Find coupons for your favorite retailers

Where to Find Coupons for Your Favorite Retailers

In today’s society, the economy has placed a tremendous amount of stress on families to spend less and less, while saving more and more. Of course, this is anything, but easy. The truth of the matter is that most individuals will attempt to cut out items that they would normally buy. Thankfully, there are a number of different ways to save money, without cutting back. One way to do this is to use coupons. These are capable of helping consumers save a tremendous amount of money, while also allowing them to purchase their favorite items and brands. Below, you will be able to discover the different locations and ways to discover coupons.

Retail Websites
Before heading to your favorite retail store, you should take the time to explore their website. The majority of these retailers are willing to give their customers coupons and many do this on their websites. Suffice to say, they offer a wide variety of different coupons on their sites. With this in mind, you should browse their websites, find their coupon page and select those that suit your needs. After that, you’ll need to print the coupons and take them with you, when you go shopping. The clerk will be able to scan the discounts, at the register, and you will be able to save money instantly.

Visiting Brand Websites
At the same time, you likely have a handful of brands that you enjoy tremendously. You probably have a specific brand of soda, or milk, that you like to purchase. Sometimes, it is possible to obtain discounts from these companies, by visiting their websites directly. Although this isn’t always true, many of these companies offer discounts to their consumers, as incentives. Be sure to check out their websites, before visiting the store.

Weekly Ads
Weekly ads are not only useful, because they contain sale items, but they also contain coupons and discounts. This will arrive to your home mailbox on a weekly basis so the next time you receive one does not immediately toss it in the trash. Take the time to view every ad, so that you will learn where the most products are on sale for the week. This can truly save you around $40-$50 every time you go to the grocery store or home and garden store.

Newspapers
Sunday newspapers are filled to the brim with innumerable coupons. There you will find a large variety of coupons for different products, which may suit your needs. The next time you stop at the convenient store, be sure to pick up a couple of Sunday papers, so that you can save $25-$30 a week.

Coupons Websites
Of course, it is vital to take the time to check out the websites that are specifically designed for discount coupons. With this in mind, you might want to consider visiting the Kohls Coupons. If you happen to shop with this specific retailer, you will be able to save a tremendous amount of money, by checking out these websites and using their coupons. Either way, it is vital to take the time to explore the options above, until you find a sufficient amount of money saving offers and discounts.

Find coupons for your favorite retailers

8:36 AM coupons

APPLE'S HOMEKIT TO CONTROL YOUR HOME

Now Control Your Home with Apple's HomeKit : Promise comes True in June

A year ago, Apple announced it would make your home a lot smarter with its Siri-controlled HomeKit.

iOS 8 introduces HomeKit, a high-level device connectivity framework enabling apps to interact with physical accessories in the world around us.

App Developers

If your iOS app is primarily designed to provide home configuration or home automation services such as turning on a light or opening a garage door. HomeKit APIs used for communicating with HomeKit accessories.

Apple announced to make it soon. Now, it seems that promise is coming true in just a few weeks. Third-party devices enabled with HomeKit are slated to come to market in June, an Apple spokesman told the newspaper.

The HomeKit app works off of iOS and a remote control for operating home gadgets such as thermostats, garage doors, lights and cameras.

The comments from the Apple spokesman contrast with a report on Thursday that stated HomeKit would be delayed until September.

HomeKit is a framework in iOS 8 for communicating with and controlling connected accessories in a user’s home. You can enable users to discover HomeKit accessories in their home and configure them, or you can create actions to control those devices. Users can group actions together and trigger them using Siri.

Hardware Developers

If you’re interested in creating a HomeKit-enabled hardware accessory, you need to be an MFi licensee to access the resources for manufacturing hardware that integrates HomeKit technology. MFi licensees receive:

HomeKit technical specificationsMFi Logos and Identity GuidelinesHardware technical support

To join the MFi Program, you will need to create or register a business Apple ID, submit an enrollment form, complete a credit review, and execute an MFi License.

