Interesting

iPhone: Waze, our favorite turn-by-turn navigation app for iPhone (and Android) just added a great new feature: hands-free operation. Now you can control Waze with a wave of your hand and the power of your voice.

The video above will give you an idea of how it works, but here's the gist. You can enable Waze to respond to either a three finger tap or just a wave of your hand over the screen. When you perform one of these actions, Waze will then load its voice control functionality and prompt you for input. You can report traffic conditions, ask for directions, notify others that you're running late, and more. It's pretty awesome and is, as always, another free feature in the already great free app.

The latest version of Waze is rolling out in the iTunes App Store today. Android users can expect this functionality in the coming months. For more info, check out the Waze blog.

Waze (Free) | iTunes App Store

Adam Dachis

The average person consumes about 3,300 milligrams of sodium per day, not including any salt added at the table, which is more than twice the recommended limit for about half of Americans, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of that sodium comes from common restaurant or grocery store items. The CDC's latest Vital Signs report found that 65 percent of sodium comes from grocery store foods, while 25 percent comes from restaurants meals.

10 foods responsible for more than 40 percent of your sodium intake:

• Bread and rolls
  
• Cold cuts and cured meats
  
• Pizza
  
• Poultry
  
• Soups
  
• Sandwiches
  
• Cheese
  
• Pasta mixed dishes
  
• Meat mixed dishes
  
• Savory snacks.

Excessive sodium consumption raises blood pressure, which is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, the nation's first and fourth leading causes of death. Reducing the sodium content of the 10 leading sodium sources by 25 percent would lower total dietary sodium by more than 10 percent, and could play a role in preventing up to an estimated 28,000 deaths per year, according to the CDC.

We recently reported about how nearly 7,000 consumers joined Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, in a petition supporting regulatory efforts to set national, industry-wide targets to reduce sodium in processed and restaurant foods.

"Many American consumers are seeking a sensible solution to the growing levels of sodium in processed and restaurant foods," said Ioana Rusu, regulatory counsel for Consumers Union. "Unfortunately, the answer is not simply to put down the saltshaker, since an overwhelming majority of sodium intake comes from processed, pre-packaged foods."

Vital Signs: Food Categories Contributing the Most to Sodium Consumption — United States, 2007-2008 [CDC]

Over the last few days, there’s been a lot of talk about a flaw in iMessage that allows people to spy on your text messaging. If you want all the details on the not so easy to exploit glitch, check get it here.

Google has successfully wooed Apple’s Simon Prakash come work for it, marking the highest level Apple employee to leave to work for Google yet. Prakash was Apple senior director for project integrity and at this point, it’s not clear exactly what he will be doing for Google.

If you ever wondered what hard-core Android geek would think if he had to switch from Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to the iPhone 4S SlashGear/Android Community’s Chris Burns is doing just that. Check out what he thinks about the move here.

Earlier this week, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced a rule change that would cut off funding it had provided to Planned Parenthood to pay for breast exams. After a massive public outcry regarding this decision, the foundation today decided it had maybe made a mistake.

The Komen folks had been defending their actions all week by claiming that it pulled the Planned Parenthood funding because of new foundation rules forbidding it from providing grants to organizations that are under investigation. Planned Parenthood is currently being investigated by Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida for allegations it illegally used federal funds to pay for abortions.

Even as late as last night, the Komen leadership maintained that it would probably not fund Planned Parenthood in the future -- regardless of an investigation -- because it only provides clinical breast exams and does not actually do mammograms, biopsies or provide cancer treatments.

Planned Parenthood countered that it provides the exact same services that a patient would get from visiting her OB/GYN.

Regardless, after sleeping on it -- and the voices of thousands very angry former donors -- Komen had a change of heart.

Here is the announcement from the foundation's board of directors:
We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives. The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics - anyone's politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public's understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.

You can never have too much Dropbox space, and now for a special beta period you can grab some additional free space while Dropbox is testing their automatic photo and video uploading feature. In exchange for trying their experimental build, you can get up to 4.5GB of extra space for free.

