Smoking changes brain the same way as drugs: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Smoking causes long-lasting changes in the brain similar to changes seen in animals when they are given cocaine, heroin and other addictive drugs, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

A study of the brain tissue of smokers and nonsmokers who had died showed that smokers had the changes, even if they had quit years before, the team at the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported.

"The data show that there are long-lasting chemical changes in the brains of humans," said Michael Kuhar of Emory University in Atlanta, who was not involved in the study.

"The chemical changes alone suggest a physiological basis for nicotine addiction."

A team led by Bruce Hope of NIDA, one of the National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health, analyzed levels of two enzymes found inside brain cells known as neurons.

These enzymes help the neurons use chemical signals such as those made by the message-carrying compound dopamine.

Smokers and former smokers had high levels of these enzymes, the researchers reported in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Hope said other studies had seen the same thing in animals given cocaine and heroin -- and it was clear that the drugs were causing the effects.

"This strongly suggests that the similar changes observed in smokers and former smokers contributed to their addiction," he added in a statement.

Experts on smoking have long said that nicotine is at least as addictive as heroin.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20.9 percent of all adults smoke in the United States, which adds up to 45 million people. And 23 percent of high school students smoke.

Be Afraid: Powder-Sized RFID Chips

Everyone's so paranoid about the RFID chips that are already in place in so many parts of our lives, so here's an item (via Engadget and Pink Tentacle) about Hitachi's new powder-sized RFID chips to make us even more scared of Big Brother (or little-Brother-ID thief). RFID chips are tiny microchips that use radio waves to do everything from conduct credit card transactions (as on those little key-fob-Paypass MasterCard thingies) and pay for tolls (EZ Pass and its ilk) to keeping track of your devices and travel (U.S. passports).

Hitachi plans to start marketing these new chips—seriously no bigger than a speck of dust at 0.05 x 0.05 mm—in two to three years. The company says this super-tiny chip can be used in paper, currency, gift certificates, and the like, but as some sites have pointed out, today's chips are already small enough for those uses. So, as Engadget cracked, does this mean we should be watching what we eat in case of some James-Bond-style pepper-shaker swap?

Maybe, but is the terror around RFID over-hyped? According to most proponents of the technology, and my own experiences paying with PayPass at my local drug store, you really need to physically tap the RFID chip to something for the transaction to go through. And yet, when I go through a toll booth, my RFID-enabled EZ Pass box is only about ten feet away from the sensor. So maybe it is time to watch what you eat, lest Big Brother starts to track you wirelessly (or you spill some RFID powder from which evil ID thieves can extract your vital stats!)

What do you think? Is RFID worth the convenience or is it setting up some dangerous privacy-invasion precedents?

Chocolate Benefits

Feeding your brain: new benefits found in chocolate

By Julie Steenhuysen Sun Feb 18, 5:03 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As if people needed another excuse to like chocolate, new studies suggest a specially formulated type of cocoa may boost brain function and delay decline as people age, researchers said on Sunday.

Scientists, speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco, presented results from early studies testing the effects on the brain of flavanols, an ingredient found in cocoa.

Funded by candy maker Mars Inc., which provided a specially formulated liquid cocoa concoction for the research, the studies suggest that flavanols increase blood flow to the brain and may hold promise for treating some vascular impairments.

Mars, a private company, has made a study of the health benefits of cocoa. Its CocoaVia line of chocolates, made with a process that retains flavanols, have been shown in clinical trials to have benefits for the heart.

The latest research also suggests benefits for the brain.

Ian Macdonald of Britain's University of Nottingham Medical School, conducted a small brain imaging study on young, healthy women to see whether flavanol-rich cocoa helped boost cognitive function during challenging mental tasks.

Although the beverage did not improve their performance on the tests, it did increase blood flow to their brains for a two to three-hour period, Macdonald said.

He believes more research might show that increased blood flow could benefit older adults and those who have cognitive impairments, such as fatigue or even mini-strokes.

A U.S. study of healthy adults over 50 also found a marked rise in blood flow. It was conducted by Harvard Medical School researcher Dr. Norman Hollenberg, who has studied the effects of cocoa and flavanols on Panama's Kuna Indian population.

Hollenberg believes that, while promising, the brain benefit needs to be verified.

"The only way we can prove something is working is a large clinical trial," he said.

Meanwhile, the researchers cautioned against rushing out to binge on the special Mars line of chocolates.

"It is a modest calorie load but it is a calorie load," Macdonald said. "As long as you are doing something to earn that 100 calories, then that's fine."

Humans' Emotional Side

In work, through rough days and bad moods you feel down..less emotional less motivated less committed and you feel you can't be good anymore.. a lot of people miss how can they make a difference in others life..

