BOSTON — Attention all you Aquafina-swigging, Fiji-glugging, Poland Springs-bulk-buying thirst quenchers: You might be feeling hydrated, but all those plastic water bottles you’re leaving behind are choking the environment. Americans chugged down 6.76 billion gallons of bottled water in 2004, and last year we threw away about 26 billion bottles, according to the Earth Policy Institute. The good news: We’re not thirsty. The bad news: We’re pretty cavalier about the ecosystem. ‘Nationally, we are basically draining 70 million single-serving bottles of water every day,’ said Pat Franklin, executive director of the Container Recycling Institute in Washington, D.C. ‘And 60 million of those bottles aren’t getting recycled. And for every one of those we don’t recycle, we make new bottles. Sixty million. Every day.’ And Jen Baker, environmental associate for MASSPIRG, said our infatuation for water-on-the-go is putting a real drain on the state’s recycling numbers. ‘We see an increase in consumer demand for bottled water as slightly problematic because we haven’t established the recycling infrastructure to capture these bottles,’ she said. ‘Most plastic water bottles […]
Japan can’t get no satisfaction. But Austria’s mojo is working. Sex is more satisfying in countries where women and men are considered equal, according to an international study of people between the ages of 40 and 80 by researchers at the University of Chicago. Austria, where 71% of those surveyed reported being satisfied with their sex lives, topped the list of 29 nations studied. Spain, Canada, Belgium and the United States also reported high rates of sexual satisfaction. The lowest satisfaction rate, 25.7%, was in Japan. Sociologist Edward Laumann, considered a top authority on the sociology of sex, led the study. He believes the findings show that relationships based on equality lead to more satisfaction for women, which in turn leads to more satisfaction for men. ‘Male-centred cultures where sexual behaviour is more oriented toward procreation tend to discount the importance of sexual pleasure for women. ‘When mama’s not happy, nobody’s happy.’ The study appears in the April issue of the Archives of Sexual Behaviour. It was funded by Pfizer, which makes the impotence drug Viagra. Researchers surveyed 27,500 people by phone, in person or by mail, depending on local […]
With many Americans worried about their safety should a flu pandemic occur, there’s little reassurance from a survey that finds that close to half of U.S. public health-care workers would not show up for work if such a pandemic occurred. In fact, two-thirds of the 308 employees polled said their work would put them at risk of contracting the potentially deadly flu should an outbreak come to pass. ‘Forty-two percent of the health care workers surveyed said they would not respond in the event of a flu pandemic,’ said study co-author Dr. Daniel J. Barnett, an instructor at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health Preparedness in Baltimore. ‘The most important factor, in terms of showing up for work, was how much the individual employee perceived his or her role [to be] in the agency’s response,’ he added. The less important an employee thought his or her role was, the less likely they were to report for work, Barrett said. Just 40 percent of the employees felt that they would be asked to show up should a pandemic become a reality. In addition, only 33 percent thought they were knowledgeable about the health impact […]
NEW YORK — There is an unrecognized epidemic of skin cancer underway in the United States, the American Academy of Dermatology warns. One in five Americans will develop skin cancer, and a person’s risk of the disease doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns, according to a report in the April issue of the Mayo Clinic Health Letter. Basal and squamous cell carcinomas, the most common and treatable types of skin cancers, had long been considered a problem only for people over 50, according to the report. But Mayo Clinic researchers found that the percentage of women under 40 with the more common type, basal cell, tripled between 1976 and 2003, while the rate of squamous cell cancers increased four-fold. In the same study, the researchers found that just 60% of the cancers they identified occurred on skin frequently exposed to the sun, such as the head and neck, rather than the normal 90%. Most of the remaining cancers were seen on the torso. The researchers suspect this may be due to more widespread use of tanning beds. Two types of ultraviolet (UV) light are implicated in skin cancers, the article explains. […]
Black Americans are becoming entrepreneurs at a rapidly increasing rate and Pittsburgh is following the trend, a new report issued by the Census Bureau suggests. The report, ‘Survey of Business Owners: Black-Owned Firms: 2002,’ says that between 1997 and 2002, the number of black-owned businesses in the United States rose 45 percent to 1.2 million, while the combined revenue increased 25 percent to $88.8 billion. ‘It’s encouraging to see not just the number but the sales and receipts of black-owned businesses are growing at such a robust rate, confirming that these firms are among the fastest growing segments of our economy,’ said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon. Slated for release today, the report also shows a significant if not quite as dramatic increase in local black business ownership. It found 4,363 black-owned firms in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area as of 2002, up 38.8 percent from 3,142 in 1997. Revenue figures for the metro area, which includes Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties, were not available. Doris Carson Williams, president of the African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania, found the Census Bureau figures encouraging but not surprising. As blacks join the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
