Health
How Safe is Laser Eye Surgery?
Laser eye surgery is the most common elective surgery currently being performed with over one million people worldwide undergoing the procedure each year. Laser eye surgery has actually been around a lot longer than most people realize with the first procedure actually being carried out over 25 years ago. Refractive surgery, which relates to any [...]
DASH Diet is Number One Again
U.S. News & World Report’s Best Diets 2012 was announced earlier this week and the DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), which was created by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, finds itself in the top spot for the second year in a row. Originally developed as a way to lower blood pressure [...]
Business
USPS Begins Closures
The US Postal Service has started telling employees at more than 200 of its mail sorting offices across the USA that their facilities will shut down soon. After a five month review of the USPS mail processing network, which currently consists of 461 Area Mail Processing plants, USPS said 223 are set to be merged [...]
20 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Employees Productivity
When a company’s revenue drops, employee productivity is an area that gets most of the blame. Some part of this blame is justified, if employee productivity levels are low. However, blaming won’t help raise productivity levels; the opposite may occur. Take a cue from our 20 tips to increase employee productivity and see the difference. [...]
Travel
Phones in the Wilderness
It’s no secret that smartphone usage has grown astronomically over the last few years, and the range of things they can do is undeniably impressive. From finding a new recipe to working out which star you’re looking at, a smartphone is your friend. However, they can only go so far. Recently concerns have been raised [...]
Will the Games be worth it for London?
We’re fast approaching the end of the countdown to the launch of the 2012 Olympics in London, and the national debate continues, will the Olympics bring the Big Smoke tears or an explosion of wealth and fortune or will we meet the same fate as many past Olympic celebrations such as Los Angeles, Greece and [...]
Lifestyle
Effects of Reality TV on Society
The debate over whether or not television as a positive or negative effect on society has endured for more than sixty years. The latest causality in this war: reality TV. Critics lambast the genre, claiming it’s a choreographed illusion that celebrates distasteful and dysfunctional behavior, feeds our voyeuristic urges, and siphons intelligence, while enthusiasts celebrate [...]
Splashes of Color – Spring 2012
After a long winter, spring is always embraced with open arms. The spring season adds a skip to everyone’s step. New enthusiasm is found with the new season in great part due to the warmer weather we have been anticipating for so long. Another reason to make you spirit soar is because of what’s in [...]
Technology
Getting A Great TV Deal In 2012
Getting a fantastic deal on a TV is not about waiting until Black Friday or the Christmas sales, it is all about knowing where to look and when to strike. Everyone has a deal ninja in them; it’s just about honing that skill. Here is a sure fire list of saving bucket loads on the [...]
What are PS3 Trophies?
If you’re new to the PS3, you’re probably wondering what PS3 Trophies are. Well, to put it simply, PS3 Trophies are extra unlockables within PS3 games. Trophies come in three different levels, Gold, Silver and Bronze. Some new players may find the Trophy system confusing. However, PS3 Trophies are a lot simpler to unlock and [...]
Favorites
What are PS3 Trophies?
If you’re new to the PS3, you’re probably wondering what PS3 Trophies are. Well, to put it simply, PS3 Trophies are extra unlockables within PS3 games. Trophies come in three different levels, Gold, Silver and Bronze. Some new players may find the Trophy system confusing. However, PS3 Trophies are a lot simpler to unlock and manage than they sound. If you want to learn the ins and outs of unlocking PS3 Trophies, please continue reading.
If you’re interested in unlocking Trophies, the first thing that you should do is check to see if the PS3 game that you’re playing has Trophies. Most PS3 games now have Trophies but some don’t and many of the older games don’t either so it’s very important to check. However, all of the major titles on the PS3 now have trophies so if you’re playing a major title, chances are that you’re good to go.
It’s important to create a strategy for unlocking PS3 Trophies if want to unlock lots of them in a very short period of time. One of the best strategies that you can use is to unlock as many of the simple Trophies as possible before going for the harder ones. The reason why this is a good strategy is because you will be able to unlock quite a few simple Trophies in the same amount of time that it would take you to unlock one difficult Trophy.
Some may ask “why should I try to unlock a short amount of Trophies in a short period of time?” and “what’s the point?” Well, the point of Trophies is to have social competition with the people on your PS3 friends list. In fact, Trophies are a great way to compete with multiple people on your friends list without having to be in an online session with them.
XBOX 360 Achievements
There is no doubt that many people have purchased a new Xbox 360 for themselves, their family or their kids this year along with a few new games. However, if you’re new to the Xbox 360, you might be a bit confused about those little things that pop up at the bottom of your TV screen and make a “blink” sound. Well, those are called achievements. In fact, once you learn what they mean, achievements are one of the most fun things about the Xbox 360!
To start off, achievements are based on a profile scoring system called Gamerscore. In order to understand how achievements work, you first have to understand how Gamerscore works. How it works is whenever you unlock a new achievement it adds a certain amount of points to your Gamerscore.
The amount of Gamerscore an achievement gives you depends on the difficulty of the specific achievement. For example, achievements that you acquire early on in a game will reward you with around 5 or 10 Gamerscore. On the other hand, achievements that are very difficult or take a long time to unlock will reward you with 25, 50 and even 100 Gamerscore in some cases.
If you want to raise your Gamerscore quickly, it’s important that you are strategic about which Xbox 360 achievements you try to unlock. For example, if you want to quickly raise your Gamerscore quickly, I recommend unlocking as many simple achievements as possible before you try to unlock more difficult achievements which will take much longer.
Some achievements require you to have an Xbox Live account to unlock them. For example, games like Halo Reach and Forza Motorsport 4 both have achievements that need to be unlocked through online multiplayer which require that you have an internet connection and an Xbox live Gold membership.
