Iranian-American Nilou Motamed Highlights Her Culture in Food & Wine Magazine
Iranian-American Nilou Motamed began her second year as editor-in-chief of Food & Wine, an American lifestyle magazine dedicated to covering new trends in food, drink, travel, design and entertaining. In an interview with VOA Persian journalist Saman Arbabi in New York, the 45-year-old Motamed explains how her Iranian roots inspired her not only to pursue success in the competitive U.S. media industry, but also to highlight Iranian culture through her magazine.
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Study: Fruits and Vegetables Can Lower Blood Pressure
There’s another reason to eat your fruits and vegetables. It could lower your blood pressure, according to new research.
Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California have found potassium-rich vegetables like sweet potatoes, avocados, spinach, beans and bananas could help lower blood pressure.
“Decreasing sodium intake is a well-established way to lower blood pressure,” said professor Alicia McDonough. “But evidence suggests that increasing dietary potassium may have an equally important effect on hypertension.”
To reach her conclusions, McDonough reviewed studies that looked at the link between potassium and sodium, which has been known to cause hypertension.
She found that people who had more potassium tended to have lower blood pressure regardless of sodium consumption. Her research indicated that the body does a “balancing act” using sodium to control potassium levels in the blood. Potassium is important for normal muscle and nerve function.
“When dietary potassium is high, kidneys excrete more salt and water, which increases potassium excretion,” McDonough said. “Eating a high potassium diet is like taking a diuretic.”
She said that as humans evolved, they ate a diet rich in potassium, but low in sodium, leading us to crave sodium, not potassium.
“If you eat a typical Western diet, your sodium intake is high and your potassium intake is low. This significantly increases your chances of developing high blood pressure,” she said.
According to a 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, adults should eat about 4.7 grams of potassium a day to lower blood pressure. Eating about 60 grams of beans would account for 50 percent of that, McDonough said.
According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people suffer from high blood pressure. High blood pressure accounts for 51 percent of global stroke deaths and 45 percent of deaths due to heart disease.
McDonough’s study appeared in the April 2017 issue of the American Journal of Physiology – Endocrinology and Metabolism.
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Tech Firms Must Go Beyond Congo’s ‘Conflict Minerals’ to Clean Supply Chain: Study
Abuses linked to mining in countries such as Myanmar and Colombia are being overlooked by technology companies focused only on eliminating “conflict minerals” from war-torn parts of Africa in their supply chains, researchers said on Thursday.
In Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), competition for mineral resources has fueled two decades of conflict in its eastern provinces, including a 1998-2003 war that killed millions, mostly from hunger and disease.
Congo’s supply of tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold – metals used in smartphones, batteries and laptops – has been under scrutiny since 2010, when U.S. laws required U.S.-listed firms to ensure supply chains were free from “conflict minerals”.
Yet the same minerals are being quarried in areas controlled by armed groups — sometimes using child labor — in countries such as Myanmar, Bolivia and Rwanda, according to research published by Verisk Maplecroft on Thursday.
The problem for tech companies was being able to trace the metals used in their products to the source mine or smelter, the risk consultancy group said in a report.
“The problem is because this is so far down the supply chain, it’s difficult for technology companies to know if those minerals they’re using are coming from irresponsibly managed operations,” said Stefan Sabo-Walsh of Verisk Maplecroft.
Sabo-Walsh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that in the most extreme cases the minerals are excavated using forced labor in order to buy weapons and fund violence.
A convoluted process
After minerals are mined, they are sold to a middleman and usually taken to the country’s capital, where the raw metal is extracted and blended with other metals, the report said.
The blend is exported to a country such as China and then transformed for use in tech products.
The complicated process “further muddies supply chain transparency efforts” for companies that strive to only use safe and ethical extraction, Verisk Maplecroft said.
Tin, which is used in tablet computers and smartphones, was ranked as having the highest risk for labor rights violations at illegal mines.
Bolivia, Myanmar and Indonesia, some of the largest tin-producing countries, pose an “extreme risk” for child labor at tin mines, the research showed.
Some smaller mines are not run by armed groups but still hurt the environment and local communities and are difficult to police, Sabo-Walsh said.
At illegal mines, waste water runoff often makes its way into local water sources, polluting the supply, he said.
“Organizations need to be aware of the bigger picture when sourcing minerals from different countries – otherwise they risk a consumer backlash or regulatory penalties from the raft of emerging supply chain legislation,” he said in a statement.
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Twitter Unveils ‘Lite’ Service for Emerging Markets
Twitter has unveiled a new, light mobile site aimed at emerging markets where people are still using slower 2G mobile connections.
Twitter Lite, according to the company, will use less data and will be up to 30 percent faster than the full Twitter website.
The service will be rolled out globally, but is primarily aimed at India, Africa and parts of Latin America.
“Twitter Lite provides the key features of Twitter, your timeline, Tweets, Direct Messages, trends, profiles, media uploads, notifications, and more,” Twitter said in a blog post.
Twitter Lite also offers a “data saver mode” that allows a user to see smaller previews of videos and images before they fully load. That could save up to 70 percent on data usage, the company said.
For Android users, Twitter Lite can still deliver push notifications as well as offline support “so you will not be interrupted while using Twitter if you temporarily lose your connection,” the company said.
According to the global mobile phone operators group, GSMA, there were 3.8 smartphone connections globally at the end of 2016.Of those, 45 percent use slower 2G networks.
Twitter is following a trend toward tech companies offering lite versions of their services. Facebook has a lite version for both the main Facebook app and its Messenger app. Microsoft offers a lite version of Skype for users in India.
