El pateador Billy Cundiff, izquierda, es felicitado por Morgan Cox luego de acertar el gol de campo de la victoria de los Ravens de Baltimore sobre los visitantes Cardinals de Arizona el domingo 30 de octubre del 2011. (Foto AP/Nick Wass)
El pateador Billy Cundiff, izquierda, es felicitado por Morgan Cox luego de acertar el gol de campo de la victoria de los Ravens de Baltimore sobre los visitantes Cardinals de Arizona el domingo 30 de octubre del 2011. (Foto AP/Nick Wass)
Baltimore Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff (7) celebrates his game-winning field goal with teammates Sam Koch (4) and Dennis Pitta (88) during the second half of an NFL football game against the Arizona Cardinals in Baltimore on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. The Ravens defeated the Cardinals 30-27. (AP Photo/Gail Burton)
Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb reacts after an incomplete pass during the second half of an NFL football game against the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore, on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. The Ravens defeated the Cardinals 30-27. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
NEW YORK (AP) ? No lead is safe in the NFL this year, especially if a bad team is holding it against a good team. Sunday's rally by the Ravens (the good team) to beat the Cardinals (the bad team) is proof.
It also was the fifth time this season someone has come back from 20 or more points down to win. That's already a league record with nine weeks remaining on the schedule.
The Ravens were well aware that big comebacks have been almost routine in 2011, so even while trailing 24-3 they never lost faith.
Nor should they have considering the Cardinals have one of the worst pass defenses in football and are one of the leaders in turning over the ball.
"You're going to keep fighting," coach John Harbaugh said of the Ravens' attitude at halftime. "If you watch around this league, you can come back and win."
Just as the Lions did against the Cowboys and the 49ers did at Philadelphia on Oct. 2. Detroit trailed by 24 points in the third quarter and San Francisco was behind by 20 in the second half against the Eagles.
And just as the Bills stormed back from 21-0 behind at home to beat New England the previous Sunday, the same day the Lions staged their first humongous rally, overcoming a 20-0 halftime hole at Minnesota.
In nearly every case, the team overcoming the lead was playing an opponent with a weak or struggling defense. Plus, the rallying side was comfortable with a no-huddle offense.
That was especially noticeable in Baltimore on Sunday.
"I had seen a couple of teams come back from pretty big deficits this year, and it was our day to do that," quarterback Joe Flacco said.
Added Anquan Boldin, who victimized a porous secondary for seven catches and 145 yards against his former team:
"We felt like they had young corners, and that's one of the things we felt like we could take advantage of, and we did that today. We know we played poor as an offense in the first half, and we felt like this team wasn't better than us, point-blank. Even though they were up 24-3, we felt like we were able to go out and put drives together and put points on the board."
The penchant for coming back from big deficits has much to do with the rules favoring offenses nowadays. Teams are unafraid to throw ? even those with untested quarterbacks ? because of how the game has opened up. There are so many restrictions on defensive backs and linebackers in pass coverage that the old Woody Hayes standby that when you throw, three things can happen and two of them are bad no longer applies.
Yes, there can be incompletions and interceptions, but there also can be defensive holdings and interferences and illegal hits, all of them being enforced more heavily than ever.
There's also the mindset on the leading team's side. Instead of continuing to do what helped build the big lead, those teams tend to back off a bit, get conservative to protect the lead.
Bang! The lead is gone.
"At halftime, we all talked about it," Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb said. "We knew what was coming in the second half. You can't let down in this league, especially against a team like this. It wasn't a lack of focus, it was a lack of execution.
"This league is all about trying to find a way to win. I give them credit for the great comeback they had. In the second half they brought a little bit more pressure."
Exactly. The trailing team gets extra aggressive and, too often, the team in front gets a tad comfortable.
Oddly, the level of experience doesn't seem to matter in this year's comeback scenarios. None of the club's that lost, not even the Cardinals, is callow. New England, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Dallas all are filled with veterans, many of them solid players.
Yet they succumbed.
"When you're playing this game, you have to play loose, no matter what," Boldin said. "No matter how you look, you still have to play loose. Whenever you are tight, guys just try to make things happen and end up making mistakes, and that's not how you play football."
LONDON ? Barclays PLC reported a 7 percent rise in net profit in the first nine months on Monday, largely on the back of a one-time boost from investment banking.
The bank reported a net profit of 2.65 billion pounds ($4.25 billion) compared to 2.48 billion pounds a year earlier.
Revenue was up 10 percent to 25.2 billion pounds in part due to a 3 billion pounds credit gain in the third quarter.
The bank said the gain came from widening spreads on Barclays Capital's structured products, a range of investment products which typically include complex derivatives.
For the third quarter, pretax profit was up from 327 million pounds a year ago to 2.4 billion pounds, again reflecting the one-off gain. Adjusted pretax profit for the quarter was up 5 percent to 1.34 billion pounds, broadly in line with the market consensus.
The adjusted figure excludes the own credit, a 1.8 billion pounds writedown on its stake in the investment firm BlackRock Inc. and other one-time items.
Barclays Capital third-quarter income excluding the gain was down 15 percent to 2.25 billion pounds.
Barclays shares were up 2.9 percent to 207 pence in early trading on the London Stock Exchange.
"Overall, these results are slightly better than we had expected," said Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital, who nonetheless rates the shares as "sell."
The bank reported that it had reduced its exposure to sovereign debt in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Greece by 31 percent in the quarter to 8 billion pounds, with about half of the remaining exposure in Italy.
WASHINGTON ? A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.
The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of "Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists.
Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.
He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.
What's different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to "The Daily Show" is paying attention is who is behind the study.
One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the tea party. The Koch brothers, Charles and David, run a large privately held company involved in oil and other industries, producing sizable greenhouse gas emissions.
Muller's research team carefully examined two chief criticisms by skeptics. One is that weather stations are unreliable; the other is that cities, which create heat islands, were skewing the temperature analysis.
"The skeptics raised valid points and everybody should have been a skeptic two years ago," Muller said in a telephone interview. "And now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had previously been reported had been done without bias."
Muller said that he came into the study "with a proper skepticism," something scientists "should always have. I was somewhat bothered by the fact that there was not enough skepticism" before.
There is no reason now to be a skeptic about steadily increasing temperatures, Muller wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, a place friendly to skeptics. Muller did not address in his research the cause of global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists say it's man-made from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Nor did his study look at ocean warming, future warming and how much of a threat to mankind climate change might be.
