Chocolate is injurious to bones
Chocolate is injurious to bones
25 Jan 2008, 1109 hrs IST,PTI
NEW YORK: Chocolate, the most widely and frequently craved food, may be good for your heart. But, if a study is to be believed, its regular consumption could weaken your bones and raise the risk of suffering a fracture.
A team of researchers has carried out the study and found that people who eat chocolates daily are likely to have less dense and weak bones, which in turn could increase the risk of health problems such as osteoporosis and fracture.
“Cocoa and chocolate have been promoted as having a range of beneficial cardiovascular properties. But the effect of chocolate intake on other organ systems has not been studied,” according to lead researcher Jonathan Hodgson of the University of Western Australia.
In fact, according to him, though chocolate contains flavones and calcium, both linked to having a positive effect on bone density, it also contains oxalate an inhibitor of calcium absorption and sugar, linked to calcium excretion.
The team came to the conclusion after analyzing the effect of chocolates on a group of 1,000 women aged between 70 and 85, who were randomly assigned either calcium supplements or a matched placebo for a period of several weeks.
During this period, the participants were also asked to keep a dairy of how often they consumed chocolate.
Metro man gets public service vote
Metro man gets public service vote
HT Correspondent New Delhi, January 25, 2008
Anybody who can bring order to a mad city like Delhi deserves the highest award in the world. Delhiites are monumentally unruly on road, and famously callous with public property. They love to scribble graffiti on monuments, rip open bus seat covers, etch romantic messages (for God knows who) on trees and, worse, of it all, relieve themselves whenever it becomes unbearable.
Next time you ride the metro, look for all the familiar signs associated with Delhiites. You won’t find many. People are magically behaving themselves – it’s hard to believe but it’s true.
And making all this happen is, of course, the Metro chief E Sreedharan. And the best part is, he is known more for the other things that he has brought to the city – a good and efficient public transport. Sreedharan is changing Delhi, its geography and its attitude. He is the choice of voters and the jury of the Indian of Year award — instituted by CNN-IBN in partnership with the Hindustan Times – from the category of people in public service.
Former police officer Kiran Bedi, who has a long and eventful association with Delhi, says this for Sreedharan: “What he has done for his country and at his age (70 years) is remarkable. People think it’s time to retire and live in the past but he has given the metro concept to this country with commitment, integrity, vision and remarkable professionalism…”
The metro chief fought off competition for the slot from Bangalore surgeon Dr Sharan Patil, HIV campaigner Kousalya, Sushma Iyengar of the Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan, Patna teachers Abhay anand and Anand Kumar and Dr Oscar Rebello of the Goa Bachao Abhiyan.
Sreedharan now joins finance minister P Chidambaram, SBI chairman O P Bhatt, Chak de director Shimit Amin and scriptwriter Jaideep Sahni and chess champion Vishwanathan Anand as category winners in the fray for the Indian of the Year. These nominees have been elected/selected by votes sent through SMS or online and a jury comprising six eminent Indians – lawyer Soli Sorabjee (he is the chairman of the jury), HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, actor Mohanlal Viswanathan Nair, Hindustan Times Media Limited vice-chairperson and editorial director Shobhana Bhartia, billiards champion Geet Sethi, Infosys co-chairman Nandan Nilekani and former police officer Kiran Bedi.
The Indian of the Year will be declared on January 29.
‘Fight with spouse & live longer’
‘Fight with spouse & live longer’
24 Jan 2008, 0038 hrs IST,REUTERS
NEW YORK: Fighting with your spouse can actually be good for your health with people who bottle it all up found to die earlier, a new study shows.
Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and its psychology department released preliminary findings after 17 years of following 192 couples.
The couples fell into four categories: where both partners expressed anger when they felt unfairly attacked, where neither partner expressed their anger, and one category each for where the wife suppressed her feelings and where the husband did so.
