Its official Music has healing power

Though medical practitioners have been convinced of music's health benefits for thousands of years, there had been little peer-reviewed research to back them up. But recent studies are providing an empirical backbone for the anecdotal evidence. A 2012 scientific review collects information from a number of studies to support music's influence on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the immune system. These results support the experiences of complementary practitioners, who have long used music to help heal. "As an integrative physician and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, the healing power of music has always been an important part of my practice and family life," said integrative medicine pioneer Isaac Eliaz, M.D. "Harmony and tempo help synchronize the rhythms of the natural world with the music of the heart - each person's individual energetic pattern, expressed in their pulse," Eliaz added. The review highlighted a number of studies that confirm music's healing potential. For example, music reduces levels of serum cortisol in the blood. An important player in the HPA axis, cortisol increases metabolic activity, suppresses the immune system and has been associated with both anxiety and depression. A number of studies have shown that exposing post-operative patients to music dramatically lowers their cortisol levels, enhancing their ability to heal. Other studies in the review measured music's impact on congestive heart failure, premature infants, immunity, digestive function and pain perception. In particular, music's effects on the limbic and hypothalamic systems reduced the incidence of heart failure. Other studies showed that surgical patients required less sedation and post-operative pain medication. "These results only confirm what I have observed for many years in my practice," said Dr. Eliaz. "Music produces quantifiable healing. For example, my daughter Amity, a professional musician, regularly plays her songs for chronically ill patients who express how uplifting her music is. These performances do more than encourage good feelings, they help the body heal on a molecular level," he added. Other studies showed that fast-paced music could increase resting metabolism, which may prove helpful for people trying to lose weight. The scientific review was published in the journal Nutrition.

Dear Santa - Generation X Version

Dear Santa, How are you? How is Mrs. Claus? I hope everyone, from the reindeer to the elves, is fine. I have been a very good boy this year. I would like an X - Box 360 with Call of Duty IV and an iPhone 4 for Christmas. I hope you remember that come Christmas Day. Merry Christmas, Timmy Jones * * Dear Timmy, Thank you for your letter. Mrs. Claus, the reindeer and the elves are all fine and thank you for asking about them. Santa is a little worried all the time you spend playing video games and texting. Santa wouldn't want you to get fat. Since you have indeed been a good boy, I think I'll bring you something you can go outside and play with.* Merry Christmas,* Santa Claus*** * * Mr. Claus, Seeing that I have fulfilled the "naughty vs. Nice" contract, set by you I might add, I feel confident that you can see your way clear to granting me what I have asked for. I certainly wouldn't want to turn this joyous season into one of litigation. Also, don't you think that a jibe at my weight coming from an overweight man who goes out once a year is a bit trite? Respectfully, Tim Jones * * Mr. Jones, While I have acknowledged you have met the "nice" criteria, need I remind you that your Christmas list is a request and in no way is it a guarantee of services provided. Should you wish to pursue legal action, well that is your right. Please know, however, that my attorney's have been on retainer ever since the Burgermeister Meisterburger incident and will be more than happy to take you on in open court. Additionally, the exercise I alluded to will not only improve your health, but also improve your social skills and potentially help clear up a complexion that looks like the bottom of the Burger King fry bin most days. Very Truly Yours, S Claus * * Now look here Fat Man, I told you what I want and I expect you to bring it. I was attempting to be polite about this but you brought my looks and my friends into this. Now you just be disrespecting me. I'm about to tweet my boys and we're gonna be waiting for your fat ass and I'm taking my game console, my game, my phone, and whatever else I want. WHAT EVER I WANT, MAN! T - Bone * * Listen Pizza Face, Seriously??? You think a dude that breaks into every house in the world on one night and never gets caught sweats a skinny G - banger wannabe? "He sees you when you're sleeping; He knows when you're awake". Sound familiar, genius? You know what kind of resources I have at my disposal. I got your shit wired, Jack. I go all around the world and see ways to hurt people that if I described them right now, you'd throw up your Totino's pizza roll all over the carpet of your mom's basement. You're not getting what you asked for, but I'm still stopping by your crib to stomp a mud hole in you're ass and then walk it dry. Chew on that, Petunia. S Clizzy * * Dear Santa, Bring me whatever you see fit. I'll appreciate anything. Timmy * * Timmy, That's what I thought you little bastard. Santa

Para que te rias un ratito

YO, EL PENE, Exijo Un Aumento De Sueldo Por Las Siguientes Razones: 1) Hago Trabajo Físico 2) Trabajo En Grandes Profundidades:$ 3) Trabajo Fines De Semana y Días Festivos 4) Trabajo En Areas Oscuras Con Poca Ventilación >=) 5) Trabajo En Temperaturas Altas #:S 6) Mi Trabajo Me Expone a Enfermedades - Querido Pene Su Pedido De Aumento Ha Sido Denegado Por Las Siguientes Razones: 1) No Trabaja 8 horas corridas 2) Se Duerme Después De Un Breve Periodo De Trabajo 3) Nunca Toma La Iniciativa y Siempre Hay Que Estimularlo Para Que Empiece a Trabajar 4) Deja El Area De Trabajo Sucia, Despues De Cada Jornada De Trabajo 5) Nunca Puede Trabajar Horas Extras o Jornadas Dobles 3-| 6) Algunas Veces Deja Su Trabajo Sin Terminar >:/ 7) Se Le Ha Visto Entrando y Saliendo De Su Trabajo Con Dos Bolsas Sospechosas. Y Por Ultimo Constantemente Tiene Un Expediente Abierto Porque Se Nos Informo Que Esta Trabajando En OTRAS Empresas Aquí NO Hay Aumentooooo! Att: La Vagina

Bend-it phones about to appear

Phone users will soon be able to bend their phones into a paper-like configuration. Handsets will be able to be rolled up or stepped on without damage. Prototypes which are razor-thin are now being shown to the public with the launch of the first bendy phone likely to come from LG, Philips, Sharp, Sony and Nokia. Samsung has already flagged it will be ready to deliver soon. Samsung has said its first model will be foldable, rollable and allow for a high degree of durability through their use of a plastic that is thinner, lighter and more flexible than conventional Liquid Crystal Display technology. LCD consumes a lot of energy, as every pixel on the screen is illuminated by a light at the back.

Music devices can lead to permanent hearing loss

A Harris Health System ear specialist is concerned about the popularity of personal music devices like iPods and other MP3 players and their lack of sound-limiting controls. These devices, when combined with attached ear buds and headphones, can generate sound levels up to 115 decibels, well above the highest level of 85 decibels recommended by most hearing experts. "Unfortunately, children who suffer noise-induced hearing loss from these devices are risking permanent damage that will affect them as adults and for their entire lives," said Dr. Sancak Yuksel, otorhinolaryngologist, Harris Health Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, and assistant professor, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Hearing loss occurs when the hair cells in the inner ear are damaged. Sudden or prolonged damage can lead to permanent hearing loss or complete deafness. "Aside from the intensity of the sound or a noise, my concern is how long the person is exposed to that sound or noise," Yuksel said. While everyone is susceptible to hearing loss, Yuksel worries that children risk more long-term issues when they don't fully complete their speech and learning development. He estimates 15 percent of children under age 18 suffer some sort of noise-induced hearing loss. "Basically, everyone should avoid noises that are too loud, too close or last too long," he stated. People who attend a rock concert for longer than an hour at a sustained 115-decibel level can suffer damage to the inner ear. The result could be a temporary threshold shift (a brief loss of hearing) or tinnitus (a ringing in the ears). Most individuals tend to recover from these conditions; however, those with prolonged damage could suffer permanent hearing loss or ear ringing. Yuksel suggests using ear plugs to minimize the effects of loud sounds. Some ear plugs can reduce sound by 20-30 decibels, while more expensive headphones can reduce sound even more.

ALGO PARA PONERLE UN TOQUE DE COLOR AL DIA

LA ABUELA Los abogados jamás deberían hacerle una pregunta a una abuela si no se encuentran preparados para la respuesta. Durante un juicio, en un pequeño pueblo del interior, el abogado acusador llamó al estrado a su primer testigo, una mujer de avanzada edad. El Abogado se acercó y le preguntó, - "Sra. Sánchez, ¿sabe quién soy?" Ella respondió: - "Sí, lo conozco, Dr. Garza. Lo conozco desde que era un niño y francamente le digo que usted resultó ser una gran decepción para sus padres. Siempre miente, cree saber de todo, es muy prepotente, abusivo, engaña a su esposa y lo peor de todo, manipula a las personas. Se cree el mejor de todos cuando en realidad es usted nadie. Claro está que sé quién es Usted" El Abogado estaba perplejo sin saber exactamente qué hacer. Apuntando hacia la sala le pregunta a la Sra. Sánchez : - "¿Conoce al abogado de la defensa?" Nuevamente ella respondió: - "Por supuesto. También conozco al Dr. García desde que era un niño. Es flojo, medio marica, y tiene un problema con la bebida. No puede tener una relación normal con nadie y es el peor Procurador del Estado. Sin mencionar que engañó a su esposa con tres mujerzuelas diferentes. Una de ellas era la esposa suya. ¿Recuerda? Claro que lo conozco. Su mamá tampoco está orgullosa de él". El abogado de la defensa casi cae muerto. Entonces el Juez llama a los dos abogados para que se acerquen al estrado y les dice: - "Si uno de ustedes, par de pelotudos imbéciles, le pregunta a esta vieja de mierda si me conoce a mí, lo mando a la silla eléctrica".

