Running can slow aging process

Regular running slows the effects of aging claim scientists who tracked 500 running grannies for more than 20 years. The study found people who run are less likely to have disabilities in old age and will on average live longer than their non running OAP friends. In 1984 researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine started following 538 over 50s who ran average of about four hours a week. Fast forward 20 years and while 15 percent of the running grannies are dead, this figure is 34 percent in a control sample of non runners. The runners - now in their 70s and 80s - were also found to be living higher-quality lives and more able to perform everyday activities.On average both groups in the study became more disabled after 20 years of aging, but for runners the onset of disability started later with initial disability kicking in 16 years later than non-runners. "The study has a very pro-exercise message," said James Fries, MD, an emeritus professor of medicine at the medical school and the study’s senior author. "If you had to pick one thing to make people healthier as they age, it would be aerobic exercise." The OAP runners admitted the time they spent running each week had dropped from four hours to just 76 minutes ... and for some of them it now takes that long to to put their running shoes on...NewsLite

Running May Help You Live Longer and Healthier

Run for your life! It is never too late to start running, a new study finds. Running may help you to not only live longer, but also live free of disabilities. The study, performed by Stanford University School of Medicine, studied the benefits of running. The researchers based their study on two groups of people 50 and older, a group of runners and non-runners that were monitored for over two decades. Based on the study, if you aren't running already you may want to start. Running helped to widen the gap between the abilities of those in the running group and the non-running group, researchers found. The initial onset of disabilities, were seen 16 years later in the runners, than seen in the non-runners group. The study's senior author James Fries, MD, was surprised that the gap between runners and non-runners even continued to widen as participants reached their 90's, but felt the results may have been a result of the runners' lean body mass and healthier habits, in comparison to the non-runners.Researchers collected yearly questionnaires from the 538 runners and 423 non-runners that helped to explain their ability to perform daily activities, such as bathing, dressing, and walking. The questionnaire also asked questions in regards to their ability to grip objects and maneuver out of a chair. After nineteen years into the study, when most participants would have been in their 70's, the national death records indicated that only 15 percent of the runners had passed away, but 34 percent of the non-runners had passed away. During the beginning of the study, the runners were averaging around four hours a week running and by the end of the study their time running decreased to only around a quarter of that time. Though their time spent running decreased drastically, researchers still saw benefits from running. The study's senior author James Fries, M.D., stated "The study has a very pro-exercise message. If you had to pick one thing to make people healthier as they age, it would be aerobic exercise." Exercise seems to be very beneficial in promoting healthy living. Many doctors recommend some form of exercise for all ages, but in the elderly it is recommended to help stay mobile and independent, as well as promote a healthy heart, lower stress, help with weight problems, and it may even help with sleep problems. The study not only determined that exercise decreased disabilities as we grow older, but running also reduced deaths caused from cardiovascular problems. Regular running also decreased early deaths from cancer, heath disease, and even Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases, the study found...HealthNews

Prescriptions for Health, the Environmental Kind

In a bright studio at New York University, Natalie Jeremijenko welcomes visitors to her environmental health clinic. She wears a white lab coat with a rotated red cross on the pocket. A clipboard with intake forms hangs by the door. Inside, circuit boards, respirators, light bulbs, bike helmets and books on green design clutter the high shelves. In front of a bamboo consultation desk sits a mock medicine cabinet, which turns out to be filled with power tools. Dr. Jeremijenko, an Australian artist, designer and engineer, invites members of the public to the clinic to discuss personal environmental concerns like air and water quality. Sitting at the consultation desk, she also offers them concrete remedies or “prescriptions” for change, much as a medical clinic might offer prescriptions for drugs. “It’s a widely familiar script,” said Dr. Jeremijenko, 41, who has a doctorate in engineering and is an assistant professor of visual art at N.Y.U. “People know how to ring up and make an appointment at their health clinic. But they don’t really know what to do about toxins in the air and global warming, right? “So the whole thing is how do we translate the tremendous amount of anxiety and interest in addressing major environmental issues into something concrete that people can do whose effect is measurable and significant?” Visitors to the clinic talk about an array of concerns, including contaminated land, polluted indoor air and dirty storm-water runoff. Dr. Jeremijenko typically gives them a primer on local environmental issues, especially the top polluters in their neighborhoods. Then she offers prescriptions that include an eclectic mix of green design, engineering and art — window treatments, maybe, or sunflowers, tadpoles or succulents. “People are frustrated by their inability to cope with environmental problems in their apartments and their neighborhoods,” said George Thurston, a professor of environmental medicine at New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Jeremijenko, he continued, “provides a service that’s needed, educating people about what they’re up against and showing them that they can do something themselves while waiting for larger societal solutions.” Dr. Jeremijenko has worked with scores of individuals and community groups since starting the clinic last fall. “I call them impatients,” she said — meaning that they don’t want to wait for legislative action...NYT

Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions

When Howard D. Schultz in 1985 founded the company that would become the wildly successful Starbucks chain, no financial adviser had to tell him that coffee was America’s leading beverage and caffeine its most widely used drug. The millions of customers who flock to Starbucks to order a double espresso, latte or coffee grande attest daily to his assessment of American passions. Although the company might have overestimated consumer willingness to spend up to $4 for a cup of coffee — it recently announced that it would close hundreds of underperforming stores — scores of imitators that now sell coffee, tea and other products laced with caffeine reflect a society determined to run hard on as little sleep as possible. But as with any product used to excess, consumers often wonder about the health consequences. And researchers readily oblige. Hardly a month goes by without a report that hails coffee, tea or caffeine as healthful or damns them as potential killers. Can all these often contradictory reports be right? Yes. Coffee and tea, after all, are complex mixtures of chemicals, several of which may independently affect health. Caffeine Myths Through the years, the public has been buffeted by much misguided information about caffeine and its most common source, coffee. In March the Center for Science in the Public Interest published a comprehensive appraisal of scientific reports in its Nutrition Action Healthletter. Its findings and those of other research reports follow. Hydration. It was long thought that caffeinated beverages were diuretics, but studies reviewed last year found that people who consumed drinks with up to 550 milligrams of caffeine produced no more urine than when drinking fluids free of caffeine. Above 575 milligrams, the drug was a diuretic. So even a Starbucks grande, with 330 milligrams of caffeine, will not send you to a bathroom any sooner than if you drank 16 ounces of pure water. Drinks containing usual doses of caffeine are hydrating and, like water, contribute to the body’s daily water needs...NYT

To Stretch or Not to Stretch? The Answer Is Elastic

They’re like one of my running partners, Claire Brown, a 35-year-old triathlete. “I always feel like, well, athletes should do yoga,” Claire said. “It’s supposed to be really good for running, and when I do it regularly, it does loosen up my hips and make me feel better for running.” Yet she puts off going to yoga. “It shouldn’t feel like an obligation, but it always does,” Claire said. “The good classes are often an hour and a half long, and I’m thinking: ‘I could be running, I could be biking. But here I am, stretching and breathing.’ “Isn’t it funny, though, that something that should be calming can actually cause stress because you think you have to do it?” For the bottom line on stretching, there is an official government review by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in the March 2004 issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Its conclusion, that the research to date is inadequate to answer most stretching questions, still holds. The best that Dr. Julie Gilchrist, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and one of the study’s authors, can offer is a few guidelines and observations about why studies have yet to answer the stretching questions...NYT