“I would say that if you don’t express your feelings to your partner and tell them what the problem is when you’re unfairly attacked, then you’re in trouble,” said Ernest Harburg, lead author of the study, in an interview.
The study found that those who kept their anger in were twice as likely to die earlier than those who don’t.
There were 13 deaths in the group of 26 pairs where both partners suppressed their emotions, as opposed to only 41 deaths in the remaining 166 pairs. “When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation about conflict,” Harburg said.
“Usually nobody is trained to do this. If they have good parents, they can imitate, that’s fine, but usually the couple is ignorant about the process of resolving conflict.”
Harburg said resentment was the real threat – and suppressing anger led to resentment.
He said it is the resentment that interacts with any medical vulnerabilities, a person might have, increasing their chances of succumbing to that medical problem.
“It’s healthy to recognise that you’re being attacked unfairly and it’s even more healthy to speak up and to talk about it and try to resolve the problem if you want to live longer,” said Harburg.
This study comes within a week of a survey that said that it is the price of divorce that is holding many couples together.
In a survey of married men and women in Britain, the majority of wives – 59% – said they would divorce immediately if their future economic security was assured.
Among both sexes, more than one in ten wished they had married someone else. The survey found than half of husbands thought their marriage was “loveless”. Relationship experts in the United Kingdom have warned couples to avoid getting stuck in a rut – or risk the trauma of divorce.
Coping with high EMIs
Coping with high EMIs
Ramganesh Iyer for Express Money Posted online: Monday , January 21, 2008 at 1339 IST
If you took a home loan at rates prevailing in 2005 (around 7.5 per cent), you must be feeling the heat now. If you had borrowed Rs 20 lakh for 20 years, your EMI would have increased by Rs 3,500 or more. What options do you have today?
Increase tenure. If you are not near retirement, and if your original tenure was less than 20 years, your bank should increase the loan tenure. The other benefit of this is that due to inflation, the real cost of your loan will decrease over the years.
Prepay. If you have surplus cash, prepay part of your loan. The EMI on remaining principal will remain the same as earlier.
Switch banks. This involves a sizeable transaction cost, besides time and hassle. Your old bank may charge a prepayment penalty, and the new bank, processing and administration fees. Switch banks only if the rate differential is at least 0.5 per cent.
Avoid a bad deal New borrowers should do their groundwork. First, avoid taking on an EMI that is too close to your monthly surplus. Expenses have a tendency to shoot up over the years, while income is more unpredictable. By keeping an adequate buffer, you ensure that interest rate increases do not hurt you.
Scout around for the best deal. PSU banks are slower in processing the application, but usually offer slightly lower interest rates.
Finally, before signing the papers, read the fine-print carefully. Of special importance are the clauses that permit the bank to reset interest rates, and pre-payment related clauses. Change the bank if you find a clause that is not acceptable.
The author is a certified financial planner.
Royal Bath
A temple elephant being given a royal bath, before it is taken out for procession at the festival.
Lessons from January 2008
The thing about life is that one makes mistakes. Many mistakes were made in the second half of 2007 and those sins have to be washed away by blood, such is the way of financial markets. Some participants will go down under and never be able to get back to the market again but most will survive. The pain will linger for many months, maybe years but lessons have to be learnt. Every such debacle has lessons for us and the sooner we forget them the more we suffer.
The first lesson is not to let stock price performance become the sole reason for buying, a mistake which was made in abundance in the last 3 months. What couldn’t be explained by fundamentals was credited to liquidity. The present lost all relevance as people chose to focus on the distant future, perhaps simply because the present could never justify those ticker prices; only a hazy dream of the future could. Traders and investors had no time for fundamental analysts, in many cases they were labelled “cribbing fools”. Chartists became the most celebrated tribe on the street as only they could see and predict the one way run to glory for many of the hot stocks even as fundamental watchers cringed at valuations….till the music stopped. Don’t get me wrong, charts do work in trending markets but once stock prices veer away completely from fundamental value, people need to get careful. But they never are. Now that the blinkers are off, people should ask themselves why stocks like RNRL, Ispat, RPL, Essar oil and Nagarjuna fertilisers have lost 50-70% of their value. It is simply because their stock prices had snapped all connection with underlying business fundamentals, earnings and value. Their stock prices became the only reasons for buying them which works for a while but not forever.
