Sasha Gusain - How social media influences health

Sasha Gusain, Health Me Up | Oct 24, 2011, 11.37AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health/How-social-media-influences-health/articleshow/10472429.cms

Addicted to checking your Twitter follower count every five minutes, and sending Facebook friend invites to people you met for all of two seconds?

Studies say you could have a problem that'll balloon into a health calamity sooner or later. From drug and alcohol abuse to clinical depression and slower cognitive skills, the wondrous world of social media has many health issues hidden under its convenience belt. But there's plenty of good news too. Read on to find out why social media isn't all bad, and what researchers say about clever use of online networking tools for health benefits.

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Fred Grimm - Climate change deniers may be washed away by rising seas

Fred Grimm | The Miami Herald

last updated: October 24, 2011 12:36:50 PM

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/26/128125/commentary-climate-change-deniers.html

The rising sea will wash across great swaths of South Florida. Salt water will contaminate the well fields. Roads and farmland and low-lying neighborhoods will be inundated. The soil will no longer absorb the kind of heavy rainfalls that drenched South Florida last weekend. Septic tanks will fail. Drainage canals won’t drain. Sewers will back up. Intense storms will pummel the beachfront. Mighty rainfalls, in between droughts, will bring more floods.

The economic losses and the mitigation costs associated with the effects of global warming over the next few decades will be overwhelming. It will cost a medium-sized town like Pompano Beach hundreds of millions just to salvage its water and sewage systems.

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Reuters - PSA test for prostate cancer not recommended: panel

Fri, Oct 7 2011

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/07/us-cancer-prostate-idUSTRE79605220111007

REUTERS

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Doctors criticized proposals by a government-backed panel recommending against prostate cancer screening in healthy men -- saying they went too far and may put some men at risk of the deadly cancer.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which advises the government on health prevention measures, on Friday downgraded its recommendation on prostate cancer screening to a "D," which means it recommends against the service because "there is moderate or high certainty that the service has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits."

It had previously said there was not enough evidence to make a call on the use of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, tests that measure levels in the blood of a protein.

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Science Daily - Yoga Eases Back Pain in Largest U.S. Yoga Study to Date

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111024164708.htm ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2011) — Yoga classes were linked to better back-related function and diminished symptoms from chronic low back pain in the largest U.S. randomized controlled trial of yoga to date, published by the Archives of Internal Medicine as an "Online First" article on October 24. But so were intensive stretching classes.

"We found yoga classes more effective than a self-care book -- but no more effective than stretching classes," said study leader Karen J. Sherman, PhD, MPH, a senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute. Back-related function was better and symptoms were diminished with yoga at 12 weeks; and clinically important benefits, including less use of pain medications, lasted at least six months for both yoga and stretching, with thorough follow-up of more than nine in 10 participants.

In the trial, 228 adults in six cities in western Washington state were randomly assigned to 12 weekly 75-minute classes of either yoga or stretching exercises or a comprehensive self-care book called The Back Pain Helpbook. Nine in 10 of them were primary-care patients at Group Health Cooperative. Participants in the trial typically had moderate -- not severe -- back pain and relatively good mental health, and most had been at least somewhat active before the trial started.

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"University of Michigan - The Generation X Report: U-M survey paints a surprisingly positive portrait

Public release date: 25-Oct-2011
University of Michigan

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/uom-tgx101911.php 

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---They've been stereotyped as a bunch of insecure, angst-ridden, underachievers. But most members of Generation X are leading active, balanced and happy lives, according to a long-term University of Michigan survey.

"They are not bowling alone," said political scientist Jon Miller, author of The Generation X Report. "They are active in their communities, mainly satisfied with their jobs, and able to balance work, family, and leisure."

Miller directs the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the U-M Institute for Social Research. The study, funded by the National Science Foundation since 1986, now includes responses from approximately 4,000 Gen Xers---those born between 1961 and 1981.

"The 84 million Americans in this generation between the ages of 30 and 50 are the parents of today's school-aged children," Miller said. "And over the next two or three decades, members of Generation X will lead the nation in the White House and Congress. So it's important to understand their values, history, current challenges and future goals."

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Jill Richardson - Worst Food Additive Ever? It's in Half of All Foods We Eat and Its Production Destroys Rainforests and Enslaves Children

By Jill Richardson, AlterNet

Posted on October 24, 2011, Printed on October 25, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152848/worst_food_additive_ever_it%27s_in_half_of_all_foods_we_eat_and_its_production_destroys_rainforests_and_enslaves_children

On August 10, police and security for the massive palm oil corporation Wilmar International (of which Archer Daniels Midland owns a majority share) stormed a small, indigenous village on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. They came with bulldozers and guns, destroying up to 70 homes, evicting 82 families, and arresting 18 people. Then they blockaded the village, keeping the villagers in -- and journalists out. (Wilmar claims it has done no wrong.)

The village, Suku Anak Dalam, was home to an indigenous group that observes their own traditional system of land rights on their ancestral land and, thus, lacks official legal titles to the land. This is common among indigenous peoples around the world -- so common, in fact, that it is protected by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Indonesia, for the record, voted in favor of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. Yet the government routinely sells indigenous peoples' ancestral land to corporations. Often the land sold is Indonesia's lowland rainforest, a biologically rich area home to endangered species like the orangutan, Asian elephant, Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran tiger, and the plant Rafflesia arnoldii, which produces the world's largest flower.

