kiwipete

Two Kiwi soldiers killed and six wounded in Taleban ambush in Afghanistan...

2012-08-06T01:48:17+02:00

Two killed and six Kiwi soldiers wounded in Taleban ambush. They were from the Provincial Reconstruction team, not the SAS who have returned home to New Zealand

Prime Minister John Key says the deaths of two NZ soldiers in Afghanistan will not change plans to withdraw the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) late next year.
The pair died after a battle in Bamiyan province, in which six other Kiwis soldiers were wounded.
Two Afghan members of the special police were also killed, and 11 injured in the firefight in the north-east of the region.
Speaking to media at the Defence Force base at Whenuapai, Key said the deaths of the two soldiers was a great tragedy for the country.
"It's a day of great tragedy where we lose two of our soldiers and obviously they join the other five before them," he said.
"For New Zealand, a small country, losing seven of our men is an enormous price to pay."
Key confirmed that the loss of life and injury toll was the worst for New Zealand since it went into Afghanistan - but said that was only in terms of physical numbers.
"Each and every one of the fatalities that we've suffered brings with it its own story, its own family and a huge sense of grief."
The tragedy would not affect the withdrawal date from Afghanistan, he said.
The Government announced in May that the PRT would leave the area late next year, one year earlier than the planned September 2014 return.
Key said: "I don't think the terrible loss we've suffered overnight means we should leave earlier. We should continue on track," he said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7418191/Two-New-Zealand-soldiers-killed-in-Afghanistan

Found some comments in the news interesting tonight. They could smuggle some of our tough SAS troops into our regular force Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan. The SAS troopers have been pretty effective in training Afghani police and security force.

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A golden hour repeated for NZ Olympic team...

2012-08-04T06:55:26+02:00

NEW ZEALAND ROWING GOLD MEDALLISTS HAMISH BOND, MAHE DRYSDALE AND ERIC MURRAY. PHOTO / BRETT PHIBBS

Double gold, double delight … New Zealand’s rowers last night turned the Olympic course at Eton Dorney into their personal playground.
Coxless pair Eric Murray and Hamish Bond smashed through their final frontier, winning the only prize to have eluded them in the past four years.
Forty minutes later, single sculler Mahe Drysdale captured the gold that illness so cruelly denied him at Beijing four years ago.
Drysdale’s gold is New Zealand’s 20th Olympic rowing medal – including nine golds – and the third at this regatta, after Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan’s victory in the double scull 24 hours earlier.
While Murray and Bond streeted the field, maintaining their 100 per cent winning record over the four-year Olympic cycle, Drysdale had to work desperately hard to hold off his fiercest rival, Czech Republic sculler Ondrej Synek.
Across the finish line, he raised his arm, slapped the water and clutched his head.
Emotion washed over the 33-year-old and he collapsed on the pontoon. It was four minutes before he was able to get to his feet.
Read more:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10824514

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/rowing/7411177/Bond-and-Murray-Drysdale-win-gold Video

In Rome in 1960 New Zealand’s first golden hour occurred. Peter Snell, arguably one of New Zealand’s greatest Olympians, won his first 800m gold (the second four years later with the 1500m gold as well) and followed by Murray Halberg’s 5,000m gold lesss then an hour later. Last night it was Eric Murray and Hamish Bond in the Men’s Pair, and less than an hour later Mahe Drysdale scored his gold in the Men’s Single Scull - Kiwis remember the terrible sight four years ago in Beijing as an extremely ill Mahi struggled to win bronze. Great karma for a great sculler who has also won five World Championships in his career, and now Olympic Champion. A cycling bronze finished the evening off for the NZ Olympic team.
For just a while NZ will be ahead of both the Aussies and Brits, who have larger teams than New Zealand. We anticipate more medals during the next week. Nick Willis, the successor to the legendary 1500m Olympic Champions and gold medal winners, Jack Lovelock, 1936; Peter Snell, 1964; and John Walker, 1974; won his heat yesterday, and was silver medalist in Beijing, 2008.
Superstar Valerie Vili, defending Women’s Shotput champion from Beijing, is the favourite for London 2012. There are always unexpected successes that can increase New Zealand’s medal total. We all wait in anticipation!

Petes Place
http://pjpetterson.blog.co.nz

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Happy 156th Birthday Christchurch City...

2012-08-03T10:12:16+02:00

Christchurch turns 156 today. Happy Birthday to my poor old home town.