APPLE'S HOMEKIT TO CONTROL YOUR HOME

8:58 AM App, Apple, homekit, ios

New Vaccine For HIV

Image: 3Dme Creative Studio / Shutterstock.com

Potential new vaccine blocks every strain of HIV

A new drug candidate is so potent against all strains of HIV, researchers think it could work as a new kind of vaccine.

Developed by researchers from more than a dozen research institutions and led by a team at the Scripps Research Institute in the US, the drug is effective against doses of HIV-1, HIV-2 and SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) that have been extracted from humans or rhesus macaques - including what researchers consider to be the ‘hardest-to-stop’ variants. It worked against doses of HIV that are way higher than what would be transmitted between humans, and works for at least eight months after injection.

"Our compound is the broadest and most potent entry inhibitor described so far,” lead researcher Michael Farzan from the Scripps Institute said in a press release. "Unlike antibodies, which fail to neutralise a large fraction of HIV-1 strains, our protein has been effective against all strains tested, raising the possibility it could offer an effective HIV vaccine alternative.”

While traditional vaccines work by delivering a tiny, weakened dose of a virus to train your immune system to thwart an actual attack, this drug does something quite different. The way HIV infects a person is by targeting their T lymphocytes - a very specialised type of white blood cell - and injecting its own genetic material inside to transform them into HIV-producing machines. So, quite literally, it turns our immune systems against us. 

But what Farzan’s team has discovered is that a particular type of protein found on the surface of white blood cells can actually bind to the surface of the HIV virus in two different places simultaneously, which means that not only does the virus no longer have a chance to change the position of its receptors to escape, it’s also being blocked from entering the T lymphocyte cells.

"When antibodies try to mimic the receptor, they touch a lot of other parts of the viral envelope that HIV can change with ease,"said one of the team, Matthew Gardner, from the Scripps Institute. "We've developed a direct mimic of the receptors without providing many avenues that the virus can use to escape, so we catch every virus thus far.”

According to James Gallagher at BBC News, the vaccine would be delivered via a weak, harmless type of virus that would introduce a section of DNA to a patient’s healthy muscle cells, containing instructions for how to produce this HIV-blocking protein. The protein would then be pumped out into the bloodstream over and over, protecting the patient from being infected over several months. The team reported inNature that the effects of the drug lasted for at least 34 weeks in their monkey subjects, but they think they could get it to last for years, perhaps even decades.

"We are closer than any other approach to universal protection, but we still have hurdles, primarily with safety for giving it to many, many people,” Franzen told the BBC. One such concern is that no one really knows what the long-term implications would be for a person who is having an anti-HIV response being pumped around their body non-stop. The team will be looking into this when they get their human trials underway.

"In the absence of a vaccine that can elicit broadly protective immunity and prevent infection, and given the lack of major breakthroughs on the horizon to provide one, the idea of conferring potent, sustained vaccine-like protection against HIV infection through gene therapy is certainly worth strong consideration,” Nancy Haigwood from the Oregon Health & Science University in the US, who wasn’t involved in the study, told the BBC. 

Source: BBC News

New Vaccine For HIV

6:43 AM AIDS, featured, health, HIV, Medicine, vaccine

FREE SMART PHONES FROM T-MOBILES

T-Mobile leak reveals free smartphone offer for prepaid accounts

The idea of getting a free smartphone with service is nothing new; for years, the US market has been dominated by subsidized phone sales, and so long as you didn’t demand the latest and greatest flagships, you could always find a good number of free-on-contract options. In recent years, though, there’s been a shakeup in favor of installment plans, not to mention a rise in popularity of prepaid options, pushing the idea of free phones to the back burner. But today we learn of an upcoming deal for T-Mobile that puts the spotlight back on free phones in an unexpected way, revealing plans to give away a brand new smartphone to users with prepaid service.