Experimental Dropbox build 1.3.12 imports photos and videos automatically from cameras, phones, and SD cards and batch uploads and downloads files. The forum post on Dropbox says:

During this beta period, we are also offering additional free space to test automatic uploading of photos and videos. For every 500MB of photos and videos automatically uploaded, you'll receive another 500MB space bonus, up to 4.5GB total.

The downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux are only available from the forum post. Note that you're also strongly advised to make a backup of what's in your Dropbox before upgrading to this build (emphasis on the "experimental" wording). When I installed the client, the software automatically detected my SD card and started uploading the photos, which it put into a new "Camera Uploads" folder and my account had the extra 500MB automatically added. Sweet. Now to find some more photos and videos to add...

If you're looking for even more ways to increase your Dropbox storage capacity, there's always our cheapskate's guide to getting free Dropbox space and the Google AdWords method.

Experimental Forum Build 1.3.12 | Dropbox Forum via gHacks

Melanie Pinola

The FAA Modernization and Safety Improvement Act of 2012, more commonly known as the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Bill, has passed in congress. It changes air travel in a number of positive ways, providing you with additional rights during your flight. Here's what you need to know.

Food and water will always be accessible on the airplane. Previously it was required to make food and water available after two hours, but there are no longer limitations. If you are stranded on the tarmac, the airline will be required to have food and water ready.

Medical treatment will always be available to passengers who need it. Previously airlines were only required to provide medical treatment after two hours.

A Department of Transportation consumer hotline will be established so passengers can call toll-free with problems. This hotline will be published on the internet, prominently displayed by carriers on ticket counter signs, and printed on e-ticket confirmations.

Carriers will be required to post the maximum child safety seat size for every type of aircraft they operate to allow passengers to determine which safety seats will function on their flight.

Musical instruments will be treated the same as regular carry-on luggage so long as they meet the standard carry-on guidelines. Airlines will not be allowed to charge you a fee for bringing a musical instrument on to the plane.

A Department of Transportation Advisory Committee will be created in the interest of protecting the consumer flying experience. It will be made up of members of air carriers, airport operators, non-profit interest groups, and members of state and local governments.

Airlines will be required to refer passengers to a Department of Transportation web page that outlines insecticide use. When flying to some countries, the airplane cabin may need to be sprayed to prevent bug infestation. This list will be made available so passengers can determine if they are allergic to any spray that may be used on the aircraft.

Additionally, congress will be looking at ways to encourage airlines to be more generous with active members of military, the Comptroller General will study baggage fees and how baggage service can improve, and airline/airport contingency plans will be put into place. When all of these changes will go into effect is currently unclear, but they are a great improvement on current flying regulations.

For more information on the new bill, check out Flyer's Rights for a full overview. They were instrumental in getting these new provisions passed so you can fly more safely and comfortably.

Photo by Ilja Mašík (Shutterstock).

FAA Bill Passes! | Flyer's Rights

Adam Dachis

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Having a massage after strenuous exercise not only feels good, it reduces inflammation in muscles at the cellular level, researchers have found.(author unknown)

Dried apples are not only a nutritious snack, they're fantastically delicious too and easy to make at home. All you need is a little lemon juice and water and you can preserve a bunch of apples for the whole winter.

The Going Home to Roost blog notes it takes about five to six hours of baking the lemon-soaked apple slices in the oven. Then you can keep them in jars for a few days or freeze them for two days and then store for up to a whole year. Check out the link for the full directions.

It's a great snack to keep at your desk, stick in your kid's lunchbox, or pretty much anytime. Have another favorite healthy homemade snack idea? Share it with us in the comments.

DIY Dried Apples | Going Home to Roost

Melanie Pinola

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jason Freedman has done his share of public speaking, and despite experiencing the same racing heartbeat and anxiety common to all of us, he knows how to deliver a relaxed, natural presentation. Here's how he does it.