Still, Muller said it makes sense to reduce the carbon dioxide created by fossil fuels.
"Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world," he said. Still, he contends that threat is not as proven as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is.
On Monday, Muller was taking his results ? four separate papers that are not yet published or peer-reviewed, but will be, he says ? to a conference in Santa Fe, N.M., expected to include many prominent skeptics as well as mainstream scientists.
"Of course he'll be welcome," said Petr Chylek of Los Alamos National Lab, a noted skeptic and the conference organizer. "The purpose of our conference is to bring people with different views on climate together, so they can talk and clarify things."
Shawn Lawrence Otto, author of the book "Fool Me Twice" that criticizes science skeptics, said Muller should expect to be harshly treated by global warming deniers. "Now he's considered a traitor. For the skeptic community, this isn't about data or fact. It's about team sports. He's been traded to the Indians. He's playing for the wrong team now."
Muller's study found that skeptics' concerns about poor weather station quality didn't skew the results of his analysis because temperature increases rose similarly in reliable and unreliable weather stations. He also found that while there is an urban heat island effect making cities warmer, rural areas, which are more abundant, are warming, too.
Among many climate scientists, the reaction was somewhat of a yawn.
"After lots of work he found exactly what was already known and accepted in the climate community," said Jerry North, a Texas A&M University atmospheric sciences professor who headed a National Academy of Sciences climate science review in 2006. "I am hoping their study will have a positive impact. But some folks will never change."
Chris Field, a Carnegie Institution scientist who is chief author of an upcoming intergovernmental climate change report, said Muller's study "may help the world's citizens focus less on whether climate change is real and more on smart options for addressing it."
Some of the most noted scientific skeptics are no longer saying the world isn't warming. Instead, they question how much of it is man-made, view it as less a threat and argue it's too expensive to do something about, Otto said.
Skeptical MIT scientist Richard Lindzen said it is a fact and nothing new that global average temperatures have been rising since 1950, as Muller shows. "It's hard to see how any serious scientist (skeptical, denier or believer ? frequently depending on the exact question) will view it otherwise," he wrote in an email.
In a brief email statement, the Koch Foundation noted that Muller's team didn't examine ocean temperature or the cause of warming and said it will continue to fund such research. "The project is ongoing and entering peer review, and we're proud to support this strong, transparent research," said foundation spokeswoman Tonya Mullins.
___
Online:
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature site: http://www.berkeleyearth.org/index.php
The web's on fire with weird gadgetry. iPod-charging toilet paper holders, martini-mixing robots, and dog poop vaporizers just to name a few. If you can imagine it, it's probably out there.?And this fall brings yet more outlandish tech gizmos and thingamajigs to the Internet. We'll tell you which ones are the craziest of the crop. Dig in and get your wacky on below.
iTree iPhone dock
1. iTree iPhone dock by KMKG Studio Price: $15,000 Buy it: iTree iPhone dock by KMKG Studio
Ever had the urge to stash your iPhone in a tree? Well, what are you waiting for? For a cool 15 grand, KMKG Studio will cut down and carve you your very own iPhone-charging iTree.
No, it's not pulp fiction; iTree is the real thing, turning any tree of your choice (cherry, poplar, or spruce, for example) into a one-of-a-kind audio art installation. In fact, if you want,?you can even trek into the forest with KMKG's carpenters to hand-pick just the right one.
Once hollowed out and sanded, your fresh-cut iTree is trimmed with phone charging hardware and top-of-the-line?speakers, hold the leaves.?The final product is an acoustically awesome stump of functional art which you might even be tempted to hug.
iTree isn't the greenest or most practical charging choice, nor is it affordable. Still, its cool factor is undeniable.?Got an iPad? There's an iTree for that, too.
The ONEDOF, short for One Degree of Freedom, is more than a few degrees overpriced, but worth every penny. (That isn't a typo. It really costs $150,000!) If you're serious about your vinyl collection, and seriously loaded, this luxury precision turntable just might be music to your audiophile ears.
Gilded, gorgeous, and dreamed up by one very talented NASA aerospace engineer, the slick ONEDOF record spinner is certainly dreamy to look at. And it's even dreamier to listen to. It better be, right?
It's the first turntable in the history of the phonograph to feature a self-centering aluminum alloy platter with non-resonant liquid suspension. Translation: It wipes out virtually all acoustic distortion and makes vinyl records sound amazingly crisp and clear. Everything about this 50-pound musical heavyweight sounds (and looks) incredible to us, including the outrageous price tag.
Star Trek Enterprise baby sppon
3. Star Trek Enterprise Light-Up Feeding System Price: $24.99 Buy it:?Star Trek Enterprise Light Up Feeding System
Boldly go where no liquified carrot has gone before! Helping your new life form transition to solid food can feel like the final frontier...not to mention a very messy one that you and your wee geekling can traverse together with a little help from Star Trek Enterprise Light-Up Feeding System.
Dinnertime distraction be darned. If you've passed along your love of Star Trek like a good Trekkie, your baby won't be able to resist the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 replica spoon. Gently dock it in your babe's adorable face station and you'll successfully one-up the tired "open sesame" feeding trick.
The set's durable bib stands up to baby drool and flying food debris, but how are its flashy embedded LED flashing lights activated? By engaging the lightweight, dishwasher-safe spoon Enterprise spaceship, of course.
Resistance is futile.?Your oatmeal will be assimilated.
Flashy Dr. Dre headphones
4. Dr. Dre Beats Studio Headphones Swarovski Light Rose Limited Edition by Crystal Rocked
Price: approximately $882.00 Buy it: Dr. Dre Beats Studio Headphones Swarovski Light Rose Limited Edition
It's time once again for Dr. Dre to make his presence felt. Trust us, you've never been on a ride like this before. The West Coat rapper-producer's latest blinged-out Beats Studio headphones rock 43,000 precision-cut Swarovski crystals, and each and every one sparkles in all its pink lemonade-colored glory.
And they're just as fancy on this inside. They bring the noise with high-definition powered amplification and exterior noise cancellation. Fill your ears with the same caliber music The Doc himself demands, and wants you to hear it in. That is, if you're willing to shell out the big bucks. (If not, Dr. Dre's Diddybeats Monster Earbud Headphones should break you off for a lot less paper; they cost about $149 or so.)
