Newborns Learn While Sleeping
May 20, 2010
Fox News
A study involving 26 one and two-day old newborns proved that babies take in the stimuli around them not only while they’re awake, but also while they’re asleep, the Telegraph reported.
In the experiment by the University of Florida, scientists tested the babies’ abilities to respond to their surroundings by playing a song and then blowing air softly on their eyelids while they were sleeping. Almost all of the babies started to squeeze their eyes tighter after 20 minutes of the experiment whenever they thought the blow of air was coming.
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Viagra Decreases Hearing
May 20, 2010
Reuters
By Frederik Joelving
A new US study suggests men who take Pfizer’s Viagra (sildenafil) or similar drugs for erectile dysfunction may double their chances of hearing impairment, bolstering a Food and Drug Administration warning from 2007 about this side effect.
High doses of Viagra have been shown to damage hearing in mice, but until now only a few anecdotal cases had been described in humans.
The study, based on a national sample of American men over 40, found that slightly more than one in six of those who did not take Viagra-like drugs — for instance, Eli Lilly’s Cialis — were deaf or hard of hearing.
Among those who took the drugs, however, almost one in three had hearing loss, Gerald McGwin, an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, told Reuters Health.
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Prescription Drug Use Increasing With Children
May 20, 2010
Reuters
By Bill Berkrot
NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) – Children were the leading growth demographic for the pharmaceutical industry in 2009, with the increase of prescription drug use among youngsters nearly four times higher than in the overall population, according to a report by Medco Health Solutions Inc
More than one in four insured children in the United States and nearly 30 percent of adolescents aged 10 to 19 took at least one prescription medicine to treat a chronic condition in 2009, according to an analysis of pediatric medication use conducted as part of Medco’s drug trend study issued on Wednesday.
Medco is forecasting overall pharmaceutical spending to rise up to 18 percent through 2012, driven by diabetes, cancer and rheumatology treatments. Spending is expected to rise 3 percent to 5 percent this year, and 4 percent to 6 percent the next two years.
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Beer-Belly Linked To Alzheimer’s
May 20, 2010
BBC News
A US study of more than 700 adults showed that being overweight is associated with smaller brain volume, a factor linked with dementia.
The finding was particularly strong in those with high levels of visceral fat – fatty tissue which sits around the organs, Annals of Neurology reported.
More than 750,000 people in the UK have a form of dementia.
The researchers from Boston University School of Medicine looked at people with an average age of 60 years old, 70% of whom were women. They measured body mass index, waist circumference and used scans to look at the amount of abdominal fat.
The results showed that as BMI increased, brain volume decreased – a finding that has been reported in other studies.
But the findings also showed a closer connection between abdominal fat and the risk of dementia.
The link between visceral fat around the central organs and smaller brain volume was independent of overall weight.
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Veteran Ordered To Remove Flag From Home
May 20, 2010
WMUR
A Navy veteran is fighting to be able to show his patriotism by flying an American flag outside his apartment building.
Joe LeVangie, 88, said he’s upset after he and his neighbors were told to take their flags down because flying them was against management policy. He said there should be an exception for the flag.
LeVangie, a World War II veteran, said he used to fly his American flag outside his apartment at the Maple Leaf complex in Hillsborough.
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Europe Will Collapse In Next 48, Or Never
May 20, 2010
CNBC
By Drew Sandholm
If we don’t see total capitulation in Europe over the next two days, Cramer said during Wednesday’s Stop Trading!, investors may have to admit that the Continent is “merely” suffering a downturn. Because the repercussions from the expectations of a collapse, which have fed the negativity in the American markets and driven down stocks, can’t continue for much longer without it actually happening.
Cramer said Europe’s debt woes have sunk price-to-earnings multiples here in the States, but to such levels that could only be justified by a Lehman Brothers-type event.
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Unemployment Hits 3-Month High
May 20, 2010
Yahoo News
By Martin Crutsinger
WASHINGTON – The number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week by the largest amount in three months. The surge is evidence of how volatile the job market remains, even as the economy grows.
Applications for unemployment benefits rose to 471,000 last week, up by 25,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the first increase in five weeks and the biggest jump since a gain of 40,000 in February.
The total was the highest since new claims reached 480,000 on April 10. It also pushed the average for the last four weeks to 453,500.
“Although no one expects this volatile series to go in one direction every single week, this is clearly a disappointment,” said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
Stocks slid as investors’ already bleak view of the world economy worsened with another drop in the euro and the disappointing U.S. employment news. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 250 points in early afternoon trading.
In a separate report, a private research group said its index of leading economic indicators dipped slightly in April. It was the first decline in more than a year. Six of the 10 components on the Conference Board’s index deteriorated. Among them: U.S. residents filed fewer applications to build homes; vendors were slower in delivering supplies to companies; the unemployed filed more claims for jobless aid; and consumers’ confidence dropped.
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Foreclosure Crisis Far From Over
May 20, 2010
Yahoo Finance
By Alan Zibel
The mortgage crisis is dragging on the economic recovery as more homeowners fall behind on their payments.
Analysts expect improvement soon, but the number of homeowners in default or at risk of foreclosure will have a lingering effect on the broader economy.
More than 10 percent of homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. That’s a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.
A big jump in the number of borrowers who have missed three months of mortgage payments drove the increase.
One encouraging sign is the number of homeowners just starting to show trouble is trending downward. As of March, nearly 3.5 percent of borrowers had missed one month of mortgage payments, down from about 3.8 percent a year earlier.
Around 4.3 million homeowners, or about 8 percent of all Americans with a mortgage, are at risk of losing their homes, the trade group’s top economist estimates. They have either missed at least three months of payments or are in foreclosure.
Should loan modification programs fail to help, their homes will go up for sale either as a foreclosure or short sale — when the bank agrees to sell the property for less than the original mortgage amount.
Many analysts have been forecasting home prices will dip again as more of these homes go up for sale at deeply discounted prices.
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Cable News Listed As Top Source For The Latest On Obamacare
May 21, 2010
Politics Daily
By Bruce Drake
Thirty percent of Americans say their most important source of news and information about the health care reform package has been the cable TV news channels or their websites, and those who have gotten any information from cable have mostly relied on CNN and Fox News, according to a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll conducted May 11-16.
When it comes to the sources of information from which people have gotten any information at all about the health plan, conversations with family and friends topped the list at 68 percent followed by the cable news channels at 63 percent, newspapers or their websites at 48 percent, local TV stations or their websites at 47 percent and listening to the radio at 45 percent.
Only 20 percent got any information from elected officials while 19 percent got it from their doctor or another health care professional.
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Facebook Shares Personal Data Without Consent
May 21, 2010
Daily Finance
By Sam Gustin
Facebook, the giant social network now under fire over its privacy practices, has been sending personal information to online advertising companies without its users’ consent, according to a Harvard Business School professor who filed a letter of complaint with the Federal Trade Commission Thursday.
“Facebook has been telling its users one thing and then doing the opposite,” Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, told DailyFinance Thursday. “Facebook never told anyone, anywhere, they were going to do this. It’s no longer about quality of disclosure, but about whether Facebook is telling the truth in the first place.”
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