I just gave a presentation on 42Floors to 150 people. It went well. I was really proud of: 1) our team, 2) our product and 3) the way we were able to present it. It was as if we were telling people about it in our living room, but there just happened to be 150 people there. Afterwards, several people told me that it felt like it was a very polished presentation. But the reality is we didn't practice at all. In fact, three minutes before we went on stage, my co-founder turned to me and said, "Jason, we really should've practiced." I said, "Nah, don't worry. We'll be fine." And we winged it, and it came off ever so naturally.

Before I pat myself on the back too much, let me tell you how I felt inside. Thirty seconds before I was supposed to go on, I was standing there on the side and all of a sudden my heartbeat went from normal to racing like I was in the middle of marathon. Uggghhh. I hate it when this happens. It's kind of like how you feel when you blush: you're reminded how little control you have over your own body. For a brief moment, I was upset with my body for reacting this way. I was upset with myself for reacting this way, actually. I should be more confident than this.

For some background, I've done a tremendous amount of public speaking. I did speech and debate in high school, I've spoken to lots of large crowds, I have given this type of presentation many, many times before. This was also a really friendly crowd, and it was super informal. There was no reason for me to be nervous. But, there I was ready to go on, and I was worried that people standing near me would literally be able to see my heart beating this fast.

However, in those thirty seconds, from when my anxiety took hold until I started speaking, I squashed that nervousness almost completely. And that's what this post is about.

The key to public speaking is establishing a routine that solves for the thirty seconds between when your anxiety starts and when you need to go up on stage. After that nothing else really matters. Most normal people do not engage in public speaking regularly enough to be able to actually change any of the fundamentals about how they speak. The very best you can hope to do is to not sound worse than you do when speaking in your own living room. And that itself is actually a really good axiom to start with:

Don't try to become a good public speaker, just try to speak like a normal person while in public.

And the key to speaking normally in public is to squash your anxiety thirty seconds beforehand. Here are a few tricks that I know. Give them a shot.

How to Speak Like a Normal Person While in Public:

• Dribble Twice, Spin Once

  So this trick will take a little bit of time to develop, but it's probably the single most important thing that I'd recommend. When you watch a basketball player go to the free-throw line with the game on the line, he or she does the same routine every single time. It's always some sort of dribble twice, spin once routine. With the spotlight on him, he doesn't want to think about some small aspect of his form. He wants to not think at all. So he focuses on his trivial routine: dribble twice, spin once, shoot. The best he is hoping for is to shoot as well as he normally does in practice.

  I do the same thing with public speaking. I have found a very specific set of physical actions that I do seconds before I start speaking. For me, it's a specific stance that I get into where I stand up very straight, my toes are slightly pointed out, I take my hands and I clap them together. I grasp my hands together really firmly and rub them slowly with my elbows held high.

  I do it this way for one key reason – this is what I usually do anyway. As in, if you see me in my own living room, surrounded by friends, recounting a story of a time when I did something really awesome, you will often find that I am naturally in this stance. This is my natural confidence stance. So, when I'm feeling nervous, I force myself deliberately to take on my confidence pose.

  Jumping back to this public speaking event the other day. At T minus 30 seconds, my heart was beating incredibly fast, but at T minus 25 seconds I had one thing on my mind – hands clasped together, assume the pose, everything else will work out.

  You need to find your confidence pose. Whatever your two dribble, spin once routine is going to be, you need to find it long before your public speaking moment. The single best way to find it is to ask your co-founder or friends to find it for you. Show them this post, tell them you want help finding this pose, and then at some point in the next several weeks, they will see you do it naturally and can point it out for you. And then, you need to figure out exactly what it is about this pose that feels good and practice it over and over again. So the next time when you're up on stage and you're getting really nervous and you have that weird feeling where you just don't know where to put your hands and you just know that in your pockets is like the most awkward thing in the world...at that point – dribble twice, spin once, and shoot.

