Win US $ 20,000 :Submit A proposal for Low cost WiFi connectivity for field Application

Wireless Internet Connectivity for Field Applications

AWARD: $20,000 USD | DEADLINE: 4/05/15 | ACTIVE SOLVERS: 44 | POSTED: 2/03/15

Data collection in outdoor field studies is problematic and inefficient without a reliable wireless internet connection. The Seeker is looking for a low cost solution to bring wireless internet up to 80 km for field applications without direct line of sight. Many other requirements are given in the Detailed description of the Challenge.

This Challenge requires only a written proposal.

Source: InnoCentive Challenge ID: 9933677

Challenge Overview

The Seeker collects data in outdoor fields all over the world. In rural areas, wireless internet connectivity for field data collection is not always possible. The Seeker needs innovative solutions to provide wireless internet connectivity for field applications. The desired solution should provide wireless internet connectivity to mobile handheld devices operating at a distance of up to 80km from a particular base station without a direct line of sight.

This is a Theoretical Challenge that requires only a written proposal to be submitted. The Challenge award will be contingent upon theoretical evaluation of the proposal by the Seeker.

To receive an award, the Solvers will not have to transfer their exclusive IP rights to the Seeker. Instead, they will grant to the Seeker a non-exclusive license to practice their solutions.

At the Seekers sole discretion, the winning Solver(s) may be invited to a Seeker-Solver event after the Challenge for continued discussions.

Goto Challenge page >>

Win US $ 20,000 :Submit A proposal for Low cost WiFi connectivity for field Application

4:35 PM Computer Science/Information Technology, Engineering/Design, Nature, Physical Sciences, Theoretical-licensing, Win $ 20000

A new recipe for low-density steel that has a combination of strength and malleability beyond that of the lightest, strongest known metals is reported in Nature

Brittle intermetallic compound makes ultrastrong low-density steel with large ductility

Although steel has been the workhorse of the automotive industry since the 1920s, the share by weight of steel and iron in an average light vehicle is now gradually decreasing, from 68.1 per cent in 1995 to 60.1 per cent in 2011 . This has been driven by the low strength-to-weight ratio (specific strength) of iron and steel, and the desire to improve such mechanical properties with other materials. Recently, high-aluminium low-density steels have been actively studied as a means of increasing the specific strength of an alloy by reducing its density. But with increasing aluminium content a problem is encountered: brittle intermetallic compounds can form in the resulting alloys, leading to poor ductility. Here we show that an FeAl-type brittle but hard intermetallic compound (B2) can be effectively used as a strengthening second phase in high-aluminium low-density steel, while alleviating its harmful effect on ductility by controlling its morphology and dispersion. The specific tensile strength and ductility of the developed steel improve on those of the lightest and strongest metallic materials known, titanium alloys. We found that alloying of nickel catalyses the precipitation of nanometre-sized B2 particles in the face-centred cubic matrix of high-aluminium low-density steel during heat treatment of cold-rolled sheet steel. Our results demonstrate how intermetallic compounds can be harnessed in the alloy design of lightweight steels for structural applications and others

a, As-cold-rolled microstructure consisting of austenite matrix (γ) and B2 stringer bands. RD, rolling direction; ND, normal direction. b, Annealed microstructure having fine B2 precipitates in between the retained B2 bands in austenite matrix. c, Scanning TEM image of the annealed high-specific-strength steel (HSSS) showing morphologies of B2 particles. The inset shows the selected area diffraction pattern of a B2 precipitate. d, Partitioning of alloying elements between B2 precipitate and austenite matrix. e, Sketches illustrating the formation mechanism of B2 precipitates of types 2 and 3 in b.

Read original article at A lighter, stronger, flexible steel

A new recipe for low-density steel that has a combination of strength and malleability beyond that of the lightest, strongest known metals is reported in Nature

4:10 PM automotive industry, flexible metal, metal, strognger metal, ultrastrong

Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat

Tools to analyze DNA in meals, including fish, may soon help eliminate fraudulent claims as to what type of food is being sold or served.
Credit: Michael Saechang

An apple can kill, a sprinkle of sprouts can send you to the hospital and your succulent, pan-seared red snapper may actually be tilefish. Despite rising concerns about food safety and authenticity, contamination rates by salmonella, campylobacter,Escherichia coli and other common pathogens have not fallen or are actually on the increase, depending on the microbe, according to a 2013 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year foodborne illnesses caused by these microorganisms sicken 48 million Americans, hospitalize 128,000 and kill 3,000, according to the agency.

Food fraud is also increasing. In 2014 Oceana, an international conservation organization, published a two-year study of 1,215 seafood samples and 46 fish types from 674 retailers in 21 states. They found that a third of samples were mislabeled.

