Norms for the New Public Sphere

Institutionalising Respect for Truth, Self-Government, and Privacy

University of Stirling project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

A well-constituted public sphere is essential for political legitimacy. According to our model inherited from Ancient Greece, the public sphere is a social space in which people discuss political problems, ideas, and policy proposals, and get an opportunity to influence political action. In the large democracies of the 20th century, the public sphere was no longer associated with a physical space (an agora); instead, it was primarily constituted by debates in print media, the radio, and television. Today, as news and opinions are increasingly shared on social media and the old media wither or adapt, a new public sphere is being forged.

In this new public sphere, traditional roles like ‘investigative journalist’ or ‘news anchor’ have lost their former significance. In their place, how often and how quickly a news item or opinion piece is shared has become a key factor affecting the attention it receives. New ‘gatekeepers’ – social media platforms and their algorithms alongside old-media editors – have altered traditional patterns of inclusion and exclusion. People who would not have sent a letter to The Times can make their voices heard in concert with peers (as in the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo campaigns). At the same time ‘fake news’ (e.g. climate change sceptics, the anti-Obama ‘birther’ conspiracy theory) gains a wider following, and personalised online content polarises social groups.


The real cost of ‘free’ cancellations

Last-minute cancellations are logistical and financial headaches for hotels, but ones that have always been a necessary evil within the industry. After all, plans can change with no warning, volcanoes can spontaneously erupt, and other unavoidable occurrences mean that flexibility can be a deciding factor for prospective guests choosing your hotel. However, cancellation policy has evolved in recent years from a footnote on the booking confirmation to the basis of entire OTA marketing campaigns, designed specifically to position agencies as the most risk-free option for guests.

A recent study by D-EDGE into reservation revenue has shown that the overall cancellation rate across all channels has risen by 6% over the past four years, reaching a peak of almost 40% in 2018. That may sound like a death knell for predictable occupancy - and indeed it may be, for hotels who generate a large majority of their bookings through OTAs. The 40% average is heavily skewed by the high cancellation rates on reservations from and other OTAs. In comparison, the study found that only 18.2% of direct bookings were cancelled in advance.

These statistics are unsurprising given the vastly different approach taken to cancellation policy by hotels and OTAs. While cancellations affect a hotel’s ability to forecast revenue and impact their income in real terms, they are used by OTAs as a marketing tool - one that benefits their growth, rather than hinders it. Flexible reservations are at the heart of how sells rooms to its users, and a year-on-year increase of their cancellation rate is proof that their message is clearly resonating. How did we get to this point, and what can hotels do to take back control of not only guest acquisition, but also guest confidence?

A changing industry

It’s symptomatic of a market heavily dominated by third-party distributors that hotels are often forced into a tight spot that encourages them to prioritize short-term gain over long-term stability. We’ve seen it before with programmes such as Booking Genius, where hoteliers are encouraged to take part in a discount scheme in order to fill low-occupancy dates or access a ‘higher-quality’ group of guests. As a result of many of these initiatives, the immediate positive impact is often outweighed by the wider cost to the business of offering lower rates on an OTA than on the direct site.

In early 2018, introduced ‘Risk Free Reservations’, a service which offers hoteliers the opportunity to enhance non-refundable bookings with free cancellation. If the original booker changes their reservation, the OTA will attempt to find an alternative guest to replace them before the stay date. If a new visitor cannot be found, will take the monetary hit and pay the hotel for the empty room. In the short term, this may seem like a great deal - as well as greater visibility on the OTA’s index (hotels with non-refundable rates will still appear when a guest filters by ‘Free Cancellation’), hotels can stay competitive whilst guaranteeing occupancy or, at the very least, compensation for a last-minute cancellation that cannot be fulfilled.

The ‘Risk Free Reservations’ policy is born out of the core aim of making the booking experience as painless as possible for guests - something that both hotels and OTAs are firmly aligned on. OTAs have introduced programmes like ‘Booking Genius’ and ‘Risk Free Reservations’ to achieve this, but it has to be remembered that their ultimate goal is to ensure customer loyalty to their own brand, not to maximize the profit of the hotels they partner with. This means that while the programmes have some benefits to hotels, they can also have a number of unforeseen consequences that can cause concerning long-term challenges.

The long-term cost of short-term gain

In reality, ‘Risk Free Reservations’ have the potential to damage a hotel’s brand integrity, increase their dependency on third-party partners and ultimately hurt their bottom line in the long run. Mirai's excellent article, published when the scheme was first announced, makes clear how 'Risk Free' rates on can undermine your own hotel’s direct prices as they cannibalize more expensive flexible rate. The programme could also cause confusion if has rooms available when even your own website does not, resulting in long-term reputation damage that significantly outweighs any short-term benefit.

Risk Free Reservations price comparison graph

'Risk Free Reservations' lead to disparity between and direct sales (source: Mirai)

The rise of cancellations is a symptom of a growing imbalance of power between hotels and OTAs. Even beyond landmark policies like ‘Risk Free Reservations,’ OTAs are constantly shaping the ways in which guests approach the task of booking a hotel, at the expense of the hotels who supply them. Drawing on ecommerce tools from other industries, OTAs have shifted the hotel buying process from a tailored, measured and personal one to an experience designed to make guests book as fast as possible or risk missing out. The ideal hotel website journey combines these elements, with an emphasis on guest satisfaction at the center of the experience - but OTAs are actively encouraging potential guests to ‘book first, ask questions later’. Without strategic investment in offering guests an attractive, viable alternative booking option to OTAs, hotels will continue to be at the mercy of the expectations OTAs set in the minds of guests.

Taking the power back

If hotels are going to decide the future of their own industry, short-term incentives have to be balanced against the need for long-term stability - and for the majority of hotels, long-term stability will require a self-sufficient channel of direct booking revenue. However, while you can invest in the most descriptive, engaging and intuitive website possible, guests will never choose you if are ‘offering an intermediary better conditions than your direct sale’. Cancellations are the most pressing example of this, and the perfect place to start for any hotels looking to grow their direct sales with the best possible proposition they can offer to prospective guests.

Firstly, while it’s the hotel that is most acutely affected by the impact of cancellations, it’s also the hotel that sets its own terms. It’s clear that a more proactive approach is needed - it’s down to you to dive into your own data and see how cancellations across different channels are affecting your hotel’s revenue. If you’re part of the ‘Risk Free Reservations’ scheme, it’s also worth comparing the quality of replacement bookings against non-refundable guests - you may be surprised by what you find. If you’re being stung by the financial impact of late cancellations, consider setting stricter policies in terms of dates or rates for bookings, such as non-refundable or flexible until a certain time before check-in, is a start - as is opting out of any schemes such as the ‘Risk Free Reservations’ programme. The pressure from OTAs and the competition within the industry may be significant, but the long-term reputational and financial benefits far outweigh any short-term challenges.

Using Triptease Targeted Messages to encourage direct bookings

Use Targeted Messages to give guests a bespoke incentive not to cancel their booking

Next, engaging with the reasons why people are cancelling is crucial. Make the most of the statistics at your disposal - for example, what percentage of bookings are being cancelled, by who, in what rooms, and from what source? While this shift in the industry means it’s easier than ever to change a booking, each cancellation is still done for a reason. Ensuring you’re offering the best possible price to guests is vital, and sometimes reaching out to reluctant visitors is the only way to identify issues that are causing people to lose confidence in the service you provide.

Once you are confident that direct booking offers guests the best possible deal, the next step is to foster their trust. Cancellations take place primarily because that visitor does not believe your hotel can handle their needs, and so demonstrating excellent, personalized service from the outset is a sure-fire way to remove any lingering doubts. Utilising the Targeted Messaging and Chat features within Triptease gives you a way to engage with prospective guests and their questions directly, as well as to offer discounts and promotions that help them to make up their mind well in advance. It’s incredibly hard to control and curate the customer journey on third-party websites, and so providing guests with confidence in your hotel from the outset is an incredibly effective way of securing their patronage.

Create a true connection with your guests

It’s easy to forget that guests dislike uncertainty as much as hoteliers do. Juggling multiple reservations and being unsure of where you’re going to be staying during a business trip or a holiday is a stressful experience, and one that people would generally like to avoid. As the cancellation statistics continue to grow, and OTAs carry on making the likes of ‘Risk Free Reservations’ an integral part of their brand, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that this is not just an inevitable industry trend that must be accepted.

Beyond all else, hotels hold a massive advantage over OTAs in terms of providing an engaging journey for guests during the booking process. With millions of hotels to juggle at once, OTAs can never understand a guest and their unique needs with the same level of compassion, commitment and care that a hotelier can. Guests need a hotel they can trust, and there’s no better way to build this confidence than by giving them a personalized experience that they simply could not get elsewhere.

About The Author

Rob is a Content & Product Marketing Executive with Triptease.