The other big lesson, one which should have been driven in earlier in May 2006, is the danger of overextending oneself in the futures market. The lure of stock futures is easy to understand. Put in some margin, take a big exposure on a fast moving stock, make a killing when prices shoot up. Repeat exercise. Just that people forgot that prices may also come down and at a pace which noone can even imagine, maybe their friendly stockbrokers forgot to tell them that part of the story. The result : unbridled speculation that ran into lakhs of crores, excesses that we are paying for today. Even this fall will not cure investors of their love for futures speculation but if at least some amount of caution is injected it would have been a worthwhile learning. Futures are not toys for amateurs, they are time bombs in the hands of inexpert and inexperienced traders, it’s only a matter of when the fuse runs out.
The other learning which I hope will play out in the future, as it has in the past, is that it pays to be brave in times of panic such as these. If I was allowed to invest myself , which I am not, I would have no hesitation in deploying serious money into the market today, knowing fully well that prices may fall more tomorrow. And I would be standing there tomorrow to buy more of the same, till my money ran out. India is going to be a terrific stock market story for many years to come, even an intermediate bearish patch cannot shake that conviction of mine. At best, one will have to wait a bit for the returns to follow. That’s alright. You are happy to put money in a bank FD and then wait for one full year to collect that measly 8%, aren’t you? Then why does the stock market need to give you 20% every month? In the last one year, I haven’t seen so many good stocks trade at such mouth watering levels. Forget trading, avoid the duds which were fuelled up by operators, just go out and buy those bluechips. They will deliver, even if there is a global market meltdown for a while, and if you are a bit patient you will be rewarded. But do remember January 2008, as history will repeat itself again in the future. Just that our memories tend to be too short and our greed too much.
Udayan Mukherjee / MONEYCONTROL
Diversity in All Its Diversity Conference
Diversity in All Its Diversity Conference
The Diversity in All Its Diversity Conference, was organized by Université Total on October 9, is now available in english and french versions.The synthesis of the Diversity in All Its Diversity Conference, organized by Université Total in 9th October.
The all-day event focused on three central diversity challenges: hiring more women, hiring more non-French people and integrating new recruits.
Open to both employees and the public, the conference attracted a number of representatives of other companies, such as Catalyst Europe AG, Microsoft, Vedior France, Communication et Systèmes, as well as Total managers wishing to share their diversity experiences and objectives.
To offer a broader viewpoint and suggest different approaches, researchers and academics also provided historical, social and economic insights on the various aspects of diversity. Dominique Méda, philosopher and sociologist, gave a comparative analysis of the role of women in the economies of the world’s major regions. Françoise Héritier, professor at Collège de France, spoke on the anthropological origins of gender inequality. Suzanne Berger, professor at MIT, addressed the issue of new managerial responsibilities required by globalization.
Shashi Tharoor, diplomat, writer and former Under-Secretary-General of the UN, shared his views on plurality and identity as illustrated by the case of India. Christophe de Margerie delivered the closing remarks for the conference.
Computer upgrades that make sense
Computer upgrades that make sense
(DPA)19 January 2008
WASHINGTON – With notebook and desktop computer prices at an all-time low, you have to think carefully about upgrading them.
That’s because the cost of a few upgrades may come close to equalling the price of an entirely new system.
In general, aside from adding memory or a new hard drive to your computer, you’ll probably want to avoid upgrades designed to improve performance.