Tools to analyze DNA in food items may soon help eliminate these problems. Techniques ranging from whole genome sequencing to the ability to create artificial DNA labels that indicate points of origin are surprisingly affordable now, and have led to novel global collaborations and inventions. Scientists worldwide are working to create databases of foodborne microbial strains, sequence the most common pathogens and tag foods for immediate traceability. The new initiatives promise to speed investigations and reduce foodborne illnesses and deaths; the techniques could also spot food fakery by marketers.

Genome Trakr, a five-year collaboration between the University of California, Davis; Agilent Technologies; and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, promises to perform whole genome sequencing on a total of 100,000 types of common foodborne pathogens. The technology maps the entire DNA sequence of a microbe, and allows scientists to distinguish one strain from another, allowing fast track-back and earlier elimination of outbreaks around the world. The project began in March 2012 and the database, hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, will be available online and at no cost to researchers and public health officials. The zoom-in detail of a sequenced genome will make it possible to distinguish different strains of a microbe that are otherwise indistinguishable, and trace back a small cluster outbreak before it becomes widespread.

Right now that kind of trace-back is difficult without detailed epidemiologic exposure data. A recent study from Cornell University suggests the new technology is an effective and faster replacement. Using whole genome sequencing, researchers were able to double the number of cases associated with a known 2010 outbreak of a strain of salmonella called salmonella Heidelberg at a long-term care facility in New York City. They even found cases outside the metro region.

Whole genome sequencing has already proved successful in halting serious food outbreaks. In 2012 researchers isolated the specific strain in a salmonella outbreak in tuna sushi that sickened 258 individuals, and tracked it back to a processing plant in India. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigated the plant and found 10 sanitation slipups, including four outright violations of safety protocols. In 2014 the FDA was able to halt a U.S.Listeria outbreak that had killed one and sickened seven others. They genotyped and linked the strain to soft Hispanic-style cheeses manufactured by a company called Roos Foods, which ceased all manufacturing after being shut down by the FDA

The gigantic open-access Genome Trakr database should speed up this kind of detective work by providing an enormous volume of data that has already been analyzed. The project’s director, U.C. Davis microbiologist Bart Weimer, says that “We’ve just extended the project to China, and they will map another 10,000 genomes and deposit them. We have other global collaborations pending.”

Sequencing a whole genome is only one of the new approaches to food safety, however. Food fraud prevention is also benefitting from a large international project called The International Barcode of Life (iBOL), which is building a genetic library of all life on Earth. Initiated in 2003 by geneticist Paul Hebert at the University of Guelph in Ontario, it offers a global online database of DNA labels, akin to the bar codes on food packaging, for different species. These DNA bar codes are sequences from a small and stable region of the genome, which can reliably be used to identify a species.

The project has already created over 2.6 million bar-code records for almost 200,000 species of plants and animals, and Hebert hopes to reach 500,000 by the end of 2015. The BOL can distinguish farmed from wild salmon because they are two different species. A 2015 report from the CDC used bar coding to identify imported poisonous puffer fish that were being sold in the U.S. as nonpoisonous varieties. “DNA testing is often the only way to correctly identify food and medicinal products,” says Mark Stoeckle, a researcher at The Rockefeller University who used DNA bar codes to finger fake fish sold in New York City in a 2009 experiment that became known as “sushigate.”

Finally, inspired by the bar-coding idea, one new company, DNATrek, is creating synthetic bar codes for food items. The technology consists of DNA sequences extracted from plants; it is an odorless, colorless and tasteless material which can be mixed with already-in-use food coatings (such as natural waxes and oils) and sprayed on foods. The DNA sequences act like invisible bar codes and can be applied at each point of risk in the food chain: the farm, the sorting facility, the distributor, the packer and even the retailer. These bar codes can be read by polymerase chain reaction testing, a process that generates millions of copies of a small piece of DNA, so that it can be easily identified. “When an outbreak occurs,” says company founder Anthony Zografos, “polymerase chain reaction technology can read the DNA code in about 20 minutes in the laboratory, allowing immediate trace-back rather than weeks or months.”

The codes can also help verify the authenticity of a product like Italian olive oil: The tags should trace back to an olive farm and to packing facilities in Italy. DNATrek’s technology has been approved by the FDA, and this year will be tested in the U.S. supply chain. A similar DNA bar code has been designed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. There, researcher Robert Grass and colleagues created DNA labels encapsulated in small, food-safe silica particles that are already used as additives in certain foodstuffs. They then added the particles to milk. Later polymerase chain reaction testing was able to detect the labels in cheese and yogurt made from the milk. Regulatory hoops still need to be overcome, before widespread adoption of the second method, however.

DNA Trek’s Zografos thinks that smartphones may one day have apps that can actually detect bacterial contamination or synthetic bar codes. “My colleagues and I were thinking how wonderful that invention could be, but how many years away it was. And then we saw that a professor at U.C.L.A. had developed a smartphone app that could read a single virus or bacteria.” That researcher, bioengineer Aydogan Ozcan, recently published a study with his colleagues showing that a cellphone-based imaging system could detect viruses and nanoparticles. The phone is essentially converted into an advanced fluorescent microscope. The mobile microscopy unit uses the phone's camera to visualize and measure the length of single-molecule DNA strands.