We’ve already seen evidence of T-Mobile welcoming a couple new LG Androids to its lineup, the LG G Stylo and LG Leon. Now a leaked doc spells out the carrier’s plan to usher in the arrival of the LG Leon on May 20 with a free giveaway.

Subscribers on either Simple Choice No Credit plans or prepaid plans costing at least $40 a month will be able to get the LG Leon for free, according to this leak. The details differ a little – with prepaid users getting the phone for free straight away with their next $40 or better payment, and SCNC users paying a $150 deposit before getting the full cost of the phone back as a rebate after a month of service – but in either case, it works out to a free phone.

The LG Leon has a 4.5-inch FWVGA screen and runs a Snapdragon 400 SoC – not state-of-the-art by any stretch of the imagination, but free is free, right? And with word that this deal applies equally to new customers as well as existing ones, it’s hard to pass up, even if that means just keeping the Leon as a backup phone.

Source: TmoNews

FREE SMART PHONES FROM T-MOBILES

2:43 PM android, features, Free smart phonea, T-mobile

Apple acquires Coherent Navigation For accurate GPS

Apple acquires high-accuracy GPS firm Coherent Navigation

 theleetgeeks, via Flickr

Apple Maps might be tracking you more closely soon. The Cupertino, Calif., company has acquired Coherent Navigation, a developer of highly accurate GPS services, according to reports that surfaced over the weekend.

Coherent Navigation’s biggest technology combines standard GPS satellite information with data from low-Earth satellites owned by Iridium, a voice and data provider. While consumer GPS can be accurate to within three to five feet, Coherent’s High Integrity GPS can be accurate to a few centimeters.

MacRumors first reported that a few of the Bay Area startup’s employees, including CEO John Lego, have been working at Apple since the beginning of the year. Their website, which previously boasted about relationships with Boeing and the Department of Defense, has been taken down.

While this technology would be great for knowing which side of the street you’re on (maybe for transit directions?), high-accuracy GPS could also be a boon for autonomous cars. That would fit well withApple’s reported plans to challenge Google andTesla in autonomous driving. According to the New York Times, it wouldn’t be the first time Coherent’s technology was used for autonomous navigation.

However, many of Coherent’s past employees who are now at at Apple are working in location engineering or with the Maps team, according to LinkedIn profiles.

Apple acquires Coherent Navigation For accurate GPS

8:38 AM Apple, Apple map, Coherent, GPS, navigation

Kirin 930 And Metal Body -Huawei's Nexus

Huawei’s Nexus To Come With Kirin 930 And Metal Body

Google’s been rumored to be looking towards new manufacturers for this year’s Nexus. According to several speculations so far, the manufacturer of choice for the tech giant has been Huawei. But we’ve also heard about some news about LG considering to make the next Nexus. So while the current contender for Google’s Nexus throne this year is Huawei, its still too early to count other manufacturers out the race either. Nevertheless, we’ve manged to get some more information about the next Nexus.

Huawei’s Nexus Might Come With The Kirin 930 And 5.7 inch Display

While LG’s seemingly confirmed that its considering on manufacturing the next Nexus, the rumor mill is active on pumping more and new information about Huawei’s alleged Nexus. According to information so far, the device might be choosing to stick with the Snapdragon 810 as of now. This most likely means that overheating issues can be expected on the device and right on cue, new information suggests that Huawei might be choosing to employ its own Kirin 930 on the Nexus. The Kirin 930 is Huawei’s in house processor which can be expected to give several chipsets a run for their money.

But while the Kirin 930 might sound like a plausible option for the Nexus, Huawei might be better suited to choose the Kirin 940 or the 950 both of which feature Cortex A72 designs, meaning that you won’t have to worry about high performance on the Nexus. We also get to know more about the display size, design and screen resolution for the device. Allegedly, the next Nexus can be expected to come with a 5.7 inch display, with the device expected to be similar to Huawei’s Mate 8 expected later this year and feature a complete premium metal build. Screen resolution for the device is expected to be 2560 x 1440. That’s all that we have for you today. Stay tuned and let us know what you think in the comments section.

