Even hundreds of miles from the nearest industrial or agricultural activity, the sea ice, ocean, and Arctic plants and animals regularly yield evidence of elemental and synthetic chemical contamination. This contamination includes not only herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides—chemicals that are used in open air, may have washed directly into rivers or are released from factories—but also metals, among them mercury as well as flame retardants and water repellants, among other substances that are, at least in theory, incorporated into the materials of the products they’re designed to enhance.

Among the errant compounds now found regularly in the Arctic, for example, are brominated flame retardants, including those known as PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) used widely in upholstery foam, textiles, and plastics. Also routinely recorded in the far north—some at remarkably high levels—are perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) used as stain repellants, waterproofing agents, and industrial surfactants (think Scotch-guard, Teflon, Gore-Tex, and the slick coating on paper used in food packaging such as pizza boxes, candy wrappers, and microwave popcorn bags).

These same compounds are now being detected in animals and people all over the world. A network of more than forty sampling sites has found evidence of synthetic chemicals that do not break down into nontoxic components—a mix of pesticides, fossil-fuel emissions, and industrial compounds—virtually everywhere it looked, from Antarctica, North America, Australia, and Africa to Iceland. A recent five-year study conducted in U.S. national parks across the American West and Alaska found these same contaminants in the majority of its snow, soil, water, plant, and fish samples.

It’s not known when the first persistent synthetic chemical contaminants arrived in the Arctic, but this kind of pollution has been detected there on a regular basis since the 1960s. “Everyone thought the Arctic was pristine, so we were taken aback to find such high contaminant levels in top predators,” says Gary Stern, a senior scientist with Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. But “anything released in the mid-latitudes travels rapidly north.”

Long-lasting synthetic chemicals are often referred to as “persistent organic pollutants,” or POPs for short. Used in this way, “organic” means that the chemical compound contains one or more carbon atoms and not all organic compounds are toxic or persistent.

Public awareness of POPs such as DDT, PCBs, and dioxins has been growing. By 2001 concern about the environmental and health impacts of POPs had risen sufficiently to prompt the United Nations Environment Programme to formulate a treaty called the Stockholm Convention aimed at curtailing the use and release of these chemicals. “Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) can lead to serious health effects,” writes the organization that administers the Stockholm Convention, “including certain cancers, birth defects, dysfunctional immune and reproductive systems, greater susceptibility to disease, and even diminished intelligence.” (The United States has signed, but as of 2009 had not yet ratified, the Stockholm Convention—so it has not been a full participant in its meetings and decision making, and its use of chemicals is not yet formally bound by the Convention’s regulations.)

By taking samples at numerous study sites over extended periods of time, scientists have discovered that some contaminants travel entirely by air—these are what Frank Wania of the University of Toronto calls fliers. Some—the swimmers—stay in the water, circulating with ocean currents. Most are hoppers, though; they make their way north in what’s been dubbed the grasshopper effect, a series of air- and waterborne hops, moving toward the Arctic with cyclical and seasonal patterns of evaporation and condensation.

Stanislas Dehaene holds the chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology at the Collège de France, and he is also the director of the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit at NeuroSpin, France’s most advanced neuroimaging research center. He is best known for his research into the brain basis of numbers, popularized in his book, “The Number Sense.” In his new book, “Reading in the Brain,” he describes his quest to understand an astounding feat that most of us take for granted: translating marks on a page (or a screen) into language. He answered questions recently from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook.

COOK: How did you become interested in the neuroscience of reading?
DEHAENE: One of my long-time interests concerns how the human brain is changed by education and culture. Learning to read seems to be one of the more important changes that we impose to our children's brain. The impact that it has on us is tantalizing. It raises very fundamental issues of how the brain and culture interact.
As I started to do experimental research in this domain, using the different tools at my disposal (from behavior to patients, fMRI, event-related potentials, and even intracranial electrodes), I was struck that we always found the same areas involved in the reading process. I began to wonder how it was even possible that our brain could adapt to reading, given it obviously never evolved for that purpose. The search for an answer resulted in this book. And, in the end, reading forces us to propose a very different view of the relationship between culture and the brain.

COOK: What is this “new relationship”?
DEHAENE: A classical, although often implicit, view in social science is that the human brain, unlike that of other animals, is a learning machine which can adapt to essentially any novel cultural task, however complex. We humans would be liberated from our past instincts and free to invent entirely new cultural forms.
What I am proposing is that the human brain is a much more constrained organ than we think, and that it places strong limits on the range of possible cultural forms. Essentially, the brain did not evolve for culture, but culture evolved to be learnable by the brain. Through its cultural inventions, humanity constantly searched for specific niches in the brain, wherever there is a space of plasticity that can be exploited to “recycle” a brain area and put it to a novel use. Reading, mathematics, tool use, music, religious systems -- all might be viewed as instances of cortical recycling.
Of course, this view of culture as a constrained “lego” game isn't that novel. It is deeply related to the structuralist view of anthropology, as exemplified by Claude Levi-Strauss and Dan Sperber. What I am proposing is that the universal structures that recur across cultures are, in fact, ultimately traceable to specific brain systems.
In the case of reading, the shapes of our writing systems have evolved towards a progressive simplification while remaining compatible with the visual coding scheme that is present in all primate brains. A fascinating discovery, made by the American researcher Marc Changizi, is that all of the world's writing systems use the same set of basic shapes, and that these shapes are already a part of the visual system in all primates, because they are also useful for coding natural visual scenes. The monkey brain already contains neurons that preferentially respond to an “alphabet” of shapes including T, L, Y. We merely “recycle” these shapes (and the corresponding part of cortex) and turn them into a cultural code for language.

Could nuclear power plants last as long as the Hoover Dam?
Increasingly dependable and emitting few greenhouse gases, the U.S. fleet of nuclear power plants will likely run for another 50 or even 70 years before it is retired -- long past the 40-year life span planned decades ago -- according to industry executives, regulators and scientists.
With nuclear providing always-on electricity that will become more cost-effective if a price is placed on heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, utilities have found it is now viable to replace turbines or lids that have been worn down by radiation exposure or wear. Many engineers are convinced that nearly any plant parts, most of which were not designed to be replaced, can be swapped out.
"We think we can replace almost every component in a nuclear power plant," said Jan van der Lee, director of the Materials Ageing Institute (MAI), a nuclear research facility inaugurated this week in France and run by the state-owned nuclear giant EDF.
"We don't want to wait until something breaks," he said. By identifying components that are wearing down and replacing them, he said, suddenly nuclear plants will find that "technically, there is no age limit."
Indeed, as U.S. regulators begin considering the extended operations of nuclear plants -- the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) expects the first application for an 80-year license could come within five years or less -- perhaps the largest lingering question is one of basic science: How do heavy doses of radiation, over generations, fundamentally alter materials like steel and concrete?
"It's taken many years for us to understand the problem," said Gary Was, the director of the University of Michigan's Phoenix Energy Institute and an expert in aging materials. "Thirty years ago, we didn't have techniques to see these changes."
Until recently, such research has not been a priority. But within the past few years, the Department of Energy began a program looking at "long-term operations," as it is known in the industry. And provisions in the Senate's climate bill call for DOE to increase these investigations in the hope of extending plant lives "substantially beyond the first license extension period."
DOE collaborates in this research with France's MAI and the U.S.-based Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit funded by many nuclear utilities. U.S. leadership in the field is natural, given the sheer age of America's reactors, many of which are already coming close to exceeding their intended operating lives.
The oldest commercial plants in the United States reached their 40th anniversary this year, and the average plant has operated for 30 years. Already, more than half of the nation's more than 100 reactors have seen their initial licenses extended for an additional two decades. Nearly all the country's plants are expected to eventually win such extensions.
As companies have encountered few hurdles toward ensuring 60 years of operation, according to one 2007 survey, a majority of executives say that it is very likely their plants will operate for 80 years or longer. It is a fairly natural progression, according to Was.
"If they last till 60, maybe they can last to 80," Was said. "Heck, maybe 100?"