Pink's not your color? No worries. These insane headphones come in white, black, and red Swarovski crystals, too. Plug the included 4-foot-long Monster Cable into your iPhone or BlackBerry (or dozens of other audio devices) and sit back, relax, and strap on your seat belt, just like the good Doc says.
Canon's calculator/mouse combo
5. Canon X Mark I Mouse Slim Price: $59.99 Buy it: Canon X Mark I Mouse Slim
Canon's X Mark I Mouse Slim is a 3-in-1 overachiever with a beautiful identity crisis. It's a wireless mouse, a calculator, and keypad, all rolled into one hot mess. Sure, this featherweight (3.47-ounce) trybrid is innovative, but we can't imagine anyone lusting over one, except for laptop-toting traveling accountants and other professionals who regularly crunch numbers.
Warning: This nifty mouse-u-lator only gets along with laptops and computers tricked out with Bluetooth v2.0 technology, so be sure yours has the goods. The ambitious X Mark I Mouse Slim is available in black or white, and comes with a soft travel pouch.
Outrageous is the new black What do you think? Would you open your wallet for any of these oddball, overachieving gizmos? We would definitely go for that geekalicious Star Trek bib and spoon duo, and some staffers miss having a discrete number pad when they're using a laptop, so the Canon X Mark I has some appeal.
And none of us can resist iTree... it's big, it's heavy, it's wood.
This article was written by Kim Lachance Shandrow and originally appeared on Tecca
ST. LOUIS?? The injury to slugger Matt Holliday that kept him out of Game 7 was but a minor concern for the Cardinals.
They had the perfect replacement.
Allen Craig had a better September than Holliday ? and a better October, too. Stepping in after Holliday was taken off the World Series roster with a bruised right wrist, the 27-year-old Craig had the go-ahead hit Friday night with his fourth homer of the postseason and saved a run with a leaping catch at the left field wall that robbed Nelson Cruz of a homer.
St. Louis took the title with a 6-2 victory in Game 7.
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In Game 6, Craig stepped in after Holliday was hurt diving back to third while getting picked off and homered in the eighth to fuel the first of two comebacks in the Cardinals' wild 10-9, 11-inning victory.
Craig was one of the Cardinals' most productive players in the World Series, with three homers and five RBIs.
He made only 47 starts in an injury-plagued regular season but was productive whenever he got the chance, batting .315 and elevating his game with a .327 average over the final month.
Holliday, hindered by injuries down the stretch, batted .254 in September. He was 3 for 19 (.158) in the World Series with no RBIs.
___
BERKMAN'S BIG SERIES: Lance Berkman was supposedly on the decline, his best years behind him, his big chance to win a championship with the New York Yankees spoiled and spent.
The St. Louis Cardinals disagreed.
Signed to an $8 million, one-year deal in the offseason, Berkman repaid the Cardinals for their faith during a scintillating postseason run. They capped it off Friday night, beating the Texas Rangers 6-2 in Game 7 for their 11th World Series championship.
The 35-year-old Berkman batted .423 with a homer and five RBIs during the Series, including a tying single in the 10th inning of Game 6 that kept St. Louis alive. David Freese ended up winning it with his homer leading off the 11th inning, sending the wild, back-and-forth Series to one more game.
In his typical, affable nature, Berkman brushed off the critical hit.
"If you don't come through right there, it's only one at-bat and it's over with. They might talk about it for a couple of days," he reasoned. "If you come through, it's the greatest."
"Plus, you've built an account of coming through," Berkman added. "So, if I don't come through in Game 7, I can be like, 'Well, I came through in Game 6!'"
His entire team came through in Game 7.
___
ALL IN: The Rangers' potent lineup was intact for Game 7 of the World Series. It just didn't do much.
Nelson Cruz was in right field and Mike Napoli was behind the plate against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night. Both were banged up in Game 6, and together they were 1 for 8 with a single.
Cruz strained his right groin after flying out in the 11th inning of Game 6. Napoli was banged up earlier in Game 6 when he slid awkwardly into second base, catching his left foot in the dirt and tumbling over the bag.
___
CODE BLUE: Rangers closer Neftali Feliz was available for Game 7 despite blowing the save in the ninth inning the previous night, costing Texas a chance to wrap up the series. He did not pitch.
Feliz struck out Ryan Theriot to start the ninth in Game 6, but Albert Pujols doubled to left and Lance Berkman drew a walk. Feliz rebounded to strike out Allen Craig, and David Freese was down to his final strike, before he hit a tying, two-run triple to right field.
Manager Ron Washington said he wasn't concerned with Feliz's psyche Friday night.
"He's very stable. We certainly didn't have to put a respirator on him. We didn't have to shock his heart back," Washington said. "In this game, there will be days when you don't have good days, and I think if you talk to Neftali last night, he didn't feel like it was a good day."
___
NERVOUS NELLIES: Cardinals manager Tony La Russa acknowledged that he was nervous before Game 7 of the World Series. After all, it's only natural.
"Whoever is not nervous should not participate," La Russa said, "because it means you don't care. Nervous is good. Nervous means you care and you're ready, and you learn how to control your nerves.
"I tried to explain this because it's how I feel," he said. "Every time you get into one of these things, you enjoy it more because of your past experience. It never disappoints. So here is like, the final piece, you participate in a Game 7, and that's as good as it gets."
So, does Ron Washington get nervous, too?
"Well, if Tony is nervous," the Texas manager said, "how can Ron Washington not be nervous?"
___
TORNADO RELIEF: Major League Baseball dedicated Game 7 to tornado relief efforts in the Southeast and Midwest, including Joplin, Mo., where an EF5 tornado wiped out a large swath of town.
Children from the Joplin South Little League were recognized prior to the first pitch between Texas and St. Louis. MLB encouraged fans to visit MLBCommunity.org, where they can contribute to the Heart to Heart Organizatoin and Habitat for Humanity.
"We are a social institution, and it's not that we should be doing these things, we're privileged to be doing them," MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said.
___
TAKE THE MIC: Chris Daughtry, the four-time Grammy Award nominee, was scheduled to perform the national anthem before the deciding game of the World Series on Friday night.
Daughtry is the second alum of the Fox television show "American Idol" to sing the anthem ? Scotty McCreery performed it before Game 1. The World Series is televised by Fox.