So the day may not be far off when we can hold our phones over a fish fillet to make sure we know what we are eating.

Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat

9:02 AM analyse food, dna scan, fish analysis, food, safe food

Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat

Tools to analyze DNA in meals, including fish, may soon help eliminate fraudulent claims as to what type of food is being sold or served.
Credit: Michael Saechang

An apple can kill, a sprinkle of sprouts can send you to the hospital and your succulent, pan-seared red snapper may actually be tilefish. Despite rising concerns about food safety and authenticity, contamination rates by salmonella, campylobacter,Escherichia coli and other common pathogens have not fallen or are actually on the increase, depending on the microbe, according to a 2013 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year foodborne illnesses caused by these microorganisms sicken 48 million Americans, hospitalize 128,000 and kill 3,000, according to the agency.

Food fraud is also increasing. In 2014 Oceana, an international conservation organization, published a two-year study of 1,215 seafood samples and 46 fish types from 674 retailers in 21 states. They found that a third of samples were mislabeled.

Tools to analyze DNA in food items may soon help eliminate these problems. Techniques ranging from whole genome sequencing to the ability to create artificial DNA labels that indicate points of origin are surprisingly affordable now, and have led to novel global collaborations and inventions. Scientists worldwide are working to create databases of foodborne microbial strains, sequence the most common pathogens and tag foods for immediate traceability. The new initiatives promise to speed investigations and reduce foodborne illnesses and deaths; the techniques could also spot food fakery by marketers.

Genome Trakr, a five-year collaboration between the University of California, Davis; Agilent Technologies; and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, promises to perform whole genome sequencing on a total of 100,000 types of common foodborne pathogens. The technology maps the entire DNA sequence of a microbe, and allows scientists to distinguish one strain from another, allowing fast track-back and earlier elimination of outbreaks around the world. The project began in March 2012 and the database, hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, will be available online and at no cost to researchers and public health officials. The zoom-in detail of a sequenced genome will make it possible to distinguish different strains of a microbe that are otherwise indistinguishable, and trace back a small cluster outbreak before it becomes widespread.

Right now that kind of trace-back is difficult without detailed epidemiologic exposure data. A recent study from Cornell University suggests the new technology is an effective and faster replacement. Using whole genome sequencing, researchers were able to double the number of cases associated with a known 2010 outbreak of a strain of salmonella called salmonella Heidelberg at a long-term care facility in New York City. They even found cases outside the metro region.

Whole genome sequencing has already proved successful in halting serious food outbreaks. In 2012 researchers isolated the specific strain in a salmonella outbreak in tuna sushi that sickened 258 individuals, and tracked it back to a processing plant in India. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigated the plant and found 10 sanitation slipups, including four outright violations of safety protocols. In 2014 the FDA was able to halt a U.S.Listeria outbreak that had killed one and sickened seven others. They genotyped and linked the strain to soft Hispanic-style cheeses manufactured by a company called Roos Foods, which ceased all manufacturing after being shut down by the FDA

The gigantic open-access Genome Trakr database should speed up this kind of detective work by providing an enormous volume of data that has already been analyzed. The project’s director, U.C. Davis microbiologist Bart Weimer, says that “We’ve just extended the project to China, and they will map another 10,000 genomes and deposit them. We have other global collaborations pending.”

Sequencing a whole genome is only one of the new approaches to food safety, however. Food fraud prevention is also benefitting from a large international project called The International Barcode of Life (iBOL), which is building a genetic library of all life on Earth. Initiated in 2003 by geneticist Paul Hebert at the University of Guelph in Ontario, it offers a global online database of DNA labels, akin to the bar codes on food packaging, for different species. These DNA bar codes are sequences from a small and stable region of the genome, which can reliably be used to identify a species.

The project has already created over 2.6 million bar-code records for almost 200,000 species of plants and animals, and Hebert hopes to reach 500,000 by the end of 2015. The BOL can distinguish farmed from wild salmon because they are two different species. A 2015 report from the CDC used bar coding to identify imported poisonous puffer fish that were being sold in the U.S. as nonpoisonous varieties. “DNA testing is often the only way to correctly identify food and medicinal products,” says Mark Stoeckle, a researcher at The Rockefeller University who used DNA bar codes to finger fake fish sold in New York City in a 2009 experiment that became known as “sushigate.”

Finally, inspired by the bar-coding idea, one new company, DNATrek, is creating synthetic bar codes for food items. The technology consists of DNA sequences extracted from plants; it is an odorless, colorless and tasteless material which can be mixed with already-in-use food coatings (such as natural waxes and oils) and sprayed on foods. The DNA sequences act like invisible bar codes and can be applied at each point of risk in the food chain: the farm, the sorting facility, the distributor, the packer and even the retailer. These bar codes can be read by polymerase chain reaction testing, a process that generates millions of copies of a small piece of DNA, so that it can be easily identified. “When an outbreak occurs,” says company founder Anthony Zografos, “polymerase chain reaction technology can read the DNA code in about 20 minutes in the laboratory, allowing immediate trace-back rather than weeks or months.”