The fact is, components in a modern computer – whether desktop or notebook – operate more synergistically than they do independently. So if you upgrade a computer’s main processor, for example, your system may still be hampered by memory that is not optimally paired to the processor or a graphics card that cannot fully unburden the processor enough to allow you to see its full potential.
But that doesn’t mean that all upgrades short of buying a new computer are folly. In general, upgrades that add functionality to your computer – and especially those that might be transferred to a new computer, should you buy one later – can be smart investments. Let’s look at a few.
RAM
Both memory (RAM) and hard drive upgrades make good sense if you know that your system is hampered by insufficient RAM or too little hard drive space. Windows systems today need 1 gigabyte (GB) of memory, at least, and most recent computers can accept up to 4 gigabytes. If you do a lot of multitasking, photo or video editing, or advanced CAD work, you’ll probably benefit from more RAM, especially if you’re using Vista. Bear in mind that a memory upgrade is unlikely to be transferable to a new machine, since memory technology changes about as quickly as processor technology.
Media card reader
Computers sold today often have a media card reader as optional equipment. Media card readers allow you to transfer files from your camera or other portable device much more quickly than if you have to search for a cord and plug the device in directly.
A media card reader is a great convenience, too – and something that’s usually transferable to a new machine or even between machines. If you buy an external media card reader that connects by USB, you can plug it in to just about any computer.
The media card reader is typically seen by your computer as just another drive. Plug in a CompactFlash or other removable storage medium into it, and you can read files from it just as you can by copying files from one disk to another. Internal media card readers are also available, but these will require that you pop open your computer and install them yourself – or have a technician do it for a fee.
USB scanner
The purpose of computers is to be able to store information digitally. But if you have a bunch of paper-based material around the office, you’ll need the services of a flatbed scanner to get the data into your computer.
The good news about flatbed scanners is that they’ve become a lot smaller and less expensive than in previous generations. And best of all, there are lots of models on the market today that are powered solely from a USB port, meaning you won’t even need to plug them into the wall.
A scanner is a no-brainer, useful accessory. They’re so small, light, and thin today that you can easily transport them from notebook to desktop, and many models, such as the Canon Lide series, are available for under 100 dollars.
Expand with SATA
External hard drives are essential today, either as a backup device or as an additional storage pool. The trouble is that most external hard drives connect to your computer or notebook via a USB port, which provides data transfer speeds that are too slow.
Enter SATA. Now the industry standard for internally connecting hard drives to motherboards, SATA ports can also be added externally to your PC or notebook. With an external SATA port and an hard drive enclosure that supports SATA, you can transfer files to a backup device as quickly as you can move data from one folder to another on your PC.
For desktop computers, search for a SATA PCI card at retailers such as Newegg.com. These plug directly in to a free PCI slot inside your computer and give you one or more SATA ports on the outside of your case into which you can plug an external SATA hard drive. You shouldn’t have to pay more than 20 dollars for such an upgrade, and you can take it with you if you upgrade your computer later.
Similarly, you can find plenty of SATA PCMCIA cards for notebooks on the market. These typically provide two external SATA ports to a notebook computer, and since they come in a standard PCMCIA card, you can transfer those ports to any notebook with a PCMCIA slot. Expect to find these expansion cards on the market for 25 to 40 dollars.
Duplexing printer
Lots of folks who have migrated to Windows Vista are finding that the manufacturer of their printer has been slow in getting a compatible printer driver out. That might be as good an excuse as any to consider upgrading your general-purpose printer. But there are other reasons, as well.
First among them is cost. Not only have the prices of laser printers come down drastically from just a few years ago – with models on the market at 100 dollars or less – but green features of some of the better ones will save you money over the lifetime of the unit.
For instance, duplexing – the ability to print on both sides of a piece of paper – can save you significant money in paper costs and, of course, reduce the amount of paper you use. If your printer is on its last legs – and giving you fits with Windows Vista – it could be time to move on to something better.