I usually write about species that we're about to see for the last time, but the past few weeks have brought news of literally hundreds of newly discovered species. Some of these may not be around for long, though, so here are some introductions while they can still be made:

•    The ongoing Census of Marine Life has uncovered thousands of new species existing so far beneath the surface of the sea that they have never seen the light of day. Included on the list so far are 40 new species of coral, a large squid, and a family of "yeti crabs". Scientific American has a slide show of some of these critters here.
•    A chameleon dubbed Kinyongia magomberae has been discovered in the forests of Tanzania. Discovered by Andrew Marshall of the University of York in England, he was lucky to find it: A snake was in the process of eating the novel creature but dropped it after being startled by Marshall's presence. Since the discovery, only three more specimens have been found.
•    A spiny eel called Mastacembelus reygeli has been found in Lake Tanganyika in Africa. The new species had previously been confused with another eel with a similar morphology.
•    A tiny new fish has been discovered in the drainage areas of the Brahmaputra River in India. Transparent and just 16 millimeters (0.63 inch) long, Danionella priapus was only determined to be a new species by close examination of its genitalia.
•    Six new sea slug species have been discovered, five in Spain and one in Cuba, part of an ongoing inventory of sea slugs that has so far uncovered 54 new species.
•    Two new catfish have recently been discovered: a bagrid catfish (Tachysurus spilotus) located in Vietnam, and a whale catfish (Cetopsidium soniae) found off the Takutu River in southwestern Guyana.

When I saw the statement repeated online that theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge would be dead by now if he lived in the U.K. and had to depend on the National Health Service (he, of course, is alive and working in the U.K., where he always has), I reflected on something I had written a dozen years ago, in one of my first published commentaries:
“The increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance or personal gain.”
As I listen to the manifest nonsense that has been promulgated by the likes of right-wing fanatic radio hosts and moronic ex-governors in response to the effort to bring the U.S. into alignment with other industrial countries in providing reasonable and affordable health care for all its citizens, it seems that things have only gotten worse in the years since I first wrote those words.
English novelist George Orwell was remarkably prescient about many things, and one of the most disturbing aspects of his masterpiece 1984 involved the blatant perversion of objective reality, using constant repetition of propaganda by a militaristic government in control of all the media.
Centrally coordinated and fully effective reinvention of reality has not yet come about in the U.S. (even though a White House aide in the past administration came chillingly close when he said to a New York Times reporter, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality”). I am concerned, however that something equally pernicious, at least to the free exercise of democracy, has.
The rise of a ubiquitous Internet, along with 24-hour news channels has, in some sense, had the opposite effect from what many might have hoped such free and open access to information would have had. It has instead provided free and open access, without the traditional media filters, to a barrage of disinformation. Nonsense claims had more difficulty gaining traction in the days when print journalism held sway and newspaper editors had the final word on what made its way into homes and when television news consisted of a half-hour summary of what a trained producer thought were the most essential stories of the day.
Now fabrications about “death panels” and oxymoronic claims that ”government needs to keep its hands off of Medicare” flow freely on the Internet, driving thousands of zombielike protesters to Washington to argue that access to health care will undermine their fundamental freedom to have their insurance canceled if they get sick. And 24-hour news channels, desperate to provide ”breaking” coverage at all hours, end up serving as public relations vehicles for any celebrity who happens to make an outrageous claim or, worse, decide that the competition for ratings requires them to be anything but ”fair and balanced” in their reporting.
“Fair and balanced,” however, doesn’t mean putting all viewpoints, regardless of their underlying logic or validity, on an equal footing. Discerning the merits of competing claims is where the empirical basis of science should play a role. I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false. What fails the test of empirical reality, as determined by observation and experiment, gets thrown out like yesterday’s newspaper. One doesn’t need to debate about whether the earth is flat or 6,000 years old. These claims can safely be discarded, and have been, by the scientific method.
What makes people so susceptible to nonsense in public discourse? Is it because we do such a miserable job in schools teaching what science is all about—that it is not a collection of facts or stories but a process for weeding out nonsense to get closer to the underlying beautiful reality of nature? Perhaps not. But I worry for the future of our democracy if a combination of a free press and democratically elected leaders cannot together somehow more effectively defend empirical reality against the onslaught of ideology and fanaticism.

Consumer advertisements for at least one popular prescription drug have failed to stimulate increased sales among those on Medicaid, but the ads do seem to have upped the medicine's price tag, a new study claims, raising policy questions about the direct-to-consumer marketing approach.

The research found that running direct-to-consumer ads for Plavix (clopidogrel), a popular clot-inhibiting agent, did not jumpstart more rapid dispersal of the drug but did increase its price—passing along higher costs to drug assistance programs, such as taxpayer-funded Medicaid. The results were published online November 23 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription medications began in the U.S. in 1997. In its first decade, spending on this sort of marketing reached some $5 billion a year. How do drug companies foot this hefty bill? "To recoup the substantial costs of [direct-to-consumer advertising], firms must generate higher revenues through increased sales, higher prices or both," wrote the authors of the paper, which was led by Michael Law of the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at the University of British Columbia. The researchers sampled data from 27 states' Medicaid programs to examine the use and cost of the drug.

Their study drug, Plavix, was on the market for three years before the makers started direct-to-consumer advertising in 2001. Even as consumer advertising for the drug cost more than $350 million nationwide between 2001 and 2005, the rate of its usage did not change among Medicaid enrollees (increasing steadily at the same pace both before and after the ads were rolled out). The medication's cost, however, did increase, tacking on an additional $207 million in Medicaid payments to pharmacies for the medication in the analyzed states. And as the authors noted, because of low or non-existent copays, "any increase in price would not be passed on to enrollees but would be borne by the payer."

The paper authors do note that their correlations are based on previous data and analysis, but because drug company pricing data are confidential, other market factors might have come into play.

Earlier this year, members of the House of Representatives sponsored a bill that sought to ban some television ads, particularly those that are for so-called lifestyle drugs, such as erectile dysfunction or thin eyelashes. "You should not be diagnosed by some pitchman on TV who doesn't know you, Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who introduced a different bill that would disallow drug companies from deducting advertising costs from their taxes, told The New York Times in July. "They should not be able to get taxpayers to subsidize it," he said.

The authors of the paper wrote that despite the long-term concern over the issue of direct consumer advertising, there should be more research to confirm that the findings on Plavix pertain to other drugs as well. "If drug price increases after [direct-to-consumer advertising] initiation are common, there are important implications for payers and policy makers in the United States and elsewhere."