The codes can also help verify the authenticity of a product like Italian olive oil: The tags should trace back to an olive farm and to packing facilities in Italy. DNATrek’s technology has been approved by the FDA, and this year will be tested in the U.S. supply chain. A similar DNA bar code has been designed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. There, researcher Robert Grass and colleagues created DNA labels encapsulated in small, food-safe silica particles that are already used as additives in certain foodstuffs. They then added the particles to milk. Later polymerase chain reaction testing was able to detect the labels in cheese and yogurt made from the milk. Regulatory hoops still need to be overcome, before widespread adoption of the second method, however.

DNA Trek’s Zografos thinks that smartphones may one day have apps that can actually detect bacterial contamination or synthetic bar codes. “My colleagues and I were thinking how wonderful that invention could be, but how many years away it was. And then we saw that a professor at U.C.L.A. had developed a smartphone app that could read a single virus or bacteria.” That researcher, bioengineer Aydogan Ozcan, recently published a study with his colleagues showing that a cellphone-based imaging system could detect viruses and nanoparticles. The phone is essentially converted into an advanced fluorescent microscope. The mobile microscopy unit uses the phone's camera to visualize and measure the length of single-molecule DNA strands.

So the day may not be far off when we can hold our phones over a fish fillet to make sure we know what we are eating.

Quick DNA Scans Could Ensure Food Is Safe to Eat

9:01 AM analyse food, dna scan, fish analysis, food, safe food

Ebola Drug Trial Has Encouraging Early Results, and Questions Follow

An Ebola treatment center run by the Alliance for International Medical Action has tested the drug favipiravir. Credit Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos for ALIMA Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos for ALIMA

For the first time, a drug is showing promising signs of effectiveness in Ebola patients participating in a study. The medicine, which interferes with the virus’s ability to copy itself, seems to have halved mortality — to 15 percent, from 30 percent — in patients with low to moderate levels of Ebola in their blood, researchers have found. It had no effect in patients with more virus in their blood, who are more likely to die.

The drug, approved as an influenza treatment in Japan last year, was generally well tolerated.

“The results are encouraging in a certain phase of the disease,” Dr. Sakoba Keita, director of disease control for the Guinean Ministry of Health, said in a telephone interview. The drug is being tested in Guinea, one of the three West African countries most affected by the Ebola crisis.

The early findings have not yet been announced, but they raise questions about which patients, if any, outside the study should be offered treatment with the drug, favipiravir. “These are very difficult, agonizing decisions,” said Susan Ellenberg, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research. She cautioned that early results were sometimes not borne out.

Avigan, a drug approved as an anti-influenza drug in Japan, is showing promise in treating ebola. Credit Issei Kato/Reuters Issei Kato/Reuters

The drug has been provided on an emergency basis to Ebola patients in European countries, but not in Africa. The Japanese maker of the drug announced in October that it had 20,000 courses of treatment in stock. The epidemic is now ebbing but is not over. The World Health Organization on Wednesdayreported 124 new cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the week that ended on Sunday, warning of an increased geographical spread in Guinea and a rise in new cases in all three countries for the first time this year.

Early reports of the interim results of the drug trial have created unanticipated complications, delaying the testing of at least one other therapy as researchers reconsidered plans and some doctors pressed to make favipiravir more widely available.

Researchers and health authorities have been quietly debating whether and when to release the preliminary results of the study. The dilemmas they face echo those from the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Because mortality was so high in a disease with no proven treatment, there was demand to provide experimental therapies to everyone.

The results for the drug favipiravir are based on an analysis of 69 patients older than 14 who have received it at two sites in Guinea since December. The survival rates of those with low to moderate levels of virus in their blood were significantly better than those of patients previously treated at a center run by Doctors Without Borders in Guéckédou, Guinea.

Caroline Guele, 31, a rice farmer who lost two children and her husband to Ebola, received the drug in January at the site run by the Alliance for International Medical Action soon after she developed symptoms. She said she believed it contributed to her survival. “When I heard I could take the medicine, I actually prayed to God it would help me,” she said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

In a typical drug study, participants would be randomly assigned to take the drug or not, and the outcomes would be compared to see if the drug made a difference. However, because Ebola is so deadly and there is no known treatment aside from supportive care, all patients in the study were provided with the treatment. Fluctuating death rates during the current epidemic have complicated researchers’ efforts to assess whether the new drug should be credited with the reduced mortality.

The drug was expected to be most effective in patients receiving it within two to three days of showing symptoms, similar to antiviral treatments for influenza. However, most study participants arrived at the Ebola treatment units later in their illnesses, a median of five days after their symptoms began, so results were analyzed instead in terms of the approximate levels of virus in the blood.