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Inter Press Service - Durban May Be Last Chance to Stabilize Climate Under Two Degrees

Published on Monday, October 24, 2011 by Inter Press Service

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/24-8

Inter Press Service

CHANGWON, South Korea - The window to limit global warming to less than two degrees C is closing so fast it can be measured in months, a new scientific analysis revealed Sunday.

Without putting the brakes on carbon emissions very soon, large parts of Africa, most of Russia and northern China will be two degrees C warmer in less than 10 years. Canada and Alaska will soon follow, the regional study shows.

"If one is sincerely committed to limit global temperature increase to below two degrees C... (governments) committing to a global peak emission level and peak year makes sense from a science perspective," said Joeri Rogelj of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, who headed the analysis published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Governments will be meeting in Durban, South Africa starting Nov. 28 to launch the next round of climate treaty negotiations, which so far have failed to ensure their goal of less than a two-degree C increase will be achieved.

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Reuters - Wall Street Protest Plans Global Rally Ahead of G20

Published on Monday, October 24, 2011 by Reuters

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/idINIndia-60096820111024

Reuters

(Reuters) - An anti-capitalist group which sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement has called for global protests on Saturday to demand G20 leaders impose a "Robin Hood" tax on financial transactions and currency trades.

Canada-based Adbusters wants the Occupy Wall Street protest movement against economic inequality to take to the streets to call for a 1 percent tax on such deals ahead of a Nov. 3-4 summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in France.

"Let's send them a clear message: We want you to slow down some of that $1.3 trillion easy money that's sloshing around the global casino each day -- enough cash to fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world," the activist group said on its website, www.adbusters.org.

Adbusters put out the initial call for Occupy Wall Street and since protesters set up camp in a park in New York City's financial district on Sept. 17, they have inspired solidarity demonstrations and so-called occupations around the world.

Thousands turned out for a global day of protests on Oct. 15, which were mostly peaceful apart from in Rome, where there were riots.

Occupy Arrests, a Twitter feed compiling arrests related to Occupy Wall Street, said that since the movement began five weeks ago nearly 2,400 people have been arrested around the world, including in New York City.

Occupy Wall Street prides itself on not having any leaders and doing everything by consensus at daily general assemblies. Adbusters has asked protesters to approve its plan for a "Robin Hood" tax and global protests at their general assemblies.

The proposal by Adbusters comes as some people question whether the movement can sustain momentum and and ask what will happen next. Critics accuse the group of not having a clear message.

"As the movement matures, let's consider a response to our critics. Let's occupy the core of our global system. Let's dethrone the greed that defines this new century," Adbusters said on its website.

The protesters say they are upset that the billions of dollars in bank bailouts doled out during the recession allowed banks to resume earning huge profits while average Americans have had no relief from high unemployment and job insecurity.

They also believe the richest 1 percent of Americans do not pay their fair share in taxes.

Occupy Wall Street is urging protesters to close their bank accounts and transfer their money to credit unions, a move that is due to culminate with a bank transfer day on Nov. 5.

Aaron Mehta and John Aloysius Farrell - Wealthy Corporations with a Trillion Dollars Stashed Offshore Lobby for a ‘Holiday’ from U.S. Taxes

By Aaron Mehta and John Aloysius Farrell

Nation of Change, October 24, 2011

http://www.nationofchange.org/wealthy-corporations-trillion-dollars-stashed-offshore-lobby-holiday-us-taxes-1319470039

Goaded by battalions of corporate lobbyists, members of Congress are working to give a select group of U.S. multinational firms like Apple, Oracle and Pfizer a lavish tax break on a trillion dollars stashed offshore.

The avowed goal is to generate jobs and investment, but the offshore tax holiday was tried before, in 2004, and the lion’s share of the benefits went not to unemployed workers and their families, but to corporate shareholders and executives.

With today’s high unemployment, and soaring costs for college, health care and other family essentials, critics are asking why an elite class of corporations and their shareholders should get a huge tax break on overseas profits.

The proposed tax holiday could cost the Treasury from $40 billion to $80 billion over the next decade, and the high cost of the measure is one reason that its prospects for passage are mixed.

But 73 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have signed up as co-sponsors. And cash-rich mega corporations are pushing hard for the tax break.

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Dean Baker - Jean-Claude Trichet's dire tenure at the ECB

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/24/jean-claude-trichet-tenure-ecb?newsfeed=true

guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 October 2011 10.30 EDT

Jean-Claude Trichet will be retiring as head of the European Central Bank at the end of October. He will step into retirement having wreaked the sort of destruction on the European economy that hostile powers could only dream about. Tens of millions of people across the eurozone countries are unemployed or underemployed because of his mismanagement of Europe's economy.

Meanwhile, the world teeters on the brink of another financial crisis because of the failure of the ECB, along with the IMF, to effectively address the sovereign debt crisis. Most incredible of all, Trichet probably thinks he has done a good job.

This last point really is central because the ECB, like much of the economics profession, continues to be controlled by a bizarre clique that believes that the most important, and possibly only, goal that a central bank should pursue is a 2% inflation target. By this measure, the ECB has done reasonably well, even as the eurozone economy has crumbled around it. After all, inflation in the eurozone economies rarely exceeded 3% and averaged well under the 2% target over the last decade.

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