Rafael Muñoz Medina

Rafael Muñoz Medina nació en Quebradillas, Puerto Rico el 5 de septiembre de 1900. Inició su carrera artística con una orquesta de su pueblo llamada Los Cuervos de la Noche, que creó y dirigió el Dr. Pedro H. Hernández Vales, dentista de profesión y músico por vocación, durante el primer lustro de la década de los veinte. En aquella orquesta, Muñoz tocaba la flauta. Con el paso de los años también tocó a intervalos el contrabajo y la trompeta, instrumentos que no dominaba con igual maestría que la flauta. Muñoz se fue a San Juan alrededor de 1926, y cursó dos años de estudios en farmacología, pero las privaciones económicas de aquellos años próximos a la gran depresión económica no le permitieron continuar y terminar sus estudios universitarios. En 1926, epicentro histórico de la gran catástrofe económica, comenzó a tocar en los bailecitos como miembro de The Red Hot Papas, un junte intermitente de músicos, uno de ellos llamados vente tú musicales, de vida efímera, que amenizó durante algún tiempo por distintos pueblos de la Isla. Luego pasó al conjunto Midnight Serenaders, que dirigía el profesor Augusto Rodríguez, famoso director de Orquestas y creador de la célebre masa coral de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. También tocaba como complemento musical de lo que se proyectaba en pantalla en las películas mudas en el Cine Rialto, en el Viejo San Juan. Para ese tiempo conoció a la que luego fue su esposa, Carmen Rodríguez, hermana de Augusto Rodríguez. A partir de la inauguración de El Escambrón Beach Club (1932), ocupó la tarima la Orquesta del Escambrón capitaneada por el director Miguel Ángel Don Rivero Rivera, oriundo del barrio La Cantera de Ponce. En 1934 hubo un rompimiento entre el director de la orquesta y la gerencia de El Escambrón, por lo que don Rivero abandonó la orquesta y entró a dirigirla Rafael Muñoz, quien en ese entonces tenía 34 años de edad. En 1934 la orquesta estaba formada por el violinista Jorge Luis Acevedo, el guitarrista y violinista Luis Cardona Bonano, los trombonistas Jorge López y Arcadio Cutín Ruiz, el trombonista juanadino Samuel Rivera, los saxofonistas Rubén Rivera, José Pepito Torres Silva, Pedro Viñolo y José María Jossy Enríquez y Juan Prats, baterista. El piano lo tocaba Rafael Font (quien venía de la orquesta Midnight Serenaders, de Augusto Rodríguez) y el dominicano Rafael Petitón Guzmán. El maestro Muñoz ejecutaba el contrabajo y el cantante original era el bayamonés Deogradias Vélez. Cuando Vélez abandonó la orquesta entró como nuevo cantante un compueblano suyo, Félix Pilón Castrillón. Luego fue José Luis Moneró El Principe de la Canción Antillana, y en sucesión, en distintos años y distintas épocas, cantaron con la orquesta de Muñoz durante algún tiempo, Víctor Luis Miranda (quien grabó el clásico Olvídame, de Roberto Cole), Ernesto Mantilla, Johnny Rodríguez, Tonny Sánchez y el ponceño Vitín Garay. Andando el tiempo, también fueron cantantes de la orquesta en distintas etapas o épocas, Al López, el también ponceño Harry Figueroa (quien también cantó con la orquesta ponceña Melody Boys), Rafael Ralph Dick Rovira, y luego, el hijo del director, Raffie Muñoz, quien era un magnífico cantante. A la Orquesta de Rafael Muñoz se le denominaba, indistintamente, como la Orquesta de Los Maestros - Directores, la Orquesta de Los Compositores y la Orquesta de Los Arreglistas, y era todo ello aún más. Curiosamente, Muñoz le ofreció su primera oportunidad como compositora a dos adolescentes que entonces cursaban sus estudios de escuela superior: Ivonne Lastra, hoy día Doctora en Microbiología e hija del famoso abogado Alfonso Lastra Chárriez (Claro de luna) y Sylvia Rexach (Matriz de amo y Dí, corazón Midnight Serenaders, está última grabada por la orquesta en tiempo de bolero-son). Igualmente curioso es el número de integrantes de la orquesta de Muñoz que, el abandonar el grupo, crearon sus propias orquestas: César Concepción, Peito Torres Silva, Muguelito Miranda, Noro Morales, Paquito López Vidal, Rafael Elvira, su hermano Pablo Elvira, Rafael González Peña, Pete Rivera, Frank Madera, Rafael Font, Luis Ángel Cardona Bonano, Rafael Petitón Guzmán, Juan Prats, Jorge López Gray y José Luis Moneró.

MIGUELITO ALCAIDE-BIO

Guitarrista, Cantante y Compositor. Fecha de nacimiento : 13 de noviembre de 1934. Lugar: Hatillo, Puerto Rico. . Falleció el 25 de julio de 1988 en Río Piedras, Puerto Rico Tan sólo el pepiniano Rafael Scharón le disputa el trono correspondiente a mejor ejecutante puertorriqueño del requinto de todos los tiempos. A través de su brillante trayectoria artística formó parte - o colaboró en grabaciones - de los tríos y conjuntos de voces y guitarras más estelares de su país . Este músico fuera de serie era de formación autodidáctica. Sin maestro, inició el aprendizaje de la guitarra cuando contaba nueve años de edad. A los catorce (1948 ), fue requerido para integrar el Cuarteto Los Universitarios, que completaban Edmundo Disdier Álvarez ( primera voz); Astor Aponte (segunda voz) y Pedro Berríos Feliciano (guitarrista y tercera voz ). En 1952 pasó a formar parte de Los Cuatro Ases, grupo organizado por el empresario Gonzalo "Tato" Ardín para que grabara bajo su etiqueta Discos Mardi. Originalmente lo integraron María Esther Pérez Félix - reemplazada al casarse por María Esther Ortiz - (primera voz); Tito Lara (segunda voz y solista); Berríos Feliciano - quien fuera su compañero en el grupo anterior -y él . Al disolverse este segundo grupo en 1954 -aunque luego reaparecería con nuevos integrantes - se unió al reorganizado Trío Los Antares, sustituyendo a Rafael Scharón, quien había sido reclutado por el Ejército . Esta vez sus compañeros eran Rafael Balseiro y, nuevamente , Pedrito Berríos Feliciano. Con ellos grabó buen número de discos y recorrió los teatros hispanos del Este norteamericano . Un año más tarde (1955), junto a José Luis "Guito" Vadiz (primera voz ); Germán Vega "Salinas" (segunda voz y guitarrista) y, nuevamente, Berríos Feliciano, completó el Cuarteto Los Borincanos. En 1959, al establecerse en San Francisco, California (EE. UU.), para iniciar un ventajoso contrato con la multinacional discográfica Capitol Records y actuar en hoteles, este colectivo se rebautizó con el nombre de The Four Amigos. Durante los siguientes siete años, el éxito que el mismo experimentó fue fenomenal . Incluso, acompañó a Elvis Presley en las selecciones "Mama" y "We' ll Be Together", incluida en la banda sonora de la película "Girls!, Girls!, Girls!" (1962), así como en las piezas "El toro", "Margarita", "México" y "Vino, dinero y amor", que se escucharían en su siguiente filme, "Fun in Acapulco" (1963). También participó en los programas televisivos "The Hollywood Place" y los animados por Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan (CBS TV), Bill Dana y Mike Douglas. Escenarios de Ciudad de México, Hawaii, Filipinas, Hong Kong, Signapore y Japón fueron testigos de sus triunfos. De vuelta en Puerto Rico en 1966, Miguelito Alcalde, cuyo nombre de pila era Miguel Ángel Alcaide Santiago, comenzó a trabajar con Aidita Viles y Los Del Río en el Caribar del hotel Caribe Hilton y en fiestas patronales a través de todo el país. Su pasantía por esta agrupación se prolongó hasta 1968, cuando fundó el Cuarteto San Juan, cuyos miembros eran Germán Vega "Salinas", Pablo Ortiz y Jimmy Delgado. Lo dirigió hasta 1970, año en que organizó el original Trío Los Caciques con Papo Valle (primera voz) y Tatín Vale (segunda voz y guitarrista). Un año después (1971), en unión a estos compañeros, inauguró El Payaso Night Club en Country Club, Carolina. Y, el 6 de enero de 1972, participó en la inauguración del Hotel Cerromar, en Dorado. Miguelito Alcaide falleció en el Centro Médico de Río Piedras, el 25 de julio de 1988, a consecuencia de cirrosis hepática. Por años luchó contra el alcoholismo.

Meet Koshik the talking elephant that speaks Korean

An Asian elephant can imitate human speech, speaking words in Korean that can be readily understood by those who know the language, it has been revealed. The elephant, named Koshik, accomplishes this in a most unusual way - he vocalizes with his trunk in his mouth. Koshik's vocabulary consists of exactly five words, which includes "annyong" (hello), "anja" (sit down), "aniya" (no), "nuo" (lie down), and "choah" (good). According to the researchers, the elephant's language skills may provide important insights into the biology and evolution of complex vocal learning, an ability that is critical for human speech and music. "Human speech basically has two important aspects, pitch and timbre," Angela Stoeger from the University of Vienna said. "Intriguingly, the elephant Koshik is capable of matching both pitch and timbre patterns: he accurately imitates human formants as well as the voice pitch of his trainers. This is remarkable considering the huge size, the long vocal tract, and other anatomical differences between an elephant and a human," Stoeger said. For one thing, Stoeger says, elephants have a trunk instead of lips. While their large larynx can produce very low-pitched sounds, Koshik's speech mimicry exactly copies the pitch and other characteristics of his human trainers' voices. A structural analysis of Koshik's speech showed not just clear similarities to human voices, but also clear differences from the usual calls of elephants. There have been some earlier reports of vocal mimicry in both African and Asian elephants. African elephants have been known to imitate the sound of truck engines, and a male Asian elephant living in a zoo in Kazakhstan was said to produce utterances in both Russian and Kazakh, but that case was never scientifically investigated. In the case of Koshik, Angela Stoeger, Daniel Mietchen, Tecumseh Fitch, and their colleagues confirmed that Koshik was imitating Korean words in several ways. First, they asked native Korean speakers to write down what they heard when listening to playbacks of the elephant's sounds. "We found a high agreement concerning the overall meaning, and even the Korean spelling of Koshik's imitations," Stoeger said. However, as far as the scientists can tell, Koshik doesn't actually mean what he says. It is not completely clear why Koshik adopted his unusual vocal behaviour, but the researchers suggest that it might go back to his days as a juvenile when Koshik was the only elephant living at the Everland Zoo in South Korea for about five years, during an important period for elephant bonding and development. Humans were his only social contacts. "We suggest that Koshik started to adapt his vocalizations to his human companions to strengthen social affiliation, something that is also seen in other vocal-learning species-and in very special cases, also across species," Stoeger added. The study has been published in Current Biology.

Brit composer makes worlds first tune from swimming pool waves

A composer dubbed 'King Canute' has become the first in the world to perform music created by waves in a swimming pool. Dr Alexis Kirke transformed his body into a "giant baton" by covering himself with motion sensors that controlled the water in a massive wave tank at the University of Plymouth, Devon, the Daily Mail reported. The more he moved his arms, the louder and more intense the music became - just like a normal conductor. Dr Kirke, 42, used the sensors on his arms to manipulate the number and size of waves created by 24 giant paddles in the pool. His movements controlled waves in the tank and gauges in the water then measured the water's movements. The gauges sent electronic signals to a synthesizer which created the music, which vaguely resembled whale song. Raising his arms changed the pitch of the sound, while joysticks also enabled him to change the volume. Kirke's Orchestra Of Waves was watched by hundreds of people at the university. It was performed after the Duke of Edinburgh opened the university's new 19-million-pound Marine Building, which contains the 35m by 15m tank. Dr Kirke put together the 12-minute show with co-composer Samuel Freeman. "I told him I wanted to be like King Canute, controlling the waves," Kirke said. "The show went very well and people in the audience were asking whether they could buy the music. "You are in a building and hear the noise of the waves and the smell and see them crashing down. There's no way of explaining what it's like to have dramatic sounds synchronized with that," he added. The pool also contained a special buoy which made a sound like a deep bell ringing when hit by a wave. The more the waves struck it, the more times the bells rang. Four students joined in with drumming.

