When a Slate author started receiving multiple e-mails from readers inquiring about a Burger King Halloween mask, he started to question his whether the e-mails were real or whether they were just part of an underground marketing campaign by Burger King. Down the slippery slope of doubt and suspicion, he soon he found himself questioning everything.
If this truly was an instance of ad agencies trying to get free publicity by impersonating the general public, then it points to the need to set strict standards for advertisers to follow and to the need for somebody to police them, because it seems that they are willing to cross any line to get people to buy their products.
This is a fascinating article about how instant noodles have supplanted the traditional Mexican diet of rice and beans. The convenience, and quick and easy calories are bad for Mexicans’ health and waistlines, but good for Maruchan, a name which in the country is synonymous with instant noodles. Nissin is none too pleased that their imitator has cornered the market in Mexico and is working to increase its share of the instant noodle market by lowering prices and appealing to Mexican tastes.
Check out pictures of the mushroom
here.
Remittances from Filipinos working overseas are contributing to the Philippine economy and helping their relatives back home, but this Philippine Daily Inquirer editorial brings up the question of what ought to be done in the wake of so many educated Filipinos leaving the country.
DJ Fatboy Slim and Talking Heads singer David Byrne are writing a musical about former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, to be shown next March.
I can see a TV movie in the making here.
In this community where women are assigned and reassigned to husbands by their religious leader in order to meet the quota of three wives per man (a requirement for entering heaven), there is practically no separation between church and state. Polygamy is illegal, but no one seems to be able to stop the practice.
Read this article to learn why the White Sox were given that name. Believe it or not, it has something to do with the movement to simplify the English language.
The current system for categorizing hurricanes may be inadequate, not only because hurricanes are getting stronger, but also because it does not take into account the size of the storm and the damage that can be caused by rains and floods.
According to this article, in many developing countries, a brain drain is occurring. Well-educated citizens from these countries are leaving for wealthier nations, and their departure may be hurting their homelands by depriving these developing countries of a middle class.
In developing countries that are doing better like China and India, the college-educated citizens who leave tend to return home to invest in their countries, bringing their skills and capital with them. The growing economies in those countries undoubtedly have an effect on their desire to return. But in countries where the skilled end up leaving for good, the nations may find themselves caught in a cycle of underdevelopment.
post edited October 26, 2005 at 1:25 pm
It’s not true that women are wimps—they really do feel more pain. Women have twice as many nerve receptors on their faces as men.
New technology can now direct humans to follow a path by remote control by controlling their sense of balance. There are many possible applications for this technology including more realistic video games and flight simulators, vehicles that direct you to safety, medical applications, and use as a non-lethal weapon that disarms people by making them dizzy.
A few years back, scientists were already able to remotely control
mice by sending signals to parts of their brains.
Next time you call someone a bird brain, think twice. This cool New York Times article shows us just how smart birds really are.
They said that gas hitting $3 a gallon would make people change their car-buying habits. Sales of SUVs are lower now, but they aren’t as low as one would expect given the high price of gas. This article says that gas would have to hit $6 a gallon to have the same psychological impact as the fuel shortages of the ‘70s.
Sterols and stanols are plant-based substances that can lower your cholesterol. Here are some products you can buy that contain them so you can start benefiting from adding these cholesterol-busting substances to your diet.
People are always being warned about dehydration, but actually, the real danger is over-hydration.
‘There are no reported cases of dehydration causing death in the history of world running… But there are plenty of cases of people dying of hyponatremia.’
In general, if you drink when you feel thirsty, you should be okay. And for people in marathons, the experts advise not to drink more than a cup of water every 20 minutes.
In our wired workplace, e-mail, instant messages, and phone calls are constantly interrupting us, breaking our attention and limiting our ability to focus on one task. Multi-tasking has become the default mode of working, and the constant interruptions make it hard to get things done.
Some people are studying the best way to deal with this dilemma. Experts are looking into possible solutions that include better software design and new technological tools, such as computers that can monitor how busy you are and interrupt you only when you’re relatively free.
Even though China banned DDT in 1983, there may still be illegal use of the pesticide based on the recent study of new Hong Kong mothers showing DDT levels in their breast milk and fat.
