Calorie labeling doesn't curb NYC fast food habits

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A rule that requires New York City fast food restaurants to post calorie information on their menu boards has not changed consumer habits in low-income neighborhoods, according to a study published on Tuesday.

While half of consumers surveyed said they noticed the labeling, and about a quarter of those said they made different choices as a result, a review of fast food purchases showed habits remained the same, said the study, published in the journal Health Affairs.

In July 2008, New York became the first U.S. city to mandate that fast food restaurants post calorie counts in large type on menu boards. The system has since become a model for similar rules intended to combat obesity and promote good nutrition being implemented in California, other parts of New York state, the cities of Seattle and Portland, and elsewhere.

Brian Elbel, a professor at the New York University School of Medicine and a lead author of the study, which was conducted in low-income neighborhoods with high minority populations, said that more research needed to be done.

"Though the introduction of calorie labels did not change the number of calories purchased, a combination of public policy efforts are likely necessary to produce a meaningful change in obesity," Elbel said.

About one-third of U.S. adults are obese, a condition that increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other medical problems.

In compiling the data, researchers at New York University and Yale University analyzed fast-food purchases by 1,156 adults at Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald's and Wendy's immediately before and after the rule went into effect.

The percentage of people aware of the calorie information increased from 16 percent to 54 percent, but the number of calories purchased was slightly higher than before the rule was implemented, researchers found.

Nearby Newark, New Jersey, where menu labeling is not required, was used as a control group.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the study may have been done too soon after the rule went into effect and before all fast food restaurants were in compliance.

The city will release its own study in several months using a sample size of 12,000 and covering a range of neighborhoods.

"At least the public has information and that's the government's job -- to make sure that the public has information," Bloomberg told reporters on Tuesday.

"But once again, this is America and you have a right to eat what you want to eat," he said.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5955UT20091006

The Google Android party has begun

SAN DIEGO--After two years of waiting, Google Android phones are finally hitting the market en masse.

In the past couple of months, nine devices using Google's mobile operating system have been announced, including the Motorola Cliq, which goes on sale in November, and the new Samsung Moment, which was announced Wednesday at the CTIA Fall 2009 trade show here. The pipeline is full of more Android devices, some of which have been confirmed and some that are still rumored to be in development.

"We are seeing a lot of interest in Android here," Kim Titus, a spokesman for Samsung, said Wednesday at the CTIA trade show, where the company is showing off its two Google Android handsets- the Samsung Moment and the Samsung Behold II. "I think these devices have an opportunity to become strong cross-over devices appealing both to business customers as well as to consumers and prosumers."

U.S. wireless operators are also jumping on the Google Android bandwagon. So far, T-Mobile USA, the smallest of the four nationwide carriers, has been the only U.S. wireless operator to offer Android devices. Once the Motorola Cliq and the Samsung Bold II launch, T-Mobile will be offering four different Google Android devices on its network.

But T-Mobile won't be the only Android carrier in the U.S. for much longer. Starting next week, Sprint Nextel will introduce its first Android phone, the HTC Hero. And a couple of weeks later on November 1, it will begin selling the newly announced Samsung Moment.

Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless operator, will also be getting two new Google Android phones in the coming weeks. Verizon executives wouldn't provide specifics about the devices, but one of the devices is expected to be from Motorola. Verizon and Google said Tuesday that they will be working closely to introduce new Google Android phones.

Even AT&T, the second largest wireless provider in the U.S. and the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone, is expected to have a Google Android phone soon. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published a report stating that AT&T will be offer Dell's soon to be announced Google Android phone.

Device makers see Android as their biggest hope to compete against Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry devices in the smartphone market. Both Apple and RIM develop their own software that is proprietary to their homegrown hardware.

Like the Google Android operating system, Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform can also be used on different hardware. But as Microsoft struggles to keep pace with the rapidly changing mobile market, some device makers, such as Motorola, are gravitating toward Android. This is not to say that Microsoft is out of the game. In fact, the company just announced Windows Mobile 6.5 this week at CTIA, but experts, such as CNET's own Bonnie Cha, believe the upgrade is incremental with a bigger overhaul of the software not expected until next year.

