Posted: 03/02/2015 3:58 pm EST Updated: 03/02/2015 4:59 pm EST
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In mid-February, the government released a scientific report that will shape its 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Think of it as America’s basic nutrition policy. Most people who read the report would have viewed it as a snore; not much has changed.
Yes, the report lifted the longstanding advice to limit cholesterol in foods. That boils down to dropping advice to limit egg yolks. Liver is high in cholesterol, but rarely eaten. Shrimp is high in cholesterol, but so low in saturated fat — the prime driver of high blood cholesterol — that its cholesterol hardly matters.
The sun is the biggest culprit in causing skin cancer, but there’s a beverage that may thwart some of the tumor-causing effects of ultraviolet rays
You may grab a cup (or two) of coffee every morning to help you wake up and face the day, but you may also be doing your skin a favor. Researchers in a new paper released January 20 say that coffee can protect against melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Melanoma is triggered by damage to skin cells’ DNA caused by UV rays from the sun or tanning beds; these mutations prompt the cells to grow abnormally and spread to other tissues in the body, where it can be fatal. But in a report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Erikka Loftfield from the National Cancer Institute and her colleagues found that people who drank more than four cups of coffee a day on average had a 20% lower risk of developing melanoma over 10 years.
52 African countries are now connected to submarine cables, either directly or by terrestrial cross-border fibre optic networks. 44% of Africans live within a 25-km reach of a fibre node.
The key question now is which cities and suburbs are taking the lead in building access networks? In an attempt to answer this question theFTTH Council Africa, in collaboration with Africa Bandwidth Maps are undertaking research to determine network reach and identify Africa’s most connected cities.
Africa’s inventory of terrestrial transmission networks has more than doubled in the last five years. According to the latest research by Africa Bandwidth Maps, Africa’s total inventory of transmission network edges towards 1 million route kilometres, the continent had a total of 586,707-km of operational fibre optic network by December 2014. This comprises of long-haul, metropolitan and FTTH/B (fibre-to-the-home/building) terrestrial fibre optic networks. Read more
Good news for laptop and smartphone buyers: a novel flash-memory design should cut costs and boost capacity.
Intel, Micron and Toshiba want to give you the best of both worlds when it comes to flash memory, the storage technology used in smartphones, tablets and higher-end laptops.
Today, smartphones and tablets often don’t have enough room for all your apps, photos, videos and music. And laptop buyers have to decide between hard drives, which are cheap and roomy, but slow, and flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) that are fast but expensive.
A partnership between Micron and Intel, though, is now beginning to yield flash chips with triple the capacity of the top alternative from Samsung. And Toshiba announced a competing chip that matches Samsung’s capacity, a competitive move that should help maintain pricing pressure. Read more
Google’s Cloud service just got a little easier to use. Today, it announced Google Cloud Launcherwhich makes it easy to deploy applications like WordPress or entire stacks like LAMP in a single click.
The new launcher features more than 120 open source applications that are either configured by Bitnami or Google Click to Deploy. You simply need to select a piece of software, choose a few options and it’s up and running. Read more
Phase3 Telecom has revealed plans to begin the deployment of an aerial fiber optic infrastructure from Kano in Nigeria to Gazaoua in the Republic of Niger. According to Phase 3 Telecom, the network will run from Kano state through Katsina state before arriving at Gazaoua. Phase3 also revealed that the cable will be 228 km long. While no solid completion date of the project was given, Phase3 stated that the project is expected to be completed in months to come.
According to Phase3, the Republic of Niger is a landlocked country that borders seven countries; Algeria, Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, and Nigeria. The lack of backbone infrastructure between the Republic of Niger and its neighbors leaves Niger unable to fully enjoy the broadband advantage to its fullest. Read more
Journalist and author Howard W. French and more than 150 other writers and professors sent a letter to “60 Minutes” Executive Producer Jeff Fager on Wednesday faulting the CBS News program for its “frequent and recurring misrepresentation of the African continent.”
“In a series of recent segments from the continent, 60 Minutes has managed, quite extraordinarily, to render people of black African ancestry voiceless and all but invisible,” French, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, wrote in the letter, which was signed by college professors and writers from across America. Read more
MTN Business has launched Bring Your Business Online, a platform that gives small and medium-sized businesses (SME) increased visibility by providing online presence on the MTN managed domain for less than R20 a month.
“SMEs are the lifeblood of the South African economy, however, many of them are limited from reaching their full potential because they rely on word of mouth or traditional methods of promoting their services. With this new solution, MTN Business gives them a secure online platform to expand their reach through the expansive footprint of the digital world,” says Alpheus Mangale, Chief Enterprise and Business Officer at MTN Business. Read more
New research suggests that drinking lots of coffee may reduce the risk of developing multiple sclerosis. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Drink up, coffee lovers: Neurologists say a healthy appetite for coffee may reduce your risk of developing multiple sclerosis.
We’re not talking a cup or two of joe in the morning. Even a triple espresso might not be enough to register a difference.
In a new study, researchers found that Americans who downed at least four cups of coffee per day were one-third less likely to develop multiple sclerosis than their counterparts who drank no coffee at all. They also found that Swedish adults who guzzled at least six cups of coffee each day were also one-third less likely to get MS.
A group of leading biologists on Thursday called for a worldwide moratorium on use of a new genome-editing technique that would alter human DNA in a way that can be inherited.
The biologists fear that the new technique is so effective and easy to use that some physicians may push ahead before its safety can be assessed. They also want the public to understand the ethical issues surrounding the technique, which could be used to cure genetic diseases, but also to enhance qualities like beauty or intelligence. The latter is a path that many ethicists believe should never be taken.
“You could exert control over human heredity with this technique, and that is why we are raising the issue,” said David Baltimore, a former president of the California Institute of Technology and a member of the group whose paper on the topic was published in the journal Science.