CHRISTCHURCH BECAME NZ'S FIRST CITY IN 1856

Press Archives
NEW CITY: This shows Christchurch in the mid-1860s. The view is from the Provincial Council Buildings, looking across the Avon River to the corner of Gloucester St and Oxford Tce. Drays are parked in the foreground. The trees beyond the

YOUR CHRISTCHURCH It's Christchurch's 156th anniversary today:

On this day 156 years ago, Christchurch became a city by royal charter from Queen Victoria, making it the first official city of New Zealand.
The royal charter was given by the Queen so Christchurch could be the seat for a bishop. At Christmas 1856, Henry John Chitty Harper was enthroned as the first bishop of Christchurch.
Other key Christchurch dates:
- On February 16, 1770, Captain James Cook in his ship the Endeavour first sighted the Canterbury peninsula. He thought it was an island and named it Banks Island after the ship's botanist, Joseph Banks.
- Christchurch was founded in 1850 with the arrival of about 800 settlers from Britain.
- Local government began when the first Christchurch Municipal Council meeting was held on March 3, 1862.
- The city's first library opened on August 4, 1859. It was a single room at the Mechanics Institute.
- The Press was founded as a weekly paper by James FitzGerald and a syndicate of investors in 1861. It became a daily in 1863.
- Bees were introduced to the region from Nelson in January 1852.
- The first bridge over the Avon River was built in March 1852.
- The first cricket match, married men versus single men, was held in April 1852 at Hagley Park.
- A typhoid epidemic in 1875, which lasted until the following year, caused 152 deaths in the city.
- The first airport opened in Christchurch in 1917.
- 1947 Ballantynes fire; 41 people die.
- Christchurch hosts the 1974 Commonwealth Games.
- September 4, 2010: Christchurch battered by a magnitude-7.1 earthquake. No fatalities.
- February 22, 2011: Christchurch devastated by a magnitude-6.3 quake, killing 185, injuring 6000 and destroying most of the central city's buildings.
Source: Christchurch City Libraries

Acknowledgements: © Fairfax NZ News

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Kiwi Olympic medalists to receive food parcels containing Marmite...

2012-08-02T09:21:05+02:00

Kiwi Olympic medalists will receive food parcels containing the "scarce" Marmite...

‘Marmageddon’ grips New Zealand

New Zealand competitors who win medals at the London Olympics have been offered an unusual reward - food parcels containing jars of Marmite.

The spread has been in short supply since March, after the manufacturer was forced to close its only factory because of earthquake damage.

The shortage of Marmite has been dubbed "Marmageddon" by the media.
Members of the eventing team, who won the country's first medal, were the first to collect their Marmite.

The manufacturer, Sanitarium, says production of the spread will not resume until later this year. The product is a variation of the yeast spread widely available in the UK.

Since the shortage began, New Zealand media has been filled with stories of newly discovered Marmite stashes in corners of supermarket storerooms.

There has also, apparently, been a roaring trade on auction websites.

Rather than selling its remaining supplies, executives at the Pak'nSave supermarket chain decided to give their stash to customers they felt were deserving of a treat.

"Who could be more deserving than our Olympic medallists," said Steve Anderson of the supermarket's parent company Foodstuffs New Zealand.

"To come to London and prove to the world that they are the best in their discipline is no mean feat. And we thought that a few home comforts after all their hard work wouldn't go astray."

The eventing team, who won a bronze medal on Tuesday, went to Kiwi House the following day to pick up their jars of Marmite.

The spread was first brought to New Zealand in the early 1900s, but the country later came up with its own recipe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19082740

http://peter-petterson.blogspot.com

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/video.cfm?c_id=4&gal_objectid=10824241&gallery_id=127169 Video

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I'm getting tired of problems here and elsewhere.....

2012-07-31T10:49:25+02:00

I'm getting tired of problems here and elsewhere...

My dear friends I'm getting tired of problems here and elsewhere. I've sent another message to Admin to resolve my problems.

I need to change my email address and change my password.

I told you that my Hotmail had been hacked and obviously taken over. I still haven't resolved it - they still want more information to prove I'm the owner of the account. I've changed one or two sites to another email address.

One day when I have the time and can be bothered I will check out my email addresses at other sites.