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Africa Football Chief Open to Moving Cup of Nations to Mid-Year
Ahmad Ahmad was elected head of Confederation of African Football last month
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Unusually Large Swarm of Icebergs Drifts into Shipping Lanes
More than 400 icebergs have drifted into the North Atlantic shipping lanes over the past week in an unusually large swarm for this early in the season, forcing vessels to slow to a crawl or take detours of hundreds of miles.
Experts are attributing it to uncommonly strong counter-clockwise winds that are drawing the icebergs south, and perhaps also global warming, which is accelerating the process by which chunks of the Greenland ice sheet break off and float away.
As of Monday, there were about 450 icebergs near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, up from 37 a week earlier, according to the U.S. Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol in New London, Connecticut. Those kinds of numbers are usually not seen until late May or early June. The average for this time of year is about 80.
In the waters close to where the Titanic went down in 1912, the icebergs are forcing ships to take precautions.
Icebergs force detours
Instead of cutting straight across the ocean, trans-Atlantic vessels are taking detours that can add around 400 miles to the trip. That’s a day and a half of added travel time for many large cargo ships.
Close to the Newfoundland coast, cargo ships owned by Oceanex are throttling way back to 3 or 4 knots as they make their way to their homeport in St. John’s, which can add up to a day to the trip, said executive chairman, Capt. Sid Hynes.
One ship was pulled out of service for repairs after hitting a chunk of ice, he said.
“It makes everything more expensive,” Hynes said Wednesday. “You’re burning more fuel, it’s taking a longer time, and it’s hard on the equipment.” He called it a “very unusual year.”
‘Extreme ice season’
Coast Guard Cmdr. Gabrielle McGrath, who leads the ice patrol, said she has never seen such a drastic increase in such a short time. Adding to the danger, three icebergs were discovered outside the boundaries of the area the Coast Guard had advised mariners to avoid, she said.
McGrath is predicting a fourth consecutive “extreme ice season” with more than 600 icebergs in the shipping lanes.
Most icebergs entering the North Atlantic have “calved” off the Greenland ice sheet. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said it is possible climate change is leading to more icebergs in the shipping lanes, but wind patterns are also important.
Ice patrol a success
In 2014, there were 1,546 icebergs in the shipping lanes — the sixth most severe season on record since 1900, according to the patrol. There were 1,165 icebergs in 2015 and 687 in 2016.
The International Ice Patrol was formed after the sinking of the Titanic to monitor iceberg danger in the North Atlantic and warn ships. It conducts reconnaissance flights that are used to produce charts.
In 104 years, no ship that has heeded the warnings has struck an iceberg, according to the ice patrol.
your ad hereJohn Glenn, Former US Astronaut and Senator, to Be Interred in Arlington Cemetery
U.S. astronaut John Glenn, who died in December at age 95, will be buried Thursday in Arlington National Cemetery, a place of honor for members of the U.S. military.
His family and invited guests, including astronauts and dignitaries, will say goodbye to the first American to orbit Earth at a small private service at the Old Post Chapel beginning at 9 a.m.
The U.S. Marine Corps will begin a live stream at 9:40 a.m. (EDT) that will include a processional to the graveside by caisson, a flyover, a graveside service and taps. Streaming video also will be available on NASA TV.
Glenn served as a U.S. senator from Ohio for 24 years and founded the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University.
In Glenn’s honor, President Donald Trump has ordered flags at federal entities and institutions flown at half-staff Thursday, his press secretary tweeted, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich has done the same at public grounds and buildings across Glenn’s home state.
Glenn played a historic part in the U.S. space race, piloting one of the United States’ earliest manned space missions and later, at age 77, returning to space to become the oldest astronaut ever to do so.
Glenn, seen as an all-American hero, has been the subject of heartfelt tributes since his death. After his death December 8, his body lay in state in the Ohio Capitol. He was memorialized in a service at Ohio State University, where his children told mourners that their father repeatedly asked them, “What have you done for your country today?”
Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden memorialized Glenn at that service by saying, “He knew by his upbringing that ordinary Americans can do extraordinary things.”
Arlington Cemetery, Glenn’s final resting place, is where many American military heroes and statesmen are buried. A national monument to unknown soldiers is located there, to honor soldiers whose wartime deaths could not be documented.
The cemetery sits on a hill in Virginia overlooking the Potomac River, with a clear view of the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument.
It is one of the most-visited sites in the Washington area.
Some information for this report from AP.
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Veteran NASA Spacewoman Getting 3 Extra Months in Orbit
The world’s oldest and most experienced spacewoman is getting three extra months in orbit.
NASA announced Wednesday that astronaut Peggy Whitson will remain on the International Space Station until September. The 57-year-old astronaut arrived last November and was supposed to return to Earth in June. But under an agreement between NASA and the Russian Space Agency, she’ll stay another three months and take advantage of an empty seat on a Soyuz capsule in the fall.
This mission — her third — will now last close to 10 months. Scientists are eager to monitor any changes to her body, to add to the knowledge gained from retired astronaut Scott Kelly’s recent one-year flight.
The two men she flew up with in November — France’s Thomas Pesquet and Russia’s Oleg Novitskiy — will return in June without her.
Whitson has already spent more time in space than any other woman, counting all her missions, and just last week set a record for the most spacewalks by a woman, with eight.
This weekend, she’ll take over as space station commander, her second time at the job.
And on April 24, she’ll set a new U.S. record for most accumulated time in space. That NASA record — 534 days — is currently held by former space station resident Jeffrey Williams.
Whitson welcomed Wednesday’s news.
“I love being up here,” she said in a statement. “Living and working aboard the space station is where I feel like I make the greatest contribution, so I am constantly trying to squeeze every drop out of my time here. Having three more months to squeeze is just what I would wish for.”