• Death to Powerpoint

  Powerpoint is this devious device that takes reasonably good speakers and makes them painfully bad. Traditional bullet-point laden Powerpoint decks are only useful for communicating your ideas with visuals and emailing them to people. They are not useful for aiding you in your speaking ability. And that's why most really good speakers stopped using Powerpoint in the traditional way. Throw away all slides that have more than ten words on them (or move them to an appendix).

  It's okay to use slides when they takes almost no focus off of you, the speaker. That's for two reasons. The first is, the focus really should be on you, so having an Apple-like slide with one or two words on it is totally fine because it communicates a point and gets the focus back on you. (Note-the only exception is when you demo your product. Then you do want the attention on the screen.) The second reason is even more important: Powerpoint bullet slides take away your attention from your audience. When you turn around to read a slide, you are forcing yourself out of your own rhythm.

• Speak to Two People

  Remember our goal is to speak like a normal person in public. The best way to speak like a normal person is to actually talk to a real person, and not hundreds of people. So, as I stand there about ready to speak – in my stance, rubbing my hands together – I look to the left side of the room and to the right side for a random person that seems comforting. When I actually start speaking, all I want to do is speak to those two people. I've never met them but I want to lock in on those two people and just tell them a simple story as if they were sitting in my living room. I can pace back and forth and look left and right in the crowd, and yet all I'm really doing is going back and forth between my two people. It's super simple; it totally works.

• Embrace Your Ums

  Um is a verbal tick. It is unconscious and nearly impossible to remove. If your career is going to be an actor, public speaker, politician, whatever . . . go work on your ums and this post was never for you anyway. If you are a normal person, you are not going to get rid of them. And anyone who harps on you because of them is actually doing you a disservice because they are forcing you to speak differently than you speak as a normal person. Paul Graham is one of my favorite public speakers, and he says um all the freaking time. But, he's a powerful speaker, he's lucid and most importantly, he's authentic. Focus on what really matters.

• Don't Memorize

  Memorizing does absolutely nothing for you. The only thing worse than a scripted, memorized speech is a ‘read' speech. So, don't ever read your speeches, either. You are pitching your start-up and trying to inspire people to believe in your vision. It doesn't matter what the actual words are, they're all judging you anyway. And when you memorize your speech, or read your speech, you are communicating that you suck at this. And you don't. You're a normal person – you have the capacity to speak like a normal person.

• Practice with Live Ammunition

  Over-practice can really hurt you, especially if you do it in a fake way. One of the worst things you can do to prepare is to practice over and over again alone. Because that is nothing like the situation that you are going to be in. We speak very, very awkwardly alone. When you are making passionate speeches inside of your car, you look like a crazy person and you feel like a crazy person. Your performance there will be nothing like your performance on stage. Your goal, always remember, is to get back to how you speak in your living room. So do that.

  Ask your co-founders to put you on the spot in front of groups of people. So, if you guys are at some random party, empower your co-founders to play this little trick on you: Without giving you warning, they can yell out for everyone to get quiet because you want to tell them something. You will have zero time to get nervous, you will have to start immediately, and you will do the best job that you can. And if you do that five times before your big public speaking engagement, you will be far better prepared than if you had spoken to the mirror a hundred times.

One final note to that group of 150 people that just saw me speak: Yes, I was absolutely, totally, freakin' nervous. If that's you as well, you already know how to reach me, let's practice together.

Public Speaking for Normal People | humbledMBA

Jason is a serial entrepreneur, based in Silicon Valley. He's currently the founder of 42Floors, building a better way to search for commercial real estate: 42floors.com. You can read more from Jason at his blog humbledmba.com and keep up with him on Twitter @jasonfreedman.

What to see your work here? Send an email to submissions@lifehacker.com!

Jason Freedman

Under a new settlement agreement in California, the maker of Brazilian Blowout products is required to warn consumers and hair stylists that two of its popular hair-straightening products emit formaldehyde gas.

