U.S. worried about deteriorating security in Central African Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is concerned about worsening security in war-torn Central African Republic and urged all sides to implement January's ceasefire deal, the State Department said on Sunday.

The rebel Seleka coalition and President Francois Bozize's government signed a ceasefire agreement in Libreville, Gabon, in January to end an insurgency that swept to within striking distance of the capital Bangui.

The deal also included forming a government of national unity, but the rebels did not take up key posts in that government in February, waiting for Bozize to free political prisoners and the withdrawal of most foreign forces brought in to shore up the army during the uprising.

Early this month, Seleka, a grouping of five rebel movements, seized the key south-eastern town of Bangassou.

"We call on President (Francois) Bozize and the leadership of the Seleka alliance to cease hostilities immediately, and implement the provisions of the Libreville Agreement," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

"We are very concerned by the worsening humanitarian situation in CAR and credible, widespread reports of human rights abuses by both national security forces and Seleka fighters."

Nuland said the United States urged the Economic Community of Central African States to urgently convene a mediation committee, in line with the Libreville Agreement, to support the national unity government and help restore peace and security.

"The United States urgently calls on the Seleka leadership and on the CAR government to ensure that their forces respect the human rights of the Central African people. Perpetrators of such abuses must be held accountable."

Central African Republic is one of a number of countries in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local soldiers hunt down the Lord's Resistance Army, an unrelated rebel group that has killed thousands of civilians across four nations.

The country remains one of the least developed on the planet despite rich deposits of gold, diamonds and uranium.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-worried-deteriorating-security-central-african-republic-174447664.html

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Unhealthy eating can make a bad mood worse

Mar. 15, 2013 ? Taking part in unhealthy eating behaviors may cause women who are concerned about their diet and self-image to experience a worsening of their moods, according to Penn State researchers.

In a study, college-age women who were concerned about their eating behaviors reported that moods worsened after bouts of disordered eating, said Kristin Heron, research associate at the Survey Research Center.

"There was little in the way of mood changes right before the unhealthy eating behaviors," said Heron. "However, negative mood was significantly higher after these behaviors."

According to Heron, who worked with Joshua Smyth, professor of biobehavioral health, Stacey Scott, research associate in the Center for Healthy Aging, and Martin Sliwinski, professor of human development and family studies, people who experience disordered eating patterns may exhibit behaviors such as binge eating, loss of control over eating and food intake restriction.

The researchers, who present their findings March 15 at the American Psychosomatic Society conference in Miami, detected little change in the participants' moods prior to unhealthy eating. While negative mood was worse after disordered eating, a positive mood did not change either before or after any of the behaviors studied by the researchers.

The researchers gathered data from participants in real-life situations. The team gave handheld computers to 131 women who had high levels of unhealthy eating habits and concerns about their body shape and weight, but did not have eating disorders. Several times during the day, the devices would prompt the participants to answer questions about their mood and eating behaviors.

"What we know about mood and eating behaviors comes primarily from studies with eating disorder patients or from laboratory studies," said Heron. "We were interested in studying women in their everyday lives to see whether mood changed before or after they engaged in unhealthy eating and weight control behaviors."

Smyth said that the study could lead to better treatments for women experiencing eating problems.

"This study is unique because it evaluates moods and eating behaviors as they occur in people's daily lives, which can provide a more accurate picture of the relationship between emotions and eating," Smyth said. "The results from this study can help us to better understand the role mood may play in the development and maintenance of unhealthy eating, and weight-control behaviors, which could be useful for creating more effective treatment programs for people with eating and weight concerns."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Penn State, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/PIaRF0SOpYE/130315202726.htm

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BetterBatteryStats Tells You Exactly Which Apps Are Draining Your Android's Battery

Android: If your phone's battery is draining a little faster than you'd like, BetterBatteryStats will tell you absolutely everything you need to know about what's killing it.

We've shared lots of ways to get better battery life on your phone, and Android's built-in settings can tell you a lot about which apps are using the battery. BetterBatteryStats, however, is a bit more detailed.

After you've installed the app, just let it run while you use your phone as normal. After a day or so, open it back up and you'll have a bevy of information in front of you. Tap the "Other" menu at the top of the screen to see how apps have been using battery on your system. You can view by which apps are using the network, which apps are draining CPU cycles, and more. Arguably the most useful menu here is the Partial Wakelocks list, which shows you which apps have partial wakelocks on the phone. These are apps that keep your phone from going into full sleep mode when you aren't using it, which can be a significant battery drain.

For example, if you see the NetworkLocationLocator service using a partial wakelock, that means Google Maps has spent some time checking your location. Often this is because of Google Now, in which case you can save battery by turning off Google Now. In my case, Gmail was one of the bigger offenders, because it was constantly getting notifications for new email. If you don't know what a wakelock does, search for it on Google to see what other people have found on the subject. It should lead you in the right direction.

Of course, whether you want to turn off sync for any given app is up to you. If you can't live without Google Now, then you'll have to live with the battery drain that comes with it. Still, BetterBatteryStats is a great way to stay just a little more informed about what the apps on your system are doing when your screen is off. Hit the link below to try it out, and check out the How-To Geek's guide below for more details on wakelocks and using BetterBatteryStats.