Bill Gates: Privacy a 'challenge' as software advances

As software gets more powerful, privacy issues pose an "interesting software challenge," says Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. Recounting a short history of software development, Gates said innovations in natural interaction technology are making technology more pervasive. "When interaction gets more natural, computers can be everywhere to listen to you," he said, adding that "society will have to have more explicit rules" governing privacy boundaries around software as technology develops. Gates was speaking here to mark the 10th anniversary of Microsoft Research Asia, one of the software giant's research arms. Explaining the company's focus on software research and development, he said its $7 billion investment in that direction is necessary to push innovation in a market that is "increasingly software driven." "Even in a field like astronomy, it's not just looking through an eyepiece but testing theories, and software lets you do that," he said. Noting that software is extending beyond PCs, Gates said mobile software is a market that is growing rapidly in importance. He added: "Mobile phones are increasingly becoming software-driven platforms, although they were just for voice before." But it is a hardware innovation that will make mobiles more accessible for high-end functions. Amid developments in phone processors and mobile applications, it is screen technology that holds the key to bridging the divide between mobile devices and PCs, Gates noted. "As we get screens that can roll or fold out to be bigger, or mobile devices that have small screens but can project larger images on walls, that line between what's a PC and a mobile will keep getting grayer," Gates said. Another device that is expected to overlap with PC capabilities is the TV, he noted. "Software innovation will be pervasive; it will happen to other things in our lives, like our cars and our TVs," he said. Microsoft is working to place its R&D efforts in speech recognition technology to make TV watching more interactive, according to Gates. In a demonstration shortly after his address, a Microsoft executive showcased a TV that was pulling a video clip from the Internet. He performed a search through the video content by way of speech recognition. This provides more comprehensive search results beyond current methods of running a text query through a video's title and summary, Beyond these developments, more important for the developing world is in putting computers within reach, he added. "Digital access is almost becoming like literacy...Children in poor countries need to get it too," Gates said...CNET

Intel 'Turbo Memory' tries to speed up Windows

Intel's newest version of Turbo Memory is trying to do what Windows doesn't do: transparently optimize Windows for flash memory storage. At the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, Calif., Intel will be demonstrating its latest version of Turbo Memory based on flash memory to accelerate application performance in Windows. Intel is offering a "dashboard" for Windows that allows the user to choose and control which applications or files are loaded into the Intel Turbo Memory cache (based on flash memory chips) for performance acceleration. Intel calls this "User pinning." Custom pinning profiles can be created to pin applications or files that match the user's activity, according to Intel. Data intensive programs, gaming, digital media editing and productivity software are examples of applications that will see the most benefit, according to Intel. Intel is trying to address a longstanding shortcoming of Windows: its inability to take full advantage of flash storage devices. "There are issues related to taking full advantage of the speed of a (flash drive)," said Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, in an interview at the Flash Memory Summit. Avi Cohen, managing partner at Avian Securities, said he believes this should be an innate part of the operating system. "The more interesting way is to have it built into the operating system," said Cohen. "I don't think it gains much traction because I don't think users want to sit there and start selecting what goes where," he said. "It was a valiant effort by Intel to accelerate the move toward solid state on PC," Cohen added. Winslow, however, said that Intel "has shipped million of units" of Turbo Memory and that he expects some notebook makers to integrate it into high-end lines. Interestingly, Windows Vista does have a feature called "ReadyBoost" that can "use storage space on some removable media devices, such as USB flash drives, to speed up your computer," according to Microsoft documentation. This documentation can also be found in "Windows Help and Support" as part of any copy of Vista...CNET

Olympic Games take the gold in the workplace

Olympic Games in Beijing is proving to be a hit in the workplace. Traffic to Olympics-related Web sites soared Monday, the first full workday after the official opening of the games Friday, according to numbers released Wednesday by Nielsen Online. More than 2 million people visited the video section of NBCOlympics.com, up nearly 140 percent from Sunday when the site had about 858,000 visitors, according to Nielsen. Overall visits to the site increased 40 percent to 4.6 million compared with Sunday's 3.3 million. Traffic to Yahoo's Olympics site also skyrocketed, up 86 percent to 5.2 million visitors compared with Sunday's 2.8 million. Mobile usage also saw a significant boost, increasing from 210,000 on Friday to 476,062 on Monday. NBC, which said it polled users, said it was "stunned" at the number of users who were using mobile video download for the first time. Meanwhile, Nielsen Media Research reported that NBC's TV coverage averaged more than 30 million viewers for the first three days of the games, a 26 percent increase compared with the same period during the Athens Games in 2004. The opening ceremony was last week's most-watched program, attracting nearly 35 million viewers. As well as NBC is doing both on TV and on online, it begs the question of whether NBC's policy of delaying popular events online until they have run on TV in prime time was a wise move or overly restrictive...CNET

