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Los Angeles Times: Carb Supporters Rejoice as Atkins Goes Belly Up:

Carb Supporters Rejoice as Atkins Goes Belly Up
Pasta makers and potato farmers are happy to see the weight-loss firm's bankruptcy filing.
By Jerry Hirsch
Times Staff Writer

August 2, 2005

In Boise, staff members of the Idaho Potato Commission gave one another gleeful high-fives when they heard the news. In Houston, the folks at the U.S. Rice Producers' Assn. declared 'good riddance.' And fruit farmers in California's Central Valley said they were 'happy to see them go.'

Across the nation, producers of carbohydrate-laden food exulted at the decision by Atkins Nutritionals Inc., the Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based designer of the once-popular low-carbohydrate weight-loss program, to file for bankruptcy protection.

The company said it planned to reorganize and focus mainly on selling nutrition bars and shakes. But analysts and nutritionists said Atkins' bankruptcy filing effectively signaled the demise of the low-carb lifestyle and an era when tens of millions of Americans embraced high-protein diets rich in meat and cheese while eschewing carbohydrates and sugars in grains, fruits and vegetables.

'It just proves that what Atkins was trying to do was just too extreme,' said Jeff Yankellow, a South San Francisco baking instructor and winner of the World Cup of Baking in Paris in April. 'Bread has survived as a nutritional food for thousands of years, and Atkins isn't going to kill it.'

In court papers, the company indicated that it was a victim of fierce competition from large food companies such as Unilever, Kraft Foods Inc. and General Mills Inc., which in the last few years rolled out their own lines of low-carb food.

When the diet was at its peak, fast-food chain Carl's Jr. pushed its lettuce-wrapped Low Carb Six Dollar Burger, Round Table Pizza developed a low-carb crust, Kraft came out with low-carb Oreos and Frito-Lay pitched low-carb

Los Angeles Times: Swallowing a Lie May Aid in Weight Loss, Research Suggests:

Swallowing a Lie May Aid in Weight Loss, Research Suggests
A team found it could make people believe that some foods sickened them as children.
By Rosie Mestel
Times Staff Writer

August 2, 2005

In their battle against the bulge, desperate dieters have tried drugs, surgery, exercise, counseling, creams and even electrical fat-burning belts.

Now some psychologists have a new idea: subtle brainwashing.

A team led by psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of UC Irvine found that it could persuade people to avoid fattening foods by implanting unpleasant childhood memories about them � even though the memories were untrue.

In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team said it successfully turned people off strawberry ice cream and, in earlier studies, it had done the same with pickles and hard-boiled eggs � in each case by manipulating the subjects to believe that the foods made them sick when they were children.

The scientists say they have also successfully implanted positive opinions about asparagus by convincing subjects that they once loved the vegetable.

The method, if perfected, could induce people to eat less of what they shouldn't and more of what they should, Loftus said. Good memories about fruits and vegetables could be implanted, as well as bad ones about low-nutrient, high-calorie foods.

In the strawberry ice cream experiment, Loftus and her team asked 131 students to fill out forms about their food experiences and preferences, including questions about strawberry ice cream. The subjects were then given a computer analysis of their responses that was supposed to indicate their true likes and dislikes.

However, 47 students were inaccurately told that the analysis made it clear that they had gotten sick from eating strawberry ice cream as children. Of these,

In a Furry First, A Dog Is Cloned In South Korea:

In a Furry First, A Dog Is Cloned In South Korea

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 4, 2005; A01

South Korean researchers said yesterday that they have created the world's first cloned dog: a playful black, tan and white Afghan hound named Snuppy.

The puppy, grown from a single cell taken from the ear of a 3-year-old male Afghan, marks a milestone in the race to fabricate genetically identical dogs for research and as companion animals.

The process of dog cloning remains highly inefficient, a reflection of how much scientists still have to learn about how to make mammalian offspring from single parents and without the help of sperm. Multiple surgeries on more than 100 anesthetized dogs and the painstaking creation of more than 1,000 laboratory-grown embryos led to the birth of just two cloned puppies -- one of which died after three weeks.