Kirin 930 And Metal Body -Huawei's Nexus

5:24 PM android, Google, Huawei, NEXUS, smart phones

Verizon Buys AOL ,The Internal memo says

AOL will become a subsidiary of Verizon

So this just happened. AOL, owner of TechCrunch, is getting acquired: U.S. carrier Verizonsaid in a statement that it is buying the company for $4.4 billion, or $50 per share. We’ve just been sent an internal memo about the deal that we are embedding below.

A bigger push into content and mobile videos

AOL will become a subsidiary of Verizon as part of the deal, overseeing a bigger push into content and mobile video by Verizon.

“Verizon’s acquisition further drives its LTE wireless video and OTT (over-the-top video) strategy,” the carrier said in a statement.

In addition to original content across different platforms like video and written word, and desktop and mobile, there are other assets that could be interesting fits for Verizon.

For starters, AOL has been building up a programmatic advertising business to build up how AOL monetizes alongside newer formats like video and mobile. Currently that business — which is the fastest growing operation at AOL in terms of revenues — is split between ads on AOL-owned sites and third-party sites. Verizon picking this up could potentially further build out both, with the company partnering with the likes of ESPN to develop content and also giving the AOL-owned properties potentially much bigger audiences.

The other area of AOL’s business that is a fit for Verizon is the company’s still-lingering dial-up business, which is remains a big revenue generator for AOL, last quarter pulling in $182.6 million.

That may be a decline of 7 percent compared to a year ago but, as a business that gets almost no investment but continues to run, membership (where the dial-up business sits) is still a majority of the company’s operating income. Verizon could potentially tap these customers for potential switch to broadband and other services on top of that, an area where AOL hasn’t really innovated on its own.

If you recall there were rumors earlier this year that Verizon was eyeing up the company. While Verizon appeared to dismiss the reports at the time, it turns out that it was definitely interested after all.


For what it’s worth, we’d heard the same about Verizon being interested but that there were some sticking points about whether it would buy only a part or all of AOL, which appear to have been put to one side for now.

“The deal means we will be a division of Verizon and we will oversee AOL’s current assets plus additional assets from Verizon that are targeted at the mobile and video media space. The deal will not change our strategy – it will expand it greatly. The deal will give our content businesses more distribution and it will give our advertisers more distribution and mobile-first features. The deal will add scale and it will add a mobile lens to everything we do inside of our content, video, and ads strategy,” Tim Armstrong, AOL’s chairman and CEO, said in the memo.

There are lingering questions about whether it’s an all-in deal for the longer term, or whether certain operations that are not as central to Verizon’s bigger strategy may eventually get offloaded.

AOL will be having an all-hands at 10am Eastern time this morning and we’ll report what comes up there, too.

Armstrong will continue to head up AOL after the deal is completed.

Full memo below, and more to come.