I told Admin here if he can't resolve my problems I will stop blogging here. If I do that will be my groups as well. I would be sorry to lose my contacts with my English and Welsh friends here. I would also check out a blogsite I could export my posts here to.

I have always blogged for the enjoyment and have not sought ways to make money blogging. While you can comment on my posts, I can't read your replies to my comments now on your own blogs. That is part of the enjoyment of blogging - communicating your thoughts and ideas. I know that some of you have also become a little disillusioned with problems here too.

Regards,

Peter Petterson
Wellington
NZ

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Talking through your glasses...

2012-07-29T09:36:58+02:00

Talking through your glasses. They provide a live language translation...

Here’s the scene: you’re traveling, and you walk into a little restaurant and the menu is entirely in a language you don’t understand, without pictures. You’ve got a couple of choices. You can leave, and try to find a place with English translations. You can try to hack your way through a conversation with the waiter, who also doesn’t speak your language. Or, you can point randomly at the menu and live with the consequences.
Well, in the future there will be another, better, answer. Live, realtime translation built into your glasses. Enter: Project Glass. British hacker and DIYer Will Powell has built a pair of glasses that can (albeit roughly) project a translation of your conversation onto your glasses. Here’s what it looks like:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/glasses-provide-live-language-translation/13184?tag=nl.e662

http://huttriver8.blogspot.com

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Could paper bottles help to save the planet...

2012-07-28T09:10:34+02:00

The crazy idea of selling billions of gallons of water in everlasting plastic bottles to people who already have access to clean water sources is turning our planet into a gigantic garbage heap. Finally, somebody is doing something about that. Brandimage created the 360 Bottle made of paper, which is 100% renewable.

Nice. It's apparently an impossible task to convince a sizable portion of our population that there's no need to clutch a bottle of water like a baby with a pacifier all day long. So, might as well limit the amount of harm done. These paper bottles are good for just about any liquid, too — not just water.

If this idea can even make a dent in the 60 million plastic bottles tossed each day in the U.S., Brandimage deserves an award. Wait. The company received an IDEA (International Design Excellence Award) for this design. Bravo. Now if they could just get those silver-tongued water hucksters and bottle-sucking sheep to buy into it.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/11/paper_water_bot.php

http://nz.mg261.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.partner=tnz&.rand=9mr43g8jp1drk

http://worldofcae.blogspot.com The Green Planet blog

http://ecospree.com

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Eye-popping illusion lets you write with gaze alone...

2012-07-27T08:01:19+02:00

Eye-popping illusion lets you write with gaze alone...

in an innovation that could benefit the disabled, a French researcher finds a way to trick the eyes into moving more smoothly so they can be used like a pencil to write cursive.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57481112-1/eye-popping-illusion-lets-you-write-with-gaze-alone/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title

http://blogging-along-with-pete.wallinside.com

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How bizarre - one of the Pike River mine victims compensated for earlier job loss...

2012-07-25T06:01:28+02:00

How bizarre: One of the men killed in the Pike River Coal mine should never have been dismissed the way he was from his previous job at a coal mine in Southland, says the Employment Relations Authority (ERA).

In a decision only released on Wednesday because of delays caused by the mine disaster and then the Christchurch earthquake, the ERA has ruled Keith Valli, Chris Pinn and Ray Waghorn were unjustly dismissed by Solid Energy from its opencast mine at Ohai, northwest of Invercargill.

The men were made redundant when the mine lost two large contracts in 2007.

In Wednesday's decision the ERA says the way Solid Energy went about assessing and ranking who should go was wrong.

Nevertheless, at the time Mr Valli quickly got a job at the Pike River Coal mine near Greymouth, and would commute there each week from his home in Southland.

The 62-year-old was one of the 29 men killed in a series of explosions in November, 2010.

ERA member Mike Loftus ruled that although all three men were badly treated by Solid Energy, Mr Valli was not entitled to lost wages because he got the job straight away.

However, Mr Valli had spoken of the hurt and stress he and his wife suffered after being badly treated by a company for which he had worked for 28 years.

Mr Loftus ruled that Solid Energy pay the three men $10,000 each for compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings.

Mr Pinn and Mr Waghorn were also awarded one month's lost wages and superannuation contributions.

Mr Valli's $10,000 will go to his next of kin.

