusted service providers, report researchers at the Indiana University School of Informatics.
"Designing Ethical Phishing Experiments: A study of (ROT13) rOnl query features," published online, simulated phishing tactics used to elicit online information from eBay customers. The online auction giant was selected because of its popularity among millions of users-and because it is one of the most popular targets of phishing scams.
The study, one of the first of its kind, reveals that phishers may be netting responses from as much as 14 percent of the targeted populations per attack, as opposed to 3 percent per year.
Phishers send e-mail to Internet users, spoofing legitimate and well-known enterprises such as eBay, financial institutions and even government agencies in an attempt to dupe people into surrendering private information. Users are asked to click on a link where they are taken to a site appearing to be legitimate. Once there, they are asked to correct or update personal information such as bank, credit card and Social Security accounts numbers.
Surveys by the Gartner Group report that about 3 percent of adult Americans are successfully targeted by phishing attacks each year, an amount that might be conservative given that many are reluctant to report they have been victimized, or may even be unaware of it. Other surveys may result in overestimates of the risks because of misunderstanding of what constitutes identity theft.........
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October 15, 2006, 7:38 PM CT
Physicians Hinder Use Of Cutting Edge Technology In Diabetes
Diabetic patients who use newer technologies such as insulin pumps and blood glucose monitoring devices are better able to manage their disease and adhere to therapy regimens, with less daily pain, than with conventional therapys, as per Duke University researchers. Yet scientists have observed that the newer methods to manage diabetes are not being widely used because physicians may be reluctant to prescribe them, and even patients who are using them may not be deriving their full benefits.
As per the Duke researchers, the lack of strong scientific evidence on the efficacy of newer devices, combined with insufficient patient-education resources for physicians and their patients, hinders the diffusion of new devices and contributes to their incorrect use. In addition, the scientists pointed to the higher costs of newer medical technologies and the demographics of diabetes as probable causes of low usage - i.e., its disproportionate prevalence among racial and ethnic minorities, persons of low socioeconomic status, and the elderly.
These findings have emerged from a literature review conducted by the Medical Technology Assessment Working Group at Duke University, focusing on technologies used to monitor glucose and deliver insulin outside of conventional methods, such as daily injections and finger stick tests.........
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October 15, 2006, 7:26 PM CT
Promise For Herpes Vaccine
Bill Halford
A study by a Montana State University researcher suggests a new avenue for developing a vaccine against genital herpes and other diseases caused by herpes simplex viruses.
According to a research findings published earlier this year in the Virology Journal, MSU virologist William Halford showed that mice vaccinated with a live, genetically-modified herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) showed no signs of disease 30 days after being exposed to a particularly lethal "wild-type" strain of the virus.
In contrast, a second group of mice that received a more conventional vaccine died within six days of being exposed to the same "wild-type" strain.
"We have a clear roadmap for producing an effective live vaccine against genital herpes," said Halford, who works in MSU's Department of Veterinary Molecular Biology. "Although my studies were performed with HSV-1, the implications for HSV-2-induced genital herpes are clear. Overall the two viruses are about 99 percent genetically identical".
An estimated 55 million Americans carry herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), which causes genital herpes. Infection is life-long. Approximately 5 percent of those with genital herpes - 2 million to 3 million Americans - suffer outbreaks one to four times annually. A vaccine offering life-long protection does not exist.........
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October 15, 2006, 7:11 PM CT
Adolescent And Fluoxetine
A new study offers clues as to why some teenagers taking common anti-depressants may become more aggressive or kill themselves. The research is reported in the October Behavioral Neuroscience, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Neuroresearchers at the University of Texas at Austin observed that juvenile hamsters given low doses of fluoxetine hydrochloride, which is sold in the United States as Prozac, became more aggressive on low doses of the drug. Juveniles given high doses became somewhat less aggressive, but not as much as adult hamsters, who calmed down on both high and low doses.
Doctoral student and lead author Kereshmeh Taravosh-Lahn, BA, says the findings confirm that juvenile and adult brains are different. Thus, she says, "It is unwise to expect a drug to work the same in juveniles as in adults."
Fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), is the only medicine approved to treat depression in children and adolescents. However, it has carried an FDA "black box" warning since Fall 2004 due to findings of increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in some children and adolescents on the drugs. Fluoxetine affects the regulation of serotonin, a naturally occuring neurotransmitter believed to be involved in depression, by keeping it available longer in the brain's synapses. It is known to inhibit aggression in adult hamsters. Hamsters are often used as an animal model for studying the neural basis of social behavior, given how the rodents' youthful play fighting develops in clearly understood stages into adult aggression.........
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October 15, 2006, 6:50 PM CT
High Blood Sugar Level Before Surgery Is Dangerous
Patients who have high blood sugar before undergoing surgery run an increased risk of developing blood clots, deep vein thrombosis and even pulmonary embolism after surgery.
Boris Mraovic, M.D., assistant professor of anesthesiology in the Artificial Pancreas Center at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and colleagues examined records of nearly 6,500 hip or knee replacement surgery patients at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital who were admitted between 2003 and 2005. They asked what happened to patients with high blood sugar that wasn't well controlled previous to surgery.
Of these patients, 38 had very high blood glucose more than 250 mg/dl on the day of preoperative testing and the day of surgery. The team observed that approximately 10.5 percent of the patients with high blood sugar developed a pulmonary embolism, a life-threatening condition in which blood clots travel to the lungs, after surgery, a rate that is 6.2 times greater than would be expected in the general population. The scientists report their results on October 15, 2006 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists in Chicago.
"These data suggest that if an individual has high blood glucose and is coming for surgery, he or she should correct it first and probably postpone the surgery," says Dr. Mraovic.........
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October 12, 2006, 9:50 PM CT
Making Safer Pesticides
Each year millions of dollars in crops are lost to two insects notorious for devastating farms: the greenbug (Schizaphis graminum) and the English grain aphid (Sitobion avenae). Although these tiny green insects are 1/16th of an inch long, they are heavyweights in the farm industry. In 2005, the Department of Agriculture reported that $100 million in crops were lost in six states to these pests.
In a new study in the recent issue of Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, a Mayo Clinic researcher has published work that opens the door to the possibility of creating safer pesticides to control the greenbug and English grain aphid in crop farms. The key, according to the study's author, Yuan-Ping Pang, Ph.D., director of Mayo Clinic's Computer-Aided Molecular Design Laboratory, was in identifying an insect-specific enzyme that could be used as a direct target for a new insecticide that would not affect humans and animals. The research was done with the support of a powerful terascale supercomputer Dr. Pang designed to develop a three-dimensional model of an enzyme taken from the two insects. (Terascale refers to a computer so powerful it can perform one trillion operations per second.).
"We now have a blueprint that will enable the development of a new generation of pesticides that will not be toxic to humans. Ultimately, the idea would be that we would be able to eat apples without washing them -- even though it may be covered with pesticides," says Dr. Pang.........
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October 12, 2006, 9:38 PM CT
Solio Universal Hybrid Charger
Solio, the Universal "Hybrid" Charger , can charge all of your handheld electronic products, even if you've been relocated to Antarctica. It works by absorbing power from the sun and storing the energy within the Solio's own internal battery (charging Solio's internal battery takes 8-10 hours of direct sunlight). If your igloo comes with a wall socket, you can also plug it in to charge it.
Not only can it charge your cell phone, but also your PDA, digital camera, and game player.
(It includes seven tips and cables, so it's compatibile with most devices.) To give you an idea, one hour of sun will give you enough juice to play your iPod for about an hour. When fully charged it can charge your cell phone twice over.
At the Clinton Global Initiative (which brings together a community of global leaders to 'devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges') soiree in NY, they gave Solio as one of the gifts for its 1,500 participating members. Movers and shakers such as Richard Branson, Tony Blair, The King of Jordan, Bill Gates, George Bush and many more received their own energy sources.........
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