Sign up for weekly insights:


Silk And Spice Trade Essay Research Paper

Silk And Spice Trade Essay, Research Paper

The constitution and impact of the Silk and Spice trade

The constitution of silk garments in Asia foremost came approximately when the silkworm, Bombyx mori ( moth ) residing in the household Bombycidae, was foremost discovered for its yarn by a great dynasty of China? the Han Dynasty ( 206 BC? AD 220 ) . The silk has a continuous-filament fibre consisting of fibroin protein secreted from two salivary secretory organs in the caput of each larvae, and a gum called sericin, which cements the two fibrils together. Silk weaving began around 2,700 B.C. when the great prince, Hoang-ti, directed his married woman, Si-ling-chi, to analyze the silkworm and prove the practicableness of utilizing the yarn ( 4 ) . From there Si-ling-chi developed the technique of raising silkworms, reeling of the silk, and the ability to bring forth a lavish of fancy garments ; and utilizing colour forms in the latter. Is-lingo-chi was recognized for her work and honored with the name Seine-Than, or & # 8220 ; The Goddess of Silk Worms & # 8221 ; ( 4 ) .

Soon after the cultivation of silk, this cherished merchandise became distributed all throughout China, even making its unmilitarized boundary lines. In making so, many trains had been attacked by little Central Asian Tribes in hopes of obtaining their cherished lading they traded. Therefore, between 135 and 90 BC, the Han dynasty expanded its military confederation deeper into Central Asia and expanded the building of the Great Wall to procure the route from the Xiongnu. A Chinese bargainer by the name of Chan Ch? ien was the first to pass on with the Central Asian Tribe and setup peace pact for all trains ; therefore the ramification of the Silk Road began. However, before puting pes on the journey through the Silk Road, many unprecedented territorial adversities laid in forepart of the merchandisers and their trains.

Much of the land dividing Eastern China from Western China and Europe was a unreliable desert. The Taklimakan desert, or otherwise unknown as, the? Land of Death? was an utmost climatic part for the merchandisers. Much like the Mediterranean part, the Taklimakan desert received limit sums of rainfall, temperatures between summer and winter fluctuated between? 22oC and +55oC, and its deadly dust storms were produced from robust air currents and the nature of the surface. Unlike the Sahara desert that was rich in oasis, the Taklimakan desert had an oasis famish, merely to be found in scarce locations. Surrounding this respected desert layed some of the highest mountain ranges in the universe non to advert some of the largest rivers in the universe. Separating the Indian peninsula from Cardinal Asia were the Himalayas, Karakorum and Kunlun ranges lifting up to 5000ft in lift, with narrow waies and steep falls. To the northest of the Taklimakan desert lies the Gobi desert that merely as lifelessly Taklimakan desert, except that it contains more oases ; to the North and west lie the Tianshan and Pamir mountain ranges that are characterized as lower height and wider roads, but must go on to near these scopes with cautiousness. Therefore, the life of the merchandiser was a stressing and dangerous occupation that required much attending and deputation to win through the Silk Road.

? The name & # 8220 ; Silk Road & # 8221 ; is truly a misnomer, ? in the world that it was an extended web of roads linking Xian and Lahore to Cairo and Rome. It started in the capital of Changan that headed north to the Gansu corridor, and so arrived at Dunhuang on the outskirts of the Taklimakan desert. From Dunhuang, an intricate set of roads branched off from the chief northern and southern paths ; from these arterias, capillary roads split east and western to arbitrary finishs, largely following the aroma of money and prosperity.

This typical way to success was non originally called the Silk Road until a 19th century German bookman, von Richthofen, gave it the term because silk was the chief precedence of merchandisers for trade. Silk was non the lone trade good that was traded, but so was art, faith ( Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism ) , thoughts, gold, Ag, tusk, alien workss and animate beings, metals, rocks, and glass to call a few. In the opposite way pelts, ceramics, jade, bronzy objects, lacquer and Fe were carried into China even though the Chinese regarded all aliens as nomads.

Religion is thought to be the primary impact of all clip on the Silk Road. Buddhism rose as a rigorous philosophy in the 6th century BC, and was adopted as India & # 8217 ; s official faith in the 3rd century BC. When Buddhism, Manicheanism, and Nestorianism arrived in China through the Silk Road, it farther influenced the Chinese civilization. Ironically, its has besides been known that neither Japan nor Korea had developed their ain civilizations, but Korea had adopted and modified their civilization from China and Japan had done similar with Korea.

When Buddhism became the primary faith of China scholarly professors had been sent out to India to larn about the new faith, therefore returning from their ocean trip with sacred Buddhist texts and pictures every bit good as Indian preists to explicate the instructions of the Buddha to the Emperor. ? Monks, missionaries and pilgrims began going from India to Central Asia and so on to China, conveying Buddhist Hagiographas and pictures, while converts followed the Silk Road west. ? Fa Xi & # 8217 ; an ( 337-422 ) , was the first Chinese monastic to go to India in 399, via the southern path, and really returning to China via the sea path in 414 with cognition of the faith Buddhism, nevertheless. Xuan Zang ( 600-664 ) , a Buddhist monastic is a good known Chinese travelers on the Silk Road with great interlingual renditions of the Buddhist texts. As the popular faith of Buddhism spread quickly across the Silk Road like pestilence, oasis towns had built cave composites and monasteries to back up a safe transition of train to powerful local households and merchandisers. Pilgrims from China continued to go west seeking for original manuscripts and sanctum sites, over the Karakoram scope to Gandhara and India.

Even though faiths of Manicheanism and Nestoriani

samarium were introduced, accepted and assimilated via the Silk Road, neither reached the popularity gift that Buddhism received. The faith Manicheanism was started by Manes of Persia in the 3rd century BC and is based on the opposing rules of visible radiation and dark ( spirit and flesh ) . However, followings of Manicheanism had been persecuted to decease by the Christians in the fifth AD, and flourished from Central Asia during the Sui ( 581-618 ) and Tang dynasties

The autumn of the silk route came with in the control on the Mongolian Empire that was split into two separate khans and due to little rebellions in the early 14th century, the Yang dynasty was replaced by the Ming dynasty in 1368. ne’er once more did the silk route reach the same peep like it had under the Tang dynasty, but it struggled to keep an economic trading system, but it was more than they could penetrate? with the gaining control of Constantinople, the autumn of the silk route was finalized in 1453.

Spice Road

The value of spice can day of the month back to 408AD when a ransom was given to Alaric the Visigothic of 3,000 pound of Piper nigrum, along with gold, Ag, and of class, silk. Since the beginning of clip, adult male has adapted to their environments or improvised in order to boom and reproduce. Spices have been of import throughout history as a agency of prestigiousness every bit good as for flavorer and continuing nutrients. Spices are defined as & # 8220 ; derived from a assortment of works parts & # 8221 ; including the flower, root, bud, secernment, seed, fruit, or bark of certain workss. Spices grow in chiefly tropical or subtropical climes, as opposed to herbs, which are normally found in temperate climes. The most popular of the spices include Piper nigrum, cloves, Mace and Myristica fragrans, cinnamon, thyme, anise seed, bay, Chinese parsley, and oregano. There were many utilizations for spices throughout the history of the spice trade. There was a clip when spices were used in topographic point of money. Pepper, in peculiar, was used for this intent. It was convenient because it was much smaller and lighter than metal coins. Equally early as 600 B.C a trade system was set up where the Arabians took control of the spice market, which was even so really moneymaking. Then, around 40 AD the Romans became the rule bargainers of spices until the autumn of the Roman Empire. Many in the Mediterranean believe that there was a particular path set up between Africa and Asia for the acquisition of cinnamon and other spices from abroad, and so there was a concatenation set up between the Han dynasty in China and the Romans over land for the cherished lading ( 5 ) . At this clip trading was done in little measures, and such things as spices and the fabrics and metals that were besides traded were chiefly luxuries. Then, at the autumn of the Roman Empire, spice trading slowed down well until the

1100 s.

Spices became really of import in continuing nutrients that could non be gotten fresh, every bit good as flavoring them to cover up the gustatory sensation of nutrient which was frequently diseased or somewhat icky ( 1 ) . Spices were non merely set on meats, but besides used on fish and in jam, soups, and drinks. They besides were said to hold many medicative belongingss. The spice trade has played an of import function in history that has unwittingly led to the find of new civilizations and thoughts as adventurers set out to happen new ways to acquire to the cherished trade good ( 2 ) . Spices have helped to do the life of the mean individual more gratifying by seasoning tasteless nutrients and by continuing nutrients that would otherwise be unavailable during certain times in the twelvemonth. Besides used as symbols of wealth or prestigiousness, spices have been influenced history for over four thousand old ages ( 3 )

In retrospect to the silk and Spice roads taken by many timeserving endeavourers, this was a historic route that marked the first major connexions between Asia and Europe in the opportunity to detect and spread out the cognition of different states and to interrupt the barriers of ignorance seeking to absorb new civilizations, thoughts, and faiths. These two trade paths, acted more like an Internet hunt engine that stored value information from the virtuousnesss of life, to outdo place cooked formulas. The trade roads marked the runing pot of cross-cultural influences brought upon the merchandisers and purchasers that led indirectly to the age of find marked by bravery? s adventurers who set out to happen their cherished trade goods. Economicss and trade are the? Ending on a personal note, I have had the privilege to take part on going ice hockey squads through the extent of my high school calling, and gratuitous to state, going the United States and parts of Canada have greatly act upon my life and the knowledge of impression. Not one province or state held similar sentiments on issues, believed in the same God, nor superceded a unflawed authorities.