For me, i thought it's very hard to cheer up someone and make such a great difference and major change Although i do cheer up some of my friends when they r down but i just thought the difference thing is too hard but i was really shocked when i saw people telling me little words and made me feel much better and things i thought they never change now i believe it's not that hard it just depends on how much i believe on me..

and i remember Allah's words :

أَلَمْ تَرَ كَيْفَ ضَرَبَ اللّهُ مَثَلاً كَلِمَةً طَيِّبَةً كَشَجَرةٍ طَيِّبَةٍ أَصْلُهَا ثَابِتٌ وَفَرْعُهَا فِي السَّمَاء
..إبراهيم24

and Prophet's words: "Al kalema el tayeba Sadaka"

So let's make a Tree and Sadka

Allah's Creation

I wonder why Allah created the world so perfect in this way that sometimes while driving the car i look for a moment to the Nature and i feel that it's such a great Bless from Allah to make things looks that good, and i believe that we don't deserve this perfection because we don't worship, follow Quraan, do everything 100% the way he wanted it to be..etc.

But that's why his name El Wahab, El Razak, El Karim, El Manan, El wadod, El Shakor,....etc.

Imagine our Life in Black & white
Imagine our arms without a hand
Imagine our hand without Fingers
Imagine ourselves without Eyes
Imagine water was Black
Imagine our Life without Prophet Muhammed
Imagine our Life without Allah

Just we need to Thank Allah more and to love him more than our parents and friends and money and jobs and........Ourselves because he loves you more than your parents and you friends and yourself.

About Google Documentary

A look inside Google, The Machine


I watched this Video in Arabia News Channel, it's very nice one, i wish one day we can have a company like Google but 100% Egyptian... made by Egyptian Youth

I liked the way they break the rule that working in a company isn't all about making effort and being stressed... having Sport Place, Play place,...etc. just value the Human side and by doing that they will assure more success because they will give more it's really great thing and we need that on Egypt because work became nothing but stress, pain & hard work... you can rarely find who value it..

And it made me think about it's not only about achieving goal but also Developing it.. i mean Brin and Larry accomplished their goal and now the company is developing in it's products and make great effort and Google is becoming better and better each day..

Google Documentary

Spanish fashion houses agree anti-anorexia 'charter'

MADRID (AFP) - Leading Spanish fashion houses including Inditex and flagship brand Zara agreed an unprecedented move to draw up a beauty "canon" including harmonising dress sizes after a recent storm over the number of young women suffering from anorexia.

The 12-point package of measures, or beauty "charter" -- drawn up with the health ministry -- includes a stipulation that shop windows display sizes of 38 minimum (size 10 in Britain, eight in the United States) and that size-46 apparel be placed in easy view in stores under the generic label "large sizes."

In a joint statement the couturiers said they intended to harmonise sizes in a bid to reduce the possibility of "consumer error" with sizes currently not in sync from one firm to the next.

Aside from Zara, other signatories included Cortefiel, Mango and chain store Corte Ingles as the Spanish firms, most of whom also sell their wares abroad, are reacting to concerns that anorexia is on the rise and that models are "excessively thin."

The charter, whose measures will be progressively introduced, aims to mark a break with showcasing models of beauty which are "impossible to reach for most people" and "can contribute to serious health disorders," such as anorexia, a health ministry statement said.

The measures are based on a biometric study of 8,500 Spanish women aged between 12 and 70 begun earlier this year, the ministry said.

Last year, Madrid's prestigious Pasarela Cibeles fashion show banned five models from participating because they did not meet World Health Organisation (WHO) weight guidelines.

A Madrid regional law aimed at fighting anorexia also ensured the five were discarded from last September's event when it emerged their body mass index (BMI), calculated on a height-weight ratio was under 18 (56 kilograms for 1.75 meters or 123 pounds for five feet eight inches).

And earlier this month, Madrid authorities this week took the fight against anorexia into cyberspace by forcing the closure of a website promoting the ideal that it's hip to be thin, after lambasting the site for publicising a competition offering would-be models prizes for losing weight.

Recent studies estimate that more than 100,000 Spanish women are anorexic and that up to half a million Spaniards suffer from various food-related disorders.

Getting Ready for MS Vist

If you're thinking of upgrading your current machine to Vista, the first thing you're going to want to do is check out your current machine to see if it's up to speed. The basic requirements call for a recent CPU, a gigabyte of RAM, and 15 gigabytes of free space on your hard drive. You're also going to want a fast graphics processor, especially if you're going to use the 3D graphics interface, Aero. But there are countless other ways that your system might not be ready for the demands of Vista.