AOLers –
As you have heard me say many times over the last 5 years since we became an independent AOL, we are building toward becoming the largest media technology company in the world. While there are search platforms, social platforms, and commerce platforms, we have built a very meaningful media platform and AOL today is a media platform company powering our brands and the brands of over 30,000 partners.
If there is one key to our journey to building the largest digital media platform in the world, it is mobile. Mobile will represent 80% of consumers’ media consumption in the coming years and if we are going to lead, we need to lead in mobile. Over the last 18 months we set a goal of moving AOL into a leading position in mobile, mobile video, and mobile registered consumers. We are approaching 400 million global consumers, we have built one of the best advertising platforms in the world, and we have one of the most talented teams in the world – and now it is time for us to fully open up the mobile frontier.
Today, we are announcing that the largest and most innovative wireless and cable company – and the one investing the most in high quality mobile content – is acquiring AOL with the strategy of building the biggest media platform in the world. The company is Verizon and the deal will game-change the size and scale of AOL’s opportunity. Just as AOL has propelled The Huffington Post, Adap.tv, TechCrunch, and other companies we have acquired, Verizon will propel AOL and comes to the table with over 100 million mobile consumers, content deals with the likes of the NFL, and a meaningful strategy in mobile video.
The decision to enter into an agreement with Verizon was made over a long and thoughtful time period and both companies see significant opportunity to service consumers and customers in a differentiated and exciting way. On a personal level, the decision to go forward with an agreement was predicated on giving our talent the best opportunity to build a multi-decade business that would be deeply growth oriented and aimed directly at the platform shift that video and mobile are offering the world – today and 20 years from now.
There are two important questions you might have at this point in the letter:
1. What does this mean?
2. What does this mean for me (meaning you)?
The deal means we will be a division of Verizon and we will oversee AOL’s current assets plus additional assets from Verizon that are targeted at the mobile and video media space. The deal will not change our strategy – it will expand it greatly. The deal will give our content businesses more distribution and it will give our advertisers more distribution and mobile-first features. The deal will add scale and it will add a mobile lens to everything we do inside of our content, video, and ads strategy.
For you this means growth, it means mobile, and it means compensation that will be equal or better to your AOL compensation. Your benefits will not change in 2015. We will eventually go on Verizon’s benefit plan, but that won’t happen until 2016 or later and we will work with Verizon to make sure the benefits are strong and cover important areas of people’s lives. Your job and what you do on a daily basis should be enhanced by the market opportunity this deal is targeted to capture. The simple answer to the question of “what does this mean for you?” should be, “I just got more resources, more support and more growth opportunity.”
The leadership at AOL is staying and I am staying – enthusiastically, and we made that part of the deal. We have the opportunity to build a unique and globally scaled media technology company with the scale and resources we need to make that happen. Verizon and AOL are very large partners today – in content, in ads, and in the technology. We know their team well and they know our team well. The cultures share very similar values and are both working on very similar ways to do good while doing well. Diversity and women’s leadership are at the top of both companies’ agendas and we look forward to having a consumer and industry impact on those important issues.
The future in front of AOL and the industry requires scale, mobile, and video – and partnerships. In our lifetime, we will see the connection of the world on very large and very fast networks – and to play in that world with our strategy requires us to take the natural steps to secure our ability to shoot for the stars. This deal is aimed at the stars and we are going to pursue the joint vision of building the most significant media platform in the world.
I have been a buyer of AOL over the last 5 years – and that is an investment in one thing – our talent. We have reviewed every hire coming into the company over the last 5 years and we have taken extraordinary risks and faced extraordinary challenges over the last 5 years. There is nothing more meaningful than watching our team turn-around this great company and restoring it to growth when most people had left it for dead.
AOL is back and now we are joining forces with Verizon to build the best media technology company in the world. Let’s mobilize. – TA @http://techcrunch.com/

Verizon Buys AOL ,The Internal memo says

3:18 PM acqusition, AOL, featured, Verizon

Brain Eating Amoeba Turns your body against you

Brain Eating Amoeba (Naegleria fowleri)-Kills you by turning your body against you !!

"Naegleria fowleri -brain eating amoeba-is a free-living, thermophilic excavate form of protist typically found in warm bodies of fresh water, such as ponds, lakes, rivers, and hot springs"

If someone swims in one of these infested pools and gets water up their nose, the amoeba heads for the brain in search of a meal. Once there, it starts to destroy tissue by ingesting cells and releasing proteins that make other cells disintegrate.

The immune system launches a counter-attack by flooding the brain with immune cells, causing inflammation and swelling. It seldom works: of the 132 people known to have been infected in the US since 1962, only three survived.