NASA’s space station program director, Kirk Shireman, said Whitson’s skill and experience make her “an incredible asset” up there, and her extra time will be put to good use.
There will be a return seat for Whitson in September because the Soyuz due to launch later this month will carry up one American and one Russian, one person fewer than usual. Russia is temporarily cutting back to two station residents. With Whitson’s extended stay, the orbiting outpost will continue to have a full crew of six.
Whitson, a biochemist who grew up on a farm in Iowa, became an astronaut in 1996. She served as NASA’s chief astronaut from 2009 to 2012, the only woman to ever hold the job.
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Poland Plans Changes as It Takes Control of New WWII Museum
A court paved the way Wednesday for Poland’s government to take control of a new World War Two museum that has been the focus of a major ideological standoff over how to remember the war.
The conflict has pitted the creators of the Museum of the Second World War — who place Poland’s war experiences in an international context and emphasize the fate of civilian populations — against the nationalistic ruling party, which prefers to focus on Polish suffering and military heroism.
Culture Minister Piotr Glinski sought to take control of the museum last year by merging it with an as-yet-unbuilt museum, the Museum of Westerplatte and the War of 1939.
Critics of the government described the maneuver as a legal trick aimed at pushing out the managers of the original museum.
The attempt was held up for months in the courts, giving director Pawel Machcewicz time to open the World War Two museum to the public in March after more than eight years of development. It is located in Gdansk, where Germany fired some of the war’s opening shots against Poland.
Merger can proceed
A decision Wednesday by the Supreme Administrative Court now paves the way for the Culture Ministry to take control of the Museum of the Second World War. The court overruled a lower court’s decision to suspend the merger, which now can proceed.
The ministry said in a statement that the merger of the two institutions would take place “immediately” and will mean “a significant increase of their potential.”
The ministry argues that it is not economically justifiable to operate two state museums on a similar subject in the same city.
Opponents of the ruling Law and Justice party see the step as part of the party’s broader agenda to take control of state institutions and to reshape the nation to conform to its nationalistic worldview.
The museum project was launched in 2008 by then-Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is now one of the European Union’s top leaders.
Tusk is a longtime rival of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the ruling party’s leader, and many political observers think Kaczynski’s opposition to the museum is at least partly rooted in that rivalry.
Kaczynski has for years also criticized the museum’s concept and said he preferred a museum that would focus exclusively on Polish suffering and military heroism.
Poland was occupied during the war by both Germany and the Soviet Union and subjected to unthinkable horrors by the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Nearly 6 million Polish citizens were killed.
Many Poles feel that the world has never truly understood the magnitude of their country’s devastation, a belief that has bolstered the views of some museum critics who argue Poland’s tragedy must be told as its own story.
Wartime suffering
Director Machcewicz argues that Poland’s wartime suffering, which features heavily in the museum, is much more meaningful, especially to foreign visitors, when placed alongside information about the suffering also inflicted across Europe and beyond.
Machcewicz is expected to lose his position now that the government has been cleared to take control of the Museum of the Second World War.
He expressed satisfaction that he was at least able to open the facility, allowing thousands of visitors to see it before the exhibition is potentially changed. But he also appealed to the government not to change the exhibition.
“I will keep fighting for the integrity of the exhibition even after I am fired,” he said.
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Ebola Treatment Unit Torn Down as Liberians Recall Outbreak
Bulldozers cleared the remains of a once busy Ebola treatment unit in Liberia on Wednesday, as health care workers, officials and some who were treated there gathered to mark the center’s last day and official decommissioning.
Music echoed near the gathering at the former ELWA Treatment Center in Paynesville, Liberia, the largest center in the country during the 2014-2015 outbreak of the virus that killed more than 4,800 people in this West African country.
The virus’ surge in West Africa two years ago was Ebola’s deadliest ever. About 11,300 people died starting in December 2013, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization declared an end to the outbreak in June 2016.
Physician’s assistant Jianjay Moore-Potter, 40, was among the health care workers who gathered to pay tribute to their time at the center.
“From the beginning, it was very hard because we never knew anything about Ebola,” Moore-Potter said.
People working at the treatment unit overcame great challenges while taking terrible risks, she said.
“We got courage from our manager, who told us as Liberians we should not abandon our own people,” she said. “I saw tears in his eyes, and on that day we all wept and said we should take the risk to be here.”
When survivors started leaving the unit, Moore-Potter said they knew a day without Ebola would come.
Shopkeeper Moses Akoi, 42, thanked the health care workers who saved his life.
“I thought there was no hope for me,” Akoi said. “I appreciate God that I am a survivor today.”
Health Ministry officials said an infectious disease treatment center at Redemption Hospital in western Monrovia will care for future Ebola patients, if the virus recurs.
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Alan Jackson, Jerry Reed, Don Schlitz to Join Country Music Hall of Fame
Country star Alan Jackson, actor-singer-guitarist Jerry Reed and songwriter Don Schlitz will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame later this year. Their selection was announced Wednesday.
Jackson, 58, from Newnan, Georgia, broke out in 1990 with his neo-traditional style of honky-tonk country music that earned him several multiplatinum records. His hit songs include “Chattahoochee,” ”She’s Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)” and “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning).”
Jackson, with his signature white hat, said during the press conference that his dad’s wooden radio inspired him to write “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow,” one of his first singles. The radio is now in an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, along with a pair of water skis he wore for the music video for “Chattahoochee.”
“I’ll be in the Hall of Fame with Daddy Gene’s radio and my water skis and some blue jeans with holes in them,” Jackson said.
