understanding

I always thought technology moves too fast for us to deeply understand its consequences and implications. A good illustration is the new virtual tunnel with one end in London and the other in New York. The people on either side could connect with a random person on the other side with windows chat, gmail chat, skype or another of the hundreds of channels available. They have all probably seen it done more than once on a TV interview or news report. And yet it fascinates them when it's set up on the street ...

vulnerable

Einstein

meat munchers

The federal study of more than half a million men and women bolsters prior evidence of the health risks of diets laden with red meat like hamburger and processed meats like hot dogs, bacon and cold cuts.

Calling the increased risk modest, lead author Rashmi Sinha of the National Cancer Institute said the findings support the advice of several health groups to limit red and processed meat intake to decrease cancer risk.

The amount that is too much:

Over 10 years, eating the equivalent of a 125-gram (quarter-pound) hamburger daily gave men in the study a 22 per cent higher risk of dying of cancer and a 27 per cent higher risk of dying of heart disease. That's compared to those who ate the least red meat, just 140 grams per week.

Women who ate large amounts of red meat had a 20 per cent higher risk of dying of cancer and a 50 per cent higher risk of dying of heart disease than women who ate less.

But before you cut all meat out of your diet there are a few things you should be wary of. First of all the study was done on a group of 50 to 70-year-olds over a 10 year period and they relied on the person's memory of what they ate. Second, this conclusion can be drawn for people in that age group and not necessarily everyone. The recommendation is to replace some of the red meat in your diet with white meat such as chicken and fish - Happy Eating!

- source: abstract, full report

my angel

Remember those walls I built
Well, baby they're tumbling down
And they didn't even put up a fight
They didn't even make a sound

I found a way to let you in
But I never really had a doubt
Standing in the light of your halo
I got my angel now

It's like I've been awakened
Every rule I had you breakin'
It's the risk that I'm takin'
I ain't never gonna shut you out

Everywhere I'm looking now
I'm surrounded by your embrace
Baby I can see your halo
You know you're my saving grace

You're everything I need and more
It's written all over your face
Baby I can feel your halo
Pray it won't fade away

- Halo, Beyonce

نوبهار آمد

weatherwise

I told you there was no global warming; now they're saying it's probably just on hold. Excuses, excuses!