Independent boards charged with monitoring the drug trial detected the encouraging findings and recommended that they be made public. Results were submitted for review to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infection, which will take place in Seattle at the end of the month. A draft of an abstract of the findings was reviewed by The New York Times.

“With Ebola, there’s precious little good news,” said Dr. Susan Shepherd, who served as medical coordinator at a treatment unit run by the Alliance for International Medical Action, one of two sites where the drug was tested. (The other was a facility run by Doctors Without Borders.)

Dr. Shepherd added, “There will, I think, be an enormous pressure and desire to offer the treatment more broadly.”

A patient is treated at the ALIMA ebola treatment center in Nzerekore, Guinea. Credit Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos for ALIMA Sylvain Cherkaoui/Cosmos for ALIMA

The trial is sponsored by the French public research institute Inserm, with support from the European Union, and is run by a consortium of organizations and the Guinean government. The drug, also known by the trade name Avigan, was developed by the Japanese company Toyama Chemical, part of Fujifilm Group, and approved for influenza treatment in that country last March after safety testing.

The company has said it would produce more doses of the drug in anticipation of the trial. It has also provided the tablets on an emergency basis to several Ebola patients in Europe, according to a company spokeswoman, Kana Matsumoto. She said that the drug had never been provided on that basis to patients in any African country, and that the company had no comment as to whether it would do so in the future given the new findings.

“With a medication that seems to be safe, you really don’t have a leg to stand on in terms of this person gets it and this person doesn’t,” Dr. Shepherd said. “The problem we seem to have is it doesn’t help at all for people who have high viral loads.”

Researchers hope that some patients’ lives might be saved by bolstering the immune system, including through transfusions of serum extracted from the blood of Ebola survivors, which contains virus-fighting antibodies.

However, expectations around favipiravir have contributed to a delay in a trial of serum transfusions, also known as convalescent plasma therapy, in Guinea’s capital, according to Roeland Scholtalbers, the head of communications for the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, the study’s sponsor.

Some doctors are urging that if favipirivir has a positive effect and seems safe, it should be given to everyone with the virus.

If patients getting the serum transfusions also get favipiravir, it would probably be more difficult to discern whether the serum had an effect. Mr. Scholtalbers said that just because early results for favipiravir came first did not mean that researchers or the public should “put more hope on that solution than any other solution.”

“There are pretty good arguments to think that plasma can give good impact,” she continued. “It will be a shame if we don’t manage as a scientific community to test it.”

Dr. Xavier Anglaret, the lead investigator of the favipiravir trial in Guinea, said that he and his colleagues agreed that the other study was important. “The plasma trial should start as early as possible,” he said.

Both trials are all the more important because of the abrupt cancellation last Friday of a study testing a third therapy, the anti-viral drug brincidofovir, after the manufacturer found an insufficient number of Ebola patients in Liberia, where the trial had been planned, to determine the effectiveness of the drug.

Dr. Anglaret said researchers had expected to have results from all three studies around the same time. Instead, one study advanced ahead of the others, with early results that are encouraging but not definitive. As of Tuesday, Dr. Anglaret said, the favipiravir trial had enrolled 101 patients in the continuing study.

The complications of managing the Ebola trials are a sign that more needs to be done to prioritize research in future outbreaks, said Dr. Bernard Lo, a bioethicist and president of the Greenwall Foundation in New York City.

Ebola Drug Trial Has Encouraging Early Results, and Questions Follow

8:48 AM DRUG FOR EBOLA, EBOLA, EBOLA cure, Preventing Ebola

8 Top Home Remedies To Lose Your Belly Fat

To Lose Your Belly Fat All people in the world want to get slim body with a natural look. Many people in the world are affected by fat belly and thus many issues happen with them regularly. Belly fat gives you an ugly look and affects your health as well. The ailment will give you heart diseases, diabetes, stroke, and dementia.

Here Are Top 8 Home Remedies To Reduce Belly Fat:

Lemon Water

First, you are required to treat the liver, since the strained liver cannot function properly, because of the excessive fat dumped in your abdomen. The Lemon water has the power to enhance the enzymes that clean your liver. With no worry about fat, one can take lemon juice with a glass of lukewarm water. Mix the juice with water perfectly for a few minutes and take lemon water daily in the morning on an empty stomach. To Lose Your Belly Fat

Cranberry Juice

Cranberries are rich in citric acid, malic acid, and quinic acid. These acids act as digestive enzymes. These acids have the power to fight against the fat deposited in your abdomen. Cranberry juices absorb the lymphatic wastes and decrease your fat. To prepare the remedy, take one cup cranberry juice without sugar and mix water seven cups. Drink it 2 times daily till a month. To Lose Your Belly Fat

Fish Oil

Fish oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acid, which is also known as fish oil. It also contains docosahexaenoic acid, linolenic acid, and icosapentanoic acid. These acids act against the fat that deposited around your waistline and help you remain slim and fit. To Lose Your Belly Fat

Chia Seeds

If you a vegetarian, then you may not prefer to take omega- 3 fatty acid. So in this case, you can take Chia seeds, which are equally good as omega-3.  In fact, you have to work more, to change the alpha-linolenic acid in these acids into DHA that comes from fish oil. Chia seeds are rich in calcium, iron, fiber, and antioxidants that make you not to think of foods frequently. Four to eight teaspoons of Chia seeds are enough for a day and helps you from the gorge. You can also add Chia seeds to salads and yogurt to make it easy to take. To Lose Your Belly Fat

Ginger Tea

Many people know about the greatness of ginger. It is a natural digestive agent. Ginger increases your body temperature and helps to burn the fat. You can have belly fat for various reasons like lack of work outs, over eating, and age related factors, and ginger is the right solution to cut down your belly fat. Drinking ginger tea with honey for two times a day, will definitely lead to a reduction in belly fat. To Lose Your Belly Fat

Garlic

Garlic is good for the cardiovascular system and many of us know this fact. It lessens your systolic and diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, and enhances good cholesterol. Take two or three cloves of garlic, one lemon, and one glass of water. Now pinch the lemon juice with water and grind the garlic cloves to make a juice. By taking it in an empty stomach on every morning, you will definitely find your fat reduced in just a month. To Lose Your Belly Fat

Diet And Exercise

To lose weight one has to take right foods and do regular workouts. The foods you consume and the exercises you do, will protect the liver and provide a protective cover to withstand belly fat. There are a number of fat burning foods and spices that can be taken to lose belly fat. To Lose Your Belly Fat

Consume Water Before Meal

It is advisable to consume water 10 minutes before you take your every meal. Doing so will fill your stomach quickly and you will take less food. As a result the fat level of your body will be reduced and hence the belly fat also reduces. To Lose Your Belly Fat

8 Top Home Remedies To Lose Your Belly Fat

10:08 PM fat reduction, health, home remady, lose belly fat, reduce weight

Hennessy, Everclear, And Alcohol-Related Violence

What do Hennessy, Jack Daniels, and Everclear have in common? According to a rather fascinating new study, these three brands are especially popular with those teenage drinkers who get into booze-related fights.

In the new paper, researchers Sarah P. Roberts and colleagues of Boston say that some brands of alcohol are correlated with self-reported involvement in “alcohol related fights and injuries”, in a national sample of American underage drinkers (i.e. drinkers under the age of 21).

The relationship held true even after adjusting for factors such as gender, age, and overall quantity of alcohol consumed. Here’s a bar chart I created based on the adjusted odds ratios in Roberts et al.’s results. The higher the bar, the more strongly each drink was independently associated with reported involvement in alcohol-related violence.

Everclear 190 dominates the list, perhaps unsurprisingly given that this ‘drink’ is 95% pure alcohol (it’s banned in many states of the US.) I was very surprised to see Hennessy Cognac come in at #2, however. Here in the UK, cognac has an image as a refined, upper-class spirit. Here, Hennessy is seen as a drink more for middle-aged schoolteachers than for young delinquents. I guess it must be marketed differently in the USA.

Jack Daniels cocktails come in at #3 though the whiskey itself is ranked at #5.

Down at the bottom of the scale, Coors Light beer and Grey Goose vodka are if anything more popular among people who don’t get into fights than among people who do. However, these odds ratios did not significantly differ from 1.0, so the difference may be due to chance.

We also shouldn’t read too much into the differencesbetween any one drink and another, as these differences may not be significant. Bear in mind also that drinking and involvement in violence were bothself-reported variables.

Roberts et al. conclude by saying that

We cannot say with any certainty exactly which characteristics of these brands influence the nature and degree of alcohol-related consequences among youth. Clearly, this is an important area for future research.

Roberts SP, Siegel MB, DeJong W, Naimi TS, & Jernigan DH (2015). Brand Preferences of Underage Drinkers Who Report Alcohol-Related Fights and Injuries. Substance Use & Misuse PMID: 25612075

Hennessy, Everclear, And Alcohol-Related Violence

9:13 PM alcohol, violance

what Coca-Cola's low-fat, low-sugar, high-protein milk tastes like

Fairlife tastes fine — at first

I rarely forget a funny aftertaste.

Today, a mysterious box of milk arrived at the Vox NYC office. As the foremost expert on the cow-based drinkables, I agreed to a taste test.

Fairlife advertises itself as "cold-filtered" milk with less sugar and fat and more protein and calcium than its competitors. And not just that: Fairlife's also lactose-free. The claims are as exciting as they're capitalistic — high-end, ultra-healthy milk! — doubly so when you consider Fairlife is the latest creation by Coca-Cola, a company that built its legacy on soda, a leading cause of obesity.

