(Reuters Health) – A large new European study finds that simply eating a lot of fruits and vegetables may not be enough to stave off the weight gain that often comes with age — except for people who recently quit smoking.
Researchers found that of nearly 374,000 adults in 10 European countries, who were followed for five years, those who ate the most fruits and vegetables were no less likely to gain weight once other factors — like calorie intake and exercise habits — were taken into account.
The results, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, are not an excuse to skip the fruits and veggies, however.
Plant foods are full of nutrients that may help ward off chronic diseases like heart disease and some cancers, note the researchers, led by Anne-Claire Vergnaud of Imperial College London in the UK.
And in some past studies that assigned overweight people to eat more fruits and vegetables, the diet change has seemed to help.
But the current findings do point to the importance of overall lifestyle in maintaining weight as one ages.
For the study, Vergnaud’s team looked at diet and weight information collected from adults between 25 and 70 years old.
Over five years, the study participants gained about one pound per year, on average.
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Corn dextrin, a common thickener used in junk food, is also the glue on envelopes and postage stamps. – Provided by RandomHistory.com
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Scientists in Australia say they’ve discovered the world’s first hybrid shark— a cross being the genetically distinct common black-tip and Australian black-tip — swimming along the coastline between New South Wales and Queensland.
“Telling the hybrids is extremely difficult, which is why it has never been done before,” Dr. Colin Simfendorfer of James Cook University told ABC Radio. “It came very much out of leftfield. We didn’t think it was a possibility, but lo and behold there it was.”
57 hybrids were found in five separate locations.
Unlike other hybrids in the animal world, these new sharks appear to be mating with other members of their species. Scientists speculate that the cause of interbreeding could be environmental change: The two black-tip species that make up the hybrid favor different water temperatures.
As to whether there is any chance of the hybrids turning into a “Jaws-style mega-shark,” the scientists say there is no risk of that at this time.
Pisser’s Palace, the only bar in Walkerville, MT
When the zombies come!
”This guy sells bumper magnets on eBay. He likes to pose with them.”
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A man in Utah who attempted to take out a mouse in his kitchen with a 9mm handgun accidentally shot his roommate, exposing a child rapist in the process.
Police in Taylorsville say they arrived at a home on W. Brucemont Drive to discover a man in the bathroom with a chest wound. Officers were informed that the man had been shot by his intoxicated housemate who was attempting to target a mouse.
While conducting a search of the house, officers found a 13-year-old girl hiding in the basement. Upon further investigation they learned that the girl had been engaged in a sexual relationship with 34-year-old Paul Daniel Kunzler, a third roommate, for the past four months.
The extent of his two roommates’ knowledge is unclear.
Kunzler was arrested on multiple counts of child sexual assault and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail.
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After spending some 6,000 hours over the course of two years creating a map of the United States from scratch, 35-year-old cartographer David Imus was awarded “Best in Show” by the Cartography and Geographic Information Society over the likes of National Geographic, the CIA, and the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The Essential Geography of the United States of America” (embiggen) is a 4’ x 3’ labor of love designed and executed by one man working alone out of a farm house in Eugene, Oregon.
“He used a computer (not a pencil and paper), but absolutely nothing was left to computer-assisted happenstance,” says Slate’s Seth Stevenson. “Imus spent eons tweaking label positions. Slaving over font types, kerning, letter thicknesses. Scrutinizing levels of blackness. It’s the kind of personal cartographic touch you might only find these days on the hand-illustrated ski-trail maps available at posh mountain resorts.”
Learn more about what makes Imus’s map so special here. Also, you can purchase your very own print of “The Essential Geography of the United States of America” on his personal site for only $12.95.
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A 5-year-old in Charlton, Massachusetts, received the shock of her life when a police officer arrived at her home to collect two overdue library books.
“I thought it was way overboard,” said Hailey Benoit’s mom Shannon. “I closed my door, I looked at my daughter and she started crying.”
Charlton Police Sergeant Dan Dowd told local CBS affiliate WBZ that he didn’t want to get involved, but had no choice. “Nobody wanted to,” he said, “but the library contacted us, and the chief delegated, and apparently I was one of the low men on the totem pole.”
The library defended its actions, claiming that sending a police officer to visit the 5-year-old was a last-resort move after many ignored notices. Benoit, who found and returned the overdue books, insists she never received any warnings.
Iran will take action if a U.S. aircraft carrier which left the area because of Iranian naval exercises returns to the Gulf, the state news agency quoted army chief Ataollah Salehi as saying on Tuesday.
“Iran will not repeat its warning … the enemy’s carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf,” Salehi told IRNA.
“I advise, recommend and warn them (the Americans) over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Salehi as saying.
Salehi did not name the aircraft carrier or give details of the action Iran might take if it returned. However, last week a spokeswoman for the U.S. 5th Fleet said the USS John C. Stennis had left the Gulf.