Turning waste to good use
Turning waste to good use
KHALEEJ TIMES 19 January 2008
USING body heat to power water heaters to heat buildings; trucks that run on chocolate and floors coated with cheese to say nothing of recycling human excrement. Bibi van der Zee looks at new ways of turning our waste to good use.
Body Heat
In Stockholm, they are going to capture the body heat generated by all the passengers at the central train station to heat water, which will be piped to the next-door office and used to heat the building.
It is an inspiration in terms of lateral thinking, but it was also done with such ease and lack of discussion and argument that it feels as if it should be contravening some obscure unitary development agreement, or some other typical obstacle to common sense. Karl Sundholm, of building managers Jernhusen AB, explains: “We were just sitting in a meeting, chatting and drinking coffee, and the idea popped up. Someone pointed out of the window to the railway station and said, ‘What about all that heat over there?’ We did a couple of drawings and that was it.”
They have finished the design stage, and are now finalising the details. Work is due to start in the autumn. The predicted cost is about GBP23,000, and they expect that it will reduce their heating bills by about 15%. “It’s not so complicated,” says Sundholm. “Just a couple of pipes and water pumps. Actually, I’m surprised no one thought of it before.”
Chocolate
Chocolate, of course, has always been one of the major forces for good in this world, so news that waste chocolate is being turned into a carbon-neutral fuel, thereby solving all our problems, should be no surprise to anyone.
Chocolate factories produce a lot of waste, equivalent to 5-10% of their total output, which usually goes into animal feed or straight to landfill. But now Ecotec, a UK bio-diesel firm, has worked out how to turn it into fuel. Biofuels from purpose-grown crops are looking increasingly problematic for the environment, whereas biofuels made from waste products are, quite simply, a good thing.
A little chocolate goes a long way, too, as Ecotec discovered when it recently powered a truck all the way across the Sahara. Alhough it took four tonnes of refined chocolate waste to power the trip, that is just a small percentage of annual chocolate waste.
Ecotec is also looking into other forms of food waste. As far as carbon neutral transport goes, nothing will ever beat your own feet, or a bicycle. But chocolate power has got to be better than any fossil fuel.
Human excrement
Fecophobia, an irrational fear of human excrement, is incredibly common in the modern world. In his cult 1995 book The Humanure Handbook, Joseph Jenkins (who gave the phobia its name) tried to get us to face up to this absurdity, pointing out that in the west we take for granted the idea that “you take your dump into a large bowl of drinking water, then flush it”. Why do we believe this to be the civilised thing to do, he asked. And what a waste. He went on. “Where does the flushed material go? What would happen if everyone in the world crapped in their drinking water supplies? Why doesn’t any other land mammal defecate deliberately in water? Why do we?”
Human excreta, or “night soil” as it is known is some cultures, is actually a potential goldmine, he said, calculating that if the entire world’s excreta had been turned into fertiliser for our crops in 2000, it would have been worth (using 1975 prices) $18.67bn. (It was reported this week that some farmers in Zimbabwe have started to use human excrement as fertiliser because of shortages of ammonium nitrate.) Moreover, when it is collected and sealed up so that it undergoes anaerobic digestion, it also produces biogas as a side product. Biogas can be used to fuel cooking stoves and heating systems. It can even be used to power cars.
The world is slowly coming round to Jenkins’ way of thinking. By 2010, China aims to have 50m households operating biogas systems, which harvest excreta and turn it into biogas and fertiliser. In Uganda, farmers are being taught how to make biogas using human excreta along with other organic waste, and in Sweden they already make an extra strong version, which includes biogas from rotting animal carcasses, and they even run trains on the stuff. There is no place for squeamishness in the brave new world.
Whey
You wouldn’t imagine that cheesemakers and floor contractors would have much in common, but some thoughtful food scientists have changed all that. A team at the University of Burlington in Vermont has developed a method of using whey, a waste product from cheese, as a floor covering. The whey protein is apparently a perfect binding agent, which means that it can replace the highly toxic solvents usually used in wood floor coverings.