“They found an average of 2.79 micrograms of DDT per gram of fat in Hong Kong mothers who were tested, far exceeding levels found in countries such as Japan (0.78), Italy (1.98) and the United States (2.52). The situation was only worse in China (7.6) and Mexico (5.66).”
DDT may increase the growth of breast cancer cells, and cause low birth weight and premature birth among infants.
Children ages 2 and up are only supposed to watch TV for one hour a day per the recommendations of the the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) . Here’s how you can rein in your child’s TV viewing in your household.
(To the tune of Ghost Busters)
When your’e out of tears
at a funeral
who you gonna call?
Professional mourners!
OK, that was so lame, you probably want to cry. I know I want to.
Everyone wants bragging rights to a Nobel Prize. Some universities want it more badly than others. What ensues is some creative accounting in the academic world.
When mice were engineered with to have overactive Klotho genes, they lived 30% longer. Scientists are hoping that humans are similarly affected by the Klotho hormone.
If you don’t feel like working, do the normal thing and call in sick, or say that someone in your family died. Don’t get creative, and call in a bomb threat.
This is scary information for anyone who sits on bicycle seats. The seats have been known to cause impotence in some men. Notice how you tend to get numb after sitting a while on a bike. That’s a sign that the blood flow is getting cut off. Both men and women need to be warned about the dangers of bicycle seats.
Health insurance companies want to start switching their patients to generic Zocor now that the patent for Zocor is expiring. But some are arguing that switching patients from supposedly more effective statins such as Lipitor to generic Zocor would short-change them. This article discusses this controversy, and talks about the different statins that are available to patients.
post edited October 16, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Medical billing is so convoluted and overwhelming that patients are unable to deal with all the paperwork involved whenever they get treatment, so much so that some even forego going to the doctor because they can’t bear to deal all the bills and paperwork involved anymore. Something is clearly wrong with the system.
Americans are seeing the value of learning the Chinese language, and they are studying it in ever increasing numbers. Even though Chinese is one of the hardest languages to learn, people see it as an increasingly attractive language to know, given the economic and military importance of China and the vast numbers of Chinese speakers around the world.
Mayor Daley of Chicago goes as far as saying, “I think there will be two languages in this world. There will be Chinese and English.”
The US will find itself falling far behind other countries in science and technology unless it starts to act now to reverse this trend. This article reports on the steps that the US should take to keep its edge in science and technology.
Read this PDF of a
Fortune Magazine article to learn more about how the US is losing its competitive advantage in science and technology.
Tips on how to raise a polite child.
A former athlete gives advice on how to maintain your weight and fitness level even when things get busy.
Very few people are able to maintain the weight they’ve lost. But those who do share some things in common. Here are what successful losers do to maintain their weight.
post edited October 16, 2005 at 12:29 pm
Many people may not realize that the Chinese speak different dialects/languages, depending on which region of China they happen to come from. The official language, Mandarin, is taught in schools, but in places like Shanghai, people do not use it as much, and when they do, they speak it with a thick accent. So now the Chinese government is requiring that the Shanghainese brush up on their Mandarin before the 2010 Expo to avoid confusing any foreigners attending the Expo.
After all, what will happen to us foreigners if we go to China only to find that the people there are not speaking the Chinese we’ve spent months and hundreds of dollars learning in our foreign-language classes? By golly, those Chinese had better learn to speak their language!
post edited October 14, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Losing sleep is far from harmless. Lack of sleep can make you fat and may increase your risk of dying from cancer, heart disease and stroke.
Here are 25 ways to save money.
McDonald’s seems to be following the lead of Starbucks. It’s opening up McCafes around the world that serve specialty coffees in a “relaxing” (more upscale) environment. They are trying to go after the higher-spending restaurant crowd. The idea, so far, seems to be working.
Should abortion ever be declared illegal, we probably won’t go back to old-fashioned back-alley abortions with coat hangers. The ulcer drug, misoprostol is a safer alternative already being used by women.
Women first discovered that misoprostol could be used in abortions when they noticed that one of its side-effects was miscarriage. In Brazil, where abortion is banned, the drug has become the method of choice for illegal abortions.
When administered by a doctor, the success rate is 80 to 90 percent . But there is a danger if this drug is not used properly. If it does not result in a miscarriage, the drug can cause birth defects.