The singer-songwriter earned two Grammy Awards and was named entertainer of the year three times by the Country Music Association. Over the course of his 25-year career, he’s the second most nominated artist in CMA history with 81 nominations and has had more than 30 No. 1 country hits.
“This is about the last dream on the list, right here,” Jackson said.
Reed, from Atlanta, Georgia, became a popular country star in the 1960s with his fingerstyle picking that earned him the nickname “Guitar Man.” which became the title of one of his signature songs. His hits include Grammy-winning “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” and “Amos Moses.”
After regularly appearing on Glen Campbell’s TV show, he started a successful career in Hollywood. He starred opposite Burt Reynolds in the “Smokey and the Bandit” films and appeared in Adam Sandler’s “The Waterboy.”
He died in 2008 at 71. His daughters Seidina Hubbard and Lottie Zavala spoke on his behalf Wednesday.
Schlitz, 64, from Durham, North Carolina, has written dozens of top country hits including “The Gambler,” ”On The Other Hand,” ”Forever and Ever, Amen,” ”The Greatest” and “When You Say Nothing At All.”
His songs were cut by Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Judds, Tanya Tucker and more. He has won three CMA song of the year awards and two Grammy Awards, and has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
“I will never be able to believe that I deserve this, unless I receive it as a representative of my family, my mentors, my collaborators, my promoters and my friends,” Schlitz said. “That’s the only way I can deal with this.”
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Muslims Expected to Rival Christians for Most Believers by 2060
The Pew Research Center says Muslims are soon to rival Christians as the largest religious group worldwide, with higher birth rates among Muslim families predicted to increase the Muslim population to a number ties with Christians by 2060.
Pew said in a study released Wednesday that by 2060 Muslims will make up about 31 percent of the world population, with about 3 billion people, while Christians will make up about 32 percent, or 3.1 billion people.
A Pew study two years ago found that Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion and could overtake Christianity by the end of this century. The analysis is based on 2,500 census, survey and population registers from around the world.
Pew experts say they allowed for conversion rates, but maintain that birth and death rates will have a far larger impact on religious populations.
Other religious groups such as Hindus and Jews are expected to grow to larger total numbers by 2060, but not at pace with total population growth. And the number of people who profess no religion is expected to shrink, given current birth rates.
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Germany Threatens Social Media Companies with Massive ‘Hate Speech’ Fines
Germany has threatened to slap social media companies with huge fines if they do not act quickly enough to remove “hate speech” from their websites.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Wednesday approved a measure that would fine websites like Facebook and Twitter up to $55 million if they do not do enough to censor comments that violate German speech law.
“Hate crimes that are not effectively combatted and prosecuted pose a great danger to the peaceful cohesion of a free, open and democratic society,” said Merkel’s government in a statement.
Germany outright bans any speech that overtly promotes racism or insults a certain segment of the population. It also, due to its Nazi past, bans public Holocaust denial.
The draft legislation would require social media companies to remove any illegal speech within 24 hours of it being flagged by users. Other offensive content would need to be removed within seven days of being reported and reviewed.
The German Federation of Journalists blasted the move and said the legislation would make it “difficult to reconcile freedom of the press and opinion.”
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the companies are responsible for policing and removing hateful content from their sites and that “there is no room for criminal incitement on social media.”
“The internet affects the culture of debate and the atmosphere in our society. Verbal radicalization is often a preliminary stage to physical violence,” he added.
The massive flow of refugees into Germany over the past two years has fueled a rise in negative online comments, alarming German authorities. In 2015, the social media companies agreed to step up policing of online hate speech, though Maas said they have not done enough.
Mass cited research that claims Twitter removes just one percent of the illegal content flagged by users within 24 hours, while Facebook removes 39 percent. Facebook rejected Mass’s data, citing its own data that shows it removes about 65 percent of illegal content within a day.
German lawmaker Renate Kuenast called the fines “an invitation to not just erase real insults, but to wipe out almost everything for the sake of playing it safe.”
The bill still needs to be approved by parliament.
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Ebay’s Founder Pledges $100 Million to Fight Fake News, Hate Speech
Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar’s philanthropy promised $100 million over the next five years to support journalism and fight fake news, the foundation announced Wednesday.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which broke the story of the controversial Panama Papers, is the first organization to receive funds from the Omidyar Network – a three-year grant of up to $4.5 million “to expand its investigative reporting”.
“Across the world, we see a worrying resurgence of authoritarian politics that is undermining progress towards a more open and inclusive society,” Matt Bannick, Omidyar Network Managing Partner, said. “A lack of government responsiveness and a growing distrust in institutions, especially the media, are eroding trust. Increasingly, facts are being devalued, misinformation spread, accountability ignored, and channels that give citizens a voice withdrawn.”
Formally announcing the commitment at the Skoll World Forum on social entrepreneurship in Oxford, England, the Omidyar Network has also promised support to the Anti-Defamation League, devoted to fighting anti-Semitism, and the Latin American Alliance for Civic Technology (ALTEC).
Established in 2004 by Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the Omidyar Network supports organizations to foster economic and social change.
Reporting on the Panama Papers revealed secret, so called offshore financial accounts that were hiding assets to avoid tax payments.
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Improved Sleep May Help Elderly Ward Off Diseases
Scientists are investigating poor quality of sleep as the source for many diseases of aging, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. They are working on ways to improve the amount of restful sleep that elderly people get, which researchers believe could promote much healthier lives.
We spend approximately one-third of our lives asleep. In an ideal world, the time spent sleeping is restful, helping to refresh both alertness and memory.
As we age, though, experts say the quality and quantity of sleep becomes poor and fragmented, because the neurons and brain circuits that regulate sleep slowly degrade.