China Steps Up Scrutiny of a Minority in Beijing

Every morning at 9 a.m., they are at his door. The police come to the small room the young Uighur cook shares with several other Uighurs to check their papers — and to see if there are new arrivals from his homeland of Xinjiang. He has lived here for six years, peaceably and happily. But in the days preceding the Olympics, things changed. The police had been watching him even before recent violent attacks in Xinjiang but when the Chinese authorities began to warn that a Uighur separatist group was trying to disrupt the Games, the scrutiny intensified. The Olympic opening ceremony contained traditional Uighur song and dance. But most of the several thousand Uighurs who work here have left. The Uighurs are an ethnic group of Turkic-speaking Muslims who live in China’s far west. Most who are in Beijing come to make money for a time and then ride a two-day train back to Xinjiang. Many longtime Uighur residents here own halal kebab restaurants. Seasonal workers sell sweet melons grown in the oasis towns along the western deserts, or peddle fruitcakes from rickshaws. In recent weeks, Uighur assailants have been involved in three separate attacks, with targets including border police officers, government buildings and a Xinjiang checkpoint. Because of the increasing tension, some Uighurs interviewed in recent weeks requested anonymity and others gave only a first name. In a neighborhood of warehouses and foreign textile traders, Muslims come to a small mosque to pray. “The Uighurs all went home,” said Ma Yiqing, 55, a Chinese Muslim from the northwestern province of Gansu, standing in the mosque’s courtyard after evening prayers. “During the Olympics, they are getting squeezed tighter.” A young Uighur from central Xinjiang also works in the neighborhood. He has spent most of his life in Beijing, and, unlike some Uighurs, he has grown accustomed to life among Han Chinese. He has Han Chinese friends. His Mandarin is colloquial. He wants to learn Russian, too, so he can do business with traders in the neighborhood. Beijing is his town. Now he has become a target of surveillance, it appears, because of his ethnic background. “There must be some misunderstanding,” he said. Officers often check his identification. Recently he was detained for several hours because he was not carrying his identification, he said. Because he has a steady job he has been allowed to stay, while Uighur traders have disappeared. “It’s not fair,” he said. “They were here to do business — not to attack the Olympics.” Many Han Chinese support the security measures that have included encouraging migrants to leave town. They say it is China’s duty to protect foreign dignitaries during their stay. China has labeled Uighur separatist groups as the top threat to the Games...NYT

Yahoo - Fire Eagle

Yahoo executive Tom Coates recently went to England and rendezvoused with more than 100 random friends who just happened to be in Old Blighty as well. Coates found them thanks to Fire Eagle, a new database service Yahoo launched Tuesday. Fire Eagle scoops up real-world location information the way Web crawlers swallow Web pages and dishes it out to whatever services an individual selects. It is an open platform that will hook up data providers with application makers all over the world. ''Fire Eagle is designed to make every site on the Web, everything that is connected to the network, 'geoaware,'" Coates said. Right now, Fire Eagle is part of the technology behind just a handful of services, including Dopplr, a social network for frequent travelers, and Pownce, an e-mail substitute. But in the future, it could feed information about where you are and where you have been to everything from Internet search engines to coupon providers to your employer or HMO — if you let it. Geolocation services tend to alarm privacy advocates because they make it trivially easy to track individuals and could endanger people who are vulnerable to abuse, such as women who are trying to escape domestic violence. "For individuals who do not want their location to be known, these services could be harmful," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Coates, who heads product development at Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator, where Fire Eagle was born, said the service is designed to protect users by giving them control of who can see what information, by allowing them to hide and by making it easy for them to delete their data from Fire Eagle.But critics wonder if users will realize that copies of their data will be stored by virtually every application that connects into Fire Eagle as well, making it extremely difficult for anyone to completely erase their tracks...Mercury