The problem is that enzymes released by the immune cells can also end up destroying brain tissue. And the swelling triggered by the immune system eventually squashes the brainstem, fatally shutting off communication between the body and the brain.

What Is a Brain-Eating Amoeba?

Amoebas are single-celled organisms. The so-called brain-eating amoeba is a species discovered in 1965. It's formal name is Naegleria fowleri. Although first identified in Australia, this amoeba is believed to have evolved in the U.S.

There are several species of Naegleria but only the fowleri species causes human disease. There are several fowleri subtypes. All are believed equally dangerous.

N. fowleri is microscopic: 8 micrometers to 15 micrometers in size, depending on its life stage and environment. By comparison, a hair is 40 to 50 micrometers wide.

Like other amoebas, Naegleria reproduces by cell division. When conditions aren't right, the amoebas become inactive cysts. When conditions are favorable, the cysts turn into trophozoites -- the feeding form of the amoeba.

Where Are Brain-Eating Amoebas Found?

Naegleria loves very warm water. It can survive in water as hot as 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

These amoebas can be found in warm places around the globe. N. fowleri is found in:

• Warm lakes, ponds, and rock pits
• Mud puddles
• Warm, slow-flowing rivers, especially those with low water levels
• Untreated swimming pools and spas
• Untreated well water or untreated municipal water
• Hot springs and other geothermal water sources
• Thermally polluted water, such as runoff from power plants
• Aquariums
• Soil, including indoor dust

Naegleria can't live in salt water. It can't survive in properly treated swimming pools or in properly treated municipal water.

Most cases of N. fowleri disease occur in Southern or Southwestern states. Over half of all infections have been in Florida and Texas.

Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis cases, 1962 to 2012

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

How Do Amoebas Get in the Brain?

Studies suggest that N. fowleri amoebas are attracted to the chemicals that nerve cells use to communicate with one another. Once in the nose, the amoebas travel through the olfactory nerve (the nerve connected with sense of smell) into the frontal lobe of the brain.

Photo credit :CDC/Alexander J. da Silva

How to protect  from Brain eating Amoeba

Infections most often occur in July, August and September when temperatures are high for prolonged periods. Naegleria fowleri amoeba can be found in the following places:

• Warm fresh water such as lakes and rivers

• Geothermal water such as hot springs and drinking water sources

• Warm water discharge from industrial plants

To lower your risk, hold your nose shut, use nose clips or keep your head above water when playing in bodies of warm fresh water.

IIt makes sense to avoid swimming underwater, diving, water skiing, and jumping in warm, still waters during the late summer. It also makes sense to wear a nose clip when swimming, boating, or playing in or on warm waters.

It's also a good idea to avoid stirring up mud while taking part in such activities.

And if you are cleansing your nostrils, be sure to fill your neti pot or squeeze bottle with distilled or sterile water -- not tap water. You can also use water that has been boiled for one minute (three minutes at high elevations) and then cooled. And you can filter the water using filters with pores no larger than 1 micron (1 micrometer).

Brain Eating Amoeba Turns your body against you

4:33 PM amoeba, Brain eater, featured, health, Healthy, Medicine, US

Obesity linked to exposure to Artificial light

Artificial Light Associated with Obesity, Study Says

Carbs, genetics, “bad” fats — there are many theories about the causes of obesity and associated illnesses like diabetes and heart disease.

But new research in today’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes obesity is not just about food.

Sander Kooijman and colleagues at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands say that weight gain may be increasingly common in today’s fast-paced global economy because prolonged artificial light exposure actually inhibits the fat-burning processes that normally occur during darkness.

“The modern 24-hour economy necessitates work at night and shifts social activities to the dark hours,” study co-author Patrick C. N. Rensen explained. “Our observations may implicate, assuming the data could be extrapolated to humans, that the current obesity epidemic is at least partly due to increased light pollution.”