But the feat suggests that a market in cloned dogs, through which people grieving the loss of their favorite pets could order genetic duplicates, may not be as futuristic as some had thought. And by leapfrogging a seven-year-old, multimillion-dollar U.S. effort, the success has clinched South Korea's quickly growing reputation as a premier center for cloning and stem cell research.

Cloned dog embryos could make available the first canine versions of embryonic stem cells. Researchers could then test stem cell therapies that have been proposed for people and, perhaps, cure some dog diseases along the way.

Print Story: Amphetamines may slow Parkinson's, study shows on Yahoo! News:

Amphetamines may slow Parkinson's, study shows

Thu Aug 4, 9:31 AM ET

Amphetamines, including the party drug Ecstasy, have reversed the effects of Parkinson's disease in mice, researchers said on Wednesday.

Their finding does not suggest the use of now-illegal drugs to treat the incurable brain disease, but may offer a way forward in helping patients, they said.

The team at Duke University in North Carolina treated mice that were genetically modified to suffer from Parkinson's-like symptoms with more than 60 types of amphetamines.

Fourteen of the drugs helped reverse the symptoms of the mice, including the tremors and rigidity that mark the disease -- raising the possibility of exploring related treatments for humans.

'We hope to find new drugs that are close chemically, but safe,' Marc Caron, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.

Parkinson's disease is caused by the death of brain cells that control physical movement and produce the essential chemical dopamine.

According to the American Parkinson's Disease Association, there are about 1.5 million Americans with the disease.

The new research shows that dopamine replacement, so far the most common, but only partly effective Parkinson's treatment, may not be the only viable option, Caron said.

Amphetamine-like drugs, not unlike those now given to children with attention deficit disorder, could eventually be used for Parkinson's, he said.

'We give these drugs in low doses to children, so it's not so terrible to say some day we should give similar drugs to Parkinson's patients,' Caron said.

The effects of another stimulant, coffee, have been cited in the past as easing Parkinson's symptoms by keeping dopamine levels high.

But Caron said coffee is only effective in early stages of the disease, when some dopamine

Yahoo! Search blog: Announcing The Yahoo! Publisher Network Self-Serve Beta:

Announcing The Yahoo! Publisher Network Self-Serve Beta

You may have heard a few rumors over the past few months about Yahoo! developing more solutions for small- and medium-sized publishers. Well, those rumors are true, and we're 100% committed to living up to them.

I'm proud to announce today that Yahoo! has launched a beta network in the U.S. for small- and medium-sized publishers. Currently available through invitation only, as Yahoo! tests and refines the new platform, small- and medium-sized publishers can easily sign up online and access new revenue sources and enhanced Yahoo! content through our new self-serve platform. Our goal is to extend the beta to more publishers by the end of the year.

Yahoo to launch blog ad network | CNET News.com:

Yahoo is planning to launch on Wednesday an ad network for small Web publishers intended to strengthen its hand against rival Google, a source familiar with the plan told CNET News.com.

It is always saddenning when media reports of the latest musical band term them "overnight success". Ask them - they have been playing for years - even decades, practicing their craft. This is the golden truth of life: Talented people who perform in public have often spent many years honing their skills in private. Learn it from Blackjack or Music or Gardening.

Life Lessons From Blackjack:

5. Private victory precedes public victory. Novices learn how to play in the casino. Experts learn how to play at home and then apply their knowledge in the casino. Experts spend a lot more time practicing, which takes tremendous patience. Their real victories are unseen. Talented people who perform in public have often spent many years honing their skills in private.

The Search Engines are getting better but 1.1% is such a low number. For a lot of traditional queries - names of companies, newspapers, webistes - the first result should be the same - the company site, the newspaper site or the website respectively.

Search Engine Results Continuing to Diverge:

The study looked at search results from more than 12,500 random queries on Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN search and Yahoo, and found that the overlap in first page results for these four engines was a scant 1.1% on average for a given query, suggesting that each of the four major search engines has a unique voice that's not duplicated by the other services.