Andrew Meyer, who runs Vermont Natural Coatings, the company that has been selling this floor covering for just under a year, has had good feedback from his customers. “I’ve had floor contractors, who have been using one particular product for many years, try this out, and they’ve said that when they finish the day now they don’t have the usual headache, or the usual agitation. There’s much less off- gassing with this product, you don’t have to move out if you want to varnish your floors.”
The farmers are happy, the environmental officers are happy, and the floors are gleaming. What more could you ask?
Road power
It is kind of a vicious circle, but at least Dutch company Road Energy Systems is deriving some benefit from heavy traffic. It has developed a road that has an asphalt layer (which is very effective at conducting heat) on top of a system of water-bearing pipes. The water absorbs heat generated by vehicles on the road surface and from the sun. It is then piped away and stored thermally until needed. It is then piped to buildings, where it is used to heat the air. There is already one system in operation that powers four office blocks in Scharwoude in the Netherlands, but whether it will be used more widely remains to be seen. –Guardian News Service
Ongoing / Upcoming events in Abu Dhabi
Ongoing / Upcoming events in Abu Dhabi
21 – 23 Jan 2008 World Future Energy Summit 2008
30 Jan – 2 Feb 2008 Abu Dhabi Real Estate and Investment show 2008
February
5 – 8 Feb 2008 The Bride Show 2008
12 – 14 Feb 2008 Abu Dhabi Recruitment Show 2008
March
2 – 5 Mar 2008 Homeland Security Conference
2 – 5 Mar 2008 ISNR 2008
11 – 16 Mar 2008 Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2008
30 Mar – 2 Apr 2008 Interiors UAE 2008
April
8 – 10 Apr 2008 GIBTM 2008
8 – 10 Apr 2008 Incentive Business Travel Conference
20 – 23 Apr 2008 Building Futures Gulf by BATIMAT Conference
20 – 23 Apr 2008 Building Futures Gulf by BATIMAT 2008
20 – 23 Apr 2008 Envelope Gulf Exhibition 2008
20 – 23 Apr 2008 HVAC Gulf Exhibition 2008
20 – 23 Apr 2008 Intelligent Building Gulf Exhibition 2008
20 – 23 Apr 2008 Structure Gulf Exhibition 2008
28 – 30 Apr 2008 Middle East Workboats 2008
28 – 30 Apr 2008 Work Boats Conference
May
13 – 15 May 2008 Cityscape 2008
13 – 15 May 2008 Cityscape Conference
26 – 28 May 2008 Mecom 2008
September
9 Sep – 4 Oct 2008 Ramadan & Eid 2008
October
19 – 21 Oct 2008 Najah Conference on Education
19 – 21 Oct 2008 Najah Education Training Careers 2008
26 – 28 Oct 2008 Abu Dhabi Medical 2008
26 – 28 Oct 2008 Abu Dhabi Medical Congress 2008
26 – 28 Oct 2008 Abu Dhabi Patient Safety Congress 2008
26 – 28 Oct 2008 Emergency Congress 2008
26 – 28 Oct 2008 ME Power Generation and Water 2008
26 – 28 Oct 2008 Primary Healthcare Congress 2008
November
3 – 6 Nov 2008 ADIPEC 2008
3 – 6 Nov 2008 Petroleum Conference
11 – 13 Nov 2008 Halal World 2008
11 – 13 Nov 2008 LabME
23 – 25 Nov 2008 Int Freight Conference
23 – 25 Nov 2008 International Freight Week 2008
23 – 25 Nov 2008 Memex 2008
23 – 25 Nov 2008 Roadex Conference
23 – 25 Nov 2008 Roadex/Railex 2008
25 – 27 Nov 2008 SIM 2008
December
14 – 16 Dec 2008 Equip Hotel
17 – 21 Dec 2008 ADIMS 2008
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