Practice makes perfect, but how? Two groups of neuroscientists using MRI brain imaging announced last month that they were able to see changes inside the brains of people after mastering a new skill.  The big surprise is that the part of the brain that changed has no neurons or synapses in it!  The cerebral remodeling during learning was seen in the mysterious and still largely unexplored “white matter” region of the brain.
“Grey matter” is synonymous with smarts, but in fact only half of the human brain is grey matter.  White matter, the “other brain tissue”, is rarely mentioned.   Neurons in the cerebral cortex are packed into in the top layers of the brain, where they are connected together through synapses.  Learning takes place in the grey matter by linking neurons together into new circuits by strengthening synapses or forming new ones.
But beneath the topsoil of the brain lies a dense network of fibers packed into a spaghetti-like snarl that is so complicated it is difficult to study or comprehend.   These fibers are the wire-like axons projecting out from neurons in grey matter that transmit electrical impulses.  Like buried telephone lines, these tightly bundled cables transmit information over long distances to communicate between distant regions of the cerebral cortex that are specialized to carry out different aspects of a complex cognitive function. 
To understand the importance of white matter, consider what is happening under the baseball cap of a left fielder leaping over the wall to snatch a baseball in mid air.  Visual processing in the back of his brain perceives and tracks the flying object and at the same time it monitors all the other objects on the field as the athlete runs to catch the ball.  Then the motor control centers in the parietal region of his brain engage to launch his body on a running trajectory to intercept the projectile.  Finally, precisely timed fine motor control extends his arm into space with millimeter precision to clench fingers at the right instant to pluck the speeding ball out of the sky.  All the while the player simultaneously perceives the fluid situation on the field as runners advance and strategies unfold so that he can make critical split-second decisions—“Do I hold the ball or hurl it to home plate?”  This higher level decision making is calculated in the frontal lobes, just behind the eye brows.  All this vital communication sweeps across the entire brain from the back of the skull to the front to activate different regions of cerebral cortex specialized in executing individual aspects of the skill.
That’s the job of white matter—long distant speedy communication.  The tissue is white because many axons are coated with tightly wrapped layers of electrical insulation called myelin.  This insulation, made by non-neuronal cells (called oligodendrocytes), speeds the transmission of electrical impulses 100 times faster than transmission rates through bare axons.  The complex skill of catching a baseball is a far cry from Pavlov and his slobbering dog learning to associate the sound of a bell with food.  Skill learning is likely to involve different mechanisms.  The kind of complex learning involved in mastering new skills such as catching a fly ball, takes time to learn and repetition over the course of days,weeks or years.  This type of learning is what these neuroscientists dared to tackle.
In the first study,  Jan Scholz and colleagues at the University of Oxford, England, used MRI brain imaging to obtain a detailed scan of the brain of 48 right-handed adults.  Then they taught half of them to juggle.  Anyone who has tried to master the three-ball-toss knows how difficult juggling is and how much practice it takes to learn it.  But as in learning to ride a bike, once the complicated skill is mastered, suddenly everything “clicks” and the process becomes mysteriously automatic.  Learning to read is like that too, which is what the second research group investigated, but first let’s have a look at the fascinating study peering into the brain of jugglers.

A video currently making the rounds on the Web ponders an intriguing astronomical scenario: What if Earth had rings, as Saturn does?

If the animation below, by YouTube user Roy Prol, is to be believed (and it seems to jibe with related imaginings, such as one in a NASA educator guide about Saturn [pdf]), rings would be a stunning addition to Earth's sky, day or night. And Prol's video shows that rings would make a heck of a nice backdrop for photographers of terrestrial landmarks (for example, Paris's Eiffel Tower, Rio's Christ the Redeemer, Australia's Ayers Rock) around the globe.

But such a ring, if it were to suddenly appear, might not be all good news. Decades ago, John O'Keefe of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ventured that Earth may have had a ring system similar to Saturn's for a brief period. In a 1980 paper in Nature, O'Keefe pointed to climatic data indicating colder winters at the end of the Eocene epoch some 34 million years ago along with showers of tektites, glassy rocks of mysterious origin, at around the same time. O'Keefe's theory held that tektites that missed the Earth in this bombardment were captured into a ring system that may have persisted for millions of years, casting a winter shadow across Earth's surface and contributing to a late Eocene die-off of many marine organisms such as plankton and mollusks.

If Earth may have once had rings, why doesn't it now? Two reasons come to mind, says planetary ring scientist Linda Spilker of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The first is the massive moon that drives our tides and helps stabilize Earth's tilt—two effects that make our planet so habitable. "The tidal pull from our moon would be very good at disrupting and dissipating any sort of ring," Spilker says. "Second, the solar perturbations (tidal pull from the sun) are much larger at Earth, and the terrestrial planets, than they are at Jupiter and outward." Those forces would break up a ring, Spilker adds, and the push from solar photons and streaming charged particles in the solar wind would disturb small constituents in Earth-centric rings as well.

Clearly, our conception of the world and our place in it is, at the beginning of the 21st century, drastically different from the zeitgeist at the beginning of the 19th century. But no consensus exists as to the source of this revolutionary change. Karl Marx is often mentioned; Sigmund Freud has been in and out of favor; Albert Einstein’s biographer Abraham Pais made the exuberant claim that Einstein’s theories “have profoundly changed the way modern men and women think about the phenomena of inanimate nature.” No sooner had Pais said this, though, than he recognized the exaggeration. “It would actually be better to say ‘modern scientists’ than ‘modern men and women,’” he wrote, because one needs schooling in the physicist’s style of thought and mathematical techniques to appreciate Einstein’s contributions in their fullness. Indeed, this limitation is true for all the extraordinary theories of modern physics, which have had little impact on the way the average person apprehends the world.
The situation differs dramatically with regard to concepts in biology. Many biological ideas proposed during the past 150 years stood in stark conflict with what everybody assumed to be true. The acceptance of these ideas required an ideological revolution. And no biologist has been responsible for more—and for more drastic—modifications of the average person’s worldview than Charles Darwin.
Darwin’s accomplishments were so many and so diverse that it is useful to distinguish three fields to which he made major contributions: evolutionary biology; the philosophy of science; and the modern zeitgeist. Although I will be focusing on this last domain, for the sake of completeness I will put forth a short overview of his contributions—particularly as they inform his later ideas—to the first two areas.
A Secular View of Life
Darwin founded a new branch of life science, evolutionary biology. Four of his contributions to evolutionary biology are especially important, as they held considerable sway beyond that discipline. The first is the nonconstancy of species, or the modern conception of evolution itself. The second is the notion of branching evolution, implying the common descent of all species of living things on earth from a single unique origin. Up until 1859, all evolutionary proposals, such as that of naturalist Jean- Baptiste Lamarck, instead endorsed linear evolution, a teleological march toward greater perfection that had been in vogue since Aristotle’s concept of Scala Naturae, the chain of being. Darwin further noted that evolution must be gradual, with no major breaks or discontinuities. Finally, he reasoned that the mechanism of evolution was natural selection.
These four insights served as the foundation for Darwin’s founding of a new branch of the philosophy of science, a philosophy of biology. Despite the passing of a century before this new branch of philosophy fully developed, its eventual form is based on Darwinian concepts. For example, Darwin introduced historicity into science. Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science—the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain.

