Aromatherapy adherents will tell you that basil can clear headaches and lemon can be an antidepressant. The idea that scents can be used medicinally has become so widely accepted that so-called ‘essential’ oils, or highly concentrated plant scents, have found their way into a slew of lotions, candles, sprays and massage products promising to help you sleep, wake you up or relieve your stress. But do they work? While it’s true that a pleasant smell can put you in a good mood, new research casts doubt on some of the reputed healing powers of aromatherapy. Researchers at Ohio State University found that lemon and lavender oil had no physiological effect on study subjects, despite lemon’s reputation as a stimulant and lavender’s as a sleep aid. They taped cotton balls that had been dipped in lemon oil, lavender oil or water to subjects’ noses and conducted a variety of tests ranging from pain response (dunking feet in cold water) to mood studies (completing psychological tests). Although lemon oil had a positive effect on subjects’ moods, lavender didn’t have any perceived effect, and neither essential oil significantly affected pain responses, heart rate or blood pressure. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, the Ohio State […]
Crude oil may rise to $120 a barrel within six months due to the dollar weakness and global political tensions, the chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. said. ‘I think a trading range between $80 and $120 a barrel this year is about right,” Peter Barker-Homek, the head of the United Arab Emirates state-controlled company, which is also known as Taqa, said in an interview in Dubai today. “But with the softness of the dollar, and the occasional interruptions that you have because of politics, I think we could see $120 oil.” In October, Barker-Homek said that crude would rise to $100 from $80 before the end of the first quarter because of unfettered Asian demand growth and possible supply shocks. Oil prices continued to rise today after the Taqa CEO made his latest forecast. Crude oil for April delivery rose as much as 70 cents in earlier electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was up 28 cents at $102.73 a barrel at 2:06 p.m. London time. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet tomorrow in Vienna, where members have already ruled out changing output. The dollar traded near […]
NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should have reacted sooner to concerns about hazardous fumes in government-issued trailers housing thousands of Gulf Coast hurricane victims, a CDC official told a congressional panel Tuesday. ‘In retrospect, we did not engage the formaldehyde issue as aggressively and as early as we should have,’ Howard Frumkin, director of the CDC’s National Center For Environmental Health, told a Senate subcommittee on disaster recovery. The committee met in Washington. The CDC announced last month that tests on hundreds of occupied Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers and mobile homes found formaldehyde levels that were, on average, about five times higher than what people are exposed to in most modern homes. The results prompted FEMA to step up efforts to move roughly 35,000 families still living in the trailers after the 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita. ‘This is a little too late,’ Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., told Deputy FEMA Administrator Harvey Johnson Jr. during Tuesday’s hearing. Johnson said the number of occupied trailers on the Gulf Coast, which peaked at more than 143,000 after the hurricanes, has dropped to about 34,000 as FEMA rushes to move people into […]
CARACAS/QUITO — Leftist allies Venezuela and Ecuador escalated a crisis with Colombia on Monday, cutting diplomatic ties after their neighbor raided inside Ecuador in an attack that sparked troop deployments and warnings of war. Colombia also fueled the tensions by accusing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of funding Marxist rebels in its country — a charge denied by the anti-U.S. president’s government. The crisis erupted when Colombia flew troops into Ecuador on Saturday in a bombing raid that killed a senior rebel of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. It was a major blow to Latin America’s oldest rebel group and also eliminated a key contact for governments, such as France, Venezuela and Ecuador, in talks to free hostages held by FARC for years in jungle camps. Chavez has brokered the release of six captives since the start of the year in those negotiations. On Monday, Venezuela and Ecuador said they had been close to securing freedom for the most high-profile hostage, French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt. ‘The hand of authoritarian war-mongers wrecked everything,’ Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said on the eve of a Latin American tour — including Venezuela — to lobby for support. […]
So, what is the difference between them? CLINTON: Sells herself as experienced and ready to lead on day one. She promises hard work and a fight to win the nomination, to resist Republican attacks in the general election and to defend blue-collar workers as president. # Hillary Clinton staff: don’t fight on in vain # Full coverage of the US elections advertisement OBAMA: Says America needs change in Washington, an end to partisan bitterness and new personnel. His focus is more on the power of his personality to bring people together – Democrat and Republican, black and white. WHAT IT MEANS: Both have strong faith in the power of government, but Mr Obama’s poetic message of hope has trumped Mrs Clinton’s prosaic command of the issues. IRAQ CLINTON: An awkward embarrassment. Mrs Clinton would start withdrawing troops within six months. But her senate vote for war remains a handicap with those who now wish it had never happened. She has repeatedly refused to apologise, though she said last week she would like to take it back. OBAMA: The big issue for Mr Obama, since he opposed the war from the start, speaking out even […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