6.Liu, Hsin-ju. Silk and Religion: an geographic expedition of mateial life and the idea of people in AD 600-1200. Delhi ; Oxford University Press. 1996

8.Deborah, E. , Klimburg-Salter. The silk path and the diamond way. Los Angeles, Ca: UCLA Art and Council. 1982:

12.Giles, Milteon. Nathaniel? s Myristica fragrans, or, the true and unbelievable escapades of the spice bargainer who changed the class of history. Star and Giroux. New York, NY. 1966:

14.Alain, Stella. The book of spices. Flammarion. New York, NY, 1999:

15.Bulbeck, David. Southeast Asiatic exports since the fourteenth Century. Australian National University, 1998:

16.Larner, John. Marco Polo and the find of the universe. Yale University Press. New Haven, Conn. , 1999:


William Christopher Handy's "Memphis Blues" Is Published

On September 28, 1912, the publication of William Christopher Handy's "Memphis Blues" changed the course of American popular song.

Handy introduced an African-American folk tradition, the blues, into mainstream music. By the 1960s, the blues sound had significantly influenced the development of jazz and rock and roll, quintessential American musical forms.


A former executive of the Jacksonville-based Crowley Liner Services has been acquitted in federal court in Puerto Rico on charges of conspiring to fix prices.

Thomas Farmer of Jacksonville Beach had been indicted by federal grand jury in 2013 as part of a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of price-fixing and bid-rigging of cargo shipments between the United States mainland and Puerto Rico.

The trial in San Juan lasted a month, said Terrance Reed of Alexandria, Va., who was Farmer's lead trial attorney. The jury took four hours to acquit him, he said.

"The government had about 15 people in the courtroom," Reed said. "It put on a vigorous show."

Farmer had been vice president of price and yield management for Crowley and faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

The federal investigation led to three companies and six individuals either pleading guilty or being convicted in trial over a period of years.

The three shipping companies, all based in Jacksonville, were fined: Crowley Liner Services, $17 million; Sea Star Line, $14.2 million; Horizon Lines, $15 million.

Frank Peake, former president of Sea Star Line, was sentenced to five years in prison, the longest sentence for any individual.

Roger Bull: (904) 359-4296


Sample Questions

1. The term TLS expands to ________________.

A. Transport Level Security

B. Transport Layer Security

C. Transport Layer Setting

D. None of the above

2. The cipher in which each letter is replaced by another letter is called _________.

A. Transposition

B. Substitution

C. Hash convert

D. None of the above

3. The Diffie-Hellman algorithm is used for ____________.

A. Key deletion

B. Key generation

C. Key exchange

D. None of the above

4. The term S/MIME refers to ____________.

A. Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

B. Secure/Multipurpose Internet Media Extensions

C. Secure/Multipurpose Internet Multimedia Extensions

D. None of the above

5. The port used by HTTPS protocol is ____________.

A. 443

B. 80

C. 21

D. None of the above

More Practice Test at:

Apply for Certification


Alice | Sunshine graduation @ Tuks

— J Barrie

Graduation season may be over for a while, but we just couldn't help sharing these! Here are some portraits from Alice's sun-filled graduation day. These people just radiate happiness! She shared her day with those closest to her heart and I was honoured to be among them. How gorgeous is her yellow dress? She is truly stunning inside and out. Wishing you all the best for an exciting future!


A good news from Moscow - it looks like there is progress on the issue of liability - "American and Russian negotiators have made significant progress on a common approach to resolving soon the question of liability protections for important cooperative programs". It is worth noting that the White House statement is very careful about not saying that the "important cooperative programs" have anything to do with nuclear weapons and nuclear materials - this turned out to be too controversial in Russia lately.


Text Size
Facebook Twitter More...
 From the Perimeter Institute in Canada.

Ironically Valentini's arm has been twisted (metaphorically speaking) to downplay the fact that his concept of signal nonlocality, independently anticipated in print by Brian Josephson and myself (in separate works) has the most profound significance for the paranormal (e.g. remote viewing) as well as ordinary consciousness, indeed the essence of life itself. Indeed, Valentini took the expedient choice of being rude to Nobel Laureate physicist Brian Josephson because of the latter's interest in the paranormal as a physics problem. It's less clear where Valentini stands on the military weapons potential of signal nonlocality because he does use the term "espionage" in at least one of his papers (2002 on sub-quantum computation).

Of course the real issue is how to make sub-quantal non-equilibrium in the laboratory, that there may be cosmological remnants at super-Hubble wavelengths, corrections to inflationary predictions of the cosmic microwave background Gaussian scale invariance, and relic particles not in sub-quantal equlibrium is interesting of course. The other issue is that all living matter must be out of sub-quantal thermal equilibrium. Valentini predicts a cosmological infra-red cutoff using a Rube Goldberg model of the pre-inflation false vacuum - maybe but highly speculative. He claims "weak evidence" exists for his model. It has not, it appears, crossed Valentini's mind that all life is not in sub-quantal thermal equilibrium and that devices not in sub-quantal equilibrium may be possible - although he makes a brief remark about generating non-equilbrium from an equilibrium state at the end of his lecture, but with a negative conclusion. Valentini's prediction is maybe relic supersymmetry gravitinos bigger than 140 cm  wavelength with decay photons from them violating Malus's law. Since there is no evidence for supersymmetry this is far-fetched - a small bang for a big buck. Furthermore, his gravitino prediction assumes that dark matter consists of real particles whizzing through space on mass shell - probably not true.


Obesity and Diet 4

Diet has bigger impact on emotional well-being in women than in men

August 27, 2018

Science Daily/Binghamton University

Women may need a more nutrient-rich diet to support a positive emotional well-being, according to new research.

Mounting evidence suggests that anatomical and functional differences in men's and women's brain dictate susceptibility to mental disease. However, little is known about the role of dietary patterns in gender-specific psychological wellbeing. A team of researchers led by Lina Begdache, assistant professor of health and wellness studies at Binghamton University, conducted an anonymous survey of 563 participants (48 percent men and 52 percent women) through social media to investigate this issue. Begdache and her team found that men are more likely to experience mental well-being until nutritional deficiencies arise. Women, however, are less likely to experience mental well-being until a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle are followed.

According to Begdache, these results may explain reports from previous studies that show that women are at a greater risk for mental distress when compared to men, and emphasize the role of a nutrient-dense diet in mental wellbeing.

"The biggest takeaway is that women may need a larger spectrum of nutrients to support mood, compared to men," said Begdache. "These findings may explain the reason why women are twice more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety and depression and suffer from longer episodes, compared to men. Today's diet is high in energy but poor in key nutrients that support brain anatomy and functionality."

Evidence suggests that our ancestors' diet, which was a high-energy-nutrient-dense diet, contributed significantly to brain volumes and cognitive evolution of humankind, said Begdache.

"Males and females had different physical and emotional responsibilities that may have necessitated different energy requirements and food preference," she said. "Thus, gender-based differential food and energy intake may explain the differential brain volumes and connectivity between females and males. Therefore, a potential mismatch is happening between our contemporary diet and the evolved human brain which is disturbing the normal functionality of certain systems in the brain.

Teenagers can thank their parents' positive attitude for avoiding obesity

July 9, 2018

Science Daily/University of Bristol

Teenagers are less likely to be overweight if their mum or dad had a positive attitude during pregnancy, a new study finds.

Using answers from more than 7000 parents who took part in the Children of the 90s longitudinal study about their personality, mood and attitude during pregnancy; similar answers from their children at age of eight and the child's fat mass measurement up to the age of 17, researchers have assessed that a mother's psychological background during pregnancy is a factor associated with teenage weight gain.

The study examines a largely uncharted personality attribute known as the Locus of Control. It is a psychological measure for an individual's attitudes towards their lifestyle and a belief in being able to change outcomes, such as health, through their own actions. Someone with an external Locus of Control would feel that there is little point in making an effort as what happens to them is down to luck and circumstance.

Researchers found that teenagers at age 15 had an excess weight of actual fat in their body of 1.7kg if their mothers did not think their actions would make a difference and held a laissez-faire attitude. If their fathers had this attitude the excess weight of fat was 1.49kg and if the child thought this way the excess was 1.5kg.

Lead author and founder of the Children of the 90s study Professor Jean Golding said: "Although we know that poor diet and lack of exercise are partly responsible for increasing obesity in both adults and children in the developed world, there is little research into the contribution of psychological factors behind excessive weight gain.