Was Newton right and Einstein wrong? It seems that unzipping the fabric of spacetime and harking back to 19th-century notions of time could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.
Physicists have struggled to marry quantum mechanics with gravity for decades. In contrast, the other forces of nature have obediently fallen into line. For instance, the electromagnetic force can be described quantum-mechanically by the motion of photons. Try and work out the gravitational force between two objects in terms of a quantum graviton, however, and you quickly run into trouble—the answer to every calculation is infinity. But now Petr HoYava, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks he understands the problem. It’s all, he says, a matter of time.
More specifically, the problem is the way that time is tied up with space in Einstein’s theory of gravity: general relativity. Einstein famously overturned the Newtonian notion that time is absolute—steadily ticking away in the background. Instead he argued that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a malleable fabric that is distorted by matter. The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two conceptions of time don’t gel.
The solution, HoYava says, is to snip threads that bind time to space at very high energies, such as those found in the early universe where quantum gravity rules. “I’m going back to Newton’s idea that time and space are not equivalent,” HoYava says. At low energies, general relativity emerges from this underlying framework, and the fabric of spacetime restitches, he explains.
HoYava likens this emergence to the way some exotic substances change phase. For instance, at low temperatures liquid helium’s properties change dramatically, becoming a “superfluid” that can overcome friction. In fact, he has co-opted the mathematics of exotic phase transitions to build his theory of gravity. So far it seems to be working: the infinities that plague other theories of quantum gravity have been tamed, and the theory spits out a well-behaved graviton. It also seems to match with computer simulations of quantum gravity.
HoYava’s theory has been generating excitement since he proposed it in January, and physicists met to discuss it at a meeting in November at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In particular, physicists have been checking if the model correctly describes the universe we see today. General relativity scored a knockout blow when Einstein predicted the motion of Mercury with greater accuracy than Newton’s theory of gravity could.
Can HoYYava gravity claim the same success? The first tentative answers coming in say “yes.” Francisco Lobo, now at the University of Lisbon, and his colleagues have found a good match with the movement of planets.
Others have made even bolder claims for HoYava gravity, especially when it comes to explaining cosmic conundrums such as the singularity of the big bang, where the laws of physics break down. If HoYava gravity is true, argues cosmologist Robert Brandenberger of McGill University in a paper published in the August Physical Review D, then the universe didn’t bang—it bounced. “A universe filled with matter will contract down to a small—but finite—size and then bounce out again, giving us the expanding cosmos we see today,” he says. Brandenberger’s calculations show that ripples produced by the bounce match those already detected by satellites measuring the cosmic microwave background, and he is now looking for signatures that could distinguish the bounce from the big bang scenario.
HoYava gravity may also create the “illusion of dark matter,” says cosmologist Shinji Mukohyama of Tokyo University. In the September Physical Review D, he explains that in certain circumstances HoYava’s graviton fluctuates as it interacts with normal matter, making gravity pull a bit more strongly than expected in general relativity. The effect could make galaxies appear to contain more matter than can be seen. If that’s not enough, cosmologist Mu-In Park of Chonbuk National University in South Korea believes that HoYava gravity may also be behind the accelerated expansion of the universe, currently attributed to a mysterious dark energy. One of the leading explanations for its origin is that empty space contains some intrinsic energy that pushes the universe outward. This intrinsic energy cannot be accounted for by general relativity but pops naturally out of the equations of HoYava gravity, according to Park.

Earlier this year, I wrote a column about evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup’s “semen displacement hypothesis,” a convincing hypothesis presenting a very plausible, empirically supported account of the evolution of the peculiarly shaped human penis. In short, Gallup and his colleagues argued that our species’ distinctive phallus, with its bulbous glans and flared coronal ridge, was sculpted by natural selection as a foreign sperm-removal device. As a companion piece to that work on our phallic origins, Gallup, along with Mary Finn and Becky Sammis, have put forth a related hypothesis in this month’s issue of Evolutionary Psychology. This new hypothesis, which the authors call “the activation hypothesis,” sets out to explain the natural origins of the only human body part arguably less attractive than the penis--the testicles.
In many respects, the activation hypothesis serves to elaborate what many of us already know about descended scrotal testicles: that they serve as a sort of “ cold storage” and production unit for sperm, which keep best at lower body temperatures. But it goes much further than this fact, too. It turns out that human testicles display some rather elaborate yet subtle temperature-regulating features that have gone largely unnoticed by doctors, researchers and laymen alike. The main tenet of the activation hypothesis is that the heat of a woman's vagina radically jumpstarts sperm that have been hibernating in the cool, airy scrotal sack. Yet it explains many other things too, including why one testicle is usually slightly lower than the other, why the skin of the scrotum becomes more taut and the testicles retract during sexual arousal, and even why testicular injuries--compared to other types of bodily assault--are so excruciatingly painful to men.
The opening line of Gallup's new article helps readers to appreciate the oddity of the scrotum:

It is almost unthinkable to ask why ovaries do not descend during embryological development and emerge outside the female’s body cavity in a thin, unprotected sack…

After you’ve finished exorcising that unsettling image from your mind, consider that the dangling gonads of many male animals (including humans) are no less puzzling. After all, why in all of evolution would nature have designed a body part with such obviously enormous reproductive importance to hang off the body so defenseless and vulnerable? Although we tend to become accustomed to our body parts and it often fails to occur to us to even ask why they are the way they are, some of the biggest evolutionary mysteries are also the most mundane aspects of our lives.
Thus, the first big question is why so many mammalian species evolved hanging scrotal testicles to begin with. The male gonads in some phylogenetic lineages went in completely different directions, evolutionary speaking. For example, modern elephants’ testicles remain undescended and are deeply embedded in the body cavity (a trait referred to as “testicond”), whereas other mammals, such as seals, have descended testicles but are ascrotal, with the gonads simply being subcutaneous.
Gallup and his coauthors jog through several possible theories of our species’ testicular evolution by descent. One of the more fanciful accounts--and one ultimately discarded by the authors--is that scrotal testicles evolved in the same spirit as peacock feathers. That is to say, given the enormous disadvantage of having your entire genetic potential contained in a thin satchel of unprotected, delicate flesh and swinging several millimeters away from the rest of your body, perhaps scrotal testicles evolved as a sort of ornamental display communicating the genetic quality of the male. In evolutionary biology, this type of adaptationist account appeals to the “handicapping principle.” The theoretical gist of the handicapping principle is that if the organism can thrive and survive while still being hobbled by such a costly, maladaptive trait such as elaborate, cumbersome plumage or (in this case) vulnerably drooping gonads, then it must have some high quality genes and be a valuable mate.
Although descended scrotal testicles do satisfy the obvious criterion of being counterintuitively costly, the authors conclude that handicapping is an unlikely explanation. If it were true, we would expect to see scrotal testicles becoming increasingly elaborate and dangly over the course of evolution, not to mention women should display a preference for males toting around the most ostentatious scrotal baggage. “With the possible exception of colored male scrota among a few species of primates,” write Gallup and his colleagues, “there is little evidence that this has been the case.” I’m not aware of any studies on intra-species individual variation in scrotal design, but I’m nonetheless willing to speculate that most human males have rather bland, run-of-the-mill scrota. Anything deviating from this--particularly a set of unusually pendulous testicles suspended in knee-length scrota--is probably more likely to have a woman dry-heaving, screaming, or staring in confusion than serving as an aphrodisiac. 
Again, a more likely explanation for scrotal descent, and one that has been around for some time, is that sperm production and storage is maximized at cooler temperatures. “Not only is the skin of the scrotal sack thin to promote heat dissipation,” the authors write:

...the arteries that supply blood to the scrotum are positioned adjacent to the veins taking blood away from the scrotum and function as an additional cooling/heating exchange mechanism. As a consequence of these adaptations average scrotal temperatures in humans are typically 2.5 to 3 degrees Celsius lower than body temperature (37 degrees Celsius), and spermatogenesis is most efficient at 34 degrees Celsius.