Are eggs good or bad for you? The answer is complicated, as this article makes clear.
Here is another
page you can check out with a summary of information about eggs.
These 4000-year-old Chinese noodles may give credence to the theory that Marco Polo brought pasta from China to Italy.
A Salon journalist investigates the world of men who own Real Dolls—dolls that are designed to look and feel like real women, and cost $6500 apiece.
While Bill Gates uses his personal fortune for philantrophy, Google is using the company’s funds for good works. The company’s plans for philantrophy were disclosed from the outset in Google’s IPO. However, some people are grumbling that the founders of Google shouldn’t be spending shareholders’ money on pet projects.
The documentary film,
The Corporation, made the point that the corporation, as a "legal person”, is designed by law to be selfish, greedy and mercenary, with no concern for anyone or anything but itself—qualities that if they were applied to a real person, would fit the psychological profile of a psychopath. By law, a corporation’s only obligation is to make its shareholders’ richer. It has no morals or ethics. Its only guiding principle is the pursuit of profits at all costs.
Even if companies are legally set up to be greedy, heartless schmucks, we should be more open and supportive when people try to transform their corporations into more charitable organizations. Yet people can only seem to criticize the founders when this happens.
The founder of Costco, for example, has been repeatedly criticized for paying his workers too much—even though this creates high worker morale and employee loyalty. Costco has almost no turnover, compared to other retailers. But in spite of Costco paying its workers $16 an hour (instead of the $6 or $8 competitors pay theirs) and giving its workers health insurance, Costco is still successful and growing. So maybe injecting some compassion and humanity in our corporations can be good, not just for our souls, but for business.
post edited October 13, 2005 at 7:51 am
…and the couple says they want more!
To prevent the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), babies should sleep on their backs—not on their stomachs or their sides—and not amid fluffy bedding or stuffed toys. New recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics also suggest that babies be offered pacifiers at bedtime, and that they should sleep in their parents’ room—but not in their parents’ beds.
Eating fish at least once a week is good for the brain, slowing age-related mental decline by the equivalent of three to four years.
If you’re stressed out at work, your spouse can make all the difference.
Over a year, people with stressful jobs who had supportive spouses exhibited lower blood pressure, while those with little marital support showed an increase in blood pressure.
A cervical cancer vaccine has been shown to work in the short term. It will be available by next year.
It’s interesting that the US has become more and more like the Philippines. Crony capitalism can happen anywhere, and it is happening in the United States.
This article suggests that the Republican party’s strategy may back-fire on itself.
When the media report rumors and unverified reports, they do harm, not just to the truth, but to people. How much time was wasted discussing rapes, deaths, criminal acts, and violence that didn’t actually happen? That time could have been spent more productively to help with rescue and relief. Instead, people were focused on rumors of atrocities that only served to reinforce negative stereotypes and demoralize people in the field.
We know that the media tend to focus on anything negative and sensationalize it for ratings, or perhaps at times, out of sheer habit. But this is a very dangerous habit. People will become desensitized to the constant hyperbole. Cry wolf too many times and people will stop listening. The media stand to lose their audience’s trust and their credibility. This is something they need think about when they engage in sub-par reporting, and scream at the top of their lungs about every little thing to get ratings. If we can’t trust our journalists, the media loses its credibility, its integrity, and its power, and we, as a society, lose a valuable and irreplaceable resource.
Just recently, Jet Blue had a problem with their landing gear that was all over the news. The several-hour long drama was televised live on all the networks, and seen all over the country by practically anyone watching television, including the passengers on the troubled plane who happened to have live satellite TV.
Grown men were crying, people were writing farewell notes to their loved ones because they were scared shitless by the news reports covering their plane’s landing gear problem. Yet experienced pilots will tell you that
there was no real danger in this type of situation, and that all the hysteria was unjustified. Perhaps, if the news media were not so concerned about getting our attention and jumping at a chance to score some high ratings, they wouldn’t blow things out of proportion whenever possible and cause panic where it shouldn’t be happening.
Heating bills are expected to rise by 24% this winter. Here are some things you can do to keep your heating costs down.
When a schizophrenic, violin-playing, homeless man gets a chance to visit the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Disney Hall, anything can happen.