"Thanks to the questionnaires and body measurements available through the Children of the 90s study we've been able to show that a lack of self-belief in a parent's ability to influence change by healthy eating, stopping smoking or breast feeding is a contributing factor to their child being overweight by the time they are 15.

Candler Professor of Psychology Stephen Nowicki at Emory University, Atlanta contributed to the study and added "We see this as an initial step in understanding the complex effects of parents' locus of control on their children's ability to develop a healthy style during the, at times tumultuous teen age years.

Evening preference, lack of sleep associated with higher BMI in people with prediabetes

August 15, 2018

Science Daily/University of Illinois at Chicago

People with prediabetes who go to bed later, eat meals later and are more active and alert later in the day -- those who have an 'evening preference' -- have higher body mass indices compared with people with prediabetes who do things earlier in the day, or exhibit morning preference.

The results of the study -- which looked at Asian participants and was led by Dr. Sirimon Reutrakul, associate professor of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism in the UIC College of Medicine -- are published in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology.

Prediabetes is a condition where blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be Type 2 diabetes. Without modifications to diet and exercise, patients with prediabetes have a very high risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Lack of sufficient sleep has been previously linked to an increased risk for numerous health conditions, including obesity and diabetes. Evening preference has also been linked to higher weight and higher risk for diabetes.

Reutrakul and her colleagues wanted to investigate the relationship between morning/evening preference and BMI -- a measure of body fat in relation to height and weight -- among people with prediabetes.

"Diabetes is such a widespread disease with such an impact on quality of life, that identifying new lifestyle factors that might play into its development can help us advise patients with an early stage of the disease on things they can do to turn it around and prevent prediabetes from becoming full-blown diabetes," said Reutrakul.

A total of 2,133 participants with prediabetes enrolled in the study. Their morning/evening preference was assessed through a questionnaire.

Participants who scored high in "morningness" answered questions indicating that they preferred to wake up earlier, have activities earlier, and felt more alert earlier in the day compared with those who scored high on "eveningness." Sleep duration and timing were obtained using a questionnaire and the extent of social jet lag was evaluated for each participant. Social jet lag reflects a shift in sleep timing between weekdays and weekends. Greater social jetlag (e.g., larger shift in sleep timing) has previously been shown to be associated with higher BMI in some populations. The average age of the participants was 64 years old, and the average BMI was 25.8 kilograms per meter squared. Average sleep duration was about seven hours per night.

The researchers found that for participants younger than 60 years of age, higher levels of social jet lag were associated with a higher BMI. Among participants older than 60 years old, those with more evening preference had higher BMIs and this effect was partly due to having insufficient sleep but not social jet lag. Evening preference was directly associated with higher BMI in this group.

"Timing and duration of sleep are potentially modifiable," said Reutrakul. "People can have more regular bedtimes and aim to have more sleep, which may help reduce BMI and the potential development of diabetes in this high-risk group."

Adequate Sleep Helps Weight Loss

September 17, 2012

Science Daily/Canadian Medical Association Journal

Although calorie restriction and increased physical activity are recommended for weight loss, there is significant evidence that inadequate sleep is contributing to obesity. Lack of sleep increases the stimulus to consume more food and increases appetite-regulating hormones. “Sleep should be included as part of the lifestyle package that traditionally has focused on diet and physical activity."

"The solution [to weight loss] is not as simple as 'eat less, move more, sleep more,'" write Drs. Jean-Phillippe Chaput, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario and Angelo Tremblay, Laval University, Québec, Quebec.

"However, an accumulating body of evidence suggests that sleeping habits should not be overlooked when prescribing a weight-reduction program to a patient with obesity. Sleep should be included as part of the lifestyle package that traditionally has focused on diet and physical activity."

Living against the clock; Does loss of daily rhythms cause obesity?

August 29, 2012

Science Daily/Wiley

When Thomas Edison tested the first light bulb in 1879, he could never have imagined that this invention could one day contribute to a global obesity epidemic. Electric light allows us to work, rest and play at all hours of the day, and a new article suggests that this might have serious consequences for our health and for our waistlines.

Daily or "circadian" rhythms including the sleep wake cycle, and rhythms in hormone release are controlled by a molecular clock that is present in every cell of the human body. This human clock has its own inbuilt, default rhythm of almost exactly 24 hours that allows it to stay finely tuned to the daily cycle generated by the rotation of Earth. This beautiful symmetry between the human clock and the daily cycle of Earth's rotation is disrupted by exposure to artificial light cycles, and by irregular meal, work and sleep times. This mismatch between the natural circadian rhythms of our bodies and the environment is called "circadian desynchrony."

"Electric light allowed humans to override an ancient synchronization between the rhythm of the human clock and the environment, and over the last century, daily rhythms in meal, sleep and working times have gradually disappeared from our lives," said Wyse. "The human clock struggles to remain tuned to our highly irregular lifestyles, and I believe that this causes metabolic and other health problems, and makes us more likely to become obese."

"Studies in microbes, plants and animals have shown that synchronization of the internal clock with environmental rhythms is important for health and survival, and it is highly likely that this is true in humans as well."

"Our 24-hour society has come at the high price of circadian desynchrony," concluded Wyse. "There are many factors driving mankind towards obesity but disrupted circadian rhythms should be considered alongside the usual suspects of diet and exercise."

Weight Gain Induced by High-Fat Diet Increases Active-Period Sleep

July 10, 2012

Science Daily/Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior

Research presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB) finds that prolonged exposure to a high-fat diet reduces the quality of sleep in rats.

Using radio-telemetry, the authors measured 24-hour sleep and wake states after rats consumed a high fat diet for 8 weeks. Compared to rats that consumed a standard laboratory chow, the rats on the high-fat diet slept more but sleep was fragmented. The increased sleep time of the rats on the high-fat diet occurred mainly during the normally active phase of the day, resembling excessive daytime sleepiness observed in obese humans.

According to lead author, Catherine Kotz, "Studies in humans indicate a relationship between sleep quality and obesity. Our previous work in animals shows a link between good quality sleep, resistance to weight gain and increased sensitivity to orexin, a brain chemical important in stabilizing sleep and wake states. The current studies show that after high-fat diet-induced weight gain in rats, sleep quality is poor and orexin sensitivity is decreased. These findings suggest that poor sleep associated with weight gain due to a high-fat diet may be a consequence of reduced orexin sensitivity."

These studies highlight the impact of weight gain on sleep quality and a potential brain mechanism underlying these diet and weight-gain induced changes in sleep behavior.

Brain Scans Show Specific Neuronal Response to Junk Food When Sleep-Restricted

June 10, 2012

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Researchers from St. Luke's -- Roosevelt Hospital Center and Columbia University in New York performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on 25 men and women of normal weights while they looked at images of healthy and unhealthy foods. The scans were taken after five nights in which sleep was either restricted to four hours or allowed to continue up to nine hours. Results were compared.

"The same brain regions activated when unhealthy foods were presented were not involved when we presented healthy foods," said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, the study's principal investigator. "The unhealthy food response was a neuronal pattern specific to restricted sleep. This may suggest greater propensity to succumb to unhealthy foods when one is sleep restricted."

Previous research has shown that restricted sleep leads to increased food consumption in healthy people, and that a self-reported desire for sweet and salty food increases after a period of sleep deprivation. St-Onge said the new study's results provide additional support for a role of short sleep in appetite-modulation and obesity.

"The results suggest that, under restricted sleep, individuals will find unhealthy foods highly salient and rewarding, which may lead to greater consumption of those foods," St-Onge said. "Indeed, food intake data from this same study showed that participants ate more overall and consumed more fat after a period of sleep restriction compared to regular sleep. The brain imaging data provided the neurocognitive basis for those results."

With Fat: What's Good or Bad for the Heart, May Be the Same for the Brain

May 18, 2012

Science Daily/Brigham and Women's Hospital

It has been known for years that eating too many foods containing "bad" fats, such as saturated fats or trans fats, isn't healthy for your heart. However, according to new research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), one "bad" fat -- saturated fat -- was found to be associated with worse overall cognitive function and memory in women over time. By contrast, a "good" fat -- mono-unsaturated fat was associated with better overall cognitive function and memory.

"When looking at changes in cognitive function, what we found is that the total amount of fat intake did not really matter, but the type of fat did," explained Olivia Okereke, MD, MS, BWH Department of Psychiatry.

"Our findings have significant public health implications," said Okereke. "Substituting in the good fat in place of the bad fat is a fairly simple dietary modification that could help prevent decline in memory."

When You Eat Matters, Not Just What You Eat

May 17, 2012

Science Daily/Cell Press

Feeling Tired? 'Social Jetlag' Poses Obesity Health Hazard

May 10, 2012

Science Daily/Cell Press

Social jetlag -- a syndrome related to the mismatch between the body's internal clock and the realities of our daily schedules -- does more than make us sleepy. It is also contributing to the growing tide of obesity, according to a large-scale epidemiological study reported online on May 10 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

"We have identified a syndrome in modern society that has not been recognized until recently," said Till Roenneberg of the University of Munich. "It concerns an increasing discrepancy between the daily timing of the physiological clock and the social clock. As a result of this social jetlag, people are chronically sleep-deprived. They are also more likely to smoke and drink more alcohol and caffeine. Now, we show that social jetlag also contributes to obesity; the plot that social jetlag is really bad for our health is thickening.