Olympics Are A Waste Of Money

Communist regime has spent billions on lavish sports venues, the world's biggest airport terminal, and a huge security operation. All this while sweatshop conditions are widespread and millions are still homeless after May's deadly earthquake in the region. Of course, the official line is the country’s 1.3 billion people are delighted that the Games have arrived. And the groundswell of pride and nationalist fervour in China is obvious. But privately there is anger from some that the leadership continues to declare that running a successful Games is its "number one priority". Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, some in the capital told Sky News the money would have been better spent on helping the country's poor. A 21-year-old student, gazing out across the futuristic cityscape at the "Bird's Nest" centrepiece, said: "It's terrible the money they wasted. "Millions of people live and work in terrible conditions, but the government doesn't think of them. "They have spent our taxes on buildings – and who does it help? It does nothing for the people of this country." A taxi driver, who has family in the impoverished Guizhou province, said: "It’s all for Beijing – but what about the rest of the country? "What about those who lost their homes in the earthquake? What about the people who try to feed their families and send their children out to work?"...Sky

Social Networking Sees Worldwide Growth

Facebook, MySpace and Friendster are all seeing significant growth in their subscriber base -- just not in the United States. According to a report conducted by comScore, a company that measures online digital growth, world-wide growth of social networks has grown by 25 percent, compared to just nine percent in the United States. The region driving the most growth in adapting social networks like Facebook and MySpace is classified as The Middle East-Africa region. In June 2007, comScore recorded 18,226,000 unique visitors in that region. In June 2008 that number jumped to 30,197,000 unique visitors, a jump of 66 percent from the previous year. While North American social network users may have been early Friendster, MySpace and Facebook adopters, the domestic numbers have leveled off. Compared to the Middle East-Africa region, North American network growth was recorded at nine percent. "While the social networking trend first took off in North America, it is beginning to reach a point of maturity in the region," said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. "However, the phenomenon is still growing rapidly in other regions around the world -- especially as the established American brands turn their focus to developing markets."...CRN

Beijing Olympics 2008 - Chinese Join World Record Swimming Fun

Before Thursday, the National Aquatic Center was a source of national pride for its unique, bubble-wrap architecture. The exploits were largely by foreigners, chief among them American Michael Phelps, who has treated the pool at the so-called Water Cube as if it sat in his back yard in Maryland. Yet Thursday morning, over the final length of the pool, entire sections of the crowd stood, waving red Chinese flags. One Chinese swimmer, Liu Zige, was under world record pace in the women's 200-meter butterfly. Here came another, Jiao Liuyang. Suddenly, Australian favorite Jessicah Schipper was an afterthought. Suddenly, at the fastest swimming meet in history, the home team finally had its moment -- gold and silver, and another world record. On the only day when Phelps didn't swim for what could be a total of eight medals, Liu's world-record swim of 2 minutes 4.18 seconds -- more than a second better than Schipper's old mark -- injected the competition with a new electricity. The morning was capped with a world record for Australia, and a third gold for Stephanie Rice, in the women's 4x200-meter relay, a race in which the United States team, anchored by Katie Hoff, took bronze behind China's silver...WP

Rice says Russia faces isolation

US secretary of state has warned Russia that it risks isolation abroad if does not observe a ceasefire with Georgia and withdraw its troops. "We expect Russia to meet its commitment to cease all military activities in Georgia," she said. Condoleezza Rice is to visit France for talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy, who currently chairs the EU, before visiting Georgia itself on Friday. The US has begun delivering aid by air to the ex-Soviet republic. Washington is showing unwavering support for Georgia in its conflict with Russia, a BBC correspondent notes. Russian forces briefly moved out of the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia on Wednesday to destroy military hardware at an abandoned Georgian military base in the nearby town of Gori. Thousands of Russian troops remain in South Ossetia since they drove out a Georgian force which tried to regain control of the de facto independent province in a surprise attack one week ago. They are also deployed in force in Abkhazia, Georgia's other breakaway province, where separatists ejected Georgia's remaining troops this week. Dispatching Ms Rice to Europe, President George W Bush called on Moscow to withdraw its forces from Georgian territory...BBC