Anti-Aging Skin Care Strategies
Every single one of us has looked in the mirror at some point and thought, “Wow, that is not what I was expecting.” While there may be times that you then pat yourself on the back for looking better than usual, the hard truth is that far more often that “wow” sentiment is accompanied by something to the effect of “I look rough.” Fortunately, with a little moisturizer, foundation and bronzer, most women can work miracles, continuing on throughout the day without dreading the next encounter with their reflection. However, this “quick fix” is a temporary one, and once the cosmetics are removed you may once more find yourself confronting a visage that you would prefer to not put on display.
Let’s be clear: often our perceptions of ourselves and our looks are largely in our heads. An objective observer is pretty unlikely in most cases to agree with your harsh rating of yourself. However, your personal perception of yourself plays a major role in your confidence and your daily behavior. This makes it vitally important that you are taking the steps necessary to keep yourself looking and feeling healthy and attractive.
One of the biggest problem areas for women and men in terms of perceived and actual beauty is physical aging. Over time, your skin succumbs to the daily ravages of gravity, weather and your own facial expressions to create lines, wrinkles, furrows and discolorations. Your face, probably the most active part of your body, is particularly prone to these issues and also is the first part of you that most people notice. As a result, keeping your facial skin smooth and intact is very important to keeping yourself looking youthful and attractive.
While you have probably heard of wrinkle cream products that promise to turn back the clock, there are also some simple things you can do to literally stop wrinkles in their tracks. Even better, most of them will not cost you a thing. Taking care of your skin the right way will save you tremendous time, energy and money later on in life. Follow these three simple guidelines for anti-aging, anti-wrinkle skin care that will literally stop wrinkles in their tracks. [Read More...]
New ALMS Car Pack is Now Available for Forza Motorsport 4
Forza Motorsport has announced that their new ALMS DLC Car Pack is now available for purchase on the XBox Live Marketplace. This pack adds 10 cars to the Forza Motorsport 4 car list. Some of the cars included are past and present Le Mans race cars while others are group B rally cars and American Muscle Cars. The ALMS car pack is the 4th DLC pack to be released for Forza Motorsport 4 and will retail for 560 microsoft points.
The ALMS car pack includes the following cars: 2011 #2 Audi Sport North America R18 TDI , 2011 Panoz #050 Panoz Racing Abruzzi, 2010 Dodge Quinton “Rampage” Jackson Challenger SRT-8, 1991 Mazda #55 Team Mazdaspeed 787B, 2011 Bentley Platinum Motorsports Continental GT, 1986 #2 Audi Sport Quattro S1, 1992 Alfa Romeo 155 Q4, 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra R, 2011 Holden HSV GTS and the 2011 Volkswagen Polo GTI.
More information about Xbox 360 can be found online at http://www.xbox.com .
DASH Diet is Number One Again
U.S. News & World Report’s Best Diets 2012 was announced earlier this week and the DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), which was created by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, finds itself in the top spot for the second year in a row.
Originally developed as a way to lower blood pressure through diet, this eating plan focused on high fiber foods such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables; low fat dairy products, poultry, legumes and nuts. As a result, it is high in fiber and low in sodium, saturated fat, cholesterol and added sugars.
A typical day on the DASH Diet will find you consuming the following:
- 7 to 8 servings of whole grains,
- 4 to 5 servings of vegetables
- 4 to 5 servings of fruit
- 2 to 3 servings of low fat dairy
- 1 to 2 servings of meat, poultry or fish
- 2 to 3 servings of fats and oils
One a weekly basis, you can also add in:
- 4 to 5 servings of nuts, seeds or legumes
- less than 5 servings of sweets
The U.S. News & World Report’s Best Diets 2012 results were calculated by 22 member of a panel with expertise in obesity, nutrition, diet, food psychology, diabetes and heart disease. Twenty-five diet plans were considered for the honors. The experts look at the following categories when evaluating the plans: is the plan easy to follow; what type of long term and short term results do they produce; nutritional profile and completeness; safety and effect on heard disease and diabetes.
Omega 3 EPA May Help Search and Destroy Leukemia
As if there weren’t already enough amazing benefits of omega 3 fatty acids found in fish oil, along comes a new study from Penn State researches, published in the recent issue of Blood (Blood 2011 118:6909-6919), with the promise of a possible cure for Leukemia.
Granted, there is much more to learn about this connection, since the studies have only been performed on mice at this time, but the possibilities are exciting. According to researchers, our bodies have the ability to produce a compound from EPA, an omega 3 fatty acid, which actually targets AND kills stem cells of “chronic myelogenous leukemia” or CML for short.
This compound, called “delta-12-protaglandin J3 (or D12-PGJ3), is the only thing that’s been shown to kill leukemia stem cells. In fact, the mice in the study were not only cured, but their biomarkers returned to normal and the leukemia never returned.
Currently, the only approach available for treating leukemia fails to completely cure the patient. It will lower the number of leukemia cells and extend their life, as long as the person keeps receiving therapy, but it will not kill the stem cells or give them any hope of complete recovery. So you can see why this breakthrough is so exciting for researchers and leukemia sufferers alike.
But the excitement doesn’t end there! Apparently leukemia stem cells have a sneaky ability to “hide” from the current form of treatment, frustrating both doctors and patients. Later down the road these hidden stem cells can easily give rise to more leukemia cells, compounding the problem. However, D12-PGJ3 has the ability to search and destroy leukemia cells, so if they are trying to hide the D12-PGJ3 will find them and kill them.
We look forward to more studies into the benefits of D12-PGJ3. Can you imagine a world without leukemia?