It’s a downhill process they say begins in a person’s 30s. By the time someone is in their 50s, sleep scientists say the average person has lost 50 percent of their capacity for restful sleep, and has trouble falling asleep and staying asleep overnight. From middle age on, sleep specialists say the problems with restful sleep only get worse.
Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at University of California at Berkeley, is director of the school’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab.
He said dream-state or rapid eye movement sleep, known as REM sleep, remains mostly intact as we age. What tends to fall off is non-REM sleep, the deep sleep that leaves people feeling refreshed in the morning.
As people age, their risk of developing heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease rises. Those conditions are commonly believed to interfere with sleep.
But Walker suggests the problem may be the other way around, “or at least it’s a two-way street I think, and maybe the fact that it’s flowing in more so than one direction. In other words, I think sleep disruption is a novel, underappreciated fact that is contributing to age and dementia as we get older.”
In a meta-analysis, Walker and colleagues reviewed data on 2 million people, in a study reported in the journal Neuron. When they looked at electrical patterns of sleep in sleep-deprived adults, they found slow waves and so-called “sleep spindles,” or bursts of brain activity, which disrupt non-REM sleep.
They also found chemical markers “in spades,” as one researcher put it, in people deprived of restful, non-REM sleep.
Walker said virtually all body systems are affected by a lack of sleep, including the cardiovascular and metabolic systems, which may help explain why people whose sleep is fragmented are more likely to develop heart disease and diabetes.
But Walker said he believes there is a “silver lining” in the findings. Scientists are finding targets to remedy sleep problems, potentially heading off diseases of aging. “We’re trying to develop new sleep therapies to try and generate and assist the aging brain to produce healthy quality of sleep and fight back against the aging and dementia process.”
Walker said novel therapies include stimulating sleep centers in the brain with extremely mild electrical current and magnetism.
In the meantime, he said there are things people can do to improve their quality of sleep. They include exercising, avoiding work on computers and tablet devices before bed that make it harder to fall asleep, and sleeping in a cool room, which also seems to ease people into the very necessary and restful part of their day.
your ad hereCooperative Board Games Let Everyone Win… or Lose
It’s a game that is deadly serious.
In this make-believe world, humanity teeters on the brink of destruction. With each flip of a card, virulent and deadly diseases get a fiendish chance to advance across the globe.
In this world, Yaianni and his friends are valiant public health officials, racing against time to save the world from pestilence and death. So they take this game – called Pandemic – seriously.
They huddle around a table at the Victory Point Cafe in Berkeley, California, discussing strategy. The colorful board in front of them is crowded with little cubes representing diseases, and every turn could be their last. In Pandemic, Yaianni says, diseases usually win.
“People have created this game to make you lose. So it’s a challenge, mentally.”
It’s a challenge players can overcome only if they work together. Pandemic is a cooperative game. Unlike most board games, in which one player wins and everyone else accepts defeat, in this newer style of gaming, the deck is stacked against everyone.
A deck of disease, a game of friends
Yaianni’s team must draw from a diabolical deck that is filled with cards that make even more “disease cubes” pile up. “Every turn, we’re all talking about the turn we’re taking together,” he explains. To prevent another disaster, the friends decide to build a little hospital.
Yaianni says that when he’s hanging out with friends, he likes board games. “It’s kind of social, at the same time, it’s not something you do on your own. I used to play a lot of computer games and that’s fun. But it’s between you and the computer screen. Even if you’re on line, playing with other people. Here you’re like literally in person. And you’re, you know, you play a game together, whether it’s cooperative or competitive, you’re socializing in a way, and it’s entertaining.”
To help with that socializing, the Victory Point Cafe offers patrons coffee, beer… and board games. Nora, the assistant manager, says those board games are a big part of the appeal. “You can play video games with other people, but you don’t look at them necessarily face to face over a board that you share pieces on and that sort of thing. You can’t hand things to other people. [Board games are] just very tactile, and very visual. And you know, I feel like it uses more engagement, and people crave that.”
There is a wall lined with board games that customers can borrow, and most of these games are competitive. But Nora likes the cooperative games such as Pandemic. “There’s something about cooperative games that I just find really enjoyable, and almost comforting. Because you’re working together.”
Competition vs. cooperation
At Karliquin’s Game Knight in Boulder, Colorado, the board game buddies prefer competition, whether it’s a colorful board and a deck of cards, or a lively game of dice. One regular at the hobby shop dismisses cooperative games. “You can’t really feel the twist of the knife,” he says while rolling a pair of dice. “There’s kind of no reward and no penalty for failing in cooperative games. It’s a little better than watching television but not by much.”
But cooperative games have their fans here. One man says his favorite is a game called Ghost Stories. “You’re protecting a village against an onslaught of ghosts.” Other players list Mansions and Madness, and Super Dungeon Explorer.
Meanwhile, back at Victory Point, it’s a Pandemic cliffhanger. One turn away from the final curtain, their team strategy gets a boost with the draw of a lucky card. They save the world from pestilence and death!
As for what this means in the game of Life, Yaianni quips, “If your life is having to cure disease before it kills everyone in the world, then yes, I guess it’s a metaphor for life.” Yet in a world that needs people solving problems together, he says that playing cooperatively speaks to him. “We have a very good team when we’re playing together, and if we didn’t have this level of teamwork, we wouldn’t have been able to do it. We would have lost the game.”
Board game fans say that win, lose or cooperate, anyone who finds a game they love will have a grand adventure.
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Study Says Hitting the Weights, Jumping, Could Help Bone Density
When people think of osteoporosis, they usually think of women, but men can get osteoporosis, too.