QUESTION? 2. EN ESPAÑOL!

1. ¿Por qué los refrescos tienen jugo artificial de limón y los detergentes jugo natural de limón? 2. ¿Por qué Tarzán estaba siempre afeitado? 3. ¿Por qué los Picapiedras festejaban Navidad, si vivían en una época antes de Cristo? 4. ¿Por qué las películas de batallas espaciales tienen explosiones tan ruidosas, si el sonido no se propaga en el vacío? 5. ¿Si las mujeres dicen que los hombres son todos iguales, por qué se preocupan tanto por elegir? 6. ¿Por qué las mujeres abren la boca cuando se maquillan los ojos? 7. ¿Cómo se escribe el cero en números romanos? 8. ¿Por qué cuando alguien llama por teléfono a un número equivocado nunca está ocupado? 9. Cuando inventaron el reloj, ¿como sabían que hora era, para poder calibrarlo? 10. ¿Por qué hay gente que despierta a otros para preguntar si estaban durmiendo? 11. ¿Cómo puedo saber cuántas vidas le quedan a mi gato? 12. ¿Por qué las mujeres con las curvas más aerodinámicas son las que más resistencia ofrecen? 13. ¿Por qué las cosas siempre se encuentran en el último lugar donde uno las busca? 14. ¿Qué cuentan las ovejas para poder dormir? 15. ¿Dónde está la otra mitad del Medio Oriente? 16. ¿No es inquietante que los médicos se refieran a su trabajo como ”práctica”? 17. ¿Por qué utilizan agujas esterilizadas para poner la inyección letal a los condenados a muerte? 18. ¿Qué hacer si uno ve un animal en peligro de extinción comiéndose una planta en peligro de extinción? 19. ¿ A donde van los del campo cuando están cansados de su trabajo y deciden “alejarse de todo”? 20. Si una persona con múltiples personalidades decide suicidarse ¿es un homicidio múltiple? 21. ¿Por qué los cementerios tienen los muros tan altos, si los que están dentro no pueden salir y los que están afuera no quieren entrar? 22. ¿Por qué “separado” se escribe todo junto y “todo junto” se escribe separado? 23. ¿Por qué en el “día del trabajo”, nadie trabaja? 24. Si la lana se encoge cuando se moja... ¿por qué las ovejas no se encogen cuando llueve? 25. Se dice que solo diez personas en todo el mundo entendían a Einstein. Si nadie me entiende a mi, ¿soy un genio? 26. Si nada se pega al teflón... ¿cómo le pegan el teflón a la sartén? 27. Si la caja negra de los aviones es indestructible... ¿por qué no harán todo el avión de ese mismo material? 28. Un parto en una calle... ¿es alumbrado público? 29. Si el congelador de una nevera se encuentra a no más de 10 grados bajo cero, y en la Antártida la temperatura ambiente llega a 50 grados bajo cero. ¿No podrían las personas calentarse entrando a los congeladores? 30. Si cuando como huevos me patea el hígado, cuando coma hígado... ¿me pateará los huevos? 31. ¿Por qué no hay comida para gatos con sabor a ratón? 32. ¿Por qué los Kamikazes usaban cascos? 33. ¿Por qué apretamos más fuerte los botones del control remoto cuando tiene poca batería? 34. El mundo es redondo y lo llamamos planeta. Si fuese plano... ¿lo llamaríamos redondeta? 35. Si un abogado enloquece... ¿pierde el juicio? 36. ¿Los infantes disfrutan la infancia tanto como los adultos el adulterio? 37. Si infancia es la etapa de los infantes, adulterio es la etapa de los adultos?

CHEITO GONZALEZ/BIO

Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico January 1935,, Cheito Gonzalez was an important figure in the world of bolero music in Puerto Rico. From an early age, Gonzalez demonstrated great musical talent and was performing on radio shows in his teens. At that time, he also suffered a disfiguring accident that resulted in the loss of his left eye. The accident and deformity greatly affected Gonzalez his whole life. His professional career took hold when he joined the Trio América in Puerto Rico, leaving for New York by 1950. His successful career spanned several other bands and trios, including the Trio Santurce, Trio Murcianos and the Trio San Juan, with which he recorded many albums until his departure in 1958. Gonzalez then went on to join Los Tres Reyes, replacing Hernando Avilés, formerly of Trio Los Panchos. He stayed with the trio for little more than one year before he returned to Puerto Rico only to return to the United States, where he died in 1962. The short but illustrious career left an indelible mark on the music of Puerto Rico, with songs such as Una noche más, Fruto amargo and Diez lágrimas, written by Guarionex Gonzalez. He was remembered by many and honored in 1985 by bolero and pop singer, Danny Rivera, who recorded the two disc, Asi Cantaba Cheito Gonzalez, featuring the music which made Gonzalez famous and loved, such as Cuando Vuelvas. Although it was not a great commercial success, Rivera also included other boleros performed by Gonzalez in another album: En Vivo Desde El Carnegie Hall, released in 1999.

Johnny Albino/BIO

Johnny Albino (born December 19, 1919) is a Puerto Rican bolero singer, born in Yauco. Albino played and sang through his youth years. It wasn't until years later, however, that he would get a chance to sing as part of an organized act. Albino joined the United States Army during World War II, where he formed a quartet and was allowed to sing for his fellow soldiers. In 1946, Albino performed in a "trio" for the first time. Later on, he would become a member and lead voice of the Trio San Juan, which went on to become an internationally acclaimed group. Trio San Juan was rivaled at the time by the Trio Los Panchos for popularity. Ironically, Albino later on left "Trio San Juan" and joined "Los Panchos", as the leading voice, replacing another legendary trio singer, Julito Rodriguez. Albino joined "Los Panchos" in 1958 and he remained there until 1968. The group became famous across the world, and Albino toured the United States, Europe and Japan. With "Los Panchos", he recorded to Japanese albums, and he also performed alongside many superstars, such as Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and others. Albino left "Los Panchos" in the middle of various disputes and internal group problems, culminating in a lawsuit by the management of Los Panchos against Albino for breach of contract, as well as a countersuit by Albino. Part of the settlement agreement consisted of Albino relinquishing all royalties to recordings made by Los Panchos and a stipulation for him never to record or perform any of the group's songs.[1]He then went on to form, or become a member of many famous Puerto Rican trios. Notably, Miguel Poventud whose participation in the album "Los Panchos by Special Request" are a compilation of love songs recorded in English for CBS. "El Trio Los Panchos Historia y Cronica" by Pablo Mareial Ortiz Ramos p.263. Also, "Grandes Exitos de Johnny Albino con Los Panchos" DHIT 2093.2 06/21/2005 is his main performance with Miguel Poventud on "requinto" (guitar) and voice accompaniment. His career spans over 300 albums & CD'S.

Luisito Benjamín/BIO

Luisito Benjamín nació en Yabucoa, Puerto Rico el 4 de Diciembre de 1922, fue su padre Don Adrian Benjamín, a la sazón de director de orquestas, quien lo inicio en el estudio de la música, aprendió a tocar piano, clarinete, saxofón, flauta e instrumentos de cuerda. En Resumen, Luisito tocaba casi todos los instrumentos musicales, no obstante fue el piano con el que se destaco y al cual dedico todo su empeño durante toda su vida. Tan es así que le conoció como uno de los grandes pianistas del genero popular. Debuto como profesional con la orquesta Caribbean Kids, que dirigía su padre. Alos 19 años ra miembro de la famosa orquesta Armando y su Jack`s Band. Durante la segunda guerra mundial fue reclutado por le ejercito de los EEUU. Durante su estadía en dicho ejercito y dado su grandes conocimientos musicales fue asignado al entretenimiento de la tropas, en diferentes puntos del caribe. Además dirigió la orquesta de baile del Fuerte Brooke en San Juan de Puerto Rico. En 1947 cuando Cesar Concepción formo su famosísima orquesta para inagurar el New Yorker Club en la capital de Puerto Rico, Luisito hizo parte como pianista y arreglista. El 29 de Diciembre de 1949, participo como pianista de la orquesta de Miguelito Valdes en la inauguración del Hotel Caribe Milton. Los clientes de muchos hoteles de lujo como El Convento, El Ponce Intercontinental y El Sheratondisfrutaron del arte de este magnifico pianista. Sus apariciones en la radio, teatro, y en la televisión fueron bastante numerosas, en ocasiones como director de su propia orquesta y en otras como solista. Acompaño con su piano amuchas figuras del firmamento musical nacional e internacional. Cabe señalar, que en una ocasión cuando Miguelito Valdés desbarato su orquesta, solo retuvo a Luisito Benjamín, para que lo acompañara en sus giras por todo el continente. En los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica, Luisito Benjamín integro orquesta de mucho renombre en el ámbito latinoamericano, conoció y se codeo con luminarias del arte musical norteamericano. Participo en muchísimas generaciones como miembro de diferentes orquestas, como pianista, acompañante y solista. Luisito Benjamín falleció el 13 de Julio de 1988 dejando un legado de magnificas interpretaciones para el disfrute de las futuras generacion.

MJ and Whitney Houston set to become 1st R n B hall of fame inductees

Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston are to be immortalised with inductions into a brand new R 'n' B Music Hall of Fame. Plans for the official R 'n' B Music Hall of Fame Museum were announced this week to honour those who made notable contributions to the music genre, the Daily Express reported. The inaugural class of 2013, will feature 25 inductees, and will include Aretha Franklin, James Brown, The Temptations, Otis Redding, The O'Jays and Gerald Levert. A special induction ceremony will take place on May 5, next year, in Cleveland, Ohio.

China becoming huge market for luxury products

France, Britain, Italy and Japan will soon be taken over by China in sales of luxury items. Luxury goods sales in China have consistently outperformed the global market this year. While United States retailers will still sell more of the goods, China should become the world's second biggest market. It is believed sales could top US$300 billion worldwide this year even though economic woes in developed countries have reduced demand for some items, including designer handbags, clothes, jewellery, watches, and champagne. Emerging markets including Brazil, Russia and India are making up for the shortfall in luxury goods sales from formerly wealthy nations where rising prices and mounting insecurity over jobs have reduced demand.