Country music artist David Nail was to sing "God Bless America." The Missouri native headlined a disaster relief concert in May following the tornados that ravaged much of the Midwest.
___
RAMS CELEBRATING: The St. Louis Rams are offering $23 tickets to fans who come to the Edward Jones Dome box office before their game against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
The tickets honor the jersey number of Cardinals third baseman David Freese, who hit the winning homer in the 11th inning Thursday night to force Game 7.
The Rams are 30th in the NFL with average home attendance of 56,374 this season. That's 86.3 percent of capacity, which ranks 28th among the 32 franchises.
___
AP Sports Writer R.B. Fallstrom contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Looking to bring the gift of song to your new, somewhat limited editionNokia N9? Good news, Spotify is offering itself up to the MeeGo gods, bringing its music streaming services to the slick handset by way of the Nokia Store. The app is free, but requires the customary Spotify Premium account for you to get any actual enjoyment out of the thing.
BANGKOK ? Asian stock markets rose Friday, continuing to be buoyed by a European deal aimed at slashing Greece's massive debt and preventing the crisis from engulfing too big to bailout countries such as Italy.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.2 percent to 9,030.85 as Asian stocks posted a second day of gains on the European news. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.9 percent to 20,061.44 and South Korea's Kospi rose 1 percent to 1,941.58.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained marginally to 4,350.30 and the Shanghai Composite Index added 1.1 percent to 2,462.38. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand were also higher.
After two years of unsuccessful attempts to address the continent's debt problems, European leaders unveiled a deal Thursday aimed at preventing the Greek government's inability to pay its debt from escalating into another financial crisis like the one that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Banks agreed to take 50 percent losses on the Greek bonds they hold. Europe will also strengthen a financial rescue fund to protect the region's banks and other struggling European countries such as Italy and Portugal.
Renewed confidence in Europe helped fuel a surge on Wall Street late Thursday, as did signs of stronger U.S. economic growth and corporate earnings.
The government reported that the American economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate from July through September on stronger consumer spending and business investment. That was nearly double the 1.3 percent growth in the previous quarter.
The Dow Jones industrial average soared 2.9 percent to 12,208.55 ? its largest jump since Aug. 11. The S&P 500 rose 3.7 percent to 1,284.59. The Nasdaq composite leaped up 3.3 percent to 2,738.63.
Benchmark crude for December delivery was down 45 cents at $93.51 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $3.76, or 4.2 percent, to settle at $93.96 in New York on Thursday.
Brent crude was down 46 cents at $111.62 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange in London.
In currencies, the euro softened to $1.4168 from $1.4216 late Thursday in New York. The dollar slipped to 75.86 yen from 75.94 yen.
The greenback hit a new record low against the Japanese yen Thursday, sinking to 75.63 yen at one point.
Over the past month, gold and silver have remained in a trading range.? Gold had difficulties breaking through $1,700, while silver lost momentum as it rose near $33.? However, recent developments such as Greece deadlocks and US debt worries have once again returned gold and silver to their rightful safe-haven status.
Gold and silver never really lost their safe-haven status per se, but traders were not treating the metals as such.? Gold and silver were caught in the tide with equities.? The WSJ recently reported that since July 1, 90% of S&P 500 stocks have moved in the same direction on the same day on 26 days.? For comparison, this only happened 38 days for all of 2010.? This week is a different story.? Gold futures for December delivery increased $48 on Monday, and another $16 on Tuesday.? Silver futures have climbed nearly $2 in the same period.? The move higher yesterday was very telling for both metals.
Despite the Dow falling more than 200 points, gold and silver both managed to climb higher on Tuesday.? More importantly, gold and silver edged past their trading ranges of $1,700 and $33, respectively.? The breakout can partly be attributed to the declining US dollar.? Since reaching above 79.50 at the beginning of October, the DXY index has declined more than 4%.? The European Union is doomed to fail because the divide between the northern and southern countries is just too great, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC in a recent interview.? If the US dollar was a true safe-haven, it would be rising against all currencies, sharply.? Instead, the US dollar is setting new record lows against the Japanese yen.
Investing Insights:?What?s Going On With Gold?
While many are focusing on the Eurozone debt crisis, concerns about the US continue to rise.? Last Friday, Bank of America?s Merrill Lynch unit warned that the US is in for another credit downgrade by the end of the year if Congress fails to agree on a long-term plan to deal with the nation?s staggering debt load.? ?The credit rating agencies have strongly suggested that further rating cuts are likely if Congress does not come up with a credible long-run plan? to cut the deficit, Merrill?s North American economist, Ethan Harris, wrote in a report. ?Hence, we expect at least one credit downgrade in late November or early December when the super committee crashes.?? On Friday, August 5, credit agency Standard and Poor?s issued the United States its first domestic credit downgrade in history.? After the downgrade, gold surged 13% to $1,880 in about two weeks.? Silver increased 10% to reach $43 in the same period.? If you apply these same percentages from where gold and silver were trading at during the time of Merrill Lynch?s warning, we could see gold trading at $1,850 in a couple weeks, while silver would reach $34.50.? Of course, the US has not received another credit downgrade yet, but if traders try to front run a possible downgrade, these appear to be quite reasonable price targets.
Although the US dollar continues to receive spurts of strength, mostly due to euro weakness, investors around the world are focusing on gold and silver as real safe-havens.? Earlier this month, the world?s first offshore yuan-denominated spot gold contracted started trading.? GoldCore explains that the move makes it ?more convenient for Chinese people and high net worth individuals holding yuan to invest in the precious metal and opens a new way to hedge.?? Furthermore, the move comes from a ?push by Chinese authorities for a more international role for its currency and as an alternate reserve currency to the embattled dollar and euro,? GoldCore said.? Meanwhile, the US is scrambling to find ways such as variable interest rates to make its debt look more appealing.? The Treasury is considering issuing $20 billion blocks of three-year floating notes, but has not released any further details.? Michael Pento, president of Pento Portfolio Strategies explains, ?America is just a very short time away from facing reality, and reality is going to be interest rates that rise due to overwhelming supply and inflation,? he says. ?People have forgotten about the debt debate in the US, but it?s coming back to the forefront very quickly.?