Osteoporosis literally means “porous bones.” Normal bones look somewhat like honeycombs. But with osteoporosis, the bones become so thin in places that even a simple stretch can result in a bone fracture.
Risk factors are smoking, drinking, having a family history of osteoporosis, and leading a sedentary lifestyle.
Two hundred million people have osteoporosis worldwide and that number is expected to shoot up dramatically. The International Osteoporosis Foundation projects that the global incidence of hip fracture will double by 2025, and nearly triple by 2050, when it will affect more than 6 million people.
At least one study says hip fractures will increase in men by 310 percent. Hip fractures in women also are projected to rise by 240 percent.
These fractures can be fatal, so there’s a huge need for preventive strategies. One is exercise, but even active people can have low bone density, which may lead to osteoporosis.
Missourian Dean Hargett bikes more than 160 kilometers a week, but he was shocked to learn it did nothing for his bones. He found out he had low bone density.
“It alarmed me…I don’t want to have fragile bones,” Hargett said.
A decrease in bone density could lead to osteoporosis. Pam Hinton, an associate professor at the University of Missouri, conducts research on nutrition and physical activity on bone health. She said about one in four men will have an osteoporotic-related fracture in their lifetime.
Over a 12-month period, Hinton studied how resistance and jump-training exercises affected the bone health for men ages 25 to 60. The results showed these exercises did more than just slow the rate of bone loss.
“We actually saw an increase in bone mass with either type of exercise that was a very encouraging and exciting result,” Hinton said.
The exercises decreased the level of sclerostin, a protein that slows bone growth. At the same time, it increased a hormone that promotes bone growth.
Hargett now knows he has to do more than cycle and swim to strengthen his bones. Weightlifting is now a regular part of his exercise routine. Besides getting the right kind of exercise, getting enough vitamin D and calcium also can keep bones strong.
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Study: Weight-bearing Exercise May Promote Strong Bones
The number of people with osteoporosis is expected to grow dramatically. Weight lifting, resistance training is part of the answer. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports on a study about men and bone health at the University of Missouri.
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Kim Dotcom Announces New Bitcoin Venture for Content Uploaders to Earn Money
Controversial New Zealand-based internet mogul Kim Dotcom plans to launch a Bitcoin payments system for users to sell files and video streaming as he fights extradition to the United States for criminal copyright charges.
The German-born entrepreneur, who is wanted by U.S. law enforcement on copyright and money laundering allegations related to his now-defunct streaming site Megaupload, announced his new venture called ‘Bitcontent’ in a video posted on Youtube this week.
“You can create a payment for any content that you put on the internet…you can share that with your customers, with the interest community and, boom, you are basically in business and can sell your content,” Dotcom said in the video.
He added that Bitcontent would eventually allow businesses, such as news organizations, to earn money from their entire websites. He did not provide a launch date.
Dotcom did not provide details on how Bitcontent would differ from existing Bitcoin operations or how it would help news organizations make money beyond existing subscription payment options.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be used to move money around the world quickly and with relative anonymity, without the need for a central authority, such as a bank or government.
The currency’s anonymity has however made it popular with drug dealers, money launderers and organized crime groups, meaning governments and the financial establishment have been slow to embrace it since the first trade in 2009. The currency’s value hit record levels in 2017, trading at $1,145 on Wednesday, a fivefold increase in a year, amid growing interest globally.
A New Zealand court ruled in February that Dotcom could be extradited to the United States to face charges relating to his Megaupload website, which was shutdown in 2012 following an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion, a decision he was appealing.
Dotcom, who has New Zealand residency, became well known for his lavish lifestyle as much as his computer skills.
He used to post photographs of himself with cars having vanity plates such as “GOD” and “GUILTY”, shooting an assault rifle and flying around the world in his private jet.
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Solar Eclipse Mania Spurs US Festivals, Tours, Sold-out Hotels
Get ready for solar eclipse mania. Destinations in the path of the Aug. 21 eclipse, which will be visible in the U.S. along a narrow path from Oregon to South Carolina, are going wild with plans for festivals, concerts and viewing parties.
Hotels in Casper, Wyoming, are charging five times their usual rates. Rooms at Idaho’s Sun Valley Resort have been booked for years.
An eclipse tour in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park sold out in 10 minutes. The Smokies are among 20 National Park sites that will experience the total solar eclipse, from sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina to Wyoming’s Grand Tetons.
“We are expecting record visitation,” said NPS spokesman Jeffrey Olson.
Hopkinsville, Kentucky, population 32,000, and Carbondale, Illinois, population 23,000, expect 50,000 visitors each. The destinations, 140 miles apart, will experience about 2 minutes and 40 seconds of total darkness, among eclipse sites with the longest duration. Events in the region include an “Eclipse Con” festival, concerts and tailgate parties.
South Carolina’s Clemson University also expects 50,000 people at a campus event that will feature astronomers and other experts. Twenty thousand people will gather in the Ochocho National Forest for Oregon Eclipse 2017, with music, yoga, theater, art installations and more. Wind River Reservation in Wyoming hosts “bring back the sun” ceremonies.
A Pink Floyd Tribute band plans a “Dark Side of the Moon” concert in Jefferson City, Missouri. The South Carolina Philharmonic in Columbia offers “Star Wars Musiclipse.” Sylva, North Carolina, has a “Moonlight Madness” run.
Eclipse Chasers
Sharon Hahs and her husband, Billy, have chased 14 eclipses around the world from Mongolia to South Africa. They’ll see this one from a family farm in Missouri, not far from their St. Louis home.
