More Than 40,000 Japanese Aged 100 Or Over: Survey

Stephan:  There is another facet to this story that went uncovered. For the Japanse over-population is not the issue, under-population is. None of the major industrial nations but the U.S., has a sustainable birth rate - 1.85 - and the US only attains this because of immigration.

TOKYO — More than 40,000 Japanese people are aged 100 or over, up 10 percent over last year, a government survey showed on Friday. The report is the latest reminder of the economic problems facing the world’s most rapidly aging country. Of the 40,399 citizens in their 100s, 87 percent are women, the Health and Welfare Ministry said. An aging population that is also forecast to shrink is among the challenges facing new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Democratic Party, elected in a landslide last month. A smaller workforce will have to shoulder the burden of ballooning pension and healthcare requirements. Just over three people of working age now support each elderly person, but in 50 years the ratio will be closer to one to one. Hatoyama’s Democrats have pledged to standardize the pension system with a minimum of 70,000 yen ($765) per month for those who had low incomes or lacked sufficient contributions to qualify for a pension. Japan’s centenarian numbers rank it second in the world behind the United States, which now has more than 96,000, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. But the U.S. population is more than double that of […]

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Google Enters the Solar Industry

Stephan:  Although sometimes it may not seem so, in fact I love to do stories that depict positive corporate trends. This is one such.

Google’s famous ‘don’t be evil’ mantra really comes to life when you consider the considerable work Big G is doing to run its business with minimal damage to the environment. It takes a lot of power to run Google’s enormous computing resources — the Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, CA, consumes about 22 megawatt-hours of electric power every day, which is enough to power more than 3,000 typical Californian homes. And Google is doing its part to avoid rolling brownouts. The headquarters gets 30% of that massive power supply from over 9,000 solar panels installed on the roof. That’s great — but Google wants better, cheaper, and more efficient solar power. At the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit this week, Google’s green energy chief Bill Weihl detailed what Google is doing for solar energy. ‘We’ve been looking at very unusual materials for the mirrors both for the reflective surface as well as the substrate that the mirror is mounted on,’ he said. The idea is to cut the cost of generating solar power to standard commercial rates, and the company is betting that large arrays of reflectors that drive steam turbines could get there within two […]

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Credit Scores: What You Need to Know Now

Stephan: 

Are you keeping score? Credit scores have been getting a lot of attention lately, as lenders tighten credit standards and contend with new legislation that has, among other things, reined in how credit-card issuers can raise rates. Meanwhile, several firms, preying on our insecurities, are pushing credit scores and credit-score-tracking services for a monthly fee. For all the attention they generate, though, credit scores are largely misunderstood. For instance, your precise score matters only when you’re in need of new debt, like a home, auto or education loan or a new credit card, which should be a fairly rare occurrence. You don’t have just one score, but many. Your FICO score, the one developed by Fair Isaac Corp. that runs from a low of 300 to a high of 850, will vary depending on which credit bureau is reporting it and the kind of lender that requested it. [FAMILYJMP] So the score that costs you $15.95 at MyFico.com may not be the score your lender sees. Beyond that, the three credit bureaus- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion- sell their own proprietary scores. Confused about what to believe? Here are some common myths about credit scores: […]

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MRSA ‘Superbug’ Found In Ocean, Public Beaches

Stephan:  I think this is occurring because of all the billions of doses of antibiotics and other biochemicals that are flushed into the ocean each year, killing off bacteria in the water, so that those that survive to propagate are resistant, and pass on that resistance. We are creating this monstrous problem by our unconsciousness.

SAN FRANCISCO — Public beaches may be one source of the surging prevalence of the superbug known as multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, researchers here said Saturday. A study by researchers at the University of Washington has for the first time identified methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA) in marine water and beach sand from seven public beaches on the Puget Sound. The researchers identified Staph bacteria on nine of 10 public beaches that they tested. Seven of 13 Staph aureus samples, found on five beaches, were multidrug resistant, says lead investigator Marilyn Roberts. ‘Our results suggest that public beaches may be a reservoir for possible transmission of MRSA,’ she told the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy here, the leading international conference on new and resurgent diseases. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been around for almost as long as there have been antibiotics. Until recently, researchers have been able to outwit them by developing new antibiotics. Now, however, the pipeline of new antibiotics has slowed, and germs are coming perilously close to winning the race. The best available treatment for MRSA, vancomycin, is more expensive than other antibiotics and takes a long time to conquer the infection. ‘It’s like […]

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Archaeologists Discover Oldest-known Fiber Materials Used By Early Humans

Stephan: 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A team of archaeologists and paleobiologists has discovered flax fibers that are more than 34,000 years old, making them the oldest fibers known to have been used by humans. The fibers, discovered during systematic excavations in a cave in the Republic of Georgia, are described in this week’s issue of Science. The flax, which would have been collected from the wild and not farmed, could have been used to make linen and thread, the researchers say. The cloth and thread would then have been used to fashion garments for warmth, sew leather pieces, make cloths, or tie together packs that might have aided the mobility of our ancient ancestors from one camp to another. The excavation was jointly led by Ofer Bar-Yosef, George Grant MacCurdy and Janet G. B. MacCurdy Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, with Tengiz Meshveliani from the Georgian State Museum and Anna Belfer-Cohen from the Hebrew University. The microscopic research of the soil samples in which numerous flax fibers were discovered was done by Eliso Kvavadze of the Institute of Paleobiology, part of the National Museum of Georgia. ‘This was a critical […]

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