Sperm, it turns out, are extraordinarily sensitive to even minor fluctuations in room temperature. When the ambient temperature rises to body temperature levels, there is a temporary increase in sperm motility (that is to say, they become more lively), but only for a period of time before fizzing out. To be more exact, sperm thrive at body temperature for 50 minutes to four hours, the average length of time it takes for them to journey through the female reproductive tract and to fertilize the egg. But once the spermatic temperature rises much above 37 degrees Celsius, the chances for a successful insemination consequently plummet--any viable sperm become the equivalent of burnt toast. So in other words, except during sex, when it’s adaptive for sperm to be highly mobile and hyperactive, sperm are stored and produced most efficiently in the cool, breezy surroundings of the relaxed scrotal sack. One doesn’t want their scrotum to be too cold, however, since nature has calibrated these temperature points at precisely defined optimal levels.
Fortunately, human scrota don’t just hang there holding our testicles and brewing our sperm, they also “actively” employ some interesting thermoregulatory tactics to protect and promote males’ genetic interests. I place “actively” in scare quotes, of course, because although it would be rather odd to ascribe consciousness to human scrota, testicles do respond unintentionally to the reflexive actions of the cremasteric muscle. This muscle serves to retract the testicles so they are drawn up closer to the body when it gets too cold--just think cold shower--and also to relax them when it gets too hot. This up-and-down action happens on a moment-to-moment basis, thus male bodies continually optimize the gonadal climate for spermatogenesis and sperm storage. It’s also why it’s generally inadvisable for men to wear tight-fitting jeans or especially snug “tighty whities”--under these restrictive conditions the testicles are shoved up against the body and artificially warmed so that the cremasteric muscle cannot do its job properly. Another reason not to wear these things is that it’s no longer 1988.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But Dr. Bering, how do you account for the fact that testicles are rarely perfectly symmetrical in their positioning within the same scrotum?” In fact, the temperature regulating function governed by the cremasteric muscle can account even for the most lopsided, one-testicle-above-the-other, waffling asymmetries in testes positioning. According to a 2008 report in Medical Hypotheses by anatomist Stany Lobo from the Saba University School of Medicine, Netherlands Antilles, each testicle continuously migrates in its own orbit as a way of maximizing the available scrotal surface area that is subjected to heat dissipation and cooling. Like ambient heat generated by individual solar panels, when it comes to spermatic temperatures, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. With a keen enough eye, presumably one could master the art of “ reading” testicle alignment, using the scrotum as a makeshift room thermometer . But that's just me speculating.
From an evolutionary perspective--in contrast to my own personal perspective--the design of male genitalia only makes sense to the extent that it adaptively complements the female anatomy. In contrast to males, unless a woman is doing something unusual, the female reproductive tract is maintained continuously at standard body temperature. This is the crux of Gallup’s “activation hypothesis”: The rise in temperature surrounding sperm as occasioned by ejaculation into the vagina “activates” sperm, temporarily making them frenetic and therefore enabling them to acquire the necessary oomph to penetrate the cervix and to reach the fallopian tubes. “In our view,” write the authors:

…descended scrotal testicles evolved to both capitalize on this copulation/insemination contingent temperature enhancement and function to prevent premature activation of sperm by keeping testicular temperatures below the critical value set by body temperatures.

One of the things you may have noticed in your own genitalia or those of someone you’re especially close to is that, in contrast to the slackened scrotal skin accompanying flaccid, non-aroused states, penile erections are usually accompanied by a telltale retraction of the testicles closer to the body. This is the sort of thing easiest to demonstrate using visual illustrations--the editors at Scientific American wouldn’t let me get away with it here, but a quick Google image search should provide ample examples. Just choose your own search terms and disable “safe search”--though if you’re at work right now, you may want to save this as homework for later. According to Gallup and his coauthors, this is another smart scrotal adaptation. Not only does the cremasteric reflex serve to raise testicular temperature, thus mobilizing sperm for pending ejaculation into the vagina, but (added bonus) it also offers protection against possible damage to too-loose testicles resulting from vigorous thrusting during intercourse.
There are many other ancillary hypotheses connected to the activation hypothesis as well. For example, the authors ponder whether humans’ well-documented preference--and one rather unique in the animal kingdom--for nighttime sex can be at least partially explained by temperature-sensitive testicles. Although the authors note the many benefits of nocturnal copulation (such as accommodating clandestine sex or minimizing the threat of predation), this preference may also reflect a circadian adaptation related to descended scrota. Given that our species evolved originally in equatorial regions where daytime temperatures often soared above body temperature, optimal testicular adjustments would be difficult to maintain in such excessive heat. In contrast, ambient temperatures during the evening and at night fall below body temperature, returning to ideal thermoregulatory conditions for the testes. Additionally, after nighttime sex the woman is likely to sleep, thus remaining in a stationary, often supine position that also maximizes the odds of fertilization.
Although the activation hypothesis helps us to better understand the functional, if quirky, architecture of the human male gonads, it may still seem odd to you that nature would have invested so heavily in such a precipitously placed genetic bank. After all, we’re still left with the curious fact that our precious gametes are literally hanging in the balance in a completely unprotected vessel. Gallup and his coauthors aren’t unaware of this strange biological fact either:

Any account of descended scrotal testicles must also address the enormous potential costs of having the testicles located outside the body cavity where they are left virtually unprotected and especially vulnerable to insult and damage. To be consistent with evolutionary theory the potential costs of scrotal testicles would have to be offset not only by compensating benefits (e.g., sperm activation upon insemination), but one would also expect to find corresponding adaptations that function to minimize or negate these costs.

Enter pain. Not just any pain, but the unusually acute, excruciating pain accompanying testicular injury. Most males have some horrific stories to tell on this score--whether it be a soccer ball to the groin or the flailing foot of a sibling--but each of us men shares something in common: we’ve all become extraordinarily hypervigilant against threats to the welfare of our scrotal testicles. The fact that males are so squeamish and sensitive to this particular body part, point out the authors, can again be understood in the context of evolutionary biology. If you’re male, the reason that you probably wince when you hear the word “squash” or “rupture” paired with “testicle” but not with, say, “arm” or “spleen” is because testicles are disproportionately more vital to your reproductive success than these other body parts are. I, for one, had to pause to cover myself just by typing those former words together. It’s not that those other body parts aren’t adaptively important, but variation in pain sensitivity across different bodily regions, according to this view, reflects the vulnerability and importance different adaptations play in your reproductive success. Male ancestors who learned to protect their gonads would have left more descendants--and pain is a pretty good motivator for promoting preemptive defensive action. Or, to think about it another way, any male in the ancestral past that was oblivious to or, gulp, enjoyed testicular insult would have been quickly weeded out of the gene pool.
Additionally, argues Gallup, the cremasteric muscle flexes in response to threatening stimuli, in effect pulling the testicles up closer to the body and out of harm’s way. In fact, the authors point out, Japanese physicians have been known to apply a pin prick to the inner thigh of male patients as a surgical prep: if the patient displays no cremasteric reflex, this means the spinal anesthesia has kicked in and he’s ready to go under the knife. Other evidence suggests that fear and the threat of danger trigger the cremasteric reflex. I suspect there are any number of ways to test this at home, if you’re so inclined. Just make sure the owner of the fearfully reflexive testicles knows what you’re up to before frightening him.
So, there you have it. A new, evolutionarily informed account of the natural origins of descended scrotal testicles in humans. What do you think of Gallup's seminal theory? Is the whole thing nuts? Don't leave me hanging, folks. Ball’s in your court. ba dum ching!

In this column presented by Scientific American Mind magazine, research psychologist Jesse Bering of Queen's University Belfast ponders some of the more obscure aspects of everyday human behavior. Ever wonder why yawning is contagious, why we point with our index fingers instead of our thumbs or whether being breastfed as an infant influences your sexual preferences as an adult? Get a closer look at the latest data as “Bering in Mind” tackles these and other quirky questions about human nature. Sign up for the RSS feed or friend Dr. Bering on Facebook and never miss an installment again. For articles published prior to September 29, 2009, click here: older Bering in Mind columns.

Was Sen. James Inhofe right when he declared 2009 the year of the climate contrarian? A slew of emails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit highlight definite character flaws among some climate scientists—including an embarrassing attempt to delete emails that discussed the most recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—while also exposing what looks like a failure of scientists to acknowledge a halt to global warming in the past decade.