“There is nothing else in our universe that looks like a total solar eclipse,” said Hahs. “The air gets cool. You have 360-degree dusk. Nature sounds really happen: the cock crows, birds get quiet. We even had a horse cross our viewing area to return to the stable.”
Michael Allen of Southampton, England, is a “keen amateur astronomer” who considers the eclipse “a once in a lifetime opportunity.” He can’t travel alone because he has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, so his brother Nick is accompanying him on a three-day tour to Nashville with eclipse-viewing at the Kentucky border.
Jack Bohannon of Anchorage, Alaska, plans to see the eclipse in Nebraska as the “culmination of a summer-long RV trip” with family.
“We were originally going to book an RV park in the eclipse path in Wyoming, but everywhere was full,” he said.
Hotels
In small or remote destinations, hotels and campsites in the path of totality are completely sold out. But bigger cities still have openings. As of March 25, Nashville hotels were only 54 percent booked.
Don’t assume lodging is sold out because a travel booking site says so. Call hotels directly to ask.
Many hotels are offering eclipse packages. Nashville’s Loews Vanderbilt package includes eclipse viewing glasses, commemorative T-shirt, Uber gift card and bar credit. Hotel Jackson in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has an “eclipse concierge” to help guests plan their $699-a-night stay.
Consumers in Oregon have complained about hotels canceling reservations they made long ago, claiming rebranding or new ownership, then charging much higher rates for rebooking.
Location and Weather
As the moon moves in front of the sun, daylight will yield to darkness from Oregon to South Carolina along a path 60 to 70 miles wide. The path of totality will also cut across broad swaths of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee, along with corners of Kansas, Georgia and North Carolina, and a tiny chip of Iowa. Totality will first hit Oregon around 10:15 a.m. Pacific time. South Carolina will experience the final moments of total darkness at 2:49 p.m. Eastern time.
Some spectators are heading to mountains and forests to experience the eclipse in a natural setting.
“Think of an eclipse as an incredible short night,” with “a rapid sunset and then sunrise,” said Sara Morris, an ornithologist and biology professor at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. “Birds go back to roost. Animals that are active during the day will stop foraging and put themselves in a place of safety.”
Destinations that offer easy highway access have an advantage in bad weather: You can drive elsewhere to seek clear skies.
“Clouds are the enemy of eclipse chasers,” said Hahs. “If one can move, one should.”
The driest section of the eclipse path is from eastern Oregon to western Nebraska but “even the driest places on Earth experience clouds, fog and rain,” said Brady Phillips at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is developing an online weather map for the eclipse.
Safety
When the sun is completely blocked by the moon, its rays can’t hurt your eyes. But the period before and after totality is dangerous — even when it seems dark — because viewing even a sliver of the sun as it slips in and out of view can damage retinas. Sunglasses are useless. Viewing through telescopes or cameras without proper filters is also unsafe before and after totality.
So be sure to buy eclipse glasses, but don’t spend a lot: $1 glasses with paper filters are fine.
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Orwell’s ‘1984’ Back in Theaters in Stand Against ‘Alternative Facts’
Nearly 200 independent movie theaters across the United States on Tuesday screened the film version of George Orwell’s “1984” novel about a dystopian future, in what organizers said was a stand against U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
The United State of Cinema, which arranged the screenings in 44 U.S. states for one day only, said it was done to “take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as ‘alternative facts.’”
The movie was also to be shown at five venues in Canada, one in England, one in Sweden and one in Croatia.
Movie released in 1984
The 1949 book, which returned to the U.S. best-seller list in January, features a “Big Brother” government that spies on its citizens and forces them into “doublethink,” or simultaneously accepting contradictory versions of the truth.
The movie was released in 1984 and starred John Hurt and Richard Burton.
New York resident Laura Fliegner and her husband attended an afternoon screening of “1984” at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in Manhattan.
“We think it makes a statement. Going to see it again, and remind ourselves what happens when you slide off a slippery slope,” she said.
After the screening, Fliegner said as she left the theater, “It’s all just very chilling.”
Many of the screenings are free
Nicolas Rapold, who helped organize the Lincoln Center screening and panel discussion that followed, said he expected at least 100 people to attend each of three free screenings at the venue.
Some venues charged admission, the proceeds of which were to be given to an organization of each venue’s choice.
The British novel was reprinted in January, decades after it was written, following the Trump administration’s defense of “alternative facts,” a term White House official Kellyanne Conway used during a dispute over the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration.
Adam Birnbaum, director of Film Programming for the Avon Theatre Film Center in Stamford, Connecticut, and co-organizer of the event, said Orwell’s themes were as relevant today as they were nearly 70 years ago.
“Our concern is the idea that the only answer is the one coming from the mouthpiece running the [Trump] administration and that there’s this effort to sort of snuff out anything but that,” Birnbaum said.
Some theaters offer discussions after viewings
He said proceeds of tickets sold at the Avon Theatre would be earmarked for “future educational screenings” of “1984” with the local Stamford public schools.
He said a number of theaters showing “1984” on Tuesday had scheduled post-film audience discussions and that a “vast majority” of the theaters had added showings because they had sold out or were at capacity.
“If nothing else, we hope that people will continue to be voices of opposition to some of the practices that are currently being employed by government,” he said.
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Agency Chief: Russia Open to Extending International Space Station Partnership
Russia is open to extending its partnership in the International Space Station with the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada beyond the currently planned end of the program in 2024, the head of the Russian space agency said on Tuesday.
“We are ready to discuss it,” Igor Komarov, general director of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, told reporters at the U.S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, when asked if his country would consider a four-year extension.
The $100 billion science and engineering laboratory, orbiting 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, has been permanently staffed by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since November 2000.