BetterBatteryStats ($2.89, Available for Free at XDA) | Google Play via How-To Geek

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/ANgIZgS4gSk/betterbatterystats-tells-you-exactly-which-apps-are-draining-your-androids-battery

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Bad weather postpones return of 3 astronauts

MOSCOW (AP) ? Bad weather is delaying the return of three astronauts from the International Space Station.

The astronauts were scheduled to land in a Soyuz capsule in central Kazakhstan early Friday morning. But fog and freezing rain prevented Russian rescue helicopters from flying to the touchdown site.

NASA's Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin will stay at the space station for at least another day. They've been in space for nearly five months.

The astronauts had already climbed into their capsule and where waiting to close the hatch when Russian officials called off their departure at the last minute. Their return trip is now set for Saturday, when the weather is expected to be better.

Three other astronauts will remain at the space station.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-03-14-Space%20Station-Delay/id-5dc1d39f32d54bb59502445079d14aea

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Apple Patents Induction Charging Smart Covers For iPad And A Mobile Camera With Optical Zoom

Apple has a couple of new interesting glimpses into possible new future tech published by the USPTO today, including a patent application for an iPad Smart Cover with a built-in battery and induction charging, and a mobile camera design that offers true optical zoom, instead of the low-quality digital zoom we're all used to in current devices.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/iz2XFsViNlo/

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Tobacco industry appears to have evaded FDA ban on 'light' cigarette descriptors

Thursday, March 14, 2013

New research from Harvard School of Public Health (HPSH) shows that one year after the federal government passed a law banning word descriptors such as "light," "mild," and "low" on cigarette packages, smokers can still easily identify their brands because of color-coding that tobacco companies added to "light" packs after the ban. These findings suggest that the companies have, in effect, been able to evade the ban on misleading wording?thus still conveying the false and deceptive message that lights are safer than "regular" cigarettes.

In addition, the companies failed to apply for applications to have these products approved as "new products" as called for by the law.

The study was published online March 13, 2013 in Tobacco Control.

"The tobacco industry was found guilty by a federal court in 2006 for deceptively promoting 'light' cigarettes as safer after countless smokers who switched to lights died prematurely, thinking they had reduced their health risks. After a new federal law was passed in 2009 to end the tobacco industry's deceptive marketing practices, the industry has apparently circumvented it by using new and sophisticated ways to deceive consumers and has not sought Food and Drug Administration approval for these products as required by law," said study co-author Gregory Connolly, director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at HSPH and professor of the practice of public health in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

After the U.S. Surgeon General's 1964 report found that cigarette smoking causes disease, tobacco companies began marketing "light" cigarettes with ventilation holes that allowed air to mix with smoke, which the companies said would limit the amount of smoke a person would inhale. However, a 2001 National Cancer Institute (NCI) report found that smokers compensate for the lower smoke yield in "light" cigarettes?and thus ingest as much tar and nicotine as "regular" cigarettes?by smoking more intensely, more often, or by blocking the ventilation holes with their fingers or lips.

In 2006, a U.S. federal court ruled that tobacco companies should be banned from any future use of descriptive words that convey a false health message. The FDA?given the authority to regulate tobacco products in 2009 as part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act?subsequently issued its ban.

To see whether the tobacco companies were complying with or circumventing the ban, the HSPH researchers examined retailer manuals from the tobacco company Philip Morris; manufacturers' annual reports filed with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health; national cigarette sales data; and the results of a 2011 national public opinion survey that included questions about smokers' perceptions of their brands being "light" or regular.

The study describes how Philip Morris removed the terms "light," "ultra-light," and "mild" from cigarette packs and substituted new brand names and colors. For example, the "Marlboro Light" brand was renamed "Marlboro Gold," "Marlboro Mild" was renamed "Marlboro Blue," and Marlboro Ultra-light" was renamed "Marlboro Silver." Other tobacco companies made similar changes. The cigarettes themselves remained unchanged, however; the percentage of ventilation in each category of "light" sub-brands was the same after being renamed and given a new color descriptor. Ventilation is the principle determinant of whether a cigarette is called "light."

In addition, the study notes that a Philip Morris brochure for retailers stated, "Some cigarette and smokeless packaging is changing, but the product remains the same. For trade use only: not to be shown or distributed to consumers."

In the public opinion survey, more than 90% of the smoker respondents said that, one year after the FDA ban, they found it either "somewhat easy" (10%) or "very easy" (82%) to identify their usual brand of cigarettes?in other words, they still thought of certain brands as "light" even though the packages did not use the "light" descriptors.

"This study demonstrates the continued attempts of the industry to avoid reasonable regulation of tobacco products. Scrutiny is needed by the FDA and courts to ensure that tobacco manufacturers comply with the law and that their products no longer convey false impressions of reduced risk," said study co-author Hillel Alpert, research scientist in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

The results will be presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Nicotine and Tobacco research on March 14, 2013 in Boston.

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Harvard School of Public Health: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu

Thanks to Harvard School of Public Health for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127301/Tobacco_industry_appears_to_have_evaded_FDA_ban_on__light__cigarette_descriptors

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