Their analysis shows that people with more severe social jetlag are also more likely to be overweight. In other words, it appears that living "against the clock" may be a factor contributing to the epidemic of obesity, the researchers say.

"Waking up with an alarm clock is a relatively new facet of our lives," Roenneberg says. "It simply means that we haven't slept enough and this is the reason why we are chronically tired. Good sleep and enough sleep is not a waste of time but a guarantee for better work performance and more fun with friends and family during off-work times." And slimmer waistlines, too.

Lack of Sleep May Increase Calorie Consumption

March 14, 2012

Science Daily/American Heart Association

If you don't get enough sleep, you may also eat too much -- and thus be more likely to become obese. That is the findings of researchers who presented their study at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism 2012 Scientific Sessions.

Participants ate as much as they wanted during the study.

Researchers found:

  • ·      The sleep deprived group, who slept one hour and 20 minutes less than the control group each day consumed an average 549 additional calories each day.

  • ·      The amount of energy used for activity didn't significantly change between groups, suggesting that those who slept less didn't burn additional calories.

  • ·      Lack of sleep was associated with increased leptin levels and decreasing ghrelin -- changes that were more likely a consequence, rather than a cause, of over-eating.

"Sleep deprivation is a growing problem, with 28 percent of adults now reporting that they get six or fewer hours of sleep per night," said Andrew D. Calvin, M.D., M.P.H., co-investigator, cardiology fellow and assistant professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic.

The researchers noted that while this study suggests sleep deprivation may be an important part and one preventable cause of weight gain and obesity, it was a small study conducted in a hospital's clinical research unit.

Obesity, Depression Found to Be Root Causes of Daytime Sleepiness

June 13, 2012

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Three new studies conclude that obesity and depression are the main culprits making Americans excessively sleepy while awake. Researchers examined a random population sample of 1,741 adults and determined that obesity and emotional stress are the main causes of an "epidemic" of sleepiness and fatigue plaguing the country. Insufficient sleep and obstructive sleep apnea also play a role; both have been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, depression, diabetes, obesity and accidents.

Wake up, America, and lose some weight -- it's keeping you tired and prone to accidents. Three studies being presented June 13 at sleep 2012 conclude that obesity and depression are the two main culprits making us excessively sleepy while awake.

Researchers at Penn State examined a random population sample of 1,741 adults and determined that obesity and emotional stress are the main causes of the current "epidemic" of sleepiness and fatigue plaguing the country. Insufficient sleep and obstructive sleep apnea also play a role; both have been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, depression, diabetes, obesity and accidents.

"The 'epidemic' of sleepiness parallels an 'epidemic' of obesity and psychosocial stress," said Alexandros Vgontzas, MD, the principal investigator for the three studies. "Weight loss, depression and sleep disorders should be our priorities in terms of preventing the medical complications and public safety hazards associated with this excessive sleepiness."

In the Penn State cohort study, 222 adults reporting excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) were followed up 7½ years later. For those whose EDS persisted, weight gain was the strongest predicting factor. "In fact, our results showed that in individuals who lost weight, excessive sleepiness improved," Vgontzas said.

Adults from that same cohort who developed EDS within the 7½-year span also were studied. The results show for the first time that depression and obesity are the strongest risk factors for new-onset excessive sleepiness. The third study, of a group of 103 research volunteers, determined once again that depression and obesity were the best predictors for EDS.

"The primary finding connecting our three studies are that depression and obesity are the main risk factors for both new-onset and persistent excessive sleepiness," Vgontzas said.

In the Penn State cohort study, the rate of new-onset excessive sleepiness was 8 percent, and the rate of persistent daytime sleepiness was 38 percent. Like insufficient sleep and obstructive sleep apnea, EDS also is associated with significant health risks and on-the-job accidents.

Obesity and the Biological Clock: When Times Are out of Joint

May 10, 2012

Science Daily/Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen (LMU)

Urgent appointments, tight work timetables and hectic social schedules structure modern life, and they very often clash with our intrinsic biological rhythms. The discrepancy results in so-called social jetlag, which can damage one's health. Among other effects, it can contribute to the development of obesity, as a new LMU study shows.

"Our surveys suggest that in Western societies two thirds of the population are burdened with a significant discrepancy between their internal time and the demands imposed by school and work schedules and leisure stress," says LMU chronobiologist Professor Till Roenneberg, who coined the term "social jetlag" to describe the phenomenon. If the rhythms dictated by our lifestyles are persistently out of phase with our biological clock, the risk of illness, such as high blood pressure and even cancer, rises.

Tired -- around the clock A team of researchers led by Roenneberg has now shown that social jetlag also contributes to another growing health problem, particularly in countries with a Western lifestyle -- obesity. Individuals who are overweight are at increased risk for serious metabolic diseases, such as diabetes. Many factors, in addition to excessive consumption of energy-rich foods, play a role in the development of obesity, and one of them is a lack of sleep. In persons who get too little sleep, the perception of hunger is perturbed, often leading to overeating.

And it is not just sleep duration that is important here. The LMU team has also found that social jetlag shows a significant association with increased body-mass index (BMI). The BMI, which is based on a quantitative relationship between weight and height, is used as a measure of body fat, and varies depending on age and sex.

Individuals with BMIs above the normal range are regarded as being overweight or obese. The results of the new study strongly indicate that a lifestyle that conflicts with our internal physiological rhythms can promote the development of obesity.

Moreover, it appears that the incidence of social jetlag is itself increasing, perhaps as a consequence of a general reduction in sleep duration."The ongoing debate on the usefulness of daylight-saving time (DST) should take note of our findings," remarks Roenneberg. "Just like conventional school and work schedules, DST disrupts our biological clock and subjects us to more social jetlag with all its consequences."

New Research Explains How Proper Sleep is Important for Healthy Weight

May 7, 2012

Science Daily/Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

If you're counting calories to lose weight, that may be only part of the weight loss equation says a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal. In the report, French scientists show that impairments to a gene known to be responsible for our internal body clocks, called "Rev-Erb alpha," leads to excessive weight gain and related health problems. This provides new insights into the importance of proper alignment between the body's internal timing and natural environmental light cycles to prevent or limit excessive weight gain and the problems this weight gain causes.

According to Etienne Challet, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Neurobiology of Rhythms at the Institute of Cellular and Integrative Neurosciences at the University of Strasbourg in Pascal, France,

"It is now clear that impairment of daily rhythms such as shift-work, exposure to artificial lighting, or jet-lag has multiple adverse effects on human health, every effort should be made to maintain or restore normal temporal organization and to avoid potentially disruptive behaviors such as nocturnal meals or light exposure at night."

To make this discovery, Challet and colleagues studied two groups of mice. One group was normal and the other group lacked the Rev-Erb alpha gene. In the mice lacking the Rev-Erb alpha gene, it was determined that they became obese and hyperglycaemic even if they ate the same quantity of food at the same time as normal mice.

Further scientific investigation showed that when the Rev-Erb alpha-deficient mice were compared to the normal mice, there was a major difference in the way Rev-Erb alpha-deficient mice metabolized the food they ate. The Rev-Erb alpha deficient mice created much more fat than the normal mice, and this occurred specifically during the feeding period. Additionally, the Rev-Erb-alpha deficient mice relied less on carbohydrate stores when at rest.

Protein -- not sugar -- stimulates cells keeping us thin and awake, a new study suggests.

"Sleep patterns, health, and body weight are intertwined. Shift work, as well as poor diet, can lead to obesity," said lead researcher Dr Denis Burdakov of the Department of Pharmacology and Institute of Metabolic Science. "Electrical impulses emitted by orexin cells stimulate wakefulness and tell the body to burn calories. We wondered whether dietary nutrients alter those impulses."

To explore this, the scientists highlighted the orexin cells (which are scarce and difficult to find) with genetically targeted fluorescence in mouse brains. They then introduced different nutrients, such as amino acid mixtures similar to egg whites, while tracking orexin cell impulses.

They discovered that amino acids stimulate orexin cells. Previous work by the group found that glucose blocks orexin cells (which was cited as a reason for after-meal sleepiness), and so the researchers also looked at interactions between sugar and protein. They found that amino acids stop glucose from blocking orexin cells (in other words, protein negated the effects of sugar on the cells).

These findings may shed light on previously unexplained observations showing that protein meals can make people feel less calm and more alert than carbohydrate meals.

"What is exciting is to have a rational way to 'tune' select brain cells to be more or less active by deciding what food to eat," Dr Burdakov said. "Not all brain cells are simply turned on by all nutrients, dietary composition is critical.