Meanwhile, momentum is growing for Google Android phones.

Google unveiled its Android open development operating system in the fall of 2007. It took a year before the first Android phone, the HTC G1 sold by T-Mobile, was introduced. Many industry watchers had expected other handset makers to start announcing their own Android devices in February 2009 at the GSMA World Congress trade show in Barcelona. But the show came and went with few mentions of Android.

Later that spring, people were expecting Android announcements at the CTIA's spring trade show in Las Vegas. But device makers kept mum. In June, T-Mobile USA and HTC introduced the second Android handset into the U.S. market, the MyTouch. This phone was supposed to be a more refined version of the G1 and was designed to appeal to the mainstream wireless consumer.

Now as Android is about to hit its second birthday, the much anticipated flood of Android device announcements is beginning. Manufacturers, such as Samsung, Motorola, LG and HTC are announcing multiple Google Android devices. Motorola's co-CEO Sanjay Jha said this week that he expects his company to introduce "multiple tens of products" using the Android operating system.

Even phone makers Sony Ericsson and Nokia, which historically have built phones using the Symbian operating system, are rumored to be working on Android handsets. The operating system has even appealed to companies not traditionally in the cell phone business, such as laptop makers Lenovo and Dell and Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei.

While Google Android may give device makers, such as Samsung and Motorola, a way to compete with the iPhone, it could be difficult for them to differentiate their products. So far, the Android devices that have been announced look very similar. All of them sport a touch screen that takes much of the face of the phone. Some, like the Motorola Cliq and the Samsung Moment, also have QWERTY keypads that slides out for consumers who like the feel of real keys.

Samsung's Titus said there are subtle differences in the hardware. For example, the Samsung Moment uses a bright OLED screen that makes images sharper and colors more vibrant. The screen is also designed to be more energy efficient. And the Moment uses much faster processors that most other cell phones. But he conceded that because all the devices use a touch screen that they look very much alike.

"When you have a screen that takes up so much of the landscape, it's not surprising that they look somewhat similar," he said.

Since the Android platform is completely open, the real customization will likely be software based. For example, the Samsung Moment, which will be sold on Sprint's network, comes preloaded with applications and features specific to Sprint's network. These applications include Sprint's navigation service and applications for NFL and Nascar, two organizations which have special relationships with Sprint.

Motorola has also customized the user interface for its Cliq phone and it has introduced Motoblur, a social-networking-optimized version of the user interface. Motorola executives told developers at its conference this week that it expects some but not all of its new Android phones to come with Motoblur installed.

While handset makers and wireless operators may be tempted to further customize the Android software, doing so is risky since the promise of an operating system such as Android is to provide developers with an easy and open way to develop applications that can be downloaded across multiple devices.

So far developers have already created more than 10,000 applications for Google Android devices. These apps can be accessed through the Google Android Market. Big developers, such as Facebook, have already begun developing Android specific applications. And at its developer conference, Motorola announced a series of new apps available for the new Cliq, including Accuweather, the Barnes & Noble eReader, MySpace, and QuickOffice, the company said.

But as new devices are introduced on different carrier networks, it will be interesting to see if these applications in the Android Market will work across all the different hardware. If they do, they could drive more Android device development, which could lead to the Android mobile platform actually living up to the hype that was promised nearly two years ago. And if they don't, then Android will likely become just another mobile operating system that further fragments the market.

Source:http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12261_7-10370495-10356022.html

Mama says eat your fruits and veggies!

Maybe it's not exactly news that Americans are terrible at eating fruits and vegetables. But according to the CDC, we're really, really terrible.

Not a single state in the country is meeting federal standards for daily fruit and vegetable consumption, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released earlier this week. Those standards: 75 percent of adults eat at least two servings of fruit, and 50 percent eat at least three servings of vegetables.

So how bad are we?

Well, in California, only 16 percent of adults are getting enough fruits and vegetables in their diet every day. The "good" news is that nearly 41 percent of us are actually eating enough fruit -- that's the best rate in the United States, not including the District of Columbia, which hit 42 percent. But only 26 percent are eating enough vegetables.

(So if only 16 percent are eating enough of both, that must mean that the fruit eaters aren't veggie eaters, and vice versa.)

