In Women, Training for a Sharper Mind

In particular, older women and strength training:

Older women who did an hour or two of strength training exercises each week had improved cognitive function a year later, scoring higher on tests of the brain processes responsible for planning and executing tasks, a new study has found.
...
A year later, the women who did strength training had improved their performance on tests of so-called executive function by 10.9 percent to 12.6 percent, while those assigned to balance and toning exercises experienced a slight deterioration — 0.5 percent. The improvements in the strength training group included an enhanced ability to make decisions, resolve conflicts and focus on subjects without being distracted by competing stimuli.

Just eat real food

I can't even follow the news on health care anymore, it is too pathetic. So instead, I will post on other matters.

Like: too much salt is bad for you. Oh, oops, it isn't! Wait, now it is.

Whatever. Just eat real food and stop eating most processed food-stuff (especially anything designed to have a longer shelf-life), and you'll probably be fine.

New Years Surprise

Introducing the newest member of the Seward-Smith-Yates (!?) Family:

Encore! Encore!

pork in a petri disk

Pork in a petridish: Experts turn stem cells into meat

but will vegetarians eat this kind of meat?

in the future, will people grow meat in their basements?

who knew?

Q: who will soon be the largest employer in Kenya?
A: 'txteagle'

the article is about the future of office work, and only describes txteagle in the beginning of the article, but nonetheless a surprising factoid (to me anyway).

here's a link to txteagle

Google's new approach to China

Could spell the end of Google in China. Good for them to no longer support censorship.

[update] thought i'd counter-balance this a bit:

Moral Bankruptcy

Stiglitz asks Why are we letting Wall Street off so easy?

Shorter Harper

Damned deomcracy make a country so unstable!

To justify his poroging of parliment (shutting it down), Harper, the PM of Canada argues taht he is just concerned about market stability!

In fact, he said it's when Parliament is sitting that Canada's stability comes into question. That's when "the games begin," he said, and his minority Conservative government faces the constant threat of defeat and an election.

"As soon as Parliament comes back, we're in a minority Parliament situation and the first thing that happens is a vote of confidence and there will be votes of confidence and election speculation for every single week after that for the rest of the year," he said.

"That's the kind of instability I think that markets are actually worried about. But you know the government will be well-prepared and I think Canadians want to see us focus on the economy."

Reminds me of Bush's quip:

"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked.

Watching TV shortens life span, study finds

Not only that, you can't get that time back!

Researchers found that each hour a day spent watching TV was linked with an 18% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, an 11% greater risk of all causes of death, and a 9% increased risk of death from cancer.

Reports on Copenhagen

And it ain't pretty.

Interview with German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen: 'China Doesn't Want to Lead, and the US Cannot'

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
...
Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

WTF?

Imagine the sh*t-storm if you interchanged those two religions around.