New robotic exoskeleton may help paraplegics walk and keep astronauts healthy in space

NASA and The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) of Pensacola, Fla., have jointly developed a robotic exoskeleton, which someday may help astronauts stay healthier in space and aid paraplegics in walking here on Earth. Called X1, the 57-pound device is a robot that a human could wear over his or her body either to assist or inhibit movement in leg joints. In the inhibit mode, the robotic device would be used as an in-space exercise machine to supply resistance against leg movement. The same technology could be used in reverse on the ground, potentially helping some individuals walk for the first time. "Robotics is playing a key role aboard the International Space Station and will be critical in our future human exploration of deep space," said Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's Space Technology Program. "What's extraordinary about space technology and our work with projects like Robonaut are the unexpected possibilities space tech spinoffs may have right here on Earth. It's exciting to see a NASA-developed technology might one day help people with serious ambulatory needs to begin to walk again, or even walk for the first time. That's the sort of return on investment NASA is proud to give back to America and the world," he stated. Worn over the legs with a harness that reaches up the back and around the shoulders, X1 has 10 degrees of freedom, or joints - four motorized joints at the hips and the knees, and six passive joints that allow for sidestepping, turning and pointing, and flexing a foot. There also are multiple adjustment points, allowing the X1 to be used in many different ways. X1 currently is in a research and development phase, where the primary focus is development, evaluation and improvement of the technology. NASA is examining the potential for the X1 as an exercise device to improve crew health both aboard the space station and during future long-duration missions to an asteroid or Mars. Without taking up valuable space or weight during missions, X1 could replicate common crew exercises, which are vital to keeping astronauts healthy in microgravity. In addition, the device has the ability to measure, record and stream back in real-time data to flight controllers on Earth, giving doctors better insight into the crew's exercise. X1 also could provide a robotic power boost to astronauts as they work on the surface of distant planetary bodies. Coupled with a spacesuit, X1 could provide additional force when needed during surface exploration, providing even more bang for its small bulk. Here on Earth, IHMC is interested in developing and using X1 as an assistive walking device. Using NASA technology and walking algorithms developed at IHMC, X1 has the potential to produce high torques to allow for assisted walking over varied terrain, as well as stair climbing. Preliminary studies using X1 for this purpose have already started at IHMC. The potential of X1 extends to other applications, including rehabilitation, gait modification and offloading large amounts of weight from the wearer.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

Noah's Ark : Everything I need to know, I learned from Noah's Ark ONE: Don't miss the boat. TWO: Remember that we are all in the same boat! THREE: Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark. FOUR: Stay fit. When you're 60 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big . FIVE: Don't listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done. SIX: Build your future on high ground. SEVEN: For safety's sake, travel in pairs. EIGHT: Speed isn't always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs. NINE: When you're stressed, float awhile. TEN: Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals ELEVEN: No matter the storm, there's always a rainbow waiting. Please pass this on to people you want to be blessed. Give it! Don't just get it! Most people walk in and out of your life, but FRIENDS leave footprints in your heart.

Lou Gehrig may have died from concussions and not Lou Gehrigs Disease

Baseball legend Lou Gehrig may not have died from the famous disease that bears his name, a Minnesota lawmaker has claimed. Phyllis Kahn has launched an attempt to force doctors to release Gehrig's medical records so that researchers could investigate whether repeated head trauma contributed to his illness or not, the Daily Mail reported. The effort comes despite opposition from Mayo Clinic, which holds the medical records of Gehrig, and doubt from experts, that the records alone would be able to prove the cause of the player's death. Kahn, a Democratic state representative and self-described baseball fanatic, said that the records "probably won't show anything." "But just in case they might it's ridiculous not to look at them," she said. Gehrig's death is commonly attributed to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating neurological disease that became known by his name after the sportperson's death in 1941. Kahn said she became intrigued after reading about a widely publicised study by Dr Ann McKee in 2010 that suggested a potential link between repetitive brain trauma in athletes and ALS. She noted that Gehrig had suffered several concussions during his playing career, in which he set a record for the most consecutive games played. Given that Gehrig attended Columbia University, he clearly had a good education and a lot of intellectual curiosity, Kahn said. "It seems to me that if he were alive he would be authorizing it," she added.

Please support Pandora

Tim, the founder of Pandora. I am writing to ask for your urgent help. An important piece of legislation has just been introduced in Congress that could end long-standing discrimination against Internet radio. I'm asking that you contact your Senator to urge them to support the Internet Radio Fairness Act. This bipartisan bill will correct the incredible inequity in how different digital radio formats are treated under the law when it comes to setting royalties. The difference is quite extraordinary. In 2011, Pandora paid over 50% of our revenues in performance royalties, while SiriusXM paid less than 10%. As a lifelong musician, I'm fully supportive of artist compensation, but this situation can't continue. Internet radio is bringing millions of listeners back to music, and is playing the songs of tens of thousands of promising artists who would otherwise never be heard. It should be given a fair chance to succeed. To voice your support for this initiative, please reach out to your Senator today and say you support the Internet Radio Fairness Act, bill number 3609. Senator: Kirsten Gillibrand Washington D.C. Office Number: 202-224-4451

Jazz-singing robot could shed light on consciousness

The Human Brain Topic Guides ROBOTS and humans will soon be living in harmony. A singing robot is being taught to improvise jazz duets with a human in a project that researchers hope will shed light on the nature of consciousness. Antonio Chella at the University of Palermo, Italy, is working with a Telenoid robot, developed by the Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory in Japan (pictured). To start with, the Telenoid will be trained to mimic the movements and simple sounds made by a human singer, as well as associate parts of music with different emotional states. Chella then plans to see if the robot can use these associations to improvise - choosing movements and vocalisations that complement its human duet partner. Intelligence is often defined as the ability to find connections between existing entities - understanding that a key goes in a lock, for instance. But Chella suggests that a conscious organism should be able to go a step further and introduce novel connections - between, say, musical phrases - that result in the creation of something new. That, in essence, is the idea behind improvisation. Jazz musicians interviewed by Chella talked of having a mental library of musical phrases that they were able to combine in new ways when prompted by other musicians. Importantly, however, this combination happens in a state that is "similar in a sense to dreaming", he says. "Not really conscious, but not unconscious." Chella wants to replicate these states in a machine. "Consciousness could be linked to these moments of combination," he says. Chella presented the idea this month at the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks in Lausanne, Switzerland. "[This work] raises interesting questions about the link between consciousness and music making," says musician and computer scientist Philippe Pasquier at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. But he is sceptical about whether a robot musician needs a physical body, citing examples of AI composers that exist only in software. Instead, Pasquier argues that automated musicianship boils down to two challenges: composition and interpretation. Software has already been developed that can imitate Bach, he says. Interpretation, on the other hand, involves the specifically human traits of taste and aesthetic judgement. "What made The Beatles famous was not so much their compositions, but the fact that the interpretations of the compositions were brilliant," he says. It is not yet clear how an artificial musician would go about interpreting music in a novel way. But by mimicking humans and then learning to sing, Chella's robot could provide clues. What does seem to be important is that human composers often listen to hours of music made by others. "Humans don't tend to do things in a vacuum," says Pasquier. Chella's robot better get listening to those jazz standar!

andy williams dead at 84

Singer Andy Williams, 84, has died at his home in Branson, Missouri, a year after being diagnosed with bladder cancer. He was best known for the song Moon River, the Oscar-winning song featured in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. In 1962, he started The Andy Williams Show, which was broadcast around the world and went on to win three Emmys. Since the 1990s, he had run the Andy Williams Moon River Theater in his home town. The singer was one of the most enduring stars of the 1960s and '70s, whose easy style and mellow voice led President Ronald Reagan to call him "a national treasure". A new generation discovered Williams' music when Music to Watch Girls Go By made the Top 10 in 1999 after being used in an advert. Williams started singing professionally with his three brothers He described Moon River as his "signature song" which had a "wonderful" melody and "timeless" lyrics. "I never tried to sing like anybody else, fortunately I didn't sound like anybody else. It just happened," said Williams. "I was very lucky that I had a voice that sounded different to almost anybody else's and it's recognisable." Fellow crooner Tony Christie, who achieved chart success with Is This The Way To Amarillo, descried Williams as "a very charming man" who had "perfect pitch". The singer was "one of the old school," he added, "and there aren't many left". Williams died on Tuesday night and is survived by his wife, Debbie, and his three children, Robert, Noelle and Christian. Global fame Howard Andrew Williams was born in Iowa and started singing professionally with his three brothers as the Williams Brothers Quartet. They worked in night clubs and on radio and backed Bing Crosby on his number one record Swinging on a Star in 1944. Williams' TV show made him an international star and launched a recording career that spawned such hits as Butterfly, Love Story, Can't Get Used to Losing You and Almost There. The weekly show lasted nine years and will be remembered by many for introducing the Osmond family to the world.

Someone has written these beautiful words. Read and try to understand the deeper meaning of them

1. Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel" that directs the right path throughout life. 2. Why is a car's windshield so large & the rear view mirror so small?... Because our PAST is not as important as our FUTURE. So, look ahead and move on. 3. Friendship is like a BOOK. It takes a few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write. 4. All things in life are temporary. If they are going well, enjoy them, they will not last forever. If they are going wrong, don't worry, they can't last long either. 5. Old friends are gold! New friends are diamond! If you get a diamond, don't forget the gold! To hold a diamond, you always need a base of gold! 6. Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart; it's just a bend, not the end!" 7. When God solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when God doesn't solve your problems, He has faith in YOUR abilities. 8. A blind person asked God: "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision!" 9. When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them, and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you. 10. Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles; it takes away today's PEACE.

Two baseball fans caught having sex in Yankee Stadium bathroom

A randy couple was filmed having sex in a stadium bathroom while the Yankees played the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday. The woman sat on the toilet as her enthusiastic male partner - who wore a CC Sabathia t-shirt and no pants - climbed on top of her amid a crowd of onlookers, according to Deadspin.com. "Seems impossible to me, but the couple appeared to be oblivious to the surrounding crowd," New York Post quoted the tipster who filmed the hookup as writing. The sexual act kept going for several minutes even after they noticed onlookers peering over and under the stall - and received a round of applause when they strolled out of the bathroom. Meanwhile The Yankees won the match by 5-3.

A Mean Old Man!