Acknowledgements: © NZN 2012 Newsvine

http://news.msn.co.nz/nationalnews/8504822/pike-victim-wins-10000-for-job-loss

http://peter-petterson.blogspot.com

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British beach littered with WW2 bombs

2012-07-24T13:04:48+02:00

A British beach has been closed as Army bomb disposal experts deal with nearly 1000 bombs and rockets littering the sand after storms uncovered the remnants of a World War II bombing range.

The deadly arsenal cascaded on to Mappleton Beach near Hornsea after being dislodged from cliffs by the bad weather.

Army experts have already blown up at least 15 of the old bombs.

Police fear that more rockets and bombs will be uncovered as the cliffs continue to crumble, Britain's Daily Mail newspaper reported.

Authorities are warning that, while many of the rockets and bombs are dummy rounds, people should not try to grab souvenirs.

A 24-hour guard has been placed on the beach.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/14351022/beach-littered-with-world-war-ii-bombs/

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Christchurch cardboard cathedral concept gains consent...

2012-07-23T07:41:44+02:00

The Christchurch cardboard cathedral concept has gained consent. It would be financed from insurance paid out for the earthquake damaged Christ Church Cathedral that is being dismantled. Although $45 million has been paid out to the Anglican Church in Canterbury, it is most unlikely to be used for the construction of a new cathedral. The dismantling was paused while alternative engineering reports could be considered - but the cathedral will come down to a height of one-two metres. Our cathedral, my cathedral is lost for ever! Only a copy or something similar could be constructed in the future.

But naturally, this is not a priority in a city that has lost hundreds of homes and has thousands of homes to be repaired. It could be a decade before any consideration could be given for a replacement. In the meantime a multi-million cardboard cathedral will have to suffice!

http://peter-petterson.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/christchurch-cardboard-cathedral.html

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Kiwi conservation groups seek to modify economic zone legislation to protect the marine environment...

2012-07-20T09:43:58+02:00

Kiwi green groups mounting a last ditch effort to modify new legislation to protect the marine environment from mining exploration

Green groups are reportedly mounting a last ditch effort to modify new legislation governing New Zealand's vast exclusive economic zone to protect the marine environment from carte blanche offshore oil, gas and mining exploration. The present John Key-led National Government is totally obsessed with deep-sea mining possibilities and appears to have lost focus on the bigger picture - any environmental disasters could totally destroy New Zealand's marine environment. Neither New Zealand or the international community has the ability to mount a defence against such scenarios.

The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) along with Forest and Bird, WWF-New Zealand and the Ecological Society have issued an open letter outlining their collective concerns.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Green-groups-attempt-to-change-ocean-bill/tabid/1160/articleID/261898/Default.aspx

http://ecospree.com

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Reluctant hero, SAS Corporal Willie Apiata VC has retired to civilian life

2012-07-19T04:39:54+02:00

Controversially photographed while on patrol in Kabul.

The New Zealand army's reluctant hero and only living VC winner, SAS Corporal Willie Apiata has retired from the service to work with at risk youth at the Highwire Trust in Auckland.

Willie joined the SAS in 2001 after serving with the NZ Army in East Timor. He was awarded the VC in 2004 after carrying a wounded comrade to safety under fire of machine guns and rifles after an ambush by the Taleban. After returning to NZ for a rest and the medal investiture, Corporal Apiata returned to Afghanistan. NZ has withdrawn its SAS from Afghanistan, and Willie Apiata is one of five SAS troopers to retire. Willie served a total of 20 years in the NZ Defence Force. He has a partner and child to consider now, and is nearly forty years old. He has given great service to New Zealand and has found a new career in civilian life to utilise those skills gained and honed in the military.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XmSg2GUbEg Reluctant hero.

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The miracle berry from Africa...

2012-07-18T09:21:30+02:00

The miracle berry from Africa...

The berry makes sour things taste sweet

Imagine an extract from a berry that would make sour things taste sweet and help you lose weight. Then imagine not being allowed to take it.

The world is getting fatter. One billion people are overweight, and 300 million of those are clinically obese.

The search is always on for replacements for those things that, eaten in excess, make us obese - fatty and sugary foods. There is no miracle pill that can replace either. Nearly four decades ago one man came close to providing a tablet that could reduce our love of sugar. In the 1960s, Robert Harvey, a biomedical postgraduate student, encountered the miracle berry, a fruit from west Africa which turns sour tastes to sweet.

iPlayer
"You can eat a berry and then bite into a lemon," says Harvey. "It becomes not only sