A daily dose of dark chocolate may help reduce the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome.
Patients in a pilot study found they had less fatigue when eating dark chocolate with a high cocoa content than with white chocolate dyed brown.
Read (BBC)
Stink bugs in Hitchcockian numbers buzz the Roanoke region these days as autumnal annoyances. They cling to window screens and walls. They mightily enjoy piercing apples with their tiny beaks and their small, sucking mouth parts.
An insect expert at Virginia Tech said Thursday that the Roanoke Valley seems to be Virginia’s hotbed for the brown [...]
The Washington region, with its crawling traffic and several coal-fired power plants, produces more carbon dioxide than several medium-size European countries, according to a new study of pollution.
Estimates show 65.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide were emitted in the region in 2005 — more than in all of Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Denmark or Switzerland. [...]
Sunday, the gasoline prices at the BP @ Apperson & Colorado in Salem, VA were:
Grade Price
Regular $2.699
Mid $2.799
Premium $2.959
Diesel $2.899
Kerosene $2.699
Gas prices were unchanged today.
For the month of September, unleaded regular and mid-grade prices increased 20 cents [...]
Global warming is a boon for farmers and fishermen but a hardship for ice-dependent Inuit.
Perhaps nowhere else in the world are the effects of climate change as obvious as in Greenland, where warming temperatures have brought a mixed blessing to its 56,000 residents. As winter sea ice disappears, the traditional means that the indigenous [...]
Organic apple farmers keep their fruit free of worms by spraying their trees with a naturally occuring virus. But insects in some orchards in Germany have developed resistance to this biological insecticide and farmers are concerned.
Listen (NPR)
Air New Zealand says it plans to mount the first test flight of a commercial airliner partially powered by biofuel. One of the four engines will run on a mixture of kerosene and a biofuel, and is set for late 2008 or early 2009.
Read (BBC)
It sounds like science fiction but it’s true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.
Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it’s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials [...]
More than in past wars, many wounded troops are coming home alive from the Middle East. That’s a triumph for military medicine. But they often return hobbled by prolonged physical and mental injuries from homemade bombs and the unremitting anxiety of fighting a hidden enemy along blurred battle lines. Treatment, recovery and retraining often can’t [...]
Saturday, the mailbox contained:
October 2007 (Final) issue of Business 2.0 (How to Play the Real Estate Bounce-Back) October 2007 issue of Parish Home Companion (Welcome to Rod Broker) Fall 2007 issue of Roanoke Valley Regional Medical Reserve Corps Quarterly Newsletter (September is National Preparedness Month) A paystub 2 notices from St. John’s Episcopal Church An offer from Columbia House A Goody’s [...]
Friday, the mailbox contained:
October 2007 issue of Boys’ Life (Great Gourds!) October 2007 issue of Scouting (A Steward of The Land) October 2007 issue of Circuit Cellar (Signal Processing) The cover of the October 16, 2007 issue of PC Magazine (Supprot & Reliability – Who Can You Trust?) A subscription offer from MMWR A subscription offer from Science Illustrated Coupons from [...]
Thursday, the mailbox contained:
October 2007 issue of SEED (Can Science Save the American Dream?) September 30, 2007 issue of St. John’s The Record (Getting to Know Us, Getting to Know All About Us!) Holiday 2007 L.L.Bean Home Catalog Holiday 2007 Pottery Barn Catalog Coupons from Valpak A subscription offer from Fine Gardening Magazine An offer from AAA
Wednesday, the mailbox contained:
November 2007 issue of Nintendo Power (Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings) September/October 2007 issue of CA (Implications of Phytoestrogen Intake for Breast Cancer) An event notice from the Science Museum of Western Virginia An advertisement from Whitt Carpet One 2 advertisements from National Geographic A plea from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy A plea from Audubon A plea from World Vision
Stone Age paddy fields tended by the world’s earliest known rice farmers have been uncovered in a swamp in China, scientists say. The researchers found the land was deliberately managed for rice growing.
Fire was used to clear scrub, while flood-prevention measures helped keep brackish water from getting into the fields.
The discovery shows rice growing [...]
Freshwater mussels may start disappearing from dinner plates as species increasingly become extinct or endangered by human activities, scientists say. North America has historically had a very diverse community of freshwater mussels, but populations have been on the decline for the past few decades. Mussels now are one of the most endangered groups [...]
Could the floral scent of your air freshener contain toxic chemicals known to cause birth defects? NRDC recently tested 14 different air fresheners and found that 12 contained chemicals called [phthalates] (http://www.answers.com/topic/phthalates “Answers.com Article”), chemicals that can cause hormonal abnormalities, birth defects and reproductive problems. Even air fresheners marketed as “all-natural” or “unscented” contained the [...]
Saltwater crocodiles are homebodies who will travel more than 250 miles back to their stomping ground, according to a team of Australian researchers. The discovery has implications for managing problem crocodiles as it may rule out relocation as an option.
The team is yet to understand how the crocodile navigated its way home. Crocodiles [...]
Good news for diabetics: Both aerobic exercise and strength training improve blood sugar levels. And lots of both provides the best results, a new study shows.
Read (USA Today)
New research is showing that exercise beneficially affects your genes, helps reverse the aging process at a cellular level, gives you more energy, makes you smarter, and may even help you grow so many new brain cells (a process called neurogenesis) that your brain actually gets bigger.
So does improving your nutrition. A diet high in [...]
New research suggests that social isolation alters the immune system at the genetic level, raising the risk of serious disease. The research links feelings of social isolation to an alteration in the activity of specific genes—ones that put lonely people at higher risk for serious disease. The study also points to the startling [...]