FAIRLIFE IS REAL MILK

But Fairlife is no soda. And yes, it technically is real milk; the "REAL" seal, eligible for use by dairy product manufacturers, is proudly displayed beneath an explanation of how the magic milk is made.

To my surprise, Fairlife tastes, well, like milk. It looks and feels a little thicker than traditional milk, and has a slightly richer taste, especially the chocolate milk, which sits on the spectrum between chocolate shake and milk that's stewed on a lazy Saturday morning in a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. But in a blind taste test, I'd probably struggle differentiating it from the other milks on sale at my grocer.

THE AFTERTASTE IS MALTY

Fairlife's aftertaste is less appealing. A few minutes sipping a cup of chocolate Fairlife and then a cup of 2% Fairlife, the inside of my mouth had that malty feel that chases a protein shake. Makes sense: the filtration process used by Fairlife is the same one used to produce Coca-Cola's protein shake, Core Power.

What's even gnarlier, though, is Afterlife's ad campaign. You're bound to see the images if you Google Fairlife, a cursory practice I do for any new food product I consume, especially if the product promises to be markedly healthier than the competition.

Late last year, Fairlife found itself in the center of Twitterstorm after the company released a number of promotional images featuring nude women concealed by clothes made of milk — a bizarre pseudo-throwback to pin-up models of the 1940s, just, you know, covered in milk.

The worst ad of the bunch shows a human woman's face digitally glued atop an impossibly thin body that appears to be detonating a fart powerful enough to shred through the rear of her milk skirt. The digitized woman stands in heels on a bathroom scale — even though the ad makes no mention of the weight, sugar, or fat. (The ads appear to be riffing on these pin-ups, which sort of explains the scale's placement, but doesn't explain how these "real women" have thinner legs than animated women.)

'DRINK WHAT SHE'S WEARING'

In large print above the photo, the ad exclaims, "DRINK WHAT SHE'S WEARING. Milk with 50% more protein & calcium." So at worst the ad is selling consumers on the idea of drinking ultra-filtered milk off an ultra-sexualized woman, and at worst it's selling you 2% fart milk. The remaining Fairlife ads are equal parts awkward and demeaning, though mercifully none involve explosive gas.

Otherwise Fairlife has honed its pitch as a healthy, natural dairy product. Its marketing sheet contains phrases like "We grow our own crops," "We fill our own trucks," and it describes its cows as "spoiled." "Our cows have comfortable beds," the sheet says, "and freestanding stalls [...] Cows love to stay cool, so in the warm summer months we use fans to maintain a 7 mph breeze over the feed manger and over the cows' beds."

All of the buzzy promo speak sounds nice, but when it comes to something as healthful and natural as milk, Coca-Cola has a lot of trust to rebuild — at least for me. It's numerous controversies, including the unforgettable "Coming Together" ad campaign, a laughable attempt to respond to soda's connection to the obesity epidemic. I want to drink a healthier milk; I'll pay more for it. But it'll take awhile to get past that aftertaste

what Coca-Cola's low-fat, low-sugar, high-protein milk tastes like

6:11 PM coco cola milk, COLA, fairlife, high protein milk, low fat milk, low sugar milk

Massive Worldwide Layoff Underway At IBM

Photo: Scott Eells/Bloomberg/Getty

Project Chrome, a massive layoff that IBM is pretending is not a massive layoff, is underway. First reported by Robert X. Cringely (a pen name) in Forbes, about 26 percent of the company’s global workforce is being shown the door. At more than 100,000 people, that makes it the largest mass layoff at any U.S. corporation in at least 20 years. Cringely wrote that notices have started going out, and most of the hundred-thousand-plus will likely be gone by the end of February.

IBM immediately denied Cringely’s report, indicating that a planned $600 million “workforce rebalancing” was going to involve layoffs (or what the company calls “Resource Actions”) of just thousands of people. But Cringely responded that he never said that the workforce reductions would be all called layoffs—instead, multiple tactics are being used, including pushing employees out through low ratings (more on that in a moment). And some managers are indeed admitting to employees that their job has been eliminated as part of Project Chrome, leading employees to coin a new catchphrase: “Getting Chromed.” 

The news is coming in from around the world, and is affecting folks in sales, support, engineering—just about every job description. The only IBM’ers spared are those working in semiconductor manufacturing, an operation that is in the process of being acquired by Global Foundries.

Alliance@IBM, the IBM employees’ union, says it has so far collected reports of 5000 jobs eliminated, including 250 in Boulder, Colo., 150 in Columbia, Missouri, and 202 in Dubuque, Iowa.  Layoffs in Littleton, Mass., are reportedly “massive,” but no specific numbers have been published. Pink slips have been said to be flying at IBM Australia, with rumors of 400 workers to be cut. And the Economic Times in India reported last week that employees of IBM’s offices in Bengaluru were scrambling to find new jobs, trying to get out of IBM ahead of the coming tsunami.