"To combat obesity and insomnia in today's society, we need more information on how diet affects sleep and appetite cells. For now, research suggests that if you have a choice between jam on toast, or egg whites on toast, go for the latter! Even though the two may contain the same number of calories, having a bit of protein will tell the body to burn more calories out of those consumed."

Mediterranean diet and exercise can reduce sleep apnea symptoms

November 28, 2011

Science Daily/European Lung Foundation

Eating a Mediterranean diet combined with physical activity can help to improve some of the symptoms of sleep apnea, according to new research. The study, which is published online in the European Respiratory Journal, looked at the impact a Mediterranean diet can have on obese people with sleep apnea, compared to those on a prudent diet.

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) causes frequent pauses of breathing to occur during sleep, which disrupts a person's normal sleeping pattern. It is one of the most prevalent sleep-related breathing disorders with approximately 2-4% of the adult population experiencing the condition. This percentage increases up to 20-40% with obesity, and weight loss is often an essential part of the recommended treatment plan.

The researchers, from the University of Crete in Greece, examined 40 obese patients suffering from OSAS. Twenty patients were given a prudent diet to follow, while the other 20 followed a Mediterranean diet. Both groups were also encouraged to increase their physical activity, mainly involving walking for at least 30 minutes each day.

In both groups, the patients also received continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy which involves wearing a mask that generates an air stream, keeping the upper airway open during sleep.

The researchers monitored the patients during a sleep study, known as polysomnography. This involved monitoring several markers for OSAS, including electrical activity in the brain, eye movements and snoring. The patients were examined at the start of the study and again 6 months later.

The results showed that people following the Mediterranean diet had a reduced number of disturbances, known as apneas, during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep, which usually accounts for approximately 25% of total sleep during the night.

The findings also revealed that people following the Mediterranean diet also showed a greater adherence to the calorie restricted diet, an increase in physical activity and a greater decrease in abdominal fat.

The results of this small sample did show an improvement during one stage of sleep for people with sleep apnea, however it did not show an overall improvement in severity of the condition. The authors suggest that further studies in a larger sample are required to fully understand the benefits of this diet.

Christopher Papandreou, lead author for the research, said: "This is the first study examining the impact of the Mediterranean diet in combination with physical activity on OSAS via changes in the human body. Our results showed that the number of disturbances during REM sleep was reduced more in the Mediterranean diet group than the other group. Recent reports have related an increase in disturbances during REM sleep with the risk of developing significant systemic consequences like diabetes type II. However, its clinical significance remains unclear. Finally, more studies are needed to examine the effect of the above diet on this sleep-related breathing disorder taking into account its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties."

Early to bed and early to rise: it's keeping kids leaner

September 30, 2011

Science Daily/American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Researchers recording the bedtimes and wake times of 2,200 Australian youths found that the night owls were 1.5 times more likely to become obese than the early birds, twice as likely to be physically inactive and 2.9 times more likely to sit in front of the TV and computer or play video games for more hours than guidelines recommend.

Other findings from the University of South Australia study:

Mindless eating: Losing weight without thinking

August 6, 2011

Science Daily/American Psychological Association

"Our homes are filled with hidden eating traps," said Brian Wansink, PhD, who presented his findings and strategies for a healthier lifestyle in a plenary address entitled "Modifying the Food Environment: From Mindless Eating to Mindlessly Eating Better."

Wansink identified several myths about eating behaviors as a way to explain why Americans, on average, have been getting fatter. "People don't think that something as simple as the size of a bowl would influence how much an informed person eats," he said.

They just don't realize they're doing it," said Wansink. This strategy also applies to what we drink. His research found that people pour about 37 percent more liquid in short, wide glasses than in tall, skinny ones of the same volume.

Another myth, according to Wansink, is that people know when they are full and stop before they overeat. His Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University tested this by designing a "bottomless bowl." They brought in 60 people for a free lunch and gave 22 ounce bowls of soup to half, while the other half unknowingly got 22 ounce bowls that were pressure-fed under the table and slowly refilled. The results: people with bottomless bowls ate 73 percent more than those with normal bowls, yet when asked, they didn't realize they had eaten more. "The lesson is, don't rely on your stomach to tell you when you're full. It can lie," Wansink said.

  • ·      eating off salad plates instead of large dinner plates.
  • ·      eating in the kitchen or dining room, not in front of the television.

"These simple strategies are far more likely to succeed than willpower alone. It's easier to change your environment than to change your mind," Wansink concluded.

Think healthy, eat healthy: Scientists show link between attention and self-control

August 10, 2011

Science Daily/California Institute of Technology

You're trying to decide what to eat for dinner. Should it be the chicken and broccoli? The super-sized fast-food burger? Skip it entirely and just get some Rocky Road?

Making that choice, it turns out, is a complex neurological exercise. But, according to researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), it's one that can be influenced by a simple shifting of attention toward the healthy side of life. And that shift may provide strategies to help us all make healthier choices -- not just in terms of the foods we eat, but in other areas, like whether or not we pick up a cigarette.

Their research is described in a paper published in the July 27 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

When you decide what to eat, not only does your brain need to figure out how it feels about a food's taste versus its health benefits versus its size or even its packaging, but it needs to decide the importance of each of those attributes relative to the others. And it needs to do all of this more-or-less instantaneously.

Antonio Rangel, professor of economics and neuroscience at Caltech, has been studying this value-deriving and decision-making process for years now. Along with Todd Hare -- a former postdoc at Caltech who is now an assistant professor of neuroeconomics at the University of Zurich in Switzerland -- he published a paper in Science in 2009 describing differences in the brains of people who are better at exercising self-control than others. What they found was that while everyone uses the same area of the brain -- the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, or vmPFC -- to make value-laden decisions like what to munch on, there's a second brain area -- the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, or dlPFC -- that seems to come to life when a person is using self-control during the decision-making process.

In other words, when the dlPFC is active, it allows the vmPFC to take into account health benefits as well as taste when it assigns a value to a particular food.

The new study goes a step further, showing that there seem to be ways to help kickstart the dlPFC through the use of what Hare calls "external cues" that allow us to exhibit more self-control than we might have otherwise.

The researchers came to their conclusions based on data from a brain-imaging experiment conducted with 33 adult volunteers, none of whom were following a specific diet or trying to lose weight for any reason. Each of the volunteers was shown 180 different food items -- from chips and candy bars to apples and broccoli -- through a set of video goggles while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine.

The hungry subjects -- they were asked to fast for at least three hours prior to the experiment -- were given up to three seconds to respond to each picture with a decision about whether or not they'd want to eat the food shown after the experiment was over. They could either give the food a "strong no," a "no," a "yes," or a "strong yes." Once all of the images had been flipped through, a single food image was chosen at random; if the volunteer had said "yes" or "strong yes" to the idea of eating that food, he or she was served that item.

"Because only one random trial was selected to 'count,'" says Rangel, "the optimal strategy for subjects is to treat each decision as if it were the only one."

Simple, right? But here's the catch: before every 10 food choices, an instruction would come on the screen for five seconds telling the subjects either to "consider the healthiness," "consider the tastiness," or "make decisions naturally." This meant that of the 180 decisions, the subjects made 60 in each of the three "instruction conditions."

What this was meant to do, Rangel explains, is shift the subject's attention during the experiment and, potentially, shift the way in which they made decisions.

Afterward -- outside the scanner -- the subjects were asked to rate the same foods on both a tastiness scale (very untasty, untasty, tasty, very tasty) and a healthiness scale (very unhealthy, unhealthy, healthy, very healthy). That way, the researchers were able to associate the choices the subjects made during the brain scan with their stated perceptions of those foods' attributes -- showing that a subject who chose broccoli during the "consider the healthiness" portion of the test might think of it nonetheless as untasty.

The researchers then classified the foods for each subject based on that subject's ratings: unhealthy-untasty, healthy-untasty, unhealthy-tasty, and healthy-tasty. Unsurprisingly, people chose healthy-tasty foods no matter where their attention had been directed.

Things got interesting when the researchers looked at the other three categories, however. Among their findings:

  • When thinking about healthiness, subjects were less likely to eat unhealthy foods, whether or not they deemed them to be tasty, and more likely to eat healthy-untasty foods.
  • Being asked to think about healthiness led subjects to say "no" to foods more often than they did when asked to make decisions naturally.
  • There were no real differences between the choices made during the "consider the tastiness" and "make decisions naturally" portions of the experiment.

When the researchers turned to the fMRI results, they found that the vmPFC was, as predicted, "more responsive to the healthiness of food in the presence of health cues," says Rangel. And, as they'd seen previously, the robustness of that response was due to the influence of the dlPFC -- that bastion of self-control -- which was much quieter when the study's subjects were thinking about taste or their own personal choice than when they were asked to throw healthiness into the equation.

"This increased influence of the health signals on the vmPFC results in an overall value for the food that is based more on its health properties than is the case when the subject's attention is not focused on healthiness," says Hare.