The U.S. space agency, NASA, spends about $3 billion a year on the space station program, a level of funding that is endorsed by the Trump administration and Congress.
House panel oversees NASA
A U.S. House of Representatives committee that oversees NASA has begun looking at whether to extend the program beyond 2024, or use the money to speed up planned human space initiatives to the moon and Mars.
Komarov said many medical and technological issues remain to be resolved before humans travel beyond the station’s orbit.
“I think that we need to prolong our cooperation in low-Earth orbit because we haven’t resolved all the issues and problems that we face now,” Komarov said.
The U.S.-Russian human space partnership has long endured despite the swirl of political tensions between the two countries. In 1975, for example, at the height of the Cold War, an American Apollo and Russian Soyuz capsule docked together in orbit.
“We appreciate that … political problems do not touch this sphere,” Komarov said.
Russia plans for independent outpost in orbit
Moscow has an alternative if relations with the United States sour. Russia last year unveiled a plan to detach some of its modules and use them to create a new, independent outpost in orbit.
“We adjusted and made some minor changes in our programs … but it doesn’t mean that we don’t want to continue our cooperation,” Komarov said. “We just want to be on the safe side and make sure we can continue our research.”
The United States is dependent on Russia’s propellant module to keep the station in orbit.
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Ice Hockey World Body Still Works for Olympic Deal With NHL
Like Russia’s star Alex Ovechkin, the International Ice Hockey Federation thinks NHL players need not miss the 2018 Winter Olympics — though team owners likely now need a “game-changer” offer on the table.
“We are continuing to try to find solutions,” the governing body’s general secretary Horst Lichtner told The Associated Press on Tuesday, after the NHL said it would not take part in the games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Lichtner spent much of the day in talks with IOC officials and winter sports leaders about the NHL’s announcement late Monday. The league ended negotiations aimed at ensuring it would shut down for the Olympic period in February and let its superstars play in South Korea.
NHL is bluffing?
Ovechkin said Tuesday he would play at the games anyway, suggesting the NHL was bluffing.
Lichtner also said the door is not closed, though he acknowledged that the Switzerland-based IIHF must make a better offer.
“Then we can re-open the discussion, maybe not for ever but to come back with some so-called game changers to the (NHL team) owners which would then probably help to find a better decision than we have now,” he said.
The IIHF had already agreed to meet players’ travel and insurance costs when the IOC ended its long-time commitment to pay. The NHL sought more concessions, but the IOC would not concede a share of marketing rights to a commercial league.
Hockey body focused on 5-year plan
Lichtner said the IIHF was focused on a five-year plan for the sport in Asia, leading up to the 2022 Beijing Winter Games in the coveted Chinese market.
“We have a strategy and that would of course be easier and much nicer if this is with the NHL than without,” the German official said of a plan that includes the Russia-based KHL.
A Chinese delegation is due to attend the annual world championships, staged in May in France and Germany.
Though a two-Olympic deal was part of recent NHL talks, Lichtner did not rule out finding a separate solution to the Beijing Olympics.
“I don’t think we should predict now what will happen until 2022,” he said. “We will always try to do the best for ice hockey — and this is put the best players on the ice and let them play, because they want it.”
Ovechkin plans to play for country
That includes Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals star who said Tuesday that “I’m pretty sure everything is going to be fine.”
“It’s my country,” Ovechkin said in Toronto. “It’s the biggest opportunity in your life to play in the Olympic Games. Somebody going to tell me I don’t go. I don’t care, I just go.”
The IIHF’s Lichtner predicted that others players could follow.
“I actually think there will be some more Ovechkins in this world who want to use the Olympic stage to show their skills,” Lichtner said.
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Researchers: How to Protect Peru’s Rainforest? Indigenous Land Titles
Providing formal land ownership titles to indigenous communities is one of the most effective ways to preserve endangered rainforest in Peru’s Amazon, said a study published on Monday.
Forest destruction dropped 75 percent on land once it was formally granted to indigenous communities, said the study by American researchers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Analyzing satellite data and land ownership certificates, the researchers compared forest cover on territory before and in the two years after it was formally titled to indigenous communities.
They make the case that granting land titles to indigenous communities who currently control about 10 million hectares of forests in Peru has direct, measurable benefits for Amazon preservation.
“Titling reduces forest clearing by three-quarters,” said Allen Blackman, a senior official with the Inter-American Development Bank and a co-author of the study.
The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest, teeming with biodiversity and spanning nine countries in South America – the bulk of it in Brazil. More than half of Peru’s territory is Amazon rainforest.
Protecting the Amazon, which has been shrinking in Peru due to illegal logging and other activities, is crucial for combating climate change because forests suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and regulate the planet’s climate.
“Communities without titles don’t have the legal standing to complain to regulators when their lands have been encroached on,” Blackman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Once land has been formally titled, indigenous communities can get advice from government regulators on the best tactics for forest preservation and other official services, Blackman said.
With a fast-growing economy based on mining and its natural resources, the Andean nation of Peru has about 1,200 indigenous communities inhabited by 330,000 people, researchers said.
Indigenous activists hailed the study.
“Giving indigenous communities formal legal title to our lands protects tropical forest from illegal logging,” said Edwin Vazquez, a land rights campaigner with the Peru-based Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin.
“Without us, the mission to slow the emissions that threaten the … health of our entire planet is doomed to failure,” Vazquez said in a statement.
Indigenous communities and local residents manage about a third of all forests in developing countries – more than twice the share in government-protected areas, Blackman said.
The study implies that titling land for indigenous people could be effective for forest conservation in other countries, Blackman said, but more research is needed to test that hypothesis.
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