The easiest way to find out if you've got the stuff you need to upgrade is to use the free, downloadable Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor from Microsoft's web site. When it works correctly, the Advisor goes through all of your system components, telling you what will work and what you'll have trouble with. Of course, I found out that the Advisor is not without its share of problems.

To begin with, it's equal parts sales opportunity and download advisor. As you're waiting for the software to do its scan you get lots of info-ads about Vista in all its different flavors, and you're comparison shopping before you've even done the scan. It's also a big program—a 6MB download.

I ran the Windows Upgrade Advisor on a fairly recent Dell Inspiron. It generated a list of about 15 things that needed my attention. They were broken out into three categories: system, devices, and programs.

Some of the things it pointed out were minor, like the fact that I needed updated drivers for the notebook's touchpad. Others were more critical, like the fact that I didn't have enough free disk space to do a Vista install. The scan was not happy with my VGA adapter either, which is sort of a tough one to fix since it's a notebook PC. And about half of the things it pointed out were things it reported as not having any information about in its database. Just as I was viewing the report (there's no print function), the Advisor crashed, taking my IE with it, and I had to reboot my PC. Not a great confidence builder.

I tried the Advisor on a second machine, a Dell Latitude. This time I was informed that I first needed to install a new 1.5MB version of the XML parser. The report generated told me that this machine would work best with Windows Vista Business (of course, I wanted the Home Premium). The reason it recommends the business version is because I'm running XP Professional now, and it turns out that certain upgrade paths are not available to every machine depending on the old version of Windows you're running. ExtremeTech has a nice chart showing you which upgrade paths will work and which ones won't.

In addition to recommending Windows Vista Business Edition, the report indicated that while my CPU and hard disk were fine, the Advisor had no information about the compatibility of my graphics system (Intel 82852) or my Sigma Tel Audio, to name a few. It found five programs that needed minor updates, including MS Explorer and Java. The advice was to head to Windows Update and start getting my devices and programs more up to date.

So far, I can't say I'm enamored with the Windows Upgrade Advisor. Both machines need some work to get them in shape for the big day, and I'm more and more serious about just buying a new Vista machine and starting life fresh on January 30^th.

U.S. drivers eat, shave, email and drive

CINCINNATI, Jan 22 (Reuters Life!) - Talk on the phone while you're driving? Fix your makeup? Check e-mail? You're not alone.

A survey released on Monday shows 81 percent of Americans do more than drive when they're behind the wheel.

More than eight of 10 people surveyed by Nationwide Mutual Insurance said they adjust the radio or music while they drive, while 73 percent talk on the phone, 68 percent eat, 19 percent send text messages and 5 percent checked their e-mail.

Personal hygiene was also a big driver distraction, with 19 percent fixing their hair, 12 percent putting on makeup and 2 percent shaving while at the controls of a car.

"Clearly Americans have much to do and little time to do it, so to cope with that we've become multi-taskers," said Bill Windsor, associate vice president of Safety at Nationwide.

"The problem with that is driving requires focus, and multi-tasking while driving puts you and your fellow drivers at risk."

Drivers in the survey also admitted to changing seats with passengers, watching a movie, painting their toenails, nursing a baby and putting in contact lenses while driving.

Younger drivers multi-task the most, the survey found, with 35 percent of 18-to-27 year olds saying they always multi-task in the car, compared to 21 percent of baby boomers.

Windsor said the consequences for young drivers are severe, with car accidents being the number one cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 27.

"The bottom line is if it can be done in the kitchen, bathroom, office or bedroom, it should not be done in the car," Windsor said.

While some U.S. jurisdictions require hands-free devices for cellphone use in cars, most of the activities listed in the survey are not illegal unless they are determined to be the cause of an accident.

The survey of 1,200 drivers between the ages of 18 and 60 found that while 83 percent believe they are safe drivers, 38 percent admitted they have driven a certain distance without any recollection of doing so.

Sandra Guile, spokeswoman for AAA in Cincinnati, said the automobile club's driving instructors have seen it all, and work hard to try to correct the bad habits.

"Imagine if you're going 55 miles an hour down the road and you spill something on your suit and you have a meeting that day -- you're going to be more worried about grabbing a napkin than watching the road," said Guile. "But it just takes a split second to look away and there's an accident."

Cincinnati professor Penny Braboy said that while she never eats or makes phone calls while driving, she does answer the phone if it rings -- and she admits to other distractions.

"I have put on lipstick in the car," Braboy, 55, said with a laugh. "And I might try to look for something in my purse, which I know is dangerous."

But she said her distractions have never caused an accident.

"I try to be careful," said she, getting into her sport utility vehicle, Starbucks coffee in hand.