Grape seed extract lowered the blood pressure of patients who participated in a UC Davis study of the benefits of the supplement on people with high blood pressure. Conducted by UC Davis cardiovascular researchers, the study was the first human clinical trial to assess the effect of grape seed extract on people with metabolic syndrome, a combination of risk factors that increase the risk for heart disease, including high blood pressure, excess abdominal body weight, high blood cholesterol fats and high blood sugar. The researchers will present the results at the American Chemical Society Meeting and Exposition on March 26 in Atlanta, and at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology’s 2006 meeting in San Francisco April 2. It is estimated that 40 percent of American adults, or 50 million people, have metabolic syndrome. The one-month study involved 24 male and female patients diagnosed with metabolic syndrome. The patients were divided into three groups of eight. The first group received a placebo, while the second and third groups received 150 milligrams and 300 milligrams, respectively, of a new grape seed extract. All participants’ blood pressure was automatically measured and recorded for 12 hours after ingestion. […]
The car of the future is here already. The technology exists to build an affordable, mass-market green car that runs on cleaner, more efficient fuel and does not help to destroy the environment like its gas-guzzling rivals. We want to drive it, or so the opinion polls say. There is no scientific reason why it should not be selling in the same numbers as, say, the Ford Focus. So where is this green dream machine? Not on the forecourts. It is stalled in development, the power of its progress drained by a motor industry that does not really want it, a drivers’ lobby that sees driving a 4×4 or ‘Chelsea tractor’ as a civil right, and a government that is making small gestures while the planet suffers. Environmentalists lament the Chancellor’s Budget decision last week to make 4×4 drivers pay just £45 a year more for driving their £60,000 vehicles. But now The Independent on Sunday can reveal that an ambitious £16m scheme to give buyers up to £1,000 to buy green cars has been blocked by a senior minister, who dismisses environmentally friendly drivers as ‘salad eaters’. Stephen Ladyman, the transport minister responsible for green fuels, […]
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Immigration rights advocates more than 500,000 strong marched in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make illegal immigration a felony and to build more walls along the border. The massive demonstration, by far the biggest of several around the nation in recent days, came as President Bush prodded Republican congressional leaders to give some illegal immigrants a chance to work legally in the U.S. under certain conditions. Wearing white shirts to symbolize peace, marchers chanted ‘Mexico!’ ‘USA!’ and ‘Si se puede,’ an old Mexican-American civil rights shout that means ‘Yes, we can.’ They waved the flags of the U.S., Mexico and other countries, and some wore them as capes. Saturday’s march was among the largest for any cause in recent U.S. history. Police came up with the crowd estimate using aerial photographs and other techniques, police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr. said. Other demonstrations drew 50,000 people in Denver and several thousand in Sacramento and Charlotte, N.C. Many protesters said lawmakers were unfairly targeting immigrants who provide a major labor pool for America’s economy. ‘Enough is enough of the xenophobic movement,’ said Norman Martinez, 63, who […]
The Federal Election Commission last night released proposed new rules that leave almost all Internet political activity unregulated except for the purchase of campaign ads on Web sites. ‘My key goal in this rule-making has been to make sure that the commission establish clear rules to exempt individuals who engage in online politics from campaign finance laws,’ said Chairman Michael E. Toner, a Republican. ‘We tried to craft a regulation that would allow the maximum amount of freedom for people as possible,’ said Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democrat. Most bloggers, individual Web users, and such Web sites as Drudge Report and Salon.com are exempted from regulation and will be free to support and attack federal candidates, much as newspapers are allowed. For the most part, leading advocates of the blogger community welcomed the proposed rules. ‘As a whole, these are rules that I think those who have been fighting regulations are going to be cheering,’ said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who runs the Election Law blog. The rules provide ‘broad exemptions for most political activity on the Internet, and expand the media exemption to the Internet,’ […]
WASHINGTON, DC — When Austin Energy, the publicly owned utility in Austin, Texas, launched its GreenChoice program in 2000, customers opting for green electricity paid a premium. During the fall of 2005, climbing natural gas prices pulled conventional electricity costs above those of wind-generated electricity, the source of most green power. This crossing of the cost lines in Austin and several other communities is a milestone in the U.S. shift to a renewable energy economy. Austin Energy buys wind-generated electricity under 10-year, fixed-price contracts and passes this stable price on to its GreenChoice subscribers. This fixed-price energy product is quite attractive to Austin’s 388 corporate GreenChoice customers, including Advanced Micro Devices, Dell, IBM, Samsung, and 3M. Advanced Micro Devices expects to save $4 million over the next decade through this arrangement. School districts are also signing up. Round Rock School District, for example, projects 10-year savings to local taxpayers at $2 million. Facing a Texas-style stampede of consumers wanting to sign up for the current remaining supply of green electricity, Austin Energy has resorted to a GreenChoice raffle that will be held on March 23. All its customers – both residential and business – were invited to participate […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