These results are most likely not limited just to choices about food, Hare says. "Our findings are also relevant to the current changes to cigarette warnings many governments have started to make," he notes. "These changes include adding graphical images of the health risks of smoking. It remains to be seen whether these images will be more effective in drawing attention to the unhealthiness of smoking than the text warnings. If the graphical warnings do increase attention to health, then our results suggest that they could decrease the desire to smoke."

Jonathan Malmaud, a former research assistant at Caltech who is now a graduate student at MIT, was also an author on the Journal of Neuroscience paper, "Focusing attention on the health aspects of foods changes value signals in the vmPFC and improves dietary choice." The scientists' work was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

'Love your body' to lose weight

July 18, 2011

Science Daily/BioMed Central Limited

Member Login
Welcome, (First Name)!

Forgot? Show
Log In
Enter Member Area
My Profile Not a member? Sign up. Log Out


China RMG factories may shift to Bangladesh

Some Chinese garment makers want to set up factories under joint venture in Bangladesh as they see the country as a competitive destination to relocate plants amid raging US-China trade war and the rising cost in the world’s second largest economy.
Chinese textile and garment industry owners have invested heavily in neighbouring Vietnam and Cambodia in the last two decades, but now they are focusing to shift their factories to Myanmar and Bangladesh.
The reasons for the change in focus include a lack of skilled workforce in Chinese textile and garment industry, rising cost of production, shifting industrial base to industries such as IT and over-investment in Vietnam and Cambodia where labour costs are lower.
“Now they are trying to shift the sunset industries to Myanmar and Bangladesh,” said Faisal Samad, vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
The sunset industry refers to an industry that has existed for a long time and that is less successful and making less profit than previously.

Read more at The daily Star


Barrow, AK weather in December 1948

Temperature for December 1948

In December 1948 the average high temperature in Barrow, AK was -14.5°F, and this was 10.4°F cooler than the average of -4.1°F. The hottest day in December 1948 was 14 December when the temperature reached 17.1°F. Overnight the average temperature in December is -16.5°F and in 1948 the average overnight temperature was 10.0°F cooler at -26.5°F.

Precipitation for December 1948

In December the average monthly rainfall in Barrow, AK is 0.19 inches with rain usually falling on 0 days. In December 1948 there was a total of 0.00 inches of rain, that fell on 0 days.


What is Reiki

reikiReiki is a divinely inspired energy technique that helps relieve stress and promote healing.  In Japanese, “rei”- is defined as universal and “ki” energy force, meaning that Reiki is the source of life itself and not affiliated with any religion. Rather, it is a spiritual consciousness.  During an attunement process, Reiki healers have energy channels opened and cleared of obstructions . Once attuned, a person has a greater ability to heal themselves or others without depleting their own energy. Learning to embody this source energy is the lifelong path of the Reiki healer.


Where results make sense

Topic: Bird migration

Related Topics

In the News (Fri 14 Jun 19)

  NPWRC :: Migration of Birds
The older birds may be accompanied by some of the young, but most of the immature birds leave their natal grounds later in summer after the adults and move southward through the interior of the country, returning in spring over essentially the same course.
Dog-leg migration patterns are characterized by a prominent bend in the route.
Because the Bobolink is a bird of damp meadows, it was originally cut off from the western states by the intervening arid Great Plains, but with the advent of irrigation and the bringing of large areas under cultivation, small colonies of nesting Bobolinks appeared at various western points.
www.npwrc.usgs.gov /resource/birds/migratio/patterns.htm   (3616 words)

 Reference.com/Encyclopedia/Bird migration
Bird migration has been studied by a variety of techniques of which ringing is the oldest.
The orientation behaviour of the bird inside the cage is studied quantitatively using the distribution of marks that the bird leaves on the walls of the cage.
www.reference.com /browse/wiki/Bird_migration   (3552 words)

  Bird migration
Most species of land birds migrate very long distances, the most common pattern being for birds to breed in the temperate or arctic northern hemisphere and winter in warmer regions, often in the tropics or the temperate zones of the southern hemisphere.
The advantage of the migration is that, in the long days of the northern summer, breeding birds have more hours to feed their young on often abundant food supplies, particularly insects.
Another cause of birds occurring outside their normal ranges is the "spring overshoot" in which birds returning to their breeding areas overshoot and end up further north than intended.
www.photobirds.com /pub_3_Bird_migration.html   (2383 words)

 All About Birds : Migration
Birds that nest in the northern hemisphere tend to migrate northward in the spring to take advantage of burgeoning insect populations, budding plants and an abundance of nesting locations.
Migrating birds can cover thousands of miles in their annual travels, often traveling the same course year after year with little deviation in the path followed.
Spring migration is an especially good time for those that feed birds in their backyard to attract species they normally do not see.
www.birds.cornell.edu /AllAboutBirds/studying/migration   (1192 words)

 Birding in India - Bird Migration - Bird Ringing - Bird Banding
Migration is the mechanism behind the seasonal appearance and disappearance of some species of birds, mammals, fish and insects.
Timing of migration is a mix of internal stimulus which results in a feeding binge to put on fat to survive the journey and then the tendency to aggregate into flocks.
Migrations mostly consist of birds flying south for the winter and north in spring to breed.
www.birding.in /bird_migration.htm   (965 words)

 North American Migration Flyways
Bird migration is generally thought of as a north-and-south movement, with the lanes of heavier concentration following the coasts, mountain ranges and principal river valleys.
Migration routes may be defined as the lanes of individual travel from any particular breeding ground to the winter quarters of the birds that use them.
The southward route of migratory land birds of the Pacific Flyway that in winter leave the United States extends through the interior of California to the mouth of the Colorado River and on to the winter quarters that are principally in western Mexico.
www.birdnature.com /flyways.html   (1820 words)

 Arctic Refuge: Bird Migration
Because this food is not available during cold, winter months, many birds migrate south to forage in warmer climates.
The Refuge’s information sheet “Which birds may travel from the Arctic Refuge to or through your area?" shows that birds breeding on the Arctic Refuge have ranges that reach all 50 states.
Birds follow routes in all four flyways as they migrate between the Arctic Refuge and their southern wintering areas in these states.
arctic.fws.gov /birdmig.htm   (242 words)

 Bird ‘flu follows trade, not migration routes
The only wild birds found infected were victims of the virus circulating in domestic birds, such as sparrows, magpies, herons and birds of prey which scavenge around poultry farms.
The birds were mostly waterfowl, particularly swans, which had been pushed westwards by a spell of extreme cold weather in Eastern Europe, and the spread did not correspond to the usual routes or timing of migration.
And if migratory birds were a main agent of dispersal, then after July 2005 we might have expected massive die-offs of wild birds in the breeding areas and along migration routes, since bird populations would have been encountering the virus for the first time.
www.birdlife.org /news/news/2007/03/avian_flu_report.html   (1136 words)

 Bird Migration Notes: Mr and Mrs Smith's Life Science   (Site not responding. Last check: )
Birds may also calibrate their own direction senses to other cues like stars or magnetic compasses by noting where the sun is setting.
Birds are capable of using several cues to orient during migration, including the moon, the sun, stars, wind, magnetism, topography, and olfactory cues.
Birds may be able to tell that it is time to go by using changes in amount of light, temperature, or food.
hometown.aol.com /ksmith9526/BirdMigrationNotes.htm   (2220 words)

 WORLD MIGRATORY BIRD DAY - About Migratory Birds
Migration is a natural process, whereby different birds fly over distances of hundreds to thousands of kilometres in order to find the best ecological conditions and habitats for feeding, breeding and raising their young.
The social acceptance of birds as messengers of life was accompanied by the knowledge that migration had indeed an important role to play in ecosystem functioning.
World Migratory Bird Day with its global outreach is an effective tool for the international community to help raise awareness on the threats faced by migrating birds, their ecological importance and the need for international cooperation to conservation them.
www.worldmigratorybirdday.org /2007/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=26   (875 words)

 TPWD: Bird Migration Frequently Asked Questions
Migration is the cyclic or periodic travel of an animal as it returns eventually to its original place of departure.
The birds developed a tendency to leave in spring to breed in territories to the north that were less crowded.
Migrations appear to be the consequences of invasions or emigrations during which animals settle in new regions during part of the annual cycle, then return to the original region to complete the cycle.
www.tpwd.state.tx.us /huntwild/wild/birding/migration/faq   (3693 words)

 What is Bird Migration
In birds migration is seasonal and often spectacular and much is now known about the physiology as well as the mechanics of migratory flight.
Birds such as ducks, geese, swans and quail were valuable food resources to early man. Their tendency to be plentiful at one part of the year and scarce or non-existent in another would have been noticed and recorded in tribal law.
The migration of birds is now a well known and accepted fact and we find it hard to understand how such fanciful ideas could ever have been believed.
www.earthlife.net /birds/migration1.html   (1549 words)