Hollywood tickled by 'Tropic Thunder'

The industry crowd at Monday's "Tropic Thunder" preem proved they can certainly take a joke, even when the joke is on them.New Regency's Hutch Parker said the pic "nails it as an action comedy while also delivering on the highest level as a satire of the movie culture." Tom Sherak said the film was "so well cast, it's scary." One industry lawyer said, "Some of the movie stuff is inside, but it's fun to watch Tom Cruise swear." Another attendee noted Robert Downey Jr.'s Oscar-winning-Aussie-doing-blackface role and said, "I wonder if Russell Crowe will see it?" And while developmental disability activists were picketing outside the Village Theater over the use of the word "retard" in the script, a number of guests joked that it's SAG that should be protesting because if anyone gets ridiculed, it's the thesps. Producer Stuart Cornfeld said he saw industry reaction this way: "Hollywood understands it's walking through the room larger than life and loves to see itself as a backdrop for comedy."... Link

Co-workers who drive you crazy

For many people, bad habits are unconscious. Does he know that his obnoxious cell phone talking is driving you nuts? Experts say to address the issue quickly. John might not realize that clipping his fingernails in the lunchroom is repulsive. Suzy is clueless that coffee was not made to be slurped, and Ed doesn't know that showering only three times per week is unhygienic (and stinky!). Let's be honest: Nobody's perfect; not even you. Results from a recent MSN Zogby data poll show that 20 percent of workers say their co-workers have at least one habit that drives them crazy. So while your co-worker might have a more obvious bothersome tendency (like always talking on speakerphone), maybe your constant complaining about everyone else's behaviors has the same effect. In fact, 15 percent of workers agreed their co-workers' constant complaining drives them crazy, and 13 percent say colleagues passing off their work is frustrating, according to the poll. Other irritants included gossip, talking too much and eating smelly food. "You really only have one option when it comes to being annoyed by a fellow employee," says Donna Flagg, president of The Krysalis Group, a business and management consulting firm in New York City. "Simply let your co-worker know how you feel and politely ask them if they would mind curtailing their annoying habit.""The sooner you address an issue you have with a co-worker, the more likely you are to be willing to work with the other person to resolve the issue," she says. "The longer the issue exists, the more you tend to be resentful of it." We asked our readers to tell us what drives them nuts about their co-workers. Here are a few of the most aggravating habits we found: • "I have an employee who is a Packers fan; I am a Bears fan. Every once in a while, I receive an e-mail that varies from photos of Brett Favre or just plain text that says, 'PACK.' It drives me nuts, and I have to pretend it doesn't bother me one bit." -- Gini D., Chicago, Illinois* • "Sharing an office with somebody who just cruises the Web all day long and adds no value to client work." -- Noah B., Washington, D.C. • "I have a co-worker who doesn't bathe nor wash her clothes and subsequently smells. I bought a bottle of Febreeze, which I frequently spray on the fabric-covered chairs and carpet. She also drinks beverages and regularly spills or leaves coffee rings on the console or computer and doesn't bother to clean it up; so I also bought a bottle of Windex cleaner and brought in rags to clean up the messes before I do my shift. In addition, she throws away her used tissues and often misses the garbage can, leaving them on the floor for "whomever" to pick them up. She NEVER misses work, so whenever she is sick, she coughs all over the microphone, uses the computer mouse and presses the buttons with her germy hands; so I bought a container of Antiseptic wipes to wipe down the console and mics to try to prevent illness. Her office should be condemned." -- Karen W., Mankato, Minnesota. • "I have a co-worker who I've worked with for more than 10 years. She slurps her coffee -- all day. I'm not sure if she just loves coffee so much that she can't wait for it to cool or what, but she dives in and sluuuuurrrpps every drink until it's gone. It drives me crazy." -- Corinne Z., Avon, Massachussetes. • "I had an employee who used to scratch her back using her ruler. Sometimes she'd stare at her cube mates. My colleagues would come and tell me this, and I wouldn't have a clue how to deal with it. We both quickly realized this company wasn't a good fit for her and she left a couple of months later. To this day, some of my former colleagues remind me of my back-scratching and staring employee and wonder what happened to basic etiquette." -- Megy K., Chicago, Illinois. • "So, I sit next to this crazy woman. She talks to herself out loud as if someone is going to join in her conversation, which they don't. Anytime a co-worker comes to my desk to ask a question, or just to chat, she feels the need to interrupt my conversation and make it about her every time. She eavesdrops on other co-workers if they have an issue with their own work; she complains about the light over her desk being too bright and made another co-worker loosen the bulb above her desk so it's not 'shining right on her head.'... CNN