Go HERE for the rest of the story.
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Dennis Rodman is bouncing back into basketball — this time as a coach for a topless women’s team he’s launching for Headquarters Gentlemen’s Club, the New York mammary mecca.
The NBA bad boy dreamed up the team after hearing that rival strip joint Rick’s Cabaret had launched a league with former Atlanta Hawk Spud Webb, who runs the Texas Legends, an NBA Development League team. Rodman is even challenging Rick’s Cabaret’s topless team to a charity game.
“I don’t know too many men that don’t like a good-looking woman running up and down around the court,” Rodman told Page Six.
Rodman, who told us he’s been a Headquarters customer for more than 30 years, is currently scouting for talent. He’ll be holding auditions next week at the jiggle joint for girls over 5-foot-10 to join the team.
“You don’t have to have too much experience, just know how to throw the ball into the hole,” was his sterling advice to hopefuls.
Rodman said he also planned auditioning “players” during his appearance at Huntington, LI, club Paramount last night.
Team members will wear shorts, skimpy shirts and sneakers during games. “They’ll come out in a T-shirt or a tank top, but when the game starts, they’ll go topless,” Rodman boasted
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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A Long Island woman says someone stole from her son’s grave. According to her, she’s not alone and says there are dozens of other victims and no one has been caught.
To see her son’s grave vandalized, flowers strewn about and the vase stolen, Kathy Peranzo says she was in shock to see it happen again and again.
“Leave my son alone. He’s trying to rest in peace and we’re in hell over and over and over again,” Peranzo told CBS 2′s Cat Andersen.
Peranzo believes someone is stealing the bronze vases throughout St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale and melting them down to sell the metal. She said they’re worth about $500 and that dozens have been stolen from from other graves since August.
“To lose a child is horrible. I’m losing him over and over again,” Peranzo said.
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First more dead blackbirds in Arkansas, now dead herring in Norway. Tens of thousands of fish blanketed the beach in Kvaenes, a town located north of the Arctic Circle, on New Year’s Eve, reports the AP. A marine researcher speculates that they were forced ashore in a bid to escape predators, or died in a big Christmas Day storm. And just as locals began to debate how they would remove the approximately 20 tons of dead fish before the creatures began to decay, they disappeared. The researcher says the herring likely just washed back into the North Sea. (Is it deja vu all over again?)
You will know it when you see it. The first word….
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NASA’s Mars Polar Lander Launched (Today in 1999)
The distance from Earth to Mars fluctuates between approximately 35 million mi (56 million km) and 63 million mi (101 million km). In 1999, NASA’s Mars Polar Lander, on a mission to analyze soil samples, made the long journey to the Red Planet only to fail to re-establish communications following its entry into Mars’s atmosphere. After the lander was declared lost, an investigation determined that it likely crashed onto the Martian surface. How long did it take the lander to reach Mars? More…
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The end of the world is nigh? Not what the Guatemalan Mayans say
On top of the hill the old man and his wife were standing next to the altar they had made, muttering words into the smoke. The dogs that had been fighting in the bushes had gone and the raucous rock music that had been pulsating from the town a mile away had mercifully stopped. There was a moment of total peace and tranquillity.
Two black vultures suddenly broke from the horizon of trees and wheeled low over our heads. The old woman knelt down and kissed the earth while the old man kept on chanting, in a strange guttural language full of creaks and hisses. If languages can sound like the lands they inhabit, this one seemed perfectly attuned to the volcanoes, cloud forests and ruined temples of Guatemala.
This is as close as one can get, I thought to myself, to pre-Columbian America. I had a vision of priests in feathered gowns standing on high stone platforms and sacrificing human beings to the sun god. Then the old man rummaged in his pocket and took out not a deadly jade dagger but a bottle of Coca-Cola. He took several gulps and then carried on chanting.
MORE.
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Boston tops The Daily Beast’s 2011 list of the 25 tipsiest towns in America, moving up from the eighth position last year. The Beast credits its click-ready rankings to a mixture of market research surveys and CDC statistics. I don’t know about the scientific accuracy, but from my perspective in its trenches, ranking Boston the booziest rings true. You see, I spent 2011 seeing most of the traumatic brain injury cases at two of New England’s busiest rehabilitation hospitals. During the first half of the year, I completed my time in training on the south shore of Boston, and then I moved across town to take charge of my own, similar program at another hospital situated on the north shore. Combined, the two hospitals treat most of the serious head injury cases requiring acute level rehabilitation in the Boston region. I just completed my own informal survey of my professional experience with Boston’s alcohol problem this year. My methods involved personal reflection for a good ten minutes before sitting down to write this item. A summary of my findings: 1) Alcohol contributed to the vast majority of traumatic brain injury cases I treated this year.