The settlement requires GIB, which does business as Brazilian Blowout, to stop advertisements that describe two of its products as formaldehyde-free and safe. Brazilian Blowout must also make significant changes to its website and pay $600,000 in fees, penalties and costs. The settlement also requires that Brazilian Blowout disclose refund policies to consumers before the products are purchased.

In its announcement of the settlement, the California Department of Justice said it was the first government enforceable action in the U.S. to address exposure to formaldehyde gas associated with Brazilian Blowout products, and also the first law enforcement action under California's Safe Cosmetics Act, which went into effect in 2005.

Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen. The Food and Drug Administration received a number of inquiries from consumers and salon professionals concerning the safety of Brazilian Blowout and similar "professional use only” hair smoothing products. In August 2011, the FDA issued a warning letter citing Brazilian Blowout for safety and labeling violations. The action followed a hazard alert the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued in April 2011 to hair salon owners and workers about potential formaldehyde exposure from working with these products.

In 2010, Brazilian Blowout sued the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services after that agency sampled more than 100 “formaldehyde-free” products from 50 salons and found “significant levels” of formaldehyde.

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces Settlement Requiring Honest Advertising over Brazilian Blowout Products [California Department of Justice]
Oregon OSHA reiterates caution to salons using hair-smoothing products [OSHA]
Brazilian Blowout Sues Oregon OSHA over False and Misleading Test Results [Brazilian Blowout]
FDA, OSHA Act on Brazilian Blowout [FDA]

(Reuters) - Efforts to legalize marijuana for recreational use are gaining momentum in Washington state and Colorado, despite fierce opposition from the federal government and a decades-long cultural battle over America's most commonly used il...Alex Dobuzinskis

When you're staring down the barrel of a new diet, your portions are one of the most difficult things to measure and keep track of. Your kitchen scale may be great in the comfort of your home, but it's not practical to carry with you all day. Instead, just get to know the rough estimates with your hand.

If the idea looks familiar, that may be because earlier this month Melanie walked through the basics of this idea, highlighting its usefulness for cooks. This morning, while signing up for Weight Watchers (yeah, that's right, Weight Watchers—I've used it before, and it works really well if game mechanics work on you, and even if you're not looking to lose a lot of weight, it's good at keeping you healthier), I stumbled onto the handy cheatsheet in the image above.

• 1 cup = your first
• 1 ounce = the meaty part of your thumb
• 1 tablespoon = your thumb, minus the meaty part
• 1 teaspoon = the tip of your index finger
• 1 inch = the middle section of your index finger
• 1-2 ounces of a food like nuts or pretzels = your cupped hand
• 3 ounces of meat, fish, or poultry = the palm of your hand

Obviously these are rough estimates, and their accuracy will vary based on the size of your hand, but it's not a bad starting point. If you happen to have a kitchen scale at home, you could use that and some measuring spoons to determine just how well these measurements work with your hand and set your own baselines if any of the measurements are considerably off. As I said, Mel covered these basics a couple weeks back, but I found the Weight Watchers diagram very helpful.

Adam Pash

Measuring blood pressure on both arms rather than only one can reveal an elevated risk of heart disease or even death, according to a study released Monday.(author unknown)

Zapping testicles with ultrasound can reduce sperm counts and might be used in the future as an inexpensive, reliable and reversible male contraceptive, according to US researchers.(author unknown)

If you like to cook with scallions (aka green onions or green shallots) did you know you can keep the white root ends from purchased scallions in a glass of water and they will regrow almost indefinitely?

Household weblog Homemade Serenity shares how scallion ends can regrow in in a glass of water. Just put the root ends in a glass of water and put that glass in a sunny window. After a few days you should be able to begin harvesting the green ends of the scallions. Make sure you change the water every so often and cut what you need with scissors before cooking.

Putting Food By - Beef, Onions, and Vanilla | Homemade Serenity via Punk Domestics

David Galloway

If you have a video game controller that's worn down so much that the buttons barely work, you can give it new life with a few small pieces of aluminum foil.