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Researchers ID genetic mutation associated with high risk of age-related macular degeneration
Monday, October 24, 2011
Age- related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe visual loss among the elderly. Researchers had previously identified several relatively common genetic variants which together predict a person's increased risk for AMD, but a significant number of persons without the disease also have these variants. Now, for the first time, investigators have been able to clearly show a specific rare mutation called CFH R1210C that predicts a very high risk of disease and is extremely uncommon among individuals who do not have the disease. Although it is a rare variant, accounting for about 1% of the total cases, it is highly related to familial disease and earlier age of onset. This research is published online and in an upcoming print edition of Nature Genetics. The paper is a collaborative effort between investigators from Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
"Our paper shows that there is a genetic variant that confers high risk of the development of AMD; this finding not only clearly links CFH gene dysfunction to disease, but also might help to identify people who need to be screened more closely," said first author, Soumya Raychaudhuri, MD, PhD, a researcher in the Divisions of Genetics and Rheumatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School.
Prior to this publication, it was known that genetic variation within the CFH gene influenced risk of AMD in individuals. In this study, researchers conducted sequencing and genotyping of CFH in 2,423 AMD cases and 1,122 controls in the laboratory of senior author Johanna M. Seddon, MD, ScM, Professor of Ophthalmology at Tufts University School of Medicine and Director of the Ophthalmic Epidemiology and Genetics Service at Tufts Medical Center. They identified a rare, high-risk mutation resulting in an arginine to cysteine substitution in the CFH protein. This mutation is associated with loss of function of the CFH protein and its discovery suggests that loss of CFH function can drive AMD risk. It was associated with advanced AMD with visual loss and many of the patients also had numerous drusen, which are the early hallmarks of AMD.
"The discovery of this rare but penetrant variant strongly associated with disease also points the way to developing new and effective treatments for high risk individuals," said Seddon.
Collaborators in this research included investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital and Johns Hopkins University.
###
Brigham and Women's Hospital: http://www.brighamandwomens.org
Thanks to Brigham and Women's Hospital for this article.
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The Broncos? 18-15 overtime win against the Dolphins defied all logic. It defied belief for anyone like myself that watched the complete game. It?s almost as if a higher power was involved. ?(Yes, that?s sarcasm.)
?Denver and Tebow have won!? CBS announcer Kevin Harlan cried as the Broncos game-winning field goal went through the upright.
Uh, no.
This game was about a lot more than Tebow, who looked incompetent for 55 minutes and brilliant for five. It was about a Dolphins organization imploding on itself. ?It was about Tebow and his Broncos teammates playing their best when they absolutely had to. It was about an onside kick.
Let us count the ridiculousness:
1. Tony Sparano went for a two-point conversion to open the fourth quarter in an effort to go up 14-0. ?Totally unnecessary. ?I said it in our newsroom at that moment: That moment will come back to haunt them.
The Dolphins threw a low percentage fade pass to Brandon Marshall. ?They later kicked a field goal to make it 15-0.
2. When Tim Tebow got the ball with just over five minutes left, the Broncos had all of 13 passing yards on the day. Tebow had four completions at the time. He had been sacked six times.
The previous six Broncos drives had combined to gain one first down.
When Tebow missed throws, he often missed them by 10-15 yards. ?The Broncos wouldn?t let him throw on third down. It was one of the worst 55 minutes of quarterback play I?ve ever seen. At one point, the crowd chanted ?Tebow sucks.? ?He didn?t remotely look like an NFL quarterback.
And then the Broncos rose from the ashes.
3. The Dolphins under Tony Sparano always seem to find a way to lose. ?It wouldn?t be a surprise if owner Stephen Ross let Sparano go after this one. Miami so often outplays its opponents, and finds a way to lose.
This loss, on a day the Dolphins celebrated the Florida championship team, marks one of the lowest points in Miami?s franchise history.
4. The Broncos won the game with back-to-back touchdown drives sandwiched by a successful onside kick. Tebow was accurate on those drives and made good decisions. His receivers ? Demaryius Thomas, Matt Willis, and Daniel Fells made fabulous catches for him.
5. The Broncos needed a two-point conversion to force overtime. The entire stadium knew the Broncos would spread out Miami and run Tebow up the middle. Except the Dolphins.
It was like Tebow and his offensive teammates flipped a stretch in the final five minutes. ?They closed. But let?s not make this all about Tebow.
6. Tebow?s teammates made huge plays, no bigger than Broncos linebacker D.J. Williams strip-sacking Matt Moore in overtime.
Even after all this magic, Broncos coach John Fox was still desperate to not let Tebow make a mistake. ?Denver went three-and-out on their first drive of overtime, including the seventh sack of Tebow.
After the Williams sack, Fox called three straight runs which gained two yards to set up a 52?yard field goal. ?It was a terrible decision by Fox that worked. ?Prater had missed two field goals on the day, but you knew this one was going through the uprights.
After all, it was Tim Tebow Florida Gator appreciation day in Miami.
Whether you made a mistake when setting it or you've been mind-wiped by aliens sometimes you just can't remember the PIN number or unlock pattern for your phone. Here are your options for getting back into your device.
Option One: Google's Official Method
Luckily, Android has a failsafe built-in. All you need to do is enter your passcode incorrectly five times. Once you do, you should see a new button pop up on the bottom of your screen that says "Forgot Passcode" (or something similar. Then, you should just be able to enter the Google credentials of the account attached to your phone and it'll prompt you to create a new passcode. Make sure you remember it this time?maybe even write it down and hide it?and you should be good to go. Of course, this assumes you remember your Google password, so it won't work for breaking into someone else's phone, nor will it work if you have full-blown amnesia. Sorry.
Option Two: Screen Lock Bypass
Unfortunately, the official Google method has been known to have some serious problems in the past?like, not working at all. If you find that this still doesn't let you into your device, you have another option. Free app Screen Lock Bypass will bypass your phone's lock screen every time you turn it on, so you don't need to type in your passcode anymore. However, it doesn't disable the passcode, it just bypasses it. We wouldn't recommend it as a long term solution, but you can use it to get back into your device and back up your apps before wiping it clean.
Just log into the Android Market's web interface and install the app to your device. Then, install one more app?it doesn't matter what app?and Screen Lock Bypass will automatically launch, letting you wake up your phone without a lock screen. It'll also launch itself whenever you reboot your phone, so you can turn your phone off and still access your data. Once again, you'll need your Google credentials to log into the web-based market, so evildoers and amnesiacs will not be able to use this method.