Several years of research correlates weight gain with artificial light exposure, which is defined as any light that isn’t from the sun, including overhead lighting, computer screens, and streetlights. A 2013 article in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology journal found that mice fed a low-fat diet but exposed to artificial light for prolonged periods of time actually gained more weight than mice fed a diet high in fat.

Why Would Light Make Us Fat?

Kooijman’s team wanted to know more about what exactly caused the correlation, so they looked at the exact mechanism behind that weight gain — specifically a type of fat known as brown adipose tissue (BAT). This tissue plays a central role in energy expenditure by changing energy from food into heat. In short, it burns calories.

Researchers exposed mice to artificial light for 12, 16, or 24 hours per day for five weeks. Mice exposed to artificial light for 24 hours, compared with 12 hours, had significantly higher fat composition despite consuming the same diet.

Further investigation revealed that BAT activity was decreased by light exposure. As mice were exposed to longer periods of light, conversion of fatty acids and glucose into heat was reduced. The longer the light shined, the fewer calories the mice burned.

In a culture where sunny days evoke swimsuits and beach bodies, it’s hard to understand why light exposure would lend itself to the deposition of fat. But the body’s circadian rhythms are uniquely attuned to variations in light and dark. Disruption of these basic physiological processes can have significant metabolic repercussions.

Researchers think that exposure to artificial light is actually tricking an evolutionary adaptation that encouraged our ancestors to store fat in the summer months to prepare for the colder, darker winter months.

“The so-called ‘day length’ prepares the body for cold adaptation due to seasonal variation,” said Rensen.

Shortened days, he explains, usually increase BAT activation to create heat in the body to prepare for cold, whereas longer days don’t require the creation of heat — so the body stores the excess energy, or fat, until it is needed.

“Lowering BAT activity in warm seasons may indeed result in beneficial storage of fat,” Rensen said.

But artificial light confuses the body. A night shift worker in a hospital, for example, might spend 12 hours under fluorescent lights and then several daylight hours running errands. If this happens multiple times a week, the body might adapt to the prolonged light exposure by reducing its normal fat-burning rate.

I Work Nights. Can I Get a Pill for That?

While research on artificial light exposure isn’t limited to mice, medications and therapies aimed at correcting faulty fat storage are still a long way off.

Rensen, Kooijman, and other researchers are looking at ways to increase BAT activity in mice and humans by developing drugs that act on the body’s “central biological clock,” an area of the brain known as the suprachiasmatic nuclei.

Until those magic pills allow us to travel across time zones jet-lag free or put in 24-hour workdays, the best advice science can offer is to try to sleep when it’s dark outside — or at least simulate darkness if you have a job that requires nighttime work.

“Restricting work and activities to daytime and sleeping in a dark bedroom may help prevent weight gain,” Rensen said.

For those who can’t limit their work to daylight hours and struggle with getting adequate sleep, a web search of “sleep hygiene” yields countless resources from sleep disorder centers across the United States.

UCLA’s Sleep Center has specific resources on sleep hygiene for shift workers. Sleep researchers have correlated poor sleep with increased risk of stroke, heart disease, and obesity.

One of the key recommendations of sleep experts? Limit artificial light exposure.

Obesity linked to exposure to Artificial light

8:49 AM featured, health, Healthy, life, Medicine, obesity

Vaccine for Lung Cancer

Cuba Has a Lung Cancer Vaccine—America Wants It

Cuba has for several years had a promising therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer. The 55-year trade embargo led by the US made sure that Cuba was mostly where it stayed. Until—maybe—now.