 Bird Migration
Watching bird migration take place is one of the most exciting and interesting things a birder can do, and it's something you can see in your own backyard.
Especially in the spring when birds are in their bright courtship plumage and males are lustily singing, it's a pure joy to walk around taking note of which species have arrived.
For that film they raised ducks, geese and other birds from the egg and trained them to allow themselves to be filmed from very close, as the birds were flying in a variety of beautiful locations.At the right you review and buy the film, and farther to the right, the book.
www.backyardnature.net /birdmgrt.htm   (1001 words)

 BBC - Science & Nature - Birds - Features - They're Off
Bird migration is the only mass animal movement that we can observe at first hand in the British Isles.
During autumn migration flocks of juveniles are commonplace in the British Isles whereas adults are decidedly scarce.
Migration at this season is a more relaxed affair and birds tend to wait for optimum weather conditions before starting a long flight.
www.bbc.co.uk /nature/animals/birds/weeklyfeature/theyreoff   (1139 words)

 Bird Migration (An Introduction)
Between 1500 and 4000 species of birds migrate, the exact answer is not really knowy yet and the experts differ as to their answers.
Birds that we see all year such as Robins and Starlings either leave or come to Britain during the winter.
Anyway, whatever the true nature of the migration observed the fact of migration itself is a fascinating and awe inspiring facet of bird ecology.
www.earthlife.net /birds/migration.html   (605 words)

 Bird Migration
Research on migrating birds in Israel, based on satellite and radar monitoring, makes it possible today to track the birds from Israel to their winter nesting grounds in Africa, and back northward, via Israel, to their summer nesting grounds in Europe.
At the The International Center for Study of Birds Migration, located on the main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, interdisciplinary and educational activity is being developed to permit computer tracking of migrating birds and exchange of information with ornithologists and students in neighboring countries.
Migrating birds do not recognize political borders, and serve as ideal symbols of the era of peace that is dawning in the Middle East.
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org /jsource/Environment/birds.html   (251 words)

 BirdCast: What is Migration?
If it is spring or fall, the great pivot points of the year, then the continents are swarming with billions of traveling birds—a flood so great that even the most ignorant and unobservant notice, if nothing else, the skeins of geese and the flocks of robins.
Tiny song birds from Alaska leap west across the Bering Sea to the Philippines, and others from eastern Canada cross the North Atlantic to Europe and Central Africa.
Bird migration is the one truly unifying natural phenomenon in the world, stitching the continents together in a way that even the great weather systems, which roar out of the poles but fizzle at the equator, fail to do.
www.birdsource.org /BirdCast/what_is_migration.html   (777 words)

 birding facts Birding Resources by the Fat Birder
Not only do BirdCast Web-watchers see radar imagery which depicts bird movements throughout peak migration periods, but they have the opportunity to help scientists better analyze what the radar images mean by reporting what they are seeing out in their yards, in parks, or at other favorite bird-watching spots...
Bird migration is one of the world`s most extraordinary wonders.
www.fatbirder.com /links/ornithology/migration.html   (1976 words)

 Bird Migration: Help Track Migratory Birds
Scientists have noted and studied the decline in the numbers of migratory bird species for several decades, and two likely reasons have emerged as the greatest threats to their survival: destruction of the tropical forests where many birds spend the winter, and disruption of their breeding and stopover habitats, especially coastal areas.
But short or long, the number of migratory birds making these treks is dwindling, and the numbers will continue to decline unless we learn more about their migratory habits and help ensure they have a healthy environment in which to breed and live.
The North American Migration Count uses volunteers to gather information on the progress of spring migration and on the numbers and distribution of various migratory birds.
www.charityguide.org /volunteer/vacation/bird-migration.htm   (727 words)

 Bird Migration
Songbirds disappear during migration for unknown causes; many species show negative populations trends
Conservation: establishment of stop-over reserves and migration corridors
Basic Science: solving orientation capacities of birds in the wild; potential to study dispersal of birds: "Where do the kids settle next year?"
www.princeton.edu /~tracking/ICARUS_website/MigrationPoster.htm   (164 words)

 [No title]
The laboratory is devoted to the acquisition and analysis of radar data as it relates to bird movements in the atmosphere.
We also are using these data to develop continent-wide and regional migration maps and to build predictive models of migration for different regions of the United States.
Conducting radar studies of bird migration through Panama.
virtual.clemson.edu /groups/birdrad   (194 words)

 Wild Birds Unlimited: Bird Migration
Bird Migration is a fascinating time for many bird watchers.
Unlike mammalian or reptilian lungs, the lungs of birds remain inflated at all times, with the air sacs acting as bellows to provide the lungs with a constant supply of fresh air.
For example, birds heading north are already constrained by the relatively short amount of time available to get to the breeding grounds, establish a territory, pair with a mate, and get on with the further demands of raising young.
www.wbu.com /edu/migr.htm   (1207 words)

 the mystery of bird migration: why and how?
Birds which breed in the summer in the extreme north such as the Arctic benefit from an abundance of food as plants and insect life flourish in the long daylight hours; and because few large permanent predators can survive the harsh winter.
While many birds migrate from northern breeding areas in the summer, to southern wintering grounds (mainly because there is more land near the northern pole than the southern), there are many other migration patterns.
Migrating birds are also distracted and killed by lit-up skyscrapers, lighthouses and other unnatural man-made formations that mislead them.
www.naturia.per.sg /buloh/birds/migration.htm   (931 words)

 Crane Migration - Operation Migration
That was five years after Bill became the first human to fly with birds, and one year after the two artists, turned biologists, used ultralight aircraft to lead a small flock of Canada geese from Ontario, Canada to Virginia, USA.
To perfect techniques, and ensure that once released, birds conditioned to follow their ultralights would remain wild, several migration studies were conducted with non-endangered Sandhill cranes in subsequent years.
Until Operation Migration was asked by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to spearhead a reintroduction of the world's most endangered cranes, there was no method of teaching migration to captive reared Whooping cranes released into the wild.
www.operationmigration.org   (331 words)

 BWB-ASF Library: Bird Migration Facts
Migration is the seasonal movement of birds, generally between breeding and non-breeding areas.
Many birds that breed in North America migrate to areas south of the Tropic of Cancer (southern Mexico, Central and South America and the Lesser and Greater Antilles in the Caribbean Sea) in the fall (August-October) because of a decrease in their food supply.
Some birds are short-distance migrants and migrate only as far as they need to find food such as insects, seeds and berries.
www.zoosociety.org /Conservation/BWB-ASF/Library/BirdMigrationFacts.php   (1249 words)

 eNature: Birds & Birding: Spring Migration
If you are familiar with the birds in your area you know that the change can be abrupt: One morning, the bushes and trees around you are suddenly filled with singing birds that were not there just the day before.
Many of the birds we consider "our birds," those that appear in field guides to the United States, actually spend less than half of their lives here.
In recent years, much research has focused on the lives these birds lead during their stay to the south, looking at how they interact with nonmigratory resident species and how the habitat changes taking place in southern forests might affect the migrants.
www.enature.com /birding/migration_home.asp   (635 words)

 Bird Migration - Why, How, When, and Where
Learn why birds migrate, their patterns of migration, and the mechanics of migration.
Animated graphic shows how birds that migrate at night will time their daily exodus.
Includes facts about the evolution of migration, stimulus for migration, when birds migrate, flight speed and altitude, navigation, influence of weather, and the routes of migration.
www.closertonature.com /outdoors/bird-migration.htm   (217 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)

Copyright © 2005-2007 www.factbites.com Usage implies agreement with terms.


Do you know the disposable shoe covers have an important role in human health and safety?

Jun. 04, 2018

Humans spend at least 70% of their time indoors, while urban residents spend more than 90% of their time indoors. However, the concentration of indoor air pollutants is generally 2 to 5 times the concentration of outdoor pollutants. According to data released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of deaths caused by indoor air pollution is 1.6 million every year, and one person dies every 20 seconds. The concentration of indoor air pollutants is the fine dust in the air. They seriously threaten human health and safety and even life.

Due to rain and snow or other sources of oil and water in the room, the ground will be slippery, which will increase the potential safety hazards on the ground and can easily cause personnel to slip to the accident. For example, due to the slippery nature of the ground, there are countless slips and fall accidents every year, and the resulting industrial injuries and civil disputes abound. The cook was severely burned after slipping in the kitchen and required surgery. As a result, the normal operation of the restaurant was affected, plus the subsequent huge compensation for labor. Important guests slipped in the hotel lobby and demanded claims that seriously affected the image of the hotel brand's service, causing additional civil compensation disputes and causing unnecessary trouble.

Ground pollution can cause the work environment to become dirty, messy, and poor, and it is easy to breed bacteria. As a result, employees are often sick and leave their vacations. Work efficiency is low, and in the long run it will cause losses to the company.

Our disposable shoes cover making machines capability is higher then other common shoes cover making machine. Widely used in homes, factories, model houses, hospitals, factories, dust-free workshops, auto showrooms, hotels, laboratories, computer rooms, museums, etc.