Californians are better than the rest of the country at eating fruit (the national average is 33 percent) but worse with vegetables (the national average is 27 percent). Nationally, only 14 percent of adults get enough of both.

California is supposed to have some of the best fresh produce in the world. It's kind of sad that we can't even beat the (pathetic) national average for vegetables.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/chronrx/detail?&entry_id=48781

Babies may live past 100

PARIS - MORE than half of the babies born today in rich countries will live to 100 years if current trends of life expectancy continue, a study appearing in the medical journal The Lancet said on Friday.

In the 20th century, most developed countries saw an increase of around 30 years in life expectancy, according to the paper led by Kaare Christensen, a professor at the Danish Ageing Research Centre at the University of Southern Denmark.

In 1950, only 15-16 per cent of 80-year-old women, and just 12 per cent of octogenarian men, made it to the age of 90 in advanced economies.

In 2002, this had risen to 37 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. In Japan, the survival rate from 80 to 90 is now more than 50 per cent for women.

'If the pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries over the past two centuries continues through the 21st century, most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan and other countries with long life expectancies will celebrate their 100th birthdays,' the review said.

Evidence also suggests that, today, the extra years are less encumbered by disabilities and dependence than in the past.

The paper warned, though, that longer lifespans pose major social, economic and medical challenges as the very elderly become a greater proportion of the community.

One solution could be to spread employment more evenly across populations and ages of life, the authors said.

Instead of working for a long, intense spell and then retiring, 'individuals could combine work, education, leisure and child-rearing in varying amounts at different ages.' 'The 20th century was a century of redistribution of income. The 21st century could be a century of redistribution of work,' they argued. -- AFP

source: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_437115.html

Genetic variations behind increased prostate cancer risk identified

London, Sep 21 (ANI): Taking a major step in prostate cancer research, scientists have found a host of genetic variations that could tell which men are at the highest risk of contracting prostate cancer.

The results come from two studies today, which open up the prospect of new tests and treatments for the commonest male malignant disease.

The existing blood test is unreliable, often leading to unnecessary, painful and invasive investigations when there is no cancer, or sometimes incorrectly giving men the all-clear when they actually have the disease.

The two studies reveal nine new genetic variations that contribute to an increased risk of prostate cancer.

With these discoveries, the number of genetic variations associated with the disease has come to 20- the largest number of genetic risk factors uncovered for any cancer.

According to the researchers, the latest advances help to explain why the disease runs in families.

Ros Eeles, of the Institute of Cancer Research in London, who led the first of the two studies, said that the finding was based on the analysis of the genomes of 38,000 men from 21 studies and confirmed previous research published two years ago.

“These results will help us more accurately calculate the risk that a man could develop prostate cancer which will enable more targeted screening. Understanding more about these genes could also lead to the development of new treatments,” the Independent quoted him as saying.

The study has been published in Nature Genetics. (ANI)

source: http://www.duniyalive.com/?p=63528

'Radical' surgery uses patient's tooth to restore her sight

Doctors in Miami announced Wednesday that they had performed a vision-restoring surgery that used the 60-year-old patient's tooth.

The surgery, the first in the USA, was performed Labor Day weekend at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Afterward, patient Sharron Thornton was able to see for the first time in nine years. "Sharron was able to see 20/60 this morning. She was seeing only shadows a couple of weeks ago," says ophthalmologist and surgeon Victor Perez.

Sharron Kay Thornton talks with her lead surgeon Victor Perez who restored sight to her left eye at the University of Miami Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida. The procedure implanted one of her teeth in her eye, as a base to hold a prosthetic lens.

Thornton was blinded in 2000 by a reaction to a drug she was taking, which damaged her cornea. Perez likened Thornton's cornea to a dirty car windshield. He says her eye surface was too dry for a corneal implant, a standard treatment.

Thornton's eye tooth and part of her jaw bone were removed, then sculpted to create a hole in the tooth through which a optical cylinder lens fit. The tooth acts as a base to hold the lens.

The prosthesis was then placed in a pouch just under the skin of Thornton's cheek, where it would remain for several months to allow for the growth of a living capsule around it.