An old man and woman were married for many years, even though they hated each other. When they had a confrontation, screaming and yelling could be heard deep into the night. The old man would shout, "When I die, I will dig my way up and out of the grave and come back and haunt you for the rest of your life!" Neighbors feared him. They believed he practiced black magic, because of the many strange occurrences that took place in their neighborhood. The old man liked the fact that he was feared. To everyone's relief, he died of a heart attack when he was 68. His wife had a closed casket at the wake. After the burial, she went straight to the local bar and began to party as if there was no tomorrow. Her neighbors, concerned for her safety, asked, "Aren't you afraid that he may indeed be able to dig his way up and out of the grave and come back to haunt you for the rest of your life?" The wife put down her drink and said, "Let him dig. I had him buried upside down!"

Now speaker dock that dances along with your music

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a robotic speaker dock, which dances along to a user's music. Called Shimi, it looks like a bizarre futuristic table lamp. Its inventors have now set up a Kickstarter project to manufacture the gadget. "We are seriously excited to present our project to you: Shimi, the first musically intelligent robotic speaker dock," the Daily Mail quoted it's creators as saying. "Shimi is a real robot with artificial intelligence that analyzes music it plays through his speaker-ears and generates real-time unique dance moves to bring the music to life in a fun, cute way," they added. The gadget uses five motors to move, and also has facial recognition software so it can automatically rotate so its speakers are always pointing towards the listener. It also has a microphone and can understand human speech, so owners can simply tell it what they want to hear. They can also tap along and the robot will adjust its rhythm accordingly. The team also promises to keep developing the robot once they hit their 100,000- dollar target. "We will keep developing new applications for Shimi. We are already working on applications that will allow Shimi to respond to your facial expression, learn your musical tastes, and recommend new music to you," the researchers stated.

RESERVA TIEMPO!

Reserva tiempo para REIR, es la música del alma. Reserva tiempo para LEER, es la base de la sabiduría. Reserva tiempo para PENSAR, es la fuente del poder. Reserva tiempo para TRABAJAR, es el precio del éxito. Reserva tiempo para DIVERTIRTE, es el secreto de la juventud eterna. Reserva tiempo para SER AMIGO, es el camino de la felicidad. Reserva tiempo para SOÑAR, es el medio de encontrar tus objetivos. Reserva tiempo para AMAR Y SER AMADO, es el privilegio de los hijos de Dios. Reserva tiempo para SER UTIL A LOS OTROS, esta vida es demasiado corta para que seamos egoístas. Nosotros no perdemos tiempo en la vida; lo que se pierde es la vida, al perder el tiempo .

Whitney Houston lands posthumous Guinness World Record

Whitney Houston has achieved a posthumous entry into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most simultaneous hits on the U.K. singles chart by a Solo Female. The tragic diva was given the accolade after 12 of her tracks entered the chart in Britain following her death in February, Contactmusic reported. This honour was previously bestowed upon late singer Amy Winehouse, following her death last year in July. The feat has been made possible by her loyal fans, who flocked to buy the superstar's back catalogue in the days after her bathtub death in a suite at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles on 11th February.

Gadgetwise Blog A Phone That Can Take a Dunking

People prone to dropping their phones in the drink – a drop in the toilet is one of the most common cellphone accidents — are usually condemned to buying vaultlike cases to protect their phones from everything including the kitchen sink. But the Kyocera Hydro comes with its dive suit built in. The phone, $130 without a contract from Boost Mobile, is waterproof for up to 30 minutes in water about three feet deep. The phone is compact, about 4.5 by 2.5 by 0.5 inches and weighing 4.16 ounces. The screen is a 3.5 HVGA IPS touch screen that’s clear and legible. Kyocera textured the back of the case with a faux carbon fiber checkerboard. Inside is a one GHz processor, not the fastest on the market, but pretty snappy, and it can take up to a 32-gigabyte micro SD memory card. It comes with a two-GB card installed. The phone’s connection is only 3G. The camera has 3.2 megapixels with software for scene settings, like night portraits or sports, a digital zoom and an LED flash. Using Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, the phone should work with most current apps, and of course it works with all of the Google goodies the Android interacts with, like your online contacts list and Gmail. The call quality was good in my test. In addition to being waterproof, the phone’s chief attraction may be Boost’s pricing plan, which reduces the monthly fees if payments are made on time. The Android plan, which starts at $55 for unlimited talk, text and data, goes to $50 after six on-time payments, $45 a month after 12, and $40 after 18. As with most carriers, the data part of “unlimited“ is conditional – you get 2.5 GB of full-speed data (that’s the connection you use for Web browsing, streaming video and music), after which you still get data but at a slower speed. The phone worked fine after a half-hour in a bucket of water. And while it is waterproof, it makes no claims against jolts, like some rugged phones, such as the Casio G’zOne Commando. But the Hydro may be the right device if you long to Web surf in the shower or text in the tub.

Giant 914 kilo cheeseburger sets new world weight record

A US casino has created a new world record with their bacon cheeseburger that is 10 feet in diameter and weighs more than a ton. The behemoth burger was served up at the Black Bear Casino Resort near Carlton in Minnesota and tipped the scales at 914kg, the Daily Express reported. Guinness Records representative Philip Robertson verified the record for the biggest burger. He called the feat a result of "remarkable teamwork" and said that the burger "actually tastes really good." According to Duluth News Tribune, the previous mark of the biggest burger was a mere 400kg. The casino's burger included 60lb (27kg) of bacon, 50lb (23kg) of lettuce, 50lb (23kg) of sliced onions, 40lb (18kg) of pickles and 40lb (18kg) of cheese. It took about four hours to cook and a crane was used to flip it.

New smartphone case may reduce cancer risk

A new smartphone case, which has been made of the same material as a NASA spacecraft, claims to reduce antenna radiation and cancer risks. Although it's still unclear as to exactly how bad the problem of cellphone radiation is, the WHO has already reclassified it as "potentially carcinogenic for humans." The problem Pong claims to be resolving is that mobile devices emit microwave energy, and the majority of it is absorbed by the heads and bodies of phone users while making calls. The Pong case, which is available for a range of different smartphones, claims to redirect radiation away from the user and reduce exposure by up to 95 percent. According to Pong's Chief Technology Officer, Ryan McCaughey, their invention doesn't make mere empty promises to ward off those deadly radiations, and the case has been rigorously tested to check its effectiveness "The scale we base our research is the industry standard of SAR, or specific absorption rate. All cell phones are measured to this standard, and what we do is compare the effect of a cellphone on SAR with and without the Pong case," the Herald Sun quoted McCaughey as saying. "Our lab tests, including independent lab tests, which we feel are a very important validation, show that we reduce SAR by up to 95 percent below current safety limits. But even McCaughey admitted that the case isn't a complete solution, because not enough known is yet known about how safe even small levels of radiation are. "There's so far no known safe limit. We can't say that someone using the Pong is going to be completely safe from radiation, but we're of the feeling that less exposure to radiation is better, and that's what Pong is providing," he added.

Heineken wins bid for Tiger beer in $4.5bn deal

Dutch brewing company Heineken International has agreed to buy Singapore-based Fraser and Neave's controlling stake in the maker of Tiger beer in a deal worth 5.6 billion Singapore dollars (4.5 billion US Dollars). Heineken had raised its bid from 50 to 53 Singapore dollars per share. According to the BBC, Fraser and Neave confirmed it had accepted an improved offer from Heineken for its 40 percent stake in Asia Pacific Investment Pte Ltd (APIPL). APIPL is a joint venture between Heineken and Fraser and Neave, which operates Asia Pacific Breweries (APB). "Our Asian headquarters will continue to be based in Singapore, and we remain 100% committed to the growth and success of APB and the Tiger brand," Heineken's Chief Executive, Jean-Francois van Boxmeer, said in a statement. According to the report, if approved, the deal would give Heineken an 81.6 percent stake in APB triggering an automatic takeover offer for the outstanding shares in the company, which would cost a further 2.5 billion Singapore dollars. As part of the deal, Fraser and Neave has promised not to 'solicit, engage in discussions or accept any alternative offer or proposal for its interests in APB', the report added.

Enjoy 3D movies without glasses

You can now enjoy 3D movies on TV without those vexing 3D glasses, thanks to a new technology being developed in Germany. The 3D movies currently available on Blu-ray are based on two different perspectives: two images, one for each eye. However, autostereoscopic displays need five to 10 views of the same scene (depending on the type). In the future, the number will probably be even more. This is because these displays have to present a 3D image in such a manner that it can be seen from different angles -- indeed, there is more than one place to sit on a sofa, and you should be able to get the same three dimensional impressions from any position. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications at Heinrich-Hertz Institute (HHI) in Berlin have developed a technology that converts a Blu-ray's existing 3D content in a manner that enables them to be shown on autostereoscopic displays. "We take the existing two images and generate a depth map... a map that assigns a specific distance from the camera to each object," says Christian Riechert, research fellow at HHI. Previous systems were only capable of generating such depth maps at a dramatically slower pace; sometimes they even required manual adaptation. Real-time conversion, by contrast, is like simultaneous interpretation: The viewer inserts a 3D Blu-ray disc, gets comfortable in front of the TV screen and enjoys the movie - without the glasses. Researchers have already finished the software that converts these data. In the next step, the scientists, working in collaboration with industry partners, intend to port it onto a hardware product so that it can be integrated into TV. Nevertheless, it will still take at least another calendar year before the technology hits store shelves. Researchers will unveil this technology in Berlin at this year's IFA trade show from Aug 31 to Sep 5.

Bee Gees Robin Gibb ignored fatal cancer tumours to go on world tour

Robin Gibb ignored doctors' advice and his wife's pleas to have scans that could have detected his fatal tumours before they developed - so he could go on a world tour. The Bee Gees singer died in May, aged 62, after a long battle with colon and liver cancer. His heartbroken widow, Dwina Gibb, 59, has told how he initially refused to have the cancerous cells properly checked. The cancer was spotted after the star had an operation to remove an intestinal blockage in October 2010. But Mrs Gibb told the Daily Mail's Weekend magazine that she and son Robin John, 29, were unable to stop Mr Gibb continuing with his musical commitments. "He didn't want to stop and I said, "Please just have the scan." Despite all his wonderful ways, Robin could be very stubborn and he never liked bad news - he just didn't want to know," she told the publication. "He went to do a show in New Zealand as they'd just experienced an earthquake. "Maybe it was very important for him to do that show, but it was still important for him to have his scans," he added. Mr Gibb toured for more than two weeks during November 2010 and his wife said the cancer had developed to a secondary stage - when the tumour starts to spread to nearby blood vessels - by the time he had a check-up.