If you uninstall it, you'll have to deal with the lock pattern again, though, so like I said?now would be a good idea to back up your apps and wipe your phone.
You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and lurking around our #tips page. ?
Early HIV treatment dramatically increases survival in patients co-infected with tuberculosisPublic release date: 19-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Erin Tornatore erin.tornatore@childrens.harvard.edu 617-919-3110 Children's Hospital Boston
Cambodian study demonstrates that starting antiretroviral treatment two weeks, not two months, after TB treatment increases survival 33 percent
Boston, Mass. Timing is everything when treating patients with both HIV and tuberculosis. Starting HIV therapy in such patients within two weeks of TB treatment, rather than two months as is the current practice, increases survival by 33 percent, according to a large-scale clinical trial in Cambodia led by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and the Immune Disease Institute (IDI).
The study's results reported by Anne Goldfeld, MD, of the IDI and the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston, and the CAMELIA (Cambodian Early versus Late Introduction of Antiretrovirals) study team in the October 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine definitively show that immunosuppressed HIV-TB co-infected patients should be started on ART rapidly at two weeks after beginning TB therapy. At the same time, the results strongly suggest that the World Health Organization (WHO) should be more aggressive in its recommendations for treating such patients.
A collaboration of Cambodian, French, and American physicians and researchers, the CAMELIA trial set out to settle a long-standing debate in the medical community over the relative timing of antiretroviral (ART) and anti-TB treatment regimens in co-infected patients. Some have advocated for delaying ART for upwards of two months after initiating anti-TB treatment, arguing that the toxicity of and difficulties in adhering to the two regimens (which together require patients to take seven pills every day), as well as the risk of severe inflammation as the immune system rebounds from HIV's suppressive influence, create undue burden on patients. Those supporting early initiation of ART note that rapid restoration of immune function bolsters the effects of anti-TB treatment.
"Tuberculosis claims the lives of more than half a million people with HIV worldwide every year," said Goldfeld, who holds professorships in medicine at Harvard Medical School and immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard School of Public Health and is co-founder of the Cambodian Health Committee. "This is a tragedy, because TB is completely curable when diagnosed and treated properly even in a patient with advanced HIV, especially if the patient also receives anti-retroviral therapy."
The WHO, in its most recent guidelines, recommended that co-infected patients start ART as soon as possible within eight weeks of initiating anti-TB treatment, but at the time lacked any evidence-based research to provide more fine-grained guidance.
Upon enrollment in the CAMELIA trial, all participants started standard treatment for TB, followed either two weeks or two months later by ART. Patients, all of whom had very weak immune systems, were seen at one of five study sites across Cambodia and followed for as long as four and a half years. By the time enrollment closed, 661 patients had been recruited into the study.
The study's results make a very strong case for starting ART treatment as early as two weeks after initiating treatment for TB. At the end of the study, the survival rate in the early ART arm was 33 percent greater than that in the late ART arm.
The study was also remarkable for its successful level of follow up: Of the trial's 661 participants, only 12 were lost to follow-up over the study period, and participants only missed less than one percent of the study's 8,955 scheduled visits.
"When we started, there was no research infrastructure for conducting such a trial in Cambodia. ART was just being introduced into the country, and HIV and TB were not being treated in an integrated fashion," Goldfeld said. "As side benefits, over the course of the study we helped to establish a center of excellence for HIV and TB care, and a center for treating children with HIV. We also created a national framework in Cambodia for treating patients with multi-drug resistant TB, which is now being replicated in Ethiopia.
"We also want to understand how the immune system is restored when you give HIV drugs while treating TB at the same time," Goldfeld continued. "This trial has created an unprecedented opportunity to gain fundamental insights into the workings of the immune system in the context of HIV and TB. It has many fruits yet to bear."
###
The study, which was previously reported at the 18th Annual AIDS Meeting in Viennea in 2010, was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis.
Children's Hospital Boston is home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. More than 1,100 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 members of the Institute of Medicine and nine members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children's research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children's Hospital Boston today is a 396 bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care grounded in the values of excellence in patient care and sensitivity to the complex needs and diversity of children and families. Children's also is the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more information about research and clinical innovation at Children's, visit: http://vectorblog.org.
About the Cambodian Health Committee (CHC, www.cambodianhealthcommittee.org) / Global Health Committee (GHC, www.globalhealthcommittee.org):
Founded in Cambodia in 1994, with a base in Boston, CHC has treated and cured thousands of Cambodians of tuberculosis and provides HIV/AIDS care for thousands more. Its mission is to focus on adults and children who are suffering from tuberculosis (TB) and AIDS, who are among the poorest in our global society. Now also known as the Global Health Committee, it is bringing its unique delivery models of care for TB and AIDS, including access to care for multidrug resistant (MDR) TB, to Ethiopia. CHC/GHC operates from the core belief that good practice depends upon knowledge developed through grassroots experience and rigorous research. With its strategy of delivery of care, discovery of new knowledge, and advocacy, CHC/GHC is developing global models of care while curing TB and treating AIDS one person at a time.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Early HIV treatment dramatically increases survival in patients co-infected with tuberculosisPublic release date: 19-Oct-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Erin Tornatore erin.tornatore@childrens.harvard.edu 617-919-3110 Children's Hospital Boston
Cambodian study demonstrates that starting antiretroviral treatment two weeks, not two months, after TB treatment increases survival 33 percent
Boston, Mass. Timing is everything when treating patients with both HIV and tuberculosis. Starting HIV therapy in such patients within two weeks of TB treatment, rather than two months as is the current practice, increases survival by 33 percent, according to a large-scale clinical trial in Cambodia led by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and the Immune Disease Institute (IDI).
The study's results reported by Anne Goldfeld, MD, of the IDI and the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston, and the CAMELIA (Cambodian Early versus Late Introduction of Antiretrovirals) study team in the October 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine definitively show that immunosuppressed HIV-TB co-infected patients should be started on ART rapidly at two weeks after beginning TB therapy. At the same time, the results strongly suggest that the World Health Organization (WHO) should be more aggressive in its recommendations for treating such patients.
