http://www.torontosun.com/life/healthandfitness/2010/09/01/15212146.html

Moderate coffee intake -- only 25-50 ml per day -- could be the key to reduced blood pressure and preventing heart disease, a new study has found.

 

http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/08/31/improving-cognition-in-computers.html

Scientists are studying how to design circuits that can recognize objects like people can.

A computer probably can calculate the answer to a math problem much faster than the average person. But when it comes to visual recognition—faces, objects, and patterns—the human brain has it all over even the most sophisticated processors.
“Humans and other primates have the remarkable ability to effortlessly recognize things visually,’’ said Gabriel Kreiman. ‘’ Currently, no computer can recognize objects to the level that humans can.  Humans do it without even thinking about it. But there is very complex machinery behind the recognition process.’’
Kreiman, a professor in the department of neuroscience and ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital in Boston, is trying to understand the neural underpinnings of human brain function with the goal of designing computers that ultimately can recognize objects as rapidly and accurately as people.
“It would be very useful to build computers that could rapidly recognize objects,’’ he said. “There would be many important applications: recognizing humans at ATMs, for example, terrorists at airports, and especially patterns and images for clinicians, such as abnormalities in sleep patterns, tumors, cell type patterns—all the patterns that clinicians need to look for on a daily basis. It could help clinicians tremendously if we could help them by providing an automatic way of visually recognizing patterns.’’
The research is funded by a $503,398 grant from the National Science Foundation as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  The work has considerable potential in the fields of engineering and computing, as well as practical impacts on such areas as health care and security.
“The long term goal is to build a computational circuit inspired by the human brain that can function independent of humans,’’ Kreiman said. “In between, there might be hybrid approaches, with humans working together with computers.’’
Human beings have the ability to perceive stimuli, experience emotions and reflect about others and themselves, he said. “At the heart of these and other capabilities is the phenomenon of consciousness,’’ he said. “Consciousness has to be implemented through the hardware of neurons in our brains. Somehow, a physical system composed of neuronal circuits gives rise to what seems to be the least physical properties of all: our thoughts and feelings. How this transformation takes place has preoccupied generations of scientists and philosophers.’’
Fortunately, advances during the last several decades have made it possible to investigate the mechanisms of consciousness scientifically. Kreiman is studying the brain function of patients, both adults and children, who already have electrodes implanted in their brains for medical reasons, usually for epilepsy, to help control seizures. “We monitor the activity inside the human brain at very high spatial and temporal resolution; essentially we look at the behavior of neurons at the level of milliseconds,’’ he said. “We go in with a laptop and show them images. We ask them to perform different kinds of tasks, to play games, to recognize images. The activity from the patients’ neurons goes to our computers, and we can correlate that information with the images they have seen.’’
Despite the amazing contributions computers provide, there are lots of things that humans still can do better than machines, Kreiman said.
“We don’t really think about them because they are so trivial to us,’’ he said. “In addition to seeing, just the simple process of walking remains a very challenging task for robots--to navigate and recognize obstacles, to adjust your posture and force to different types of terrains, slopes and so forth.”
Moreover, scientists have yet to devote efforts into defining the brain circuits responsible for emotions, and translating those circuits into computers, Kreiman said.  In the future, computers may be able to read, as well as convey, emotions, he said. “Computers are poor at mostly everything that has to do with common sense,’’ he added. “They are good at everything where there is a clear defined mathematical algorithm, for example, computing the square root of seven--a computer can do it in a fraction of a millisecond. You can recognize whether the person standing in front of you is happy or sad. A human can look at the person, recognize her as a friend, and see that she is sad today. Currently, there is no computer that can come close to that.’’

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/01/eveningnews/main6827276.shtml

FDA Decides on Fate of Controversial Diet Pill This Month, Study Calls for It to Be Pulled from Market.The well respected  New England Journal of Medicine weighed in with an editorial calling for it to be pulled from the market after a new study revealed an increased risk for heart attacks in some patients.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/08/31/129562758/music-in-the-cloud?ft=1&f=3

There's fueling speculation that a major overhaul of the iTunes music store is imminent — one that could take advantage of advances in so-called cloud computing.      

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129570568&ft=1&f=3

While the housing market in the U.S. is moribund, it's healthy in Canada. In one respect Canada got lucky, but it also had a very different approach to mortgage finance. Unlike the U.S., Canada doesnt have huge inventories of unsold properties or foreclosures dragging down the market. Canadians generally put more money down than their U.S. peers, and there is no tax break for mortgage interest.

http://futuretense.publicradio.org/blog/index.php?id=1049339963

A Japanese seaside resort is teaming up with Konomi Digital Entertainment to create a vacation getaway for young men and their virtual girlfriends.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org//display/web/2010/09/01/pm-toxic-gases-found-in-well-water-close-to-drilling-sites/

Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," may be a boon for the energy industry, but critics are questioning if the process that frees up more gas and oil in the ground is poisoning well water.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/29/sunday/main6816240.shtml?tag=contentBody;featuredPost-PE

Urban Farms Sprout in the Unlikeliest Places, Feeding a Growing Appetite for Farmers to Sell Directly to Consumers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/us/01jobs.html?th&emc=th

Michele McDonald for The New York Times

Donna Ings took a lower-paying job as a home health aide after being out of work for over a year.

 

After being out of work for more than a year, Donna Ings, 47, finally landed a job in February as a home health aide with a company in Lexington, Mass., earning about $10 an hour. 

 

Chelsea Nelson, 21, started two weeks ago as a waitress at a truck stop in Mountainburg, Ark., making around $7 or $8 an hour, depending on tips, ending a lengthy job search that took her young family to California and back.

Both are ostensibly economic success stories, people who were able to find work in a difficult labor market. Ms. Ings’s employer, Home Instead Senior Care, a company with franchises across the country, has been expanding assertively. Ms. Nelson’s restaurant, Silver Bridge Truck Stop, recently reopened and hired about 20 people last month in an area thirsty for jobs.

Both women, however, took large pay cuts from their old jobs — Ms. Ings worked for a wholesale tuxedo distributor, Ms. Nelson was a secretary. And both remain worried about how they will make ends meet in the long run.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/opinion/01gibson.html?th&emc=th

“I ACTUALLY think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions,” said the search giant’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, in a recent and controversial interview. “They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.” Do we really desire Google to tell us what we should be doing next? I believe that we do, though with some rather complicated qualifiers.