Smartphone that feels your strain

WHAT really winds you up every day? Traffic on your commute? A frustrating boss? Or maybe something more subtle that you can't quite put your finger on... Your smartphone may soon be able to tell you where you encounter the most stress, thanks to the development of software that can recognise stress from the patterns in your voice. Called StressSense, the system is first trained to recognise someone's unstressed voice. To do so, the person must relax and read a 3-minute passage from a book, say, into their phone. StressSense then compares this recording to its preprogrammed knowledge of the physiological changes that stress induces, such as a faster speaking rate and a clipped frequency spectrum, and logs any instances of stress it detects. "Our stress model also adapts to different background noise environments," says Hong Lu of Intel in Santa Clara, California, who developed the system. In tests that included putting volunteers through mock job interviews, Lu's team found their prototype's stress-recognition accuracy is 81 per cent indoors and 76 per cent outdoors, where sound quality isn't as good. The team plan to make the system a plug-in to an Android app called BeWell, which uses a phone's accelerometers and GPS sensors to record people's activity and sleep levels. People will be able to set StressSense to either listen to their voice throughout the day, or to only activate when they are having a phone conversation. Lu says he hopes the software will boost awareness of everyday stressful events and help us cope. He will present StressSense at the Ubicomp conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, next month.

Bob Marley wanted more Black American fans

Bob Marley's son Ziggy has revealed that the reggae legend wanted his music to be reached out to more Black American fans. Even though Marley was influenced by American rhythm and blues artists, his own music was slow to catch on with African-Americans during his lifetime. A scene from the new documentary, 'Marley,' shows an all-white crowd gathered to watch Marley perform in the US in the late 1970s. "He had issue with it, because he wanted African-Americans to hear his message," ABC News quoted Ziggy as telling 'Nightline.' Marley's children, band mates, widow and ex-girlfriends help tell his story in the mammoth documentary covering the legendary artist's humble beginnings in Jamaica and rise to become reggae's first and biggest international superstar. "He covers such a wide spectrum of people now, and it keeps growing," Ziggy said. "He has a message for everybody. He has a message for the fighters. He has a message for the peace guys." Ziggy and other members of the Marley family were in Los Angeles on August 7, where they celebrated the city's inaugural "Bob Marley Day" and the online and DVD release of 'Marley.

Now carry your living room TV wherever you go

Nothing can be as frustrating as when you have to leave a TV show or perhaps a live soccer match midway because of an emergency. But it will no longer happen as you can now 'pull' the programme on your TV screen onto your tablet and continue watching it seamlessly, thanks to a new system. Named the "Social Cloud TV", this system will also allow you to watch the same TV show or movie together with your family and friends, no matter which part of the world they are in. In addition you'll be able to discuss the show, whether you are on your personal tablet or smart phone, through a channel of your choice, be it video chat, voice or text. Currently patent pending, this human-computer interaction technology enables the same show on the TV or computer to be brought to mobile devices seamlessly and migrated across multiple screens (e.g., TV, laptop, smartphone and tablet) without a hitch. "You could watch a video with your class mates on the computer, and just before you leave school, 'pull' the show into your tablet and continue watching on the go," said Assistant Professor Wen Yonggang from the School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU who invented the system. "Upon reaching home, you could just turn on your television and 'throw' the video back to the TV, and continue watching the programme there," he sated. This innovative technology has already attracted the attention of both local and international telecommunication giants who have expressed interest in integrating it into their existing cable networks as a market differentiator for cable television and mobile networks. Wen has described his invention as the next frontier of television experience as you can now "bring the social experience of watching television in your living room wherever you go". The social TV software will also allow users to share their own content, online videos and TV programmes with others easily over social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them' 2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. 3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.' 4. Enjoy the simple things. 5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. 6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive. 7. Surround yourself with what you love , whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge. 8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help. 9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is. 10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER : Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. Worry about nothing, pray about everything!!!

Un discurso corto, por Bryan Dyson

Un discurso corto, por Bryan Dyson, al dejar el cargo de Presidente de Coca Cola. Imagina la vida como un juego en el que estás malabareando cinco pelotas en el aire. Estas son: - tu Trabajo, - tu Familia, - tu Salud, - tus Amigos y - tu Vida Psíquica*, y tú las mantienes todas en el aire. Pronto te darás cuenta que el Trabajo es como una pelota de goma. Si la dejas caer, rebotará y regresará (¡hoy día no tanto!). Pero las otras cuatro pelotas: Familia, Salud, Amigos y Psiquismo son frágiles, como de cristal. Si dejas caer una de estas, irrevocablemente saldrá astillada, marcada, mellada, dañada e incluso rota. Nunca volverá a ser lo mismo. Debes entender esto: apreciar y esforzarte por conseguir y cuidar lo más valioso. Trabaja eficientemente en el horario regular de oficina y deja el trabajo a tiempo. Dale el tiempo requerido a tu familia y a tus amigos. Haz ejercicio, come y descansa adecuadamente. Y, sobre todo...crece en vida interior, en lo psíquico, que es lo más trascendental, porque es para toda tu vida. Shakespeare decía: Siempre me siento feliz, ¿sabes por qué? Porque no espero nada de nadie, esperar siempre duele. Los problemas no son eternos, siempre tienen solución. Lo único que no se resuelve es la muerte. La vida es lo que es, ¡por eso, ámala, vívela! y recuerda: Antes de hablar... ¡Escucha ! Antes de escribir... ¡ Piensa! Antes de criticar... ¡ Examínate ! Antes de herir... ¡ Siente ! Antes de suplicar... ¡ Perdona ! Antes de gastar... ¡ Gana ! Antes de rendirte... ¡ Intenta ! ANTES DE MORIR... ¡¡ VIVE !!"

Queen of country music Kitty Wells dies at 92

Veteran country singer Kitty Wells, who became famous as the first female country music star, died on Monday at her home in Madison, Tennessee. She was 92. The cause was complications of a stroke, her grandson John Sturdivant Jr said. The crooner, who rose to fame after the recording of "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", was intending to retire from the business at the age of 33 to devote her full time to family, the New York Times reported. In 1999, she told the Nashville Scene, that the only reason to record the number was to collect the union-scale wage that the session would bring. "I wasn't expecting it to make a hit," she said. "I just thought it was another song." However, Wells's record proved to be a rejoinder to Hank Thompson's No. 1 hit "Wild Side of Life". "Honky Tonk Angels" resonated with women who had been outraged by 'Wild Side of Life', which questioned their morals and their increasing social and sexual freedom. Although, the NBC radio network banned Wells's record, deeming it "suggestive", her record spent six weeks at the top of the country charts and crossed over to the pop Top 40. The record's success not only made her the biggest female country music star of the post-war era, it also persuaded record executives in Nashville to offer recording contracts to other women. According to Mary A. Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann, authors of "Finding Her Voice: Women in Country Music, 1800-2000", "She was always proper, always dignified". "She dressed in prewar gingham instead of pantsuits, flamboyant Western garb or satin costumes," they wrote. Wells not only became a model for generations of female singers, from Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton to Iris DeMent, renowned song publisher Fred Rose also anointed her as the 'Queen of Country Music'. And even though, she placed 84 singles on the country charts, 38 of them in the Top 10, during her 27-year recording career, family was of most importance to the singer and her husband. The singer was also elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1976. Later in 1991 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences presented her with a lifetime achievement award. Only two other performers in country music, Hank Williams and Roy Acuff, had previously received that honour.

Vivir en Paz

Vive en Paz -Sueña- Pero no desees ser quien no eres. Eso es pesadilla. -Anhela- Pero no quieras una vida igual a la de alguien más. Eso es muerte. -Imagina- Pero no fantasees con lo que no puedes tener. Eso es locura. -Disputa- Pero no intentes vencer lo invencible. Eso es suicidio. -Habla- Pero no solo de ti mismo. Eso es egoísmo. -Date a conocer- Pero no te muestres con orgullo. Eso es exhibicionismo. -Admira- Pero no te lastimes con envidia. Eso es falta de autoapoyo. -Evalúa- Pero no te coloques como modelo de conducta. Eso es egocentrismo. -Alégrate- Pero no exageradamente y con alarde. Eso es desequilibrio. -Elogia- Pero no te deshagas en adulaciones. Eso es hipocresía. -Observa- Pero no juzgues. Eso es baja autoestima. -Llora- Pero no te declares un ser infeliz. Eso es autopiedad. -Preocúpate- Pero no estés pendiente de la vida del prójimo. Eso es abandonar tu propia vida. -Anda- Pero no atravieses el camino ajeno. Eso es invasión. -Vive- Feliz con lo que puedes tener. Feliz con lo que te es posible ser. Eso es Paz. Hay un amigo y un enemigo dentro de ti. ¿A cuál de ellos quieres despedir?

50 years of design and style in James Bond films going on display

The world's most famous spy movie franchise, James Bond, is celebrating its 50th anniversary, by holding an exhibition in London's Barbican Centre. The exhibit explores the suave secret agent's fashion sense with a display of costumes, props, set pieces and design drawings from the half century of 007 films. The white bikini sported by Ursula Andress, as she emerges from the sea, in one of cinema's most celebrated scenes joins more than 400 Bond archive items. The items will be displayed alongside those that they later inspired - such as the orange bikini worn by Halle Berry in 'Die Another Day'. Vehicles and gadgets on display include the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 which famously returned to the screen in Goldeneye and Pierce Brosnan's BMW motorcycle from 'Tomorrow Never Dies'. Current Bond Daniel Craig's famous tight blue trunks in Casino Royale is also part of the display, which will tour internationally after the show closes at London's Barbican in September. "This is an exhibition which deals with design in film," Sky News quoted Lindy Hemming, as saying. "So we have entered the archives which EON have collected over the years and we have tried to take pieces, interesting objects which would help us to understand design in films and the objects range from gadgets, clothing, jewellery, wonderful drawings of sets and models of sets and artwork. "It is a vast array of different things. They are all themed in a world that gives you the feel of being in a Bond film," Hemming said. Oscar-winning costume designer and co-curator credited Bond movies for the constant working of the British film industry, when there were other lulls, as it kept many technicians employed. Hemming, who has worked on various Hollywood hits, said she hoped crowds flocked to the exhibition. The exhibition runs from 6 July to 5 Sept 2012, after which it will tour internationally over a three-year period.