A collaboration of Cambodian, French, and American physicians and researchers, the CAMELIA trial set out to settle a long-standing debate in the medical community over the relative timing of antiretroviral (ART) and anti-TB treatment regimens in co-infected patients. Some have advocated for delaying ART for upwards of two months after initiating anti-TB treatment, arguing that the toxicity of and difficulties in adhering to the two regimens (which together require patients to take seven pills every day), as well as the risk of severe inflammation as the immune system rebounds from HIV's suppressive influence, create undue burden on patients. Those supporting early initiation of ART note that rapid restoration of immune function bolsters the effects of anti-TB treatment.
"Tuberculosis claims the lives of more than half a million people with HIV worldwide every year," said Goldfeld, who holds professorships in medicine at Harvard Medical School and immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard School of Public Health and is co-founder of the Cambodian Health Committee. "This is a tragedy, because TB is completely curable when diagnosed and treated properly even in a patient with advanced HIV, especially if the patient also receives anti-retroviral therapy."
The WHO, in its most recent guidelines, recommended that co-infected patients start ART as soon as possible within eight weeks of initiating anti-TB treatment, but at the time lacked any evidence-based research to provide more fine-grained guidance.
Upon enrollment in the CAMELIA trial, all participants started standard treatment for TB, followed either two weeks or two months later by ART. Patients, all of whom had very weak immune systems, were seen at one of five study sites across Cambodia and followed for as long as four and a half years. By the time enrollment closed, 661 patients had been recruited into the study.
The study's results make a very strong case for starting ART treatment as early as two weeks after initiating treatment for TB. At the end of the study, the survival rate in the early ART arm was 33 percent greater than that in the late ART arm.
The study was also remarkable for its successful level of follow up: Of the trial's 661 participants, only 12 were lost to follow-up over the study period, and participants only missed less than one percent of the study's 8,955 scheduled visits.
"When we started, there was no research infrastructure for conducting such a trial in Cambodia. ART was just being introduced into the country, and HIV and TB were not being treated in an integrated fashion," Goldfeld said. "As side benefits, over the course of the study we helped to establish a center of excellence for HIV and TB care, and a center for treating children with HIV. We also created a national framework in Cambodia for treating patients with multi-drug resistant TB, which is now being replicated in Ethiopia.
"We also want to understand how the immune system is restored when you give HIV drugs while treating TB at the same time," Goldfeld continued. "This trial has created an unprecedented opportunity to gain fundamental insights into the workings of the immune system in the context of HIV and TB. It has many fruits yet to bear."
###
The study, which was previously reported at the 18th Annual AIDS Meeting in Viennea in 2010, was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis.
Children's Hospital Boston is home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. More than 1,100 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 members of the Institute of Medicine and nine members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Children's research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Children's Hospital Boston today is a 396 bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care grounded in the values of excellence in patient care and sensitivity to the complex needs and diversity of children and families. Children's also is the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more information about research and clinical innovation at Children's, visit: http://vectorblog.org.
About the Cambodian Health Committee (CHC, www.cambodianhealthcommittee.org) / Global Health Committee (GHC, www.globalhealthcommittee.org):
Founded in Cambodia in 1994, with a base in Boston, CHC has treated and cured thousands of Cambodians of tuberculosis and provides HIV/AIDS care for thousands more. Its mission is to focus on adults and children who are suffering from tuberculosis (TB) and AIDS, who are among the poorest in our global society. Now also known as the Global Health Committee, it is bringing its unique delivery models of care for TB and AIDS, including access to care for multidrug resistant (MDR) TB, to Ethiopia. CHC/GHC operates from the core belief that good practice depends upon knowledge developed through grassroots experience and rigorous research. With its strategy of delivery of care, discovery of new knowledge, and advocacy, CHC/GHC is developing global models of care while curing TB and treating AIDS one person at a time.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NEW YORK ? Catholic and Jewish groups are condemning actress Susan Sarandon for referring to Pope Benedict XVI as a Nazi.
The head of the Catholic League says her comment was "obscene" and the Anti-Defamation League released a statement calling on the actress to apologize to the Catholic community for the "deeply offensive" remark.
Sarandon, who won an Academy Award for her role in the 1995 anti-death penalty film, "Dead Man Walking," made the comment during an interview Saturday at the Hamptons Film Festival on Long Island.
As first reported by Newsday, Sarandon said she gave a copy of the book on which the film is based to the German-born pope, referring to him as a Nazi.
A telephone call to Sarandon's representative asking for comment was not immediately returned.
GENEVA (Reuters) ? The total of people seeking asylum in industrialized countries rose by 17 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2010, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday.
It said the total for the year was likely to be more than double and the highest for eight years, partly reflecting crises in North Africa, the Ivory Coast and Somalia.
It put the number of asylum seekers from January to June at 420,000, up from 198,300 in the same period the previous year.
But in general the main flow came, as in past years, from Afghanistan, China, Serbia and breakaway Kosovo, Iraq and Iran, according to UNHCR's twice-yearly report, Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialized Countries.
Afghans made 15,300 claims, Chinese 11,700, Serbs and Kosovars 10,300, Iraqis 10,100 and Iranians 7,600, it said.
The agency stressed that the figures covered only applicants for refugee status, many of whom are turned down and sent back to their countries of origin, and not those eventually granted asylum.
They also do not include migrants, legal or illegal.
From January to June, the United States had far more applications than any other single industrialized country with a total of 36,400. France was next with 26,100, followed by Germany with 20,100, according to the report.
Sweden, with 12,600, was fourth and Britain -- where many mainstream politicians have been demanding stricter conditions for granting asylum -- was fifth with 12,200 applications.
In developed Asian countries Japan and South Korea, asylum applications also doubled but were at a much lower level, reaching 1,300 for the two together against 600 in the first half of 2010.
But Australia, which has toughened its asylum policies, and New Zealand saw a nearly 20 percent drop, from 6,300 last year for both to 5,100 in 2011, according to UNHCR
SATURDAY, Oct. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Many overweight and obese patients seen in hospital emergency departments don't believe their weight poses a risk to their health, and many say doctors have never told them otherwise, a new study finds.
Researchers asked 450 randomly selected patients who were seen in the emergency department at Shands at the University of Florida two questions: Do you believe your present weight is damaging to your health, and has a doctor or other health professional ever told you that you are overweight?
Of those who reported that their weight was unhealthy, only 19 percent said they'd ever discussed it with a health care provider. And only 30 percent of those who reported being told by their health care provider that their weight was unhealthy agreed with that opinion, according to the study.
Researchers also measured their body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference, indicators of body fat.