To surgically implant the tooth-lens prosthesis, a hole was made in the cornea and the capsule embedded over the top of the cornea. The mucous membrane was then pulled back over the eye like a blanket and a hole made for the lens.

"It's a pretty radical operation and can be disfiguring," says James Chodosh, a faculty member at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. But he says the results are worth it to patients.

Thornton says being able to see again is "like Christmas."

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-16-eye-tooth_N.htm

iPod rumours abound over Apple announcement

Once again, it's time to peer into Apple CEO Steve Jobs' cup and try to read the tea leaves.

Apple, as usual, has said almost nothing about the new products it plans to unveil at an invitation-only affair tomorrow in San Francisco. Playing their part, bloggers and Apple fans have filled the vacuum with "leaks", rumours and wish-list items that, while often far-fetched, can't completely be ignored. Sometimes, just sometimes, a bit of truth shines through.

In recent years, the company has used its September event to unveil new iPods, which have grown smaller, sleeker and more powerful with each new generation.

This year's event is along the same lines, if Apple's e-mail to reporters is any indication.

The invitation looks like an iTunes gift card and features one of Apple's iconic, iPod-toting silhouettes and the words, "It's only rock and roll, but we like it," a reference to a 1970s Rolling Stones song.

Will the classic iPod be discontinued? ... Nanos were on display at Apple's special event in September last year. Photo: Getty Images

That still left room for creative speculation. Detail-starved bloggers took a close look at the image and noted that the headphones jack into the large-ish iPod at the bottom — making it an iPod Touch, not an iPod classic. The observation has added weight to one rumor that Apple could discontinue the classic, the only model left to use a hard drive instead of flash memory.

Of course, other rumours postulate an even bigger hard drive on an updated iPod classic, which already boasts a 120-gigabyte hard drive, far beefier than any other iPod. Still more speculation, this time based on what appear to be photos of new iPod cases, call for built-in digital cameras on Touch and Nano models.

Apple watchers are also looking out for the ninth incarnation of iTunes, the media management software that helps people keep track of their music, videos, podcasts and data and send it to iPods and iPhones.

"Leaked" screen shots of unknown origin and varying quality have cropped up online that indicate iTunes might be melded into social networking sites including Facebook and music-enthusiast network Last.fm. According to the buzz, iTunes 9 may also get better at helping people organise their iPhone and iPod Touch applications, and support Blu-Ray disc playback.

One of the more solid predictions is that Apple will be packaging digital albums with videos, liner notes and album art that could be viewed in iTunes — to help revive consumers' interest in buying more than just one or two tracks. The Associated Press and other media reported in July that Apple and the four major recording labels were working on launching this package in the fall.

Two of the flashiest predictions have lost steam in the run-up to 9/9/09. For a while, the date itself seemed to portend that Apple might finally have scored the right to sell the Beatles' music on iTunes. A digitally remastered collection of the Beatles' oeuvre is due out on CDs on the same day, as is an all-Beatles edition of the popular play-along video game "Rock Band". Beatlemania-infected Apple fans also point to the recurrence of the number nine in band lore.

But the use of the Rolling Stones line in the invitation has quieted most proponents of this scenario. It might just be standard Apple misdirection, but a person familiar with the situation told the AP there's no Beatles-Apple deal. The person was not authorised to talk about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. A statement from EMI, the Beatles' record label, said simply that discussions on digital distribution continue.

Analysts with contacts in Apple's supply chain have predicted all year that the company will come out with at least one "tablet"-style device resembling a giant iPod Touch, based on Apple's purchases of screens that are bigger than an iPod but smaller than a MacBook. Blogs and message boards lit up when it seemed Apple was finally ready to show it off. But analysts including Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster and Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. both see a 2010 release as more likely.

One more thing: CEO Jobs hasn't presided over one of these pep-rally-style product launches since Apple gave its laptop line a light makeover last October. His lieutenants, Tim Cook and Phil Schiller, Apple's COO and top marketing executive, have been holding their own. But now that Jobs is back from his nearly six-month medical leave, fans are still holding their breath for an appearance from the maestro.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/ipod-rumours-abound-over-apple-announcement-20090908-fezi.html