Sadly for the potential fate of human civilization, rumors of the demise of climate change have been much exaggerated. The past decade recorded nine of the warmest years in recent history as well as the rapid dwindling of Arctic sea ice, surely the result of imminent global cooling if climate change contrarians are to be believed. After all, one of the most "damaging" emails in question from Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., is actually mourning the paucity of Earth observation systems and data in the past decade, such as satellites (gutted by a lack of funding and launch miscues in recent years) to monitor climate change in the midst of natural variability.



The "Copenhagen Diagnosis" released today reveals that by any objective measure—melting ice sheets, greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise—the climate is warming faster than anticipated. And when the natural variability induced by massive climate systems such as oscillations over decades in ocean temperatures, currents and even sunspots reverts to the mean, the roughly three warming watts per square meter added by greenhouse gases will still be there to drive climate change.



You can judge the emails for yourself at this wonderful searchable database. While the revelations about pressuring the peer review process and apparent slowness in responding to an avalanche of requests for information unveil something below impressive scientific and personal behavior, they can also be seen as the frustrated responses of people working on complex data under deadline while being harassed by political opponents.



Note the adjective there. Political, not scientific, opponents. Because the opposition here is not grounded in any robust scientific theory or alternative hypotheses (all of those, in their time, have been shot down and nothing new has been offered in years) but a hysterical reaction to the possibly of what? One-world government? The return of communism? If that's the fear, perhaps someone can explain why the preferred solution to climate change offered by former proponents of inaction is nuclear power. Has there ever been a nuclear reactor built anywhere in the world that didn't rely on government to get it done? Sounds like socialism, doesn't it? Hello France? USSR? USA?



The problem is not the behavior of climate scientists or their results. The problem is fear of the actions required to actually deal with the findings of climate science, and it has turned the field into a contact sport as Stephen Schneider of Stanford University puts it in the title of his new book. For example, we might decide to start cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, perhaps by restraining our burning of fossil fuel, or at least capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emitted in that process. It would appear, in fact, that the Obama administration will actually bring to the climate conference in Copenhagen some kind of a proposal to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.



That's not something some folks want to see, primarily those working in the fossil fuel extraction and/or burning business.



There is, in fact, a climate conspiracy. It just happens to be one launched by the fossil fuel industry to obscure the truth about climate change and delay any action. And this release of emails right before the Copenhagen conference is just another salvo—and a highly effective one—in that public relations battle, redolent with the scent of the same flaks and hacks who brought you "smoking isn't dangerous."

As physicist and climate historian Spencer Weart told The Washington Post: "It's a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science: Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we've never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance. Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers." Well, probably they did, but point taken.

Lose 20 Pounds Fast!


Lose 20 Pounds Fast Exercise Plan



Tone Up: Ways to Work Out at Home



Your 15-Minute No-Fail Workout



30 Days to Thin



The 10 Commandments of Holiday Weight Control

So you've been wanting to slim down. Has it come to the point where you're saying, "It's no longer an option. This weight has to go"? If so, you're on the right track; making the commitment is the first step. Here's the second: a simple, sensible exercise and eating plan. Follow our program and drop those pounds in 90 days!







Month One: The Starting Line

Goal: to lose seven pounds



Time: three 40-minute sessions per week



Status report: This month you'll begin to burn calories, boost your metabolism, and see inspiring results!



Cardio: Start with 20 minutes of heart-pumping movement — go for a brisk walk, take a bike ride, jog, etc.



Target heart rate: 120 to 140 beats per minute. To determine, place your index finger on the artery between your collarbone and jawline. Count beats for one minute.



Strength/resistance: Next, perform these exercises. Start with a weight that's heavy enough so you "fail" by the 10th rep (meaning your muscles are too tired to do another), counting to three when bringing the weights up and again when bringing them down.



Reps: one set of 10







Month Two: The 50-Yard Line

Goal: to lose seven pounds



Time: four 65-minute sessions per week



Status report: I'm positive that you already can see and feel the difference. Just don't get tempted into "treating" yourself for your progress. The best is yet to come.



Cardio: 25 minutes, with increased intensity (on a machine, increase the incline or the resistance; if you're outside, cover more terrain in less time).



Target heart rate: 130 to 145 beats per minute



Strength/resistance: Repeat the program from last month but push harder. To ensure "failure," use heavier weights (go from five-pound weights to eight). You can also intensify the workout by slowing your speed from a three count to a four count.



Reps: two sets of 10







Month Three: The Home Stretch

Goal: to lose six pounds



Time: five 90-minute sessions per week



Status report: Either you've followed the plan to the letter and are looking good, or you've got some serious catching up to do. Here is your final assignment.



Cardio: 30 minutes, high intensity



Target heart rate: 130 to 150 beats per minute



Strength/resistance: Repeat the exercises, upping the weights slightly. Just remember: fail, fail, fail.



Reps: three sets of 10







The Exercises





•Standing Biceps Curl





•Step-up





•Modified Push-up





•Shoulder Press Lunge





•Back Row in a Partial Squat





•Squat with Lateral Raise

1. SSC Ultimate Aero: 257 mph, 0-60 in 2.7 secs. Twin-Turbo V8 Engine with 1183 hp, base price is $654,400. Tested in March 2007 by Guinness world records, The SSC Ultimate Aero takes the lead as the fastest car in the world beating Bugatti Veyron.

2. Bugatti Veyron: 253 mph, 0-60 in 2.5 secs. Aluminum, Narrow Angle W16 Engine with 1001 hp, base price is $1,700,000. With the highest price tag, no wonder this is rank #2.

3. Saleen S7 Twin-Turbo: 248 mph, 0-60 in 3.2 secs. Twin Turbo All Aluminum V8 Engine with 750 hp, base price is $555,000. Smooth and bad-ass, will make you want to show it off non-stop.

4. Koenigsegg CCX: 245 mph, 0-60 in 3.2 secs. 90 Degree V8 Engine 806 hp, base price is $545,568. Made in Sweden, it is aiming hard to be the fastest car in the world, but it has a long way to go to surpass the Bugatti and the Ultimate Aero.

5. McLaren F1: 240 mph, 0-60 in 3.2 secs. BMW S70/2 60 Degree V12 Engine with 627 hp, base price is $970,000. Check out the doors, they looks like bat wings, maybe Batman need to order one and paints it black
6. Ferrari Enzo: 217 mph, 0-60 in 3.4 secs. F140 Aluminum V12 Engine with 660 hp, base price is $670,000. Only 399 ever produced, the price goes up every time someone crashes.
7. Jaguar XJ220: 217 mph, 0-60 in 3.8 secs. Twin Turbo V6 Engine with 542 hp, base price was $650,000. Made in 1992, this car still got what it takes to make the list.

8. Pagani Zonda F: 215 mph, 0-60 in 3.5 secs. Mercedes Benz M180 V12 Engine with 650 hp, base price is $667,321. With a V12 motor, this baby can do much better.
9. Lamborghini Murcielago LP640: 211 mph, 0-60 in 3.3 secs. V12 Engine with 640 hp, base price is $430,000. Nice piece of art, the design is very round and smooth.

10. Porsche Carrera GT: 205 mph, 0-60 in 3.9 secs. Aluminum, 68 Degree, Water Cooled V10 Engine with 612 hp, base price is $440,000. The most powerful and most expensive Porsche  nearly made the list as #10.

Almost every one of us has heard a friend complaining that his email account has been hacked. Or it may have happened to you. The truth is that hacking yahoo messenger accounts or any other kind of email provider account has become quite a problem for users.
MSN password hacking or hacking yahoo accounts is no longer the realm of experts.


