A recent Amazon.com search for ‘green home pulled up more than 15,000 book titles. Who has time to read them all? So this week, The Green Home tracked down Eric Corey Freed, the author of ‘Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies, and asked him to distill this growing cottage industry of green advice into five must-do steps. What’s the first and most important thing every green-minded dweller should do? Look at all the vampire loads that are sucking energy even when you’re not using them. You mean like the toaster with a digital clock and the cellphone charger? Yes. Anything with a ready light. Collectively, vampire loads cost Americans about $3 billion a year. The biggest culprits are stereos, DVRs, game systems and plasma TVs. Simply unplug them when they’re not in use. Or purchase smart power strips, which cost about $25 and shut off automatically. What’s the second step for making our homes greener? Take an empty two-liter soda bottle, wash it out, fill it with water, screw the lid on tightly and set it into your toilet tank, as far away from the flapper valve as possible. This prevents two liters of […]
The US needs an overarching regulatory authority to prevent a repeat of risks building up unchecked across the financial system and exploding into economic crisis, Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday. In remarks that echo calls on Capitol Hill for a powerful co-ordinating regulator in the US, the Federal Reserve chairman said the central bank would need to be involved in such a body, if not take the lead role itself. He said the financial crisis, which had seen huge risks building up in lightly regulated institutions, had revealed the weakness of fragmented regulation. ‘This crisis has revealed some rather shocking gaps, he said. ‘Who was overseeing the subprime lenders, for example? Who was overseeing AIG? There simply wasn’t enough adequate oversight in those cases. Mr Bernanke said a range of fixes were being ÃÂproposed or implemented, including consolidated supervision for financial holding companies, tighter restrictions on the investments made by money ÃÂmarket mutual funds and reviewing capital adequacy standards for banks to moderate their incentives to lend too much in booms and too little in recessions. The US also needed a new way to resolve crises in large non-bank financial institutions rather than threatening the whole […]
Nanotechnology has been used for the first time to destroy cancer cells with a highly targeted package of ‘tumour busting’ genes. The technique, which leaves healthy cells unaffected, could potentially offer hope to people with hard-to-treat cancers where surgery is not possible. Although it has only been tested in mice so far, the researchers hope for human trials in two years. The UK study is published online by the journal Cancer Research. School of Pharmacy, London The genes were wrapped up in microscopic nano-particles, 80,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, which were taken up by cancer cells, but not their healthy neighbours. Once inside, the genes stimulated production of a protein which destroys the cancer. The researchers say the technology could potentially be particularly relevant for people with cancers that are inoperable because they are close to vital organs. They hope it will eventually also be used to treat cancer that has spread. ‘Exciting step’ Lead researcher Dr Andreas Schatzlein, from the School of Pharmacy in London, said: ‘Gene therapy has a great potential to create safe and effective cancer treatments but getting the genes into cancer […]
ONEIDA, Ky. — We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the ‘Protestant’ 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century. This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good. Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close. Why is this going […]
A study led by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) found that men who took a daily folic acid supplement of 1 mg daily had more than twice the risk of prostate cancer compared with men who took a placebo. The finding came from a secondary analysis of the Aspirin/Folate Polyp Prevention Study (AFPP), a placebo-controlled randomized trial to determine the impact of aspirin and folic acid on colon polyps in men and women who were at high risk for the disease. The results appear in the March 10 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Folic acid (folate) is a B vitamin found in many vegetables, beans, fruits and whole grains. While evidence of its ability to reduce neural tube defects in infants while taken by the mother before or during pregnancy has been well documented, its effects on other conditions are unclear. ‘We know that adequate folate levels are important in the prevention of several cancer types, cardiovascular and neurological diseases, says lead author Jane Figueiredo, Ph.D., assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. ‘However, little has been known about its role in prostate […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