What career suits your personality? This article might give you an idea.
For writers who can’t get any work done at home, here’s a solution. Combine a library carrel and a gym membership, and you get a writers’ room. These workspaces help writers get their work done without distractions, and the monthly fee reinforces their committment.
If you really want to understand your pets, you first have to realize that you can’t really understand them.
The company making this claims that it will help smokers quit. But it might just end up turning chain smokers into drunks.
On the bright side, if you’re already a nicotine addict and an alcoholic, this should save you some money.
An interesting story about one tycoon's investment in a poor farming village in China with the dream of converting it into an Internet village. When he suddenly died, so did his vision. But the town has been changed, and now its residents are seeking a better future elsewhere.
Walmart and auto companies (on the backs of their parts suppliers) have been helping keep inflation down by keeping their prices low, but they may have already reached their capacity.
Habit learning is a totally separate thing from conscious learning (memorization), but it also works.
Female barn swallows are so shallow. All they care about is how a guy looks.
Lucky for some of the male ugly ducklings, researchers decided to give them an extreme make-over with a marker, in the name of science.
And now they’re chick magnets!
If you ever find yourself in quicksand, don't worry. You will be able to float to safety, as long as you stay calm.
When it comes to health care, your insurance matters.
People who called up clinics seeking follow-up care were more likely to receive a timely appointment if they said they had private medical insurance than if they said that they were on Medicare or were uninsured and would not immediately pay in full. This shows that the ability to pay is very important in obtaining access to health care. In fact, “98 percent of clinics [in the study] screened callers for a source of payment but only 28 percent attempted to determine the severity of the callers medical condition”.
But even having private insurance is no guarantee that a person will get a timely appointment. “[O]ver one third of callers claiming to have private insurance could not get a follow up appointment within a week”. This may indicate that there is not enough capacity to meet the demand for medical care.
The American Idol star has been keeping her functional illiteracy a secret. Now she talks about it openly in her memoirs (as dictated to a freelance writer).
This is the latest cool hang-out: Bars that are “made entirely out of ice right down to the art on the walls and the glasses for the drinks” where “patrons are given a thermal cape, thick gloves” so they can enjoy their drinks at an invigorating -23°F (-30°C).
Seat belt use in the US has reached 82 percent this year—the highest it’s ever been. Five years ago, it was only 71 percent.
As someone who has only lived in states where drivers can be stopped for not wearing seat belts, it surprised me to learn that many other states do not go by the same rules. There are actually more states that have what are called secondary seat belt laws, which only let police officers issue a seat belt violation if a driver is stopped for another infraction. And one state, New Hampshire, doesn’t even have a seat belt law at all.
Eighty-two percent is good, but 100 percent would be even better. Seat belts save so many lives, it’s a shame that not everybody uses them.
Want to know what the different kinds of fats and oils are, and what makes some better than others? This article gives a good introduction to this topic.
In general, olive oil and canola oil are the best to use. Olive oil is the highest in monounsaturated fat. Canola oil is among the lowest in saturated fat and is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids which is recommended for heart health.
Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fish, and can be produced by the body from foods with alpha-linolenic acid such as canola oil, soybeans, and flax seeds.
This
article from Hormel shows the
composition of some popular cooking oils.
Of course, saturated fat is bad and should be avoided. All animal fats, such as lard, are saturated, including fats made from animal products like milk, cheese, and butter. Other saturated fats are coconut and palm oils, and cocoa butter.
Trans-fatty acids or “trans-fats” are also bad. Recently, studies have found that trans-fats might even be worse than saturated fat. Hydrogenated vegetable oils commonly used in commercially baked products and shortening are examples of trans-fats.
The American Heart Association (AHA) has an
article about the different types of fats and discusses why trans-fat is bad.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has some
tips on eating for a healthy heart.
Too much religion can be a dangerous thing.
A study of 18 prosperous democracies, including the United States found that:
the most religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. Of the nations studied, the U.S. — which has by far the largest percentage of people who take the Bible literally and express absolute belief in God (and the lowest percentage of atheists and agnostics) — also has by far the highest levels of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
This article is an editorial on the study; it concludes that “the most serious threat humanity faces today is religious extremism: nonrational, absolutist belief systems that refuse to tolerate difference and dissent”.