All you need to pull this off is a torx scredriver (something every techie should have on hand), a hole puncher, and a bit of glue or tape. Basically, you'll be placing the aluminum foil on top of the worn down rubber pads, giving them a bit more strength (not unlike our previous tip about using an orange juice carton to fix your spacebar). This should work for more than just video game controllers too. It can also help TV remotes, or anything else that has a similar kind of button. Hit the link to see the full how-to.

Fixing a Worn out Remote Control (XBOX, Playstation, Wii, TV, etc.) | Viktor's DIY Blog via How-To Geek

Whitson Gordon

Do you sit in an office chair or on your couch for more than six hours a day? Then here are some disturbing facts: Your risk of heart disease has increased by up to 64 percent. You're shaving off seven years of quality life. You're also more at risk for certain types of cancer. Simply put, sitting is killing you. That's the bad news. The good news: It's easy to counteract no matter how lazy you are.

Photo remixed from Lack-O'Keen/Shutterstock and Nip/Shutterstock.

Let's start with the basics. Since childhood you've known being a couch potato is bad. But why? Simply put, our bodies weren't made to sit all day. Sitting for long periods of time, even with exercise, has a negative effect on our health. What's worse, many of us sit up to 15 hours a day. That means some of us spend the bulk of our waking moments on the couch, in an office chair, or in a car.

Sitting all day long isn't hard to counteract, but you have to keep your eye on two details: your daily activity and the amount of time you sit. Let's start by taking a look at what sitting all day does to your body.

An Estimated Timeline of the Effects of Sitting

It's difficult to get an accurate assessment of what sitting all day will do to you because the effects work in tandem with diet and other risk factors. So we're going to start with a relatively healthy person who does not drink in excess, smoke, and who isn't overweight. Then we'll estimate the effects of sitting for over six hours a day based on what starts happening immediately after you sit down. For a general overview of the effects, take a look at this chart from Medical Billing and Coding to see a breakdown of what that happens in your body when you sit down. (If the majority of your sitting time takes place at a desk, keep in mind that a standing desk has its own problems, too.)

Immediately After Sitting

Right after you sit down, the electrical activity in your muscles slows down and your calorie-burning rate drops to one calorie per minute. This is about a third of what it does if you're walking. If you sit for a full 24-hour period, you experience a 40 percent reduction in glucose uptake in insulin, which can eventually cause type 2 diabetes.

After Two Weeks of Sitting for More Than Six Hours a Day

Within five days of changing to a sedentary lifestyle, your body increases plasma triglycerides (fatty molecules), LDL cholesterol (aka bad cholesterol), and insulin resistance. This means your muscles aren't taking in fat and your blood sugar levels go up, putting you at risk for weight gain. After just two weeks your muscles start to atrophy and your maximum oxygen consumption drops. This makes stairs harder to climb and walks harder to take. Even if you were working out every day the deterioration starts the second you stop moving.

After One Year of Sitting More Than Six Hours a Day

After a year, the longer term effects of sitting can start to manifest subtly. According to this study by Nature, you might start to experience weight gain and high cholesterol. Studies in woman suggest you can lose up to 1 percent of bone mass a year by sitting for over six hours a day.

After 10-20 Years of Sitting More Than Six Hours a Day

Sitting for over six hours a day for a decade or two can cut away about seven quality adjusted life years (the kind you want). It increases your risk of dying of heart disease by 64 percent and your overall risk of prostate or breast cancer increases 30 percent.

If this looks bad, don't worry. We're going to show you how to counteract the negative effects of sitting without totally altering your lifestyle. Photo by John O'Nolan.

Counteract the Consequences of Sitting and Still Maintain Your Current Lifestyle

Happlily, you only need to do two things to counter the effects of sitting all day:

1. Remember to stand once an hour.
2. Get about 30 minutes of activity per day.

Whether you're a couch potato watching marathons of Firefly or an office worker sitting in front of a computer, an Australian study suggests short breaks from sitting once an hour can alleviate most of the problems described above. This isn't about working out (which is positive in its own right but doesn't counteract the effects of long periods of sitting). It's about creating pockets of moderate activity throughout the day and giving your body a respite from sitting.