5 symptoms men shouldn't ignore

Ask doctors if their male patients ignore big and obvious health symptoms, and they'll respond with laughter -- huge peals and guffaws. Some doctors say men are more likely than women to ignore symptoms or deny that they even exist. Once they regain the ability to speak, these doctors will say things such as "I don't even know where to start," and "You don't have enough room in your story for all the symptoms men blow off." Conventional wisdom, they say, is true. Women listen to their bodies and go to the doctor when something isn't right. Men tend to seek medical attention when they're at death's door -- or when their wives prod them into going. "I think it's a macho thing," says Dr. Barron Lerner, professor of medicine and public health at Columbia University. "Or maybe it's denial. Maybe they think if they deny a problem, it doesn't exist." "I call it the ostrich phenomenon," says Dr. Harvey Simon, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and editor of the Harvard Men's Health Watch newsletter. "Guys are very prone to sticking their head in the sand and hoping when they emerge everything will be back to normal. It's a very, very bad idea."While the list, according to these physicians, is endless, here are the top five symptoms men ignore -- sometimes until it's too late. 1. Chest pain You'd think this would be the last thing a man would ignore, but our men's health experts say it happens all the time. "They think, 'Oh, I'm just out of shape, or I'm having a little indigestion, or I'm under pressure,'" says Dr. Joseph Scherger, a clinical professor of family medicine at the University of California, San Diego. "It's quite classic for men to do that." Simon says, "I tell my medical students that the most common symptoms of a heart attack is chest pain, and the second most common one is denial." Bottom line: Anyone experiencing chest tightness, chest pain or shortness of breath needs medical attention. 2. A big belly "Belly fat is the worst fat you can have," says Dr. Harry Fisch, a professor of clinical urology at Columbia. "A big belly is a sign a man has low testosterone levels. And the lower the testosterone, the greater the risk of diabetes and coronary artery disease." While a woman might go on every diet in the world to lose weight, men often have a different solution: They lower their belts. "I've had men say to me, 'See, my pants size hasn't changed.' I say, 'Baloney. Your belly is still there. It's just above your belt,' " says Simon... CNN