Natalia collaborating with Franco De Vita, Daddy Yankee

Spanish singer Natalia Jimenez is continuing to actively pursue her musical career via collaborations with Franco de Vita and Puerto Rican Daddy Yankee after making her debut as a judge on a talent programme in Barcelona. Jimenez said Tuesday in an interview with EFE from her home in Miami that she taped "Tan solo tu" with De Vita and worked on "La noche de los dos" with Daddy Yankee, a number that will come out on the reggaeton star's next album entitled "Prestige". The former lead singer of La Quinta Estacion has also collaborated with Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony. Regarding her participation in the first edition of the program "El numero uno", along with Miguel Bose, Ana Torroja, Sergio Dalma and David Bustamante, the 30-year-old Jimenez said that she was very grateful for the chance to be part of the panel of judges. The experience of being a judge was "super-great" and, at the same time, it gave her more television visibility in her country, which - she said - helped more people to become familiar with her. Among her plans for the future, Jimenez said she is launching a new album and added that she is immersed in the song-writing process. In addition, soon she will begin a show tour through several US cities including Dallas, Chicago and Anaheim, California, as well as in Venezuela.

New cases of 'orgasm headaches' shed light on mysterious phenomenon

Doctors are hoping that new cases of intense mind-blowing headaches during sex may help uncover the cause of the rare and painful occurrence. Sometimes mind-blowing sex is not cause for celebration, as some individuals experience intense headaches that explode in pain at the moment of orgasm. Until now, only two cases of these sex headaches had been reported in teenagers. Two new cases, 16-year-old boy and an 18-year-old girl, bring the odd, though not life-threatening, phenomenon to light. And doctors are hoping the sex-headache cases will make both other doctors and teens aware of the temporary disorder. "What I wonder about is whether there are many other adolescents out there who are having this problem and aren't telling anyone," the Discovery News quoted Dr. Amy Gelfand, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine as saying. "This is why pediatricians should be aware of this, so an adolescent doesn't have to raise this issue," she noted. About 1 percent of Americans have experienced a headache as the result of sex, called a primary sex headache, in their lifetimes; about 50 percent of individuals who have primary sex headaches also get migraine headaches. Even so, their cause remains a mystery. Primary sex headaches come in two varieties - one that gradually builds up in intensity during sex and the other develops explosively at orgasm. One idea is that muscle contraction during sexual activity may be involved in the gradual type of headache. For the explosive type, scientists have suggested blood vessels in the brain may be particularly sensitive and reactive to sexual activity. In the new case reports, detailed this week in the journal Pediatrics, Gelfand and neurologist Peter Goadsby, also at UCSF, described both headache types. About three weeks before visiting the doctor, the teen girl started experiencing gradual primary sex headaches for the first time in her life. "About 1 minute before orgasm, she would develop a mild- to moderate-intensity throbbing headache in the midforehead," the scientists wrote in Pediatrics. "At orgasm, the head pain would instantly become severe, and she would develop photophobia, phonophobia, and movement sensitivity," they wrote, referring to fears of light and loud sounds, respectively. The teen boy, however, experienced the explosive type of headache that occurred at the moment of orgasm. He rated the pain as an 8 on a 10-point scale, indicating the pulsating, tearing headache built up about five to 10 seconds before orgasm and remitted after between 10 seconds and two minutes. The headaches would occur regardless of sexual position or whether he was having intercourse or masturbating. His primary sex headaches went away after several months. The teen girl's headaches seemed to come on immediately after she switched her contraception, though the researchers have no idea if the two were related; however, she did switch back to her original birth control pill, with the headaches going away about two weeks after her evaluation. Brain imaging on both teens revealed no abnormalities. Gelfand said the brain scans are performed to rule out any secondary cause of the headaches, such as an aneurysm that could be life-threatening. Since only four such cases in teens, including the two new ones, have been reported, researchers aren't sure if these headaches are more rare in teens than adults, or if teens are just less likely to tell a doctor about the odd sexual phenomenon out of embarrassment. The headaches generally go away after several months, with some lasting a year, Gelfand said. In the meantime, they can be prevented with a medicine called indomethacin that's analogous to ibuprofen, but keeps these sex headaches at bay if taken 30 minutes before sexual activity, Gelfand said. Gelfand said she hopes the case reports will encourage doctors to ask teens about these headaches, particularly if the teen has migraines. "For teenagers, if they're experiencing this [know that] they're not the only one, because it's probably even embarrassing to talk about it with their friends," she told LiveScience. "They do need to tell their doctor about it, because we would recommend imaging for these kids; and there are [preventive] treatments that can help them so they don't have to have it," she added.

Now, umbrella that sings in the rain

German hardware hackers have developed an umbrella that plays music when it is wet. To make it able to do so, Berlina-based Alice Zappe and Julia Lager fitted 12 touch-sensitive sensors to the inner canopy of a brolly. The sensors were then connected to a simple circuit board that spotted when each sensor was struck by a raindrop. It plays a different beep for each sensor to generate a random 8-bit tune in response to the falling rain. The gadget was put together in a day for a 24-hour hardware hacking event in Amsterdam, said Zappe. The first version of the umbrella has the sensors and wires fixed to the canopy cloth using duct tape. The sensors are made of a piezoelectric material that generates a tiny charge when it is stressed or distorted. The charges generated when the piezoelectric sensors were hit by raindrops were picked up by an Arduino microcontroller. This has a simple silicon chip on a circuit board studded with many different connectors that can take in data, analyse it and then produce a response via one of its many outputs. Arduino microcontrollers are popular with many hobbyist hardware hackers because they make it easy to get different components working together. According to Zappe, one tricky part of the project was tuning the microcontroller so it generated enough beeps to make a pleasant tune. Too sensitive and listeners would get a frenetic cacophony in the lightest shower. Not sensitive enough and the music would be too plodding and sporadic to be interesting. Testing the sensitivity of the sensors was tricky, said Zappe, because no rain fell on the day it was being built. A bit of messy experimentation in a kitchen did not really help, she said, so the pair had to go on a foraging trip for a watering can. "We went out to the city on a quest that cost us hours of precious hackathon time. It was ridiculous," she told the BBC. The delay meant there was no time to work on connecting the Arduino to an Android phone because writing software to do that task would have taken too long. As a result, said Zappe, they were forced to fall back on the built-in 8-bit tone generator on the Arduino microcontroller as a musical source. The pair is now working on an improved version of the umbrella. This will have wires and sensors sewn on to the canopy and be able to play more pleasant sounds. "It will also allow you to choose from a few different sounds like piano, guitar, drums and bells - and of course 8-bit," she said.

Earthquake aftershocks turned into music

A sound artist has transformed earthquake recordings into music that will be showcased at the International Computer Music symposium in Slovenia in September. Jo Burzynska from Lyttelton, New Zealand performs as Stanier Black-Five and had recorded the first hour of aftershocks in February last year. Working with the Melbourne sound artist Malcolm Riddich, she transformed these sounds of aftershocks and chaos into a soundscape called Body Waves. "We called the work Body Waves, as this is one of the two types of seismic waves - the ones which travel through the interior of the Earth rather than the surface," Stuff.co.nz quoted Burzynska as saying. "It also refers to the way the performance is perceived, which is as much through the body as via the ears," she said. Seismic waves are actually acoustic waves, sound waves travelling from the source of an earthquake. However, people can't hear them as they pass through the medium of the earth at a frequency too low for humans to register. Body Waves has accentuated the lower frequency harmonics to create music that goes beyond the auditory system to be felt in the body. The pair had performed it at the Sound Spectrum Festival in Perth in May. "It's not a simulation of an earthquake, it is an artistic arrangement of sound. In Perth they were more intrigued by it," Burzynska said. "The room was vibrating. When you get the fundamental frequency of the room you are vibrating, when you talk your voice vibrates and you feel it in your chest cavity, you can hear the sound as well but one of the most powerful things about it is that it is music that you feel," she said.

How long before I can get a haircut?

A guy stuck his head into a barber shop and asked, "How long before I can get a haircut?" The barber looked around the shop full of customers and said, "About 2 hours." The guy left. A few days later the same guy stuck his head in the door and asked, "How long before I can get a haircut?" The barber looked around at the shop and said, "About 3 hours." The guy left. A week later the same guy stuck his head in the shop and asked, "How long before I can get a haircut?" The barber looked around the shop and said, "About an hour only." The guy left. The barber turned to a friend and said, "Hey, Bill, do me a favour, Follow that guy and see where he goes. He keeps asking how long he has to wait for a haircut, but then he doesn't ever come back." A little while later, Bill returned to the shop, laughing hysterically. The barber asked, "So where does that guy go when he leaves?" "To your wife."

UK farmers play rock music to help livestock 'chill out

Far from enjoying the quiet countryside, what farmyard animals really want to hear is a good rock song from the likes of Aerosmith and Bon Jovi, a survey has revealed. The survey that was carried out by RSPCA Freedom Food showed that 77 percent of farmers in the east of England play music or sing to their livestock, tipping Radio 2 as the most popular radio station for their animals, followed by Radio 1. According to farmers, pigs and cows like hearing music of Adele, Bon Jovi, Coldplay and Eminem. The farmers have also admitted to singing hymns, rugby songs and piggy nursery rhymes to keep their animals relaxed. The research found that livestock also enjoyed keeping up to date with the current affairs and sports from Radio Five Live and Radio Four's Today programme. It follows research from Writtle College in Essex that had found that playing background music can have a positive effect on sows and piglets by increasing suckling and making mothers more playful. Mark Hayward of Dingley Dell Pork in Woodbridge, Suffolk, has taken the theory one step further and has an own house band the 'Broadside Boys'. "We often sit on the hay bales, singing and strumming to our Freedom Food pigs and I'm convinced they love it," the Daily Mail quoted Hayward as saying. "And when the bands not playing we have music on all the time, coming from the tractors or my truck. It's really important to be relaxed and calm around farm animals because they respond to your mood and in turn become more chilled out too. "Music and also talking to our animals is a key part of that. I chat away to my breeding sows all the time, although the piglets are often too busy to stay still long enough to listen," he said. The survey found that 59 per cent of farmers talk to their animals with hot topics including the weather and how they were feeling. "Chatting to farm animals may sound daft but there is a clear welfare message behind Freedom Food's survey," RSPCA farm animal scientist, Dr Marc Cooper, said. "The farmers said that their animals are more content, relaxed and calm when they interact with them in this way," "Like our pets, farm animals are intelligent, sentient beings and respond well to positive interaction, he added.