What exactly is moderate activity? I talked with Dr. Brian Parr, associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Health Sciences at the University of South Carolina Aiken to find out. He points out the distinction between moderate activity and exercise:

We usually tell people moderate activity is equivalent to a brisk walk. This would include yard work or cleaning your house — anything that gets you moving counts. You don't have to do what people think of as exercise.

Of course, couch potatoes and office workers don't always have thirty minutes to spare. After all, a Firefly bender might take up an entire evening. Here's the good news: you can break up that thirty minutes throughout the day. Dr. Parr continues:

This is the best part. We usually tell people to break it up into ten minute segments, but that's because it's the most practical. If I tell you that you can spread it out throughout the day, you're going to say, "Well, I stood up and walked across the room to my soda." What was that, about ten seconds? You'll start to micromanage. From my perspective, that's not how people should do it. But you could do it that way.

The main reason you want to shoot for the ten minute chunks is because you're creating a mini-stress in your body that helps increase your endurance. In the real world, this means you won't get tired halfway up the stairs. Think of it this way: you don't train for a marathon by sprinting for ten minutes every day. Instead, you increase your endurance with longer jogs. The same goes for daily activity, you want to sustain activity for long enough to make it useful in your daily life.

Let's look at how you can estimate your daily activity and make sure you get out of the office chair throughout the day. Photo by cell105.

Start by Finding Your Daily Baseline with a Pedometer

The first thing to do is track how much activity you get in a regular day. For me, the easiest way to do this is a pedometer that tracks the number of footsteps I take. You can purchase a cheap $3 pedometer like this one from Amazon, or use an app on your iPhone or Android.

The first step is to take a 30-minute walk and see how many steps you take. My total was a little short of 4,000. Yours will vary based on how quickly you walk and how large your steps are.

Next, you want to find a baseline of your daily activity. Start using the pedometer when you wake up in the morning and keep it in your pocket (or running on your phone) until you go to bed. This will give you an estimate of your regular daily activity.

For me, this was frighteningly low on the days I didn't purposely exercise. My total number of steps? Under 2,000. This is downright horrible and equates to less than a mile a day. Clearly, I need to get up and move around more often. Photo by Adam Engelhart.

Meet Your Daily Activity Target by Slightly Altering Your Behavior

If you're like me, you're well under your target exercise range. A few simple changes to your daily behavior will help you reach your goal. Here are a few ideas for how to do it without really trying:

• Park near the back of the parking lot.
• Stand up to visit the file cabinet instead of rolling your chair.
• Walk over and talk to a coworker instead of emailing them.
• Take the scenic route to the bathroom instead of the most direct.

Since I work from home, I have to make a more concentrated effort to meet these goals. I've started walking to a nearby coffee shop in the afternoon and I hop on an indoor bicycle for at least 10-20 minutes a day. If all else fails, I'll do laundry because I have to walk down two sets of stairs.

Meeting your target activity level is just the first step. The second part is much simpler and only requires you stand up now and again. Here's how I remind myself to do it. Photo by o5com.

Set an Hourly Standing Alarm to Remind You to Stand

We know that if you stand up for just one or two minutes every hour, it can reduce the negative effect of sitting all day. Technically, you don't even have to move, the act of standing alone helps. When you're in the moment and working hard, it's difficult to remember. I found enabling the hourly announcement in OS X the best reminder. To set this, click Settings > Date & Time > Announce the time. Windows users can set up a similar hourly reminder as a task by clicking Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Task Scheduler.

If the alarm isn't enough, you can download dedicated software to remind you. Windows users can use free programs like, Workrave or Breaker to set up automated alerts. For Macs, Time Out seems the best free option. These programs will remind you to stand and dim the desktop to force you out of your chair.