Power of Praise

Positive reinforcement works — on children, on work colleagues, even on pets So why don’t you use it on yourself? Take a moment to revel in your own successes and those of others, says life coach Gail Blanke. Everyone will feel better for it.“Good girl to sit!” “Good girl to come!” “Good girl to tinkle outside!” “What a good girl! Yes, you are!” That’s me talking or, rather, cooing, clucking, and sometimes shrieking to our golden retriever, Willa. Willa is 10 months old, breathtakingly gorgeous, and nothing short of a total terror. To say that she has a mind of her own is like saying Rosie O’Donnell is more or less opinionated. She is our third golden (golden-retriever owners refer to their dogs as “goldens”), and although both of her predecessors were greathearted, neither was known for being particularly well behaved. In fact, Molly, whose paws Willa hopes to fill, never did stop jumping up on people, grabbing hors d’oeuvres out of guests’ hands, stealing whole chickens off the kitchen counter, or pulling my arm out of its socket when she was on the leash. “This one will be different,” I said when we picked up the seven-week-old dumpling Willa from the breeder. “Yeah, right,” said our older daughter, Kate. Although Kate lives on her own now, she was already anticipating bringing friends to our apartment and having them knocked to the ground by what would undoubtedly be, judging from Willa’s giant puppy feet, a very, very large golden. “Well, I have a book that tells you how to train a golden-retriever puppy,” I said, “and the key thing is positive reinforcement.” Kate looked even more dubious. I continued, “It says that you have to keep catching her doing something right — not something wrong — and praising her. You’re supposed to start each sentence with ‘good girl’ for whatever good thing she does and make a big fuss over her.” “Hey, go ahead and try it,” Kate said. “You sure don’t have anything to lose.” So I started using the “good girl” method of training, and you know what? It works. A few nights ago, my husband was standing outside calling Willa, but she wouldn’t come. “Willa, come — darn you!” he said. “Watch this — I’ll get her,” I said. I yelled, “Willa! Good girl to come! Good girl!” and she came flying down the hill behind our house and into my arms... RealSimple

Pondering Windows XP's demise

While Windows XP will soon become scarcer on PCs and drop entirely from retail shelves, the fact of the matter is that the software is going to be a mainstay--particularly in businesses--for some time. Microsoft can wave its magic wand and force PC makers to stop offering the operating system, but corporations have a lot more leeway. Microsoft's influence is considerably less when it comes to convincing businesses to upgrade or swaying developers to write Vista-specific programs. Still, the end of XP sales by big-name computer makers is an important symbolic step for Microsoft as it tries to convince even Vista's critics that the operating system is really the only Windows game in town. It also helps Microsoft in the all-important numbers game. Vista actually has a fair amount of features that could be exploited by developers. Under the covers, the operating system has a new graphics engine, a peer-to-peer mechanism, and other features that really only come to light when developers start targeting them. The problem is that, so far, there's been darn little Vista-specific software. The best examples I've been able to find in more than a year's time are a new version of Print Shop and a Vista-specific incarnation of Yahoo Messenger. A new study says that Vista is still attracting very little developer attention, a point that underscores Microsoft's need to nudge the discussion away from Windows XP. For more on the subject, check out this video in which I discuss the matter with News.com colleague Charlie Cooper in our Daily Debrief video talking about that issue, as well as a report that Vista is still not attracting very many developers... CNET

Windows XP era draws to a close

After a long-announced transition, June 30 marks the end of an era at Microsoft. Well, really it's the end of two eras. Most people think of Bill Gates, of course, and I'll have plenty more to say about his impending shift to part-time work in the coming days. But another epoch is also really coming to an end--that of Windows XP. Windows XP: Get it while you can. (Credit: Microsoft)As of June 30, large PC makers will no longer be able to sell Windows XP-based PCs, at least on mainstream notebooks and desktops. Retailers will also have only until their current supply is exhausted to sell boxed copies of the operating system. Despite a brief "Save XP" movement (and continued criticism of Windows Vista from many corners), it appears that Microsoft is not going to change the deadline, which is now just two weeks away. Although XP will disappear as an option for most computer buyers, the operating system will live on in several key ways. • XP will be available on PCs from smaller computer makers known as "system builders" until January 31, 2009. • XP will be available for so-called ultra-low-cost-PCs until June 30, 2010. • The low-end Windows XP Starter Edition will continue to be available in emerging markets until June 30, 2010. • Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Business come with downgrade rights. Some computer makers are using this option to offer machines that appear as Windows XP products but are "factory downgraded" to XP. The downside is that only pricier versions of Vista qualify, but the benefit is that the machines come with the option to eventually move to Vista for no added fee. Microsoft says it will continue to make XP discs available to computer makers to enable downgrade rights through at least January 31, 2009. • Microsoft is not ending support for Windows XP. Mainstream support continues until 2009, while extended support is not due to end until April 2014... CNET