Distorted music is like animals' distress call

The effect of listening to music with distortion is similar to hearing the cries of animals in distress, say researchers. "Music that shares aural characteristics with the vocalisations of distressed animals captures human attention and is uniquely arousing," said study co-author Daniel Blumstein, the journal Biology Letters reports. In distress, animals distort their voices by forcing a large amount of air rapidly through the voice box. Blumstein, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California Los Angeles, US, is an authority on animal distress calls, particularly among marmots. In 2010, he and a team of researchers captured media attention with a study of the soundtracks of 102 classic movies in four genres: adventure, drama, horror and war, according to a California statement. They determined that the soundtracks for each genre possessed characteristic emotion-manipulating techniques. Scores for dramatic films, for example, had more abrupt shifts in frequency, both up and down. Horror films, on the other hand, had more screaming females and distorted sounds. The researchers were even able to detect recordings of animal screams in some scores. The latest findings are based on a series of experiments that Blumstein designed and conducted with Peter Kaye, a Santa Monica-based composer of movie and TV scores, and Greg Bryant, an assistant professor of communication studies at California who specialises in research on vocal communication and evolutionary psychology. Bryant is a musician and recording engineer. Using synthesisers, Kaye and Bryant composed a series of original music pieces of several types or "conditions," with each piece lasting just 10 seconds. "We wanted to see if we could enhance or suppress the listener's feelings based on what's going on with the music," Blumstein said. In the control condition, the music was generic and emotionally neutral, without noise or abrupt transitions in frequency or pitch. Bryant likened it to rather plain elevator music. Another condition began in an easy-listening manner but then suddenly broke into distortion, much like Hendrix famously did at Woodstock. Undergraduate students were asked to listen to an example of each condition and then rate the examples based on two factors: how arousing they found the music and whether the emotional feeling in the music was positive (such as happy) or negative (such as fear-inducing or sad). No subject heard more than one example from any condition. When the music featured distortion, subjects rated it as more exciting than the compositions without distortion. They also were more likely to describe the music as charged with negative emotion. "This study helps explain why the distortion of rock 'n' roll gets people excited: It brings out the animal in us," said Bryant. The researchers also believe their study is the first work to incorporate what scientists know about animal communication into the study of music perception. In the future, the researchers plan to test how different types of music affect a listener's nervous system. Past research has shown that calls of distress raise heart rates and skin conductance among animals.

Intensive mobile phone use triggers sleep disorder and depression

Young adults who are constantly connected to the Internet via their mobile phone or computer are more likely to suffer from sleep disturbances, stress and symptoms of mental health, according to a study. "Public health advice should therefore include information on the healthy use of this technology," researcher Sara Thomee from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, said. Doctoral student Thomee and her research colleagues at the University of Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska Academy have conducted four different studies looking at how the use of computers and mobile phones affects the mental health of young adults. These studies, which included questionnaires for 4,100 people aged 20-24 and interviews with 32 young heavy ICT users, reveal that intensive use of mobile phones and computers can be linked to stress, sleep disorders and depressive symptoms. "We looked at the effects both quantitatively and qualitatively and followed up the volunteers a year on," Thomee explained. "The conclusion is that intensive use of ICT can have an impact on mental health among young adults," she said. The studies reveal, for example, that heavy mobile use is linked to an increase in sleeping problems in men and an increase in depressive symptoms in both men and women. "Those who find the constant accessibility via mobile phones to be stressful are most likely to report mental symptoms," Thomee said. Frequently using a computer without breaks also increases the risk of stress, sleeping problems and depressive symptoms in women, whereas men who use computers intensively are more likely to develop sleeping problems. "Regularly using a computer late at night is associated not only with sleep disorders but also with stress and depressive symptoms in both men and women," she said. A combination of both heavy computer use and heavy mobile use makes the association even stronger. One conclusion is that public health advice to young people should include information on how to use ICT in a healthy way: "This means taking breaks, taking time to recover after intensive use, and putting limits on your availability," she added.

Senior Views

The Importance of walking Walking can add minutes to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $4,000 per month. My grandpa started walking five miles a day when he was 60. Now he's 97 years old and we have no idea where the hell he is. ----------------------------------------- I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. The only reason I would take up walking is so that I could hear heavy breathing again. -------------------------------------------------------- I have to walk early in the morning, before my brain figures out what I'm doing... ------------------------------------------ I joined a health club last year, spent about 250 bucks. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to go there! --------------------------------------- Every time I hear the dirty word 'exercise', I wash my mouth out with chocolate. ------------------------------------ I do have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them. -------------------------------------------- The advantage of exercising every day is so when you die, they'll look at you there in the coffin and say, 'Well, he looks good doesn't he.' ------------------------------------ If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country. ------------------------------------------ I know I got a lot of exercise the last few years,......just getting over the hill. We all get heavier as we get older, because there's a lot more information in our heads. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. A ND Every time I start thinking too much about how I look, I just find a pub with a Happy Hour and by the time I leave, I look just fine. You could run this over to your friends But just e-mail it to them! It will save you the walk! THE END!

Spice Girls to reunite for West End musical

All girls band 'Spice Girls' is all set to reunite for their big West End first night. The women behind Girl Power will all be at the world premiere of 'Viva Forever', which will open at the Piccadilly Theatre in December, well before Christmas. 'Ghost The Musical', which is currently running at the Piccadilly, will close in the autumn. Based on the Oscar-winning movie that starred Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg, 'Ghost' has some terrific moments but, but it seems that there are not enough such moments that can draw the kind of audiences that will keep the show running. 'Viva Forever', created by Judy Craymer, the powerhouse behind Mamma Mia!, and award-winning funny lady Jennifer Saunders, will feature around 16 numbers associated with the 'Spice Girls' line-up Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton, Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm and Melanie Brown, respectively Ginger, Baby, Posh, Sporty and Scary, the Daily Mail reported. Previews will begin in November. Auditions will start later this month and run into July, and Craymer and director Paul Garrington want to begin rehearsals around September. Workshop versions of the show have already been held, enabling the creative team, which also includes top choreographer Lynne Page, designer Peter Mackintosh and orchestrator Martin Koch, to explore how to stage the show ahead of rehearsals. Viva Forever will face stiff competition from another show, 'The Body-guard', featuring music connected with iconic singer Whitney Houston, as they will also begin performances at the Adelphi Theatre at around the same time. Both are hot-button productions featuring songs that are already hummable and well known. The 'Spice Girls' show has a mother and daughter story at its heart, with a television talent show as a backdrop. Emma and Mel C apparently cried when they watched footage of the workshops; both felt it reflected the group's ethos - friendship, identity and being true to yourself - and also saw it as an astute commentary on today's obsession with celebrity. Although, Craymer had said a few months ago that 'the show isn't about the Spice Girls directly, but it's sprinkled with their essence'. 'Viva Forever' will include hit songs 'Wannabe', 'The Lady Is A Vamp', 'Who Do You Think You Are' and 'Mamma'.

Elvis Presley's crypt goes under the hammer

Elvis Presley's original crypt is going up for sale as part of celebrity auctioneer Darren Julien's Music Icons auction next month. The tomb is located inside the granite and marble mausoleum at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee. Presley was interred there alongside his mother, Gladys, after he died on August 16, 1977, Stuff.co.nz reported. Two months later, they were re-buried at his Graceland home after a failed attempt to steal the singer's body from the crypt. The pair were then moved and reburied in Graceland's meditation garden, where they remain to this day. The original crypt has stayed empty ever since. Julien said that the winning bid from the auction beginning June 23 would receive the crypt, opening and closing of the vault for burial, a memorialisation inscription and use of a chapel for a committal service. Transportation and funeral home charges are not included.

Music stars form sex ring on mobiles to share sleazy pics of girl fans

Top music stars have set up a sleazy sex ring on their mobiles to swap explicit photos of unsuspecting girl fans, it has emerged. According to The Sun, the secret group called PMB "Pimp My Bitches" is identical to the one run by Premier League footballers exposed by the paper last week. Three of the biggest acts in the music industry are members and use their BlackBerry phones to leer at naked photos of each other's groupies and sexual conquests without the women's consent. One is a hugely-famous British band. The others are best-selling solo artists, one from the UK, one from overseas. And one act has a squeaky-clean image. Alarmingly all three have thousands of young female fans. The music stars have scored a string of No1 hits in the UK and sold millions of records between them. Incredibly, one sportsman who belonged to the soccer stars groups "named Brotherhood and Hoodratz " is also a member of the pervy PMB. A source has revealed that some of the best-known celebrities in this country "be they in sport or music" are caught up in these sleazy groups. The source claimed that the music stars treat women like pieces of meat and have no respect for them. These women and girls have no idea naked snaps of them are being circulated, said the source adding that most of the pop stars involved don't have wives. The Sun has established the identities of all three acts, but it is feared other big music names may be involved.

Buenos Aires night club sways to Sanskrit melodies

If you are in Buenos Aires don't forget to visit this trendy night club because you will be in for a huge surprise! Here, you won't come across salsa or reggaton music like most such places do, but soulful Sanskrit melodies that rent the air. "I had the most unusual night club experience last weekend when I was in Groove," says R. Viswanathan, India's ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. "The DJ was not playing salsa, samba or reggaton. Instead, the club was vibrating with Sanskrit songs...'Jai jai Radha Ramana hari Bol', 'Jai Krishna Hare', 'Gurudeva Guru Om', 'Govinda Govinda' and 'Jai Shiva Shambo'," said Viswanathan. Lead singer Rodrigo Bustos, 29, and his band mate Nicolas Pucci, 32, were entertaining the guests with their mesmerising voice. Some 800 people, in their teens and 20s, were dancing and swaying to the music, he said. And guess what? This joint serves only soft drink instead of alcohol. At Groove, one is not allowed to smoke and only vegetarian food is served. Adding to the amazement, this club also has a yoga guru who instructs the guests about various yoga techniques. "The instructor asked the audience to smile and exchange greetings and the audience followed all the instructions religiously and fervently. After a while, the music and dance resumed," says Viswanathan. "Despite the loud music and wild dancing in the night club, both the singers and the audience maintained a sense of reverence to the Sanskrit mantras and the Indian gods." Asked how did they attract Argentine youth with Sanskrit songs, Bustos explained: "Yoga Rave is an alternative party. It is a new concept in fun-free from alcohol, smoking and drugs. The body and and soul are connected by the mantras, yoga, meditation, music and dance in an unconventional way." They have already attracted thousands of people since they started yoga rave in 2008 in Buenos Aires. In 2010, they took the music beyond Argentina to Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. In 2011, they performed at the Berlin World Cultural Festival. The duo has not been to India but 7,000 of their CDs have already been sold there. They released their first album "Smile" in 2009 and the second "Blossom" May 20, 2012. Bustos and Pucci drew their inspiration from Indian spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar's Art of Living Foundation, said Viswanathan. The two use the Sanskrit mantras in all forms of music such as pop, rock, hiphop, reggaton and electronic music, he said.