MORE.
Roger Miller (Jan. 2, 1936 – 1992) was a Grammy and Tony Award winning American country singer/songwriter, musician and actor, known for his honky tonk-influenced songs, chief among which was his mega-hit “King of the Road”…
via.
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The speck bothered Danielle Leder. It had to go.
It was nothing more than a small piece of dead skin, or perhaps a stray bit of dust, but against her model’s bright red lips, the mote could not stay. That was all the more apparent on the screen of the expensive high-definition video camera that Leder had acquired for the video shoot. The small brownish spot stood out amidst the sea of red lipstick and pale white skin.
Her crew of four had tried what they could to get the speck off without having to remove or smudge the model’s makeup. Finally, Leder got up, took her model’s hand and led her to the back of the studio, to the lit mirrors and swivel chairs that served as a dressing room.
“Come on,” said the 25-year-old Leder. “I want to get it right.”
So off came the lipstick, and with it, the offending speck. And back went the model—also named Danielle—onto the array of tarp and sheets that functioned as a backdrop. She wore a sleeveless white turtleneck and white underwear with white socks adorned with lace frills. A bobbed black wig covered her platinum blonde hair. Her lips were immaculate, and her skin untouched. The mark gone, she was ready for her closeup once more. She would spend the next three hours covered in blue paint.
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As 2011 ends, Iraqis confront their challenges with neither the presence of US troops, nor the shadow of Saddam Hussein, who was executed five years ago today. He had ruled since 1979, although he’d been a power player in the government since 1968. The American occupation ended officially on December 15, eight years after the 2003 invasion. Sectarian strife still plagues Iraq, and although the violence lessened from near-civil war levels in 2006, the pullout of American forces has seen a return of hostilities. While the number of American casualties of the occupation stands at 4,487, figures for Iraqi casualties have no such certainty. Some estimates put the figure as high as 100,000. Now conflicts new and old wait to be dealt with by a country free to decide its own fate for the first time in generations. Sectarian struggle, problems with water and electricity delivery, and war-ravaged infrastructure are just a few of the issues facing Iraqis today. Gathered here are recent images of Iraq as it looks ahead to 2012. The last four images are portraits by Reuters photographer Shannon Stapleton, who asked ordinary Iraqis for their thoughts on their future after the pullout of American forces. — Lane Turner (36 photos total)
GALLERYm.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — His Ph.D. is in pure mathematics, in a subfield so esoteric and specialized that even if someone gets a great result, it can be appreciated by only a few dozen people in the entire world. But he left that world behind and, with no formal training, entered another: the world of molecular biology, medicine and genomics.
As founding director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and M.I.T., he heads a biology empire and raises money from billionaires. He also teaches freshman biology (a course he never took) at M.I.T., advises President Obama on science and runs a lab.
Eric Lander — as a friend, Prof. David Botstein of Princeton, put it — knows how to spot and seize an opportunity when one arises. And he has another quality, says his high school friend Paul Zeitz: bravery combined with optimism.
“He was super smart, but so what?” said Dr. Zeitz, now a mathematics professor at the University of San Francisco. “Pure intellectual heft is like someone who can bench-press a thousand pounds. But so what, if you don’t know what to do with it?”
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Israel seems to be at war with itself. For two weeks the Hebrew media have been dominated by street clashes between Jews arguing viciously over such matters as sleeve length and bus seating, which in the Israel of the moment are markers for the kind of country people want: Religious, or secular, or what balance of the two? It’s a conflict that goes back at least to the founding of Israel six decades ago, and grows more and more potent with the dramatic population growth of the most piously observant.
The latest flashpoint speaks volumes about the state of the nation: An eight-year-old girl stopped going to school after neighborhood men spat on her and called her a prostitute because even in long sleeves and a skirt her dress was deemed “immodest.” The men were extremist members of the ultra-Orthodox, the fastest-growing segment of Israel’s Jewish population. Known in Hebrew as Haredim, which roughly translates as God-fearing, ultra-Orthodox men are easily recognized by their signature black clothes and headgear (either wide-brimmed black felt or brimless beaver skin) their side locks and their agitation at being seated near women.
Which brings us to a second locus of controversy: Buses segregated by gender. On bus lines serving ultra-Orthodox communities, women ride in the back. Most do so quite happily, but a ruckus often ensues when an outsider climbs aboard and insists on taking a seat up front with the men, as a woman named Doron Matalon did last week. After being called a “shiksa” and “slut,” she summoned police, who arrested a passenger named Shlomo Fuchs. In the shorthand biography of news accounts, the suspect proved representative of his cohort: Fuchs is 45, has 12 children, and no paying job. Instead he studies scripture all day at a yeshiva, or religious college, which entitles him to welfare payments and excuses him from military service.
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