It's up to you how you use these micro-breaks. You don't even have to move if you don't want to, but if you want to get a little activity in that minute, here's a quick way to do it without leaving your desk area:

• Stand up.
• March in place for twenty seconds.
• Reach down and try to touch your toes for twenty seconds.
• Wander around and pick up or reorganize for the last twenty seconds (eventually your desk area may even be clean).

I also set up an iCade at a standing level so I have something to occupy me when I stand up. Personally, I need objectives and I'm not good at just idling for a few minutes. The iCade adds a sense of purpose if I don't want to stretch.

Turn those Crappy Commercials into an Excuse to Get Up

TV commercials suck. Instead of wasting time watching the same car commercial you've seen for the last 20 years, consider the commercial break a chance to stand and stretch.

To help me find constructive things to do during commercials (or the credits when I'm in the midst Netflix marathon), I keep a to-do list on the coffee table as opposed to at my desk. This works as a gentle reminder to take out the trash, do the dishes, clean the litter box, or whatever else needs to get done. The best part? I don't have to watch commercials.

On a similar note, when playing video games online, I use the end of a match as a notification to stand up. If I'm playing a single player game, I stand during loading screens.

The point is that most of the activities we sit down to enjoy have these types of natural breaks in them. If you're reading you can stand up after a chapter or two. If you're playing board games you can stand up after each match. Instead of sitting and turning your mind off, stand and do it. It's really that simple. Photo by annethelibrarian.

The moral here is two-fold: stand up once an hour and get at least 30 minutes of activity in a day. That's it. Unless you're overweight, you don't have to start exercising or going to the gym to counteract the negative effects of sitting. You just have to make sure you're moving throughout the day. You don't even have to give up your TV marathons—you just need to accent them with a little hourly effort.

Thorin Klosowski

One of every five U.S. adults over age 18, and almost half of those over age 65, take a daily low-dose aspirin in the hope of preventing heart attacks and strokes, although many have never experienced either condition. Now, a large international study published in the January 9th Archives of Internal Medicine has concluded that using aspirin before disease has struck (primary prevention) may cause more harm than benefit to your health.

In the trial led by British researchers, over 100,000 people, average age 57, who had no history of heart attack and stroke, took a baby aspirin (81mg) everyday for six years. Participants were from nine groups in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. Researchers found that daily aspirin prevented one expected nonfatal heart attack in the large group, and had no significant effect on cancer mortality (which had been suggested in other studies). Disturbingly, these patients collectively experienced a two and a half times greater risk of internal bleeding. More specifically, for every 162 patients, the aspirin caused two cases of serious internal bleeding.

These are surprising results, given the longstanding belief by the medical community that taking a daily aspirin provided excellent cardiovascular preventative benefit with minimal risk. It is important to note that this study focused only on the benefits of aspirin in healthy adults with no previous cardiac or vascular disease. For patients who have experienced a heart attack or stroke or have cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or smoking, other studies have shown that the benefits of secondary prevention with aspirin outweigh the risks.

The use and dosage of aspirin in both healthy adults and those with disease or risk factors should be considered on a case-by-case basis after consulting with your doctor and pharmacist. Age, gender, risk factors and possible interactions with other medications or supplements must all be considered in making a well-informed decision regarding aspirin prevention strategies for you.

Although it is readily available, it’s not wise to take daily aspirin on your own without consulting your physician, as the drug can pose significant risks. This groundbreaking study dramatically places the focus back on safety.

For more on who may benefit from strategies to prevent heart attacks and strokes, see: Consider low-dose aspirin.

Source
Effect of Aspirin on Vascular and Nonvascular Outcomes: Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials [Archives of Internal Medicine]

opposite of eye candy, someone unappealing to look at

(how i met your mother) marshall's ex-assistant

barney: "so, who's the eye broccoli?"

marshall: "my new assistant"

(author unknown)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Getting a legal abortion is much safer than giving birth, suggests a new U.S. study published Monday. Researchers found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than ...Genevra Pittman