The Obama administration has, of course, been trying to normalize relations with the island nation. And last month, during New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s visit to Havana, Roswell Park Cancer Institute finalized an agreement with Cuba’s Center for Molecular Immunology to develop a lung cancer vaccine and begin clinical trials in the US. Essentially, US researchers will bring the Cimavax vaccine stateside and get on track for approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

“The chance to evaluate a vaccine like this is a very exciting prospect,” says Candace Johnson, CEO of Roswell Park. She’s excited, most likely, because research on the vaccine so far shows that it has low toxicity, and it’s relatively cheap to produce and store. The Center for Molecular Immunology will give Roswell Park all of the documentation (how it’s produced, toxicity data, results from past trials) for an FDA drug application; Johnson says she hopes to get approval for testing Cimavax within six to eight months, and to start clinical trials in a year.

How did Cuba end up with a cutting edge immuno-oncology drug? Though the country is justly famous for cigars, rum, and baseball, it also has some of the best and most inventive biotech and medical research in the world. That’s especially notable for a country where the average worker earns $20 a month. Cuba spends a fraction of the money the US does on healthcare per individual; yet the average Cuban has a life expectancy on par with the average American. “They’ve had to do more with less,” says Johnson, “so they’ve had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community.”

Despite decades of economic sanctions, Fidel and Raul Castro made biotechnology and medical research, particularly preventative medicine, a priority. After the 1981 dengue fever outbreak struck nearly 350,000 Cubans, the government established the Biological Front, an effort to focus research efforts by various agencies toward specific goals. Its first major accomplishment was the successful (and unexpected) production of interferon, a protein that plays a role in human immune response. Since then, Cuban immunologists made several other vaccination breakthroughs, including their own vaccines for meningitis B and hepatitis B, and monoclonal antibodies for kidney transplants.

The thing about making such great cigars is, smoking is really, really bad for you. Lung cancer is the fourth-leading cause of the death in Cuba. Medical researchers at the Center for Molecular Immunology worked on Cimavax for 25 years before the Ministry of Health made it available to the public—for free—in 2011. Each shot costs the government about $1. A Phase II trial from 2008 showed lung cancer patients who received the vaccine lived an average of four to six months longer than those who didn’t. That prompted Japan and some European countries to initiate Cimavax clinical trials as well.

To be fair, Cimavax probably won’t be a game-changing cancer drug in its current form. The vaccine doesn’t attack tumors directly, instead going after a protein that tumors produce which then circulates in the blood. That action spurs a person’s body to release antibodies against a hormone called epidermal growth factor, which typically spurs cell growth but can also, if unchecked, cause cancer. (Although most people normally think of a vaccine as something that prevents a disease, technically a vaccine is a substance that stimulates the immune system in some way.) So the point of Cimavax is to keep lung tumors from growing and metastasizing, turning a late-stage growth into something chronic but manageable.

But in the US and Europe, people with lung cancer already have treatment options with the same goal. Roswell Park researchers say they plan to explore the vaccine’s potential as a preventative intervention—making it more like a traditional vaccine. Furthermore, epidermal growth factor plays an important role in many other cancers, like prostate, breast, colon, and pancreatic cancer. “All those things are potential targets for this vaccine,” says Kelvin Lee, an immunologist at the company. Mostly for financial reasons, Cubans didn’t test Cimavax that way at all.

And that drug isn’t the only one with potential in the Cuban pharmacopeia. Thomas Rothstein, a biologist at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, has for six years worked with the Center for Molecular Immunology on another vaccine to treat lung cancer called Racotumomab, with an entirely different mechanism. (It messes with a particular lipid found in tumor cell membranes.) “Investigators from around the world are trying to crack the nut of cancer,” Rothstein says. “The Cubans are thinking in ways that are novel and clever.”

Although President Obama has used his executive power to lift some restrictions against medical and research equipment, Congress must lift the Cuban embargo before collaborative research can ramp up. Johnson hopes to see Cuba embrace more entrepreneurialism in science, and see the US soak up more creative approaches to medical research. Constrained by politics, the Cuban researchers had to innovate in ways the US and Europe did not. Now maybe they’ll be able to teach their colleagues what they learned.

Vaccine for Lung Cancer

8:43 AM Cancer, featured, health, Medicine, vaccine