Those are official layoff numbers. But then there’s that performance rating ploy—also known as a stealth layoff—that involves giving a previously highly rated employee the lowest rating (a 3), before showing them the door. The 3 can lead to immediate dismissal, particularly in older employees on what IBM calls the “Bridge to Retirement” program, in which employees commit to a specific retirement date and accept cuts in hours and pay in return for being protected from dismissal unless they get a poor performance rating. For younger employees, a rating of 3 can put an employee into what is called a Performance Improvement Plan, and if the rating doesn’t improve in a set period of time, the employee can be fired for cause. Giving out 3s works to the company’s benefit even if employees are officially laid off, because it can lead to reduced severance benefits.

This isn’t the first time IBM employees have received aberrant poor performance reviews shortly before a layoff; it’s reportedly standard operating procedure. A former employee who was the victim of a Resource Action in 2010 confirmed this, telling me that after years of top ratings, he received a 3 just before his job was eliminated, even though he’d just had what he perceived as his best year ever.

Anecdotal evidence is beginning to pile up. At the Alliance@IBM website, an employee comment thread indicates that a sudden flood of bad reviews indeed starting coming in last week. A few examples:

“I worked in the Lenexa, Kansas, lab for a year and 8 months. I received an unexpected 3 on Tuesday and then had a meeting Wednesday informing me that I am part of the resource action.”“After 13 1/2 years got RA'd today, age 38. Received a '3' after years of 1,2+,2.”“In [Research Triangle Park], I have talked with several people this week who were given unexpected ‘3’ ratings and were told that they have 30 days to improve their performance, with consequences if not successful.”

The comments to date also seem to indicate that older employees are getting hit hard. Women, also, may be finding themselves first on the chopping block. These allegations, of course, are unproven—and may find themselves adjudicated by the courts. Some examples:

“54 years old, 22 years of experience rated 2 last five years, just had my rating with my manager, 15 minutes, rated a 3, no reason given by manager. RA’d”“RA'ed yesterday. I'm 56 years old. I [had] a consistent 2 as an information developer in [the software group] in San Jose, CA.” "RA'd; last day 2/27; Rating: 2; Age: 61; Job Responsibilities: Chief Engineer. Played and RA'd”“I was included in the resource action in spite of consistently high performance numbers. I am the only woman in the work group and one of only a handful in the whole region. The male partners that were retained have crucial chummy drinking buddy relationships with their customers. The treatment and support of professional women, in spite of the window dressing at the top layers is appalling.”

Of course, the appearance of the situation, in the eyes of employees and the public, is not being helped by the fact amid IBM’s actions comes the board’s announcement on Friday of a big raise for CEO Ginni Rometty.

“Just call her Machete Rometty,” one current (or about to be former) employee posted.

Massive Worldwide Layoff Underway At IBM

5:38 PM IBM, job, job cuts, LAYOFF IBM, manpower, workforce rebalancing

Nexus 6 Is Suffering From ‘Real Issues,’ Google Executive Reveals Shocking Deets!

Google has admitted its responsibility over the shortage in supply of its well-received smartphone, the Nexus 6. (Photo : Getty Images)

Though Google's Nexus 6 smartphone has been receiving a lot of positive feedback because of its unparalleled specs and features, one main issue is getting in the way for it to become the best-selling smartphone this year and that is supply shortage.

According to Greenbot, Google's Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette has already admitted that the tech giant has somehow miscalculated its projected supply of the device in the market.

"While the Nexus 6 was well received as a new phone, we had real issues and were unable to secure sufficient inventory to meet the demand that we had forecasted," Pichette said during Google's earnings call on Thursday.

Since the high-end smartphone was launched in November, it has been mostly sold out the entire time and even when the supply was replenished, it wasn't enough to sell for days since it ran out just after a couple of hours.

The thing with Pichette's statement though is that it didn't really explain whether the demand for the Nexus 6 exceeded the demand for its predecessors or that Motorola just can't build enough and keep up to the current demand for the smartphone, reports Techno Buffalo.

Meanwhile, analysts claim that the possible reason why there's an undeniable shortage in the supply of Google's Nexus 6 in the market is that carriers have hoarded too many of the handsets so they can lure more customers into choosing their services.

Of course the news about the supply shortage of the Nexus 6 doesn't come as a surprise to many since the handset packs a lot of good stuff in its large build.

The device flaunts a 6-inch Quad HD  display with 493 pixel density. It runs on the latest Android software update, Android v5.0 Lollipop and has two internal storage variants: the 32GB and the 64GB. 

It sports a 3,220 mAh battery and supports wireless charging. The Nexus 6 houses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset with Quad-core 2.7 GHz Krait 450 and an Adreno 420 GPU.

Finally, what's best about the Nexus 6 is the fact that it is lighting fast almost all the time, PC Advisor claims.  

Nexus 6 Is Suffering From ‘Real Issues,’ Google Executive Reveals Shocking Deets!

9:42 PM featurs, Google, nexus 6