Thanks to the widespread use of the internet, any hacker can learn the required tricks to master the art of hacking yahoo ids or hotmail email password hacking. He only needs to make a basic search with keywords like hacking yahoo passwords, msn messenger hacking tools, msn hacking programs, hacking yahoo mail, hotmail hacking programs, hacking yahoo email or even something as simple as hotmail hacking guide. All of that is out there, ready to be learnt.

Can Emails Be Hacked?

Yes. As a matter of fact, almost anything can be hacked in the Internet. The problem is that email accounts are the repositories were people store their private information or even their business data. It is a quite serious condition and most of the mail providers have taken some measures for stopping it. Unfortunately, users don't take them seriously and they don't follow the precautions.

There are several methods for hacking yahoo, msn or AOL email accounts. One of these methods is social engineering. Considered a revolutionary art among the hacker community, it has proven to be an interesting tool that can be exploited by anyone.

Social engineering consists in the ability to trick someone in believing that he is giving information to someone who has the authority to ask for it. The most common way to do it is through the telephone or via the internet. Let's say that a user receives a call from someone who identifies himself as a system administrator of his company and that he requires some information that could be considered harmless.

It's quite probable that that bit of information is the final piece that the hacker required for finishing his work. Something as innocent as when was the last time that the system asked the user to change his password could be used by him in his advantage.

A quite ingenious method within social engineering was a webpage were users required to enter their mail and password for finding if someone had deleted or blocked them from their Instant Messenger (IM). Unfortunately, many fell under this scheme. Hacking yahoo messenger or any other messenger is quite easy if you find how to exploit the user's needs.

Alternatives used

Besides social engineering, hackers can obtain your password through other means, like worms, viruses or Trojans. Once a hacker is inside your computer, he will look for those files
were your login names and passwords are stored. That's they reason why it isn't considered
safe to store them inside your computer. Even when the provider tells you that it is safe. Remember than there isn't a more secure place for keeping your password than your mind.

Methods Used In The Past !

In the past, one of the common practices used by hacker was using programs that tried different password combinations until it found the correct one. This method was contra rested by email providers by giving a limited number of options or by placing some security measures inside their webpage.

Other method was placing false web pages instead of the original ones. A hacker could make a user think that he is accessing his email at the webpage of his email provider. In reality, he was entering all his information to a webpage created by the hacker. This scheme isn't used any more since users have become a bit more careful and have acquired some concepts on internet security. They have started using secure pages for login which starts

What Are Keyloggers?

Keyloggers are specially devised programs that are installed inside a computer via a Trojan, a virus or a worm. Once inside, the keylogger will auto execute and start recording all the key strokes made by the computer user. Once a determined period of time has gone by, the keylogger will send the keystroke information to the hacker who sent this infectious software.

Then the hacker will start searching key combinations that can lead him to determine the password for determined web pages. This simple and effective method is a favorite among hackers since it can provide them with lots of private information from their victims.

Many computer users have more than one email account, especially if they use the messenger services from multiple providers, like Microsoft's Hotmail, Yahoo's Email or AOL email. It doesn't matter if you have one or many email accounts, every one of them may be a victim of a hacker. Even with the security measures imposed by the companies, Yahoo password hacking or hotmail hacking still exist. And it's very improbable that will disappear.

So, if you want to protect yourself from people who are hacking yahoo accounts or whose whole purpose in life is to do some MSN hacking, then increase the number of special characters in your password and try not to access your email account from a computer that is not yours. And that goes to IM's too. The ability for hacking yahoo messenger or any other IM provider it's a latent danger for all of us.

LOCALLY STORED PASSWORDS

Most browsers, including Internet Explorer® and Netscape®, the AOL® client, and Windows® Dial-Up Connections allow you the option to store passwords. These passwords are stored on the local machine and (depending upon where and how it is stored) there is usually a method of recovering these passwords. Storing any password locally is insecure and may allow the password to be recovered by anyone who has access to the local machine. While we are not currently aware of any program to recover locally stored AOL® passwords, we do not recommend that these are secure. Software does exist that can recover most of the other types of locally stored passwords.

Best Diet Tip No. 1: Drink plenty of water or other calorie-free beverages.

People sometimes confuse thirst with hunger. So you can end up eating extra calories when an ice-cold glass of water is really what you need.
"If you don't like plain water, try adding citrus or a splash of juice, or brew infused teas like mango or peach, which have lots of flavor but no calories," says Cynthia Sass, RD, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

Best Diet Tip No. 2: Think about what you can add to your diet, not what you should take away.

Start by focusing on getting the recommended 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
"It sounds like a lot, but it is well worth it, because at the same time you are meeting your fiber goals and feeling more satisfied from the volume of food," says chef Laura Pansiero, RD.
You're also less likely to overeat because fruits and vegetables displace fat in the diet. And that's not to mention the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. More than 200 studies have documented the disease-preventing qualities of phytochemicals found in produce, says Pansiero.
Her suggestion for getting more: Work vegetables into meals instead of just serving them as sides on a plate.
"I love to take seasonal vegetables and make stir-fries, frittatas, risotto, pilafs, soups, or layer on sandwiches," Pansiero says. "It is so easy to buy a variety of vegetables and incorporate them into dishes."

Best Diet Tip No. 3: Consider whether you're really hungry.

Whenever you feel like eating, look for physical signs of hunger, suggests Michelle May, MD, author of Am I Hungry?
"Hunger is your body's way of telling you that you need fuel, so when a craving doesn't come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it," she says.
When you're done eating, you should feel better -- not stuffed, bloated, or tired.
"Your stomach is only the size of your fist, so it takes just a handful of food to fill it comfortably," says May.
Keeping your portions reasonable will help you get more in touch with your feelings of hunger and fullness.

Best Diet Tip No. 4: Be choosy about nighttime snacks.

Mindless eating occurs most frequently after dinner, when you finally sit down and relax.
"Sitting down with a bag of chips or cookies in front of the television is an example of eating amnesia, where you mindlessly eat without being hungry, but out of habit," says American Dietetic Association spokesperson Malena Perdomo, RD.
Either close down the kitchen after a certain hour, or allow yourself a low-calorie snack, like a 100-calorie pack of cookies or a half-cup scoop of low-fat ice cream. Once you find that you're usually satisfied with the low-cal snack, try a cup of zero-calorie tea, suggests Perdomo.

Best Diet Tip No. 5: Enjoy your favorite foods.

"I think putting your favorite foods off limits leads to weight gain because it triggers 'rebound' overeating," says Sass.

Instead of cutting out your favorite foods altogether, be a slim shopper. Buy one fresh bakery cookie instead of a box, or a small portion of candy from the bulk bins instead of a whole bag.

"You can enjoy your favorite foods, but you must do so in moderation," says Sass.

Best Diet Tip No. 6: Enjoy your treats away from home.

When you need a treat, Ellie Krieger, RD, host of Food Network's Healthy Appetite, suggests taking a walk to your local ice cream parlor or planning a family outing.
"By making it into an adventure, you don't have to worry about the temptation of having treats in the house, and it is a fun and pleasurable way to make it work when you are trying to lose weight," says Krieger.
And for those times you just can't get out? Krieger stocks her kitchen with fresh fruit, which she thinks can be every bit as delicious as any other dessert.

Best Diet Tip No. 7: Eat several mini-meals during the day.

If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. But when you're hungry all the time, eating fewer calories can be challenging.
"Studies show people who eat 4-5 meals or snacks per day are better able to control their appetite and weight," says obesity researcher Rebecca Reeves, DrPH, RD.
She recommends dividing your daily calories into smaller meals or snacks and enjoying as many of them as you can early in the day -- dinner should be the last time you eat.