An excellent way to produce a CSS Rounded Box

CSS Rounded Box Generator:

CSS Rounded Box Generator

Like a tricky-dick radio host who offers to tell a secret at 8:00pm and babbles on till 8:58pm and then give you the information. Web surfers scan the text, they aren't reading anything ... they are looking for a telephone number and when they find it at the bottom of the page, they note it and off they go to the next message on the RSS feed.

eBay Phone Number: Yes, eBay Does Have A Contact Phone Number!:

eBay Phone Number: Yes, eBay Does Have A Contact Phone Number!

They have taken the best features of deli.cio.us and feed-publishing ... to make a simple self-service publishing application.

Making libraries more delicious: Social bookmarking in the enterprise | urlgreyhot:

Making libraries more delicious: Social bookmarking in the enterprise

Teens have cheap cell phones with instant messaging abilities, mp3 playing iPods, broadband connection to the web, xboxes and PSP for games ... TV and Radio will have to do much better to survive.

Cimex: About us: TV loses out to the web among teens:

TV loses out to the web among teens

Young people are switching off their television sets and are spending more time surfing the internet than ever before, according to a new survey.

The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) quizzed 8,000 participants across Europe about their media consumption habits, and found that although traditional media is still popular, 46 per cent are watching TV less whilst 22 per cent are turning off their radios.

The Big Easel - The Van Gogh Project:

The inspiration and process behind the Van Gogh Project.

The Van Gogh Project is a series of Big Easel paintings based on Vincent van Gogh's Sunflower Paintings. Each sculpture consists of a colossal hand-painted reproduction of one of the seven Sunflower Paintings, measuring an impressive 7 x 10 metres, which rests on a 25 metre,17,000 kilogram steel easel. The first Easel was erected in Altona, Canada on October 17, 1998. The second was finished and erected on November 8, 1999 in Emerald, Australia. The third easel was successfully proposed to the city of Goodland and the State of Kansas, USA. Construction began in the spring of 2000. Discussions are currently underway in South Africa, and Japan for future sites.

Read the story of Ivy Lee and Charles Schwab : The Six Things Most Important Things I Must Do Tomorrow and you'll understand the beauty of this simple list.

The 'Not Insane' To-Do List @ AMERICAN DIGEST:

The 'Not Insane' To-Do List

'There is no multi-tasking. There is only the monkey mind jabbering so fast it seems like multi-tasking.' *

LET'S FACE IT, we all have far too much to do. But the only reason this is so is because of the proliferation of productivity tools that respond to our insane lust to be 'productive.' Driving this insanity is the To-Do list which is, being limitless, is unlimited in its ability to drive us insane. It's time to stop the To-List insanity. Toss all you've previous To-Do Listing Systems you've got out -- paper and/or electronic -- and convert to this new, improved certifiably not-insane system.

Flickr: Explore interesting photos from the last 24 hours:

Explore / Interestingness / Last 24 Hours

Organized Dooce site from the people who brought you SimplyHired

Simply Fired | Feature Story:

the official story, straight from the source

on january 28th, 2005, i was terminated from google. either directly or indirectly, my blog was the reason. this came as a great shock to me because two days ago we had looked at my blog and removed all inappropriate content - the comments on financial performance and future products. for my next entries, i was very cognizant of my blogging content, making sure to stay away from these topics. i mean, as much as i like to be open and honest about communicating to users and customers, i'm not insubordinate. if i was told to shut down this blog, i would have.

The important metric should not be blogs created per second, but blogs in existence which are being maintained, say updated more than once a week - it's that number that should be the barometer of actrivity.

BBC NEWS | Technology | One blog created 'every second':

One blog created 'every second'
The blogosphere is continuing to grow, with a weblog created every second, according to blog trackers Technorati.

In its latest State of the Blogosphere report, it said the number of blogs it was tracking now stood at more than 14.2m blogs, up from 7.8m in March.

It suggests, on average, the number of blogs is doubling every five months.

An excellent article with strategies on commenting code.

particletree � Successful Strategies for Commenting Code:

Successful Strategies for Commenting Code
By Ryan Campbell
Introduction

Commenting your code is like cleaning your bathroom�you never want to do it, but it really does create a more pleasant experience for you and your guests. Because I�ve recently adopted a new mantra to use comments frequently and appropriately in my code, I spent a few hours researching the literature on commenting readability, reusability, and guidelines.