About 47 percent of obese and overweight men said they believed their weight was a problem, while 53 percent didn't.
Women seemed more attuned to the health issues posed by obesity, said study author Dr. Matthew Ryan, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at University of Florida, Gainesville. About 62 percent of obese or overweight women said their weight was damaging their health.
Among only obese people, or those with a BMI of 30 or above, about 70 percent said their weight wasn't good for their health. Still, that leaves three in 10 obese people who don't see their weight as a health issue -- which it clearly is, Ryan said.
"We see the manifestations of obesity in the emergency department. Obesity is directly linked to other diseases -- hypertension, diabetes, cancers, osteoarthritis, gallbladder disease, heart disease, strokes, and metabolic syndrome," Ryan said. "We see the acute exacerbations of chronic diseases."
Despite the health risks, only 36 percent of overweight or obese men and 50 percent of overweight/obese women reported their doctors had ever discussed weight with them.
"That is disconcerting," said Keri Gans, a registered dietician and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. "People need their physician to tell them straight out that if they don't lose weight they are putting themselves at an increased risk of disease. If they are not being told by the doctors, they might think, 'Oh, there is nothing to worry about.'"
The study was to be presented Saturday at the American College of Emergency Physicians meeting in San Francisco. Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Prior research has suggested a disconnect between Americans' weight and their perceptions about their size. A Harris Interactive/HealthDay survey of nearly 2,500 U.S. adults conducted in August 2010 found that 30 percent of those whose BMI put them in the overweight range (25 to 29.9) thought of themselves as normal size. About 70 percent of those who were obese thought they were merely overweight.
Among the morbidly obese, 39 percent thought of themselves as overweight, not obese, the survey found.
A second study Ryan is also slated to present at the conference found that the overweight and obese are being seen in disproportionate numbers in the emergency department.
About 39 percent of people seen in the Florida ER were obese, compared to an obesity rate of 26.6 percent for the general Florida adult population, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics.
Although researchers didn't look at whether obesity-related problems had sent them to seek emergency care, it's safe to assume some were, Ryan said, adding that he believes the numbers would be similar in other ERs.
His research found racial differences in attitudes toward weight. Among overweight and obese black Americans, 53 percent said their weight was bad for their health and 40 percent said doctors had discussed it with them. Among whites, 60 percent of the overweight and obese said their weight was bad for their health and 48 percent had it brought up by a doctor.
About 33 percent of study participants were black, 52 percent were white and the rest were other ethnicities.
Factors that could influence whether or not people discuss their weight with their doctors may include whether they have a primary care doctor or a regular source of care, something which researchers didn't ask. It's also possible that people are ashamed of having been told to lose weight and failing to do so, and so lied and said their doctor had never mentioned it, or simply that it "fell on deaf ears," Gans said.
Ryan recommends that patients leave the ER with referrals to dieticians and other weight-loss specialists, and that primary care doctors make sure to take the time to broach the issue with patients.
Gans agreed. Though emergency room physicians are pressed for time, when patients are sick and worried about their health may be an opportune moment to encourage changes.
"Unfortunately nothing happens until a patient becomes fearful," Gans said. "I see that all too often. I'll ask them, 'Do you need to wait until you have diabetes until you start to lose weight? Do you need to suffer a heart attack? And some people will actually say 'Yes.'"
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on overweight and obesity.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? A day after California prison officials declared a 3-week-old hunger strike by thousands of convicts over, an inmate advocacy group said on Friday that at least 150 prisoners were still refusing to eat.
The protest began at Pelican Bay State Prison in Northern California and spread to at least 4,000 inmates in seven other facilities at its height late last month, with prisoners demanding an end to what they called inhumane treatment.
Many of the grievances focused on the prison system's use of solitary confinement to enforce discipline and for what inmates say is a means of coercing them to "rat out" prison gang members.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced on Thursday the hunger strike had ended after prison officials agreed to review procedures by which certain convicts are classified as too dangerous for the general inmate population.
But inmate representatives later said that as of Friday 150 convicts were continuing their protest at two prisons because conditions in which they are held remained unaddressed.
"We know that there are people still going at Calipatria (State Prison) and Salinas Valley (State Prison)," said Isaac Ontiveros, a spokesman for the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition. "They have been clear that they are willing to keep going at great peril to their own health."
Corrections Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton denied this was true.
"The mass hunger strike ended yesterday," she said, adding that Calipatria's group gave up its protest by Wednesday. But she acknowledged that four Pelican Bay inmates were still refusing to eat because they did not believe the strike was over.
The weeks of tension coincided with California's implementation of a state-mandated plan to ease prison overcrowding by shifting responsibility for thousands of inmates and ex-convicts to county authorities.
An earlier round of protests originated at Pelican Bay in July and ended a few weeks later after corrections officials promised concessions. But the hunger strike resumed on September 26 and later spread to other prisons throughout the state.
At its peak, prison officials counted more than 4,200 inmates as participants, though prisoner rights groups said that as many as 12,000 convicts had at some point joined in refusing food.
Inmates were pressing a list of five demands -- an end to group punishments; an end to a "debriefing" policy that requires an inmate to identify fellow gang members in exchange for getting out of solitary confinement; an end to long-term solitary confinement; adequate and nutritious food; and greater privileges for prisoners confined to isolation indefinitely.
"If you're in the SHU (secure housing unit), there's an unwritten rule that the only ways you can get out are to make parole, debrief, or die," said Carol Strickman, an attorney for the group Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, which helped broker a deal to end the protests. "They want you to give it up ... to name names, rat out people."
Prison officials aim to modify their "secure housing unit admissions" policy by early 2012, Thornton said.
Whether you made a mistake when setting it or you've been mind-wiped by aliens sometimes you just can't remember the PIN number or unlock pattern for your phone. Here are your options for getting back into your device. 
Luckily, Android has a failsafe built-in. All you need to do is enter your passcode incorrectly five times. Once you do, you should see a new button pop up on the bottom of your screen that says "Forgot Passcode" (or something similar. Then, you should just be able to enter the Google credentials of the account attached to your phone and it'll prompt you to create a new passcode. Make sure you remember it this time?maybe even write it down and hide it?and you should be good to go. Of course, this assumes you remember your Google password, so it won't work for breaking into someone else's phone, nor will it work if you have full-blown amnesia. Sorry.
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Public release date: 19-Oct-2011
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