Best Diet Tip No. 8: Eat protein at every meal.

Protein is more satisfying than carbohydrates or fats, and thus may be the new secret weapon in weight control.
" Diets higher in protein [and] moderate in carbs, along with a lifestyle of regular exercise, have an excellent potential to help weight loss," says University of Illinois protein researcher Donald Layman, PhD.
Getting enough protein helps preserve muscle mass and encourages fat burning while keeping you feeling full. So be sure to include healthy protein sources, like yogurt, cheese, nuts, or beans, at meals and snacks.

Best Diet Tip No. 9: Spice it up.

Add spices or chiles to your food for a flavor boost that can help you feel satisfied.
"Food that is loaded with flavor will stimulate your taste buds and be more satisfying so you won't eat as much," says Perdomo.
When you need something sweet, suck on a red-hot fireball candy for a long-lasting burst of sweetness with just a few calories.

Best Diet Tip No. 10: Stock your kitchen with healthy convenience foods.

Having ready-to-eat snacks and meals-in-minutes staples on hand sets you up for success. You'll be less likely to hit the drive-through or call in a pizza order if you can make a healthy meal in 5 or 10 minutes.

Sass stocks her kitchen with:

• 94% fat-free microwave popcorn (20-25 calories per cup, and you can make it in two minutes or less)
• Frozen vegetables
• Bags of pre-washed greens
• Canned diced tomatoes
• Canned beans
• Whole-grain wraps or pitas
• Pre-cooked grilled chicken breasts
• A few containers of pre-cooked brown rice

Within minutes, she can toss together a healthy medley.

Best Diet Tip No. 11: Order children’s portions at restaurants.

"When you are eating out, order a child's pizza or a small sandwich as an easy way to trim calories and get your portions under control," suggest Perdomo.
Another trick is to use smaller plates. This helps the portions look like more, and if your mind is satisfied, your stomach likely will be, too.

Best Diet Tip No. 12: Eat foods in season.

"If you don't love certain fruits or vegetables, it could be because you ate them out of season when they have little taste or flavor," says Pensiero. "When you eat seasonally, fruits and vegetables are more flavorful, at their best, and I promise you won't be disappointed."
At GiGi's Trattoria, her restaurant in Rhinebeck, N.Y., she serves simple fruit desserts, like naturally sweet strawberries topped with aged balsamic vinegar, or low-fat yogurt or fresh berries in a compote.

Best Diet Tip No. 13: Swap a cup of pasta for a cup of vegetables.

Simply by eating less pasta or bread and more veggies, you could lose a dress or pants size in a year.
"You can save from 100-200 calories if you reduce the portion of starch on your plate and increase the amount of vegetables," says Sass.

Best Diet Tip No. 14: Use non-food alternatives to cope with stress.

Sooner or later, you're going to be faced with a stressful situation. Instead of turning to food for comfort, be prepared with some non-food tactics that work for you.
Sass suggests reading a few chapters in a novel, listening to music, writing in a journal, practicing meditative deep breathing, or looking at a photo album of loved ones.

Best Diet Tip No. 15: Be physically active.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, don't use exercise either to punish yourself for eating or to "earn" the right to eat more.
"When you do, it sets up a negative thought pattern, which is why so many people say they hate to exercise," says May.
Instead, focus on how great you feel, how much better you sleep and how much more energy you have when you exercise. Physical activity is good for you whether you are trying to lose weight or not, so keep it positive and build a lifelong habit.

1. Early musical training helps develop brain areas involved in language and reasoning. It is thought that brain development continues for many years after birth. Recent studies have clearly indicated that musical training physically develops the part of the left side of the brain known to be involved with processing language, and can actually wire the brain's circuits in specific ways. Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint information on young minds.

2. There is also a causal link between music and spatial intelligence (the ability to perceive the world accurately and to form mental pictures of things). This kind of intelligence, by which one can visualize various elements that should go together, is critical to the sort of thinking necessary for everything from solving advanced mathematics problems to being able to pack a book-bag with everything that will be needed for the day.

3. Students of the arts learn to think creatively and to solve problems by imagining various solutions, rejecting outdated rules and assumptions. Questions about the arts do not have only one right answer.

4. Recent studies show that students who study the arts are more successful on standardized tests such as the SAT. They also achieve higher grades in high school.

5. A study of the arts provides children with an internal glimpse of other cultures and teaches them to be empathetic towards the people of these cultures. This development of compassion and empathy, as opposed to development of greed and a "me first" attitude, provides a bridge across cultural chasms that leads to respect of other races at an early age.

6. Students of music learn craftsmanship as they study how details are put together painstakingly and what constitutes good, as opposed to mediocre, work. These standards, when applied to a student's own work, demand a new level of excellence and require students to stretch their inner resources.

7. In music, a mistake is a mistake; the instrument is in tune or not, the notes are well played or not, the entrance is made or not. It is only by much hard work that a successful performance is possible. Through music study, students learn the value of sustained effort to achieve excellence and the concrete rewards of hard work.

8. Music study enhances teamwork skills and discipline. In order for an orchestra to sound good, all players must work together harmoniously towards a single goal, the performance, and must commit to learning music, attending rehearsals, and practicing.

9. Music provides children with a means of self-expression. Now that there is relative security in the basics of existence, the challenge is to make life meaningful and to reach for a higher stage of development. Everyone needs to be in touch at some time in his life with his core, with what he is and what he feels. Self-esteem is a by-product of this self-expression.

10. Music study develops skills that are necessary in the workplace. It focuses on "doing," as opposed to observing, and teaches students how to perform, literally, anywhere in the world. Employers are looking for multi-dimensional workers with the sort of flexible and supple intellects that music education helps to create as described above. In the music classroom, students can also learn to better communicate and cooperate with one another.

11. Music performance teaches young people to conquer fear and to take risks. A little anxiety is a good thing, and something that will occur often in life. Dealing with it early and often makes it less of a problem later. Risk-taking is essential if a child is to fully develop his or her potential.

12. An arts education exposes children to the incomparable.

    Yahoo! shuts down GeoCities



Yahoo! on Monday closed GeoCities, a free Web hosting service that it purchased for over three billion dollars at the height of the dot-com boom.



"We have enjoyed hosting websites created by Yahoo! users all over the world, and we're proud of the community you've built," the California-based Internet pioneer said in a message at the GeoCities website.



"However, we have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways."



Yahoo! said GeoCities would not be available after Monday and recommended GeoCities refugees set up new online homes at its paid Web hosting service, with an introductory offer of just five dollars for the first 12 months.



The closure of GeoCities comes a week after Yahoo! reported that aggressive cost-cutting helped it more than triple its net profit despite a 12-percent decline in revenue in its third quarter.



Yahoo! said net profit soared more than 244 percent in the quarter to 186 million dollars, or 13 cents per share, from 54 million dollars, or four cents per share, a year ago, easily surpassing analysts' forecasts.



The better-than-expected performance was due in large part to cost-cutting measures implemented by Carol Bartz since being named in January to replace Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive.



Yahoo! has reduced its headcount by some 2,000 during the past year and presently has some 13,200 employees.



Yahoo! announced the planned closure of GeoCities early this year, saying it was "increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others."



GeoCities was founded in 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet and bought by Yahoo! during the infamous dot-com boom in Silicon Valley.



GeoCities provided people with tools to build interactive websites and eventually added chat forums and other community-oriented features.



Yahoo! eventually added fee-paying premium services in an effort to make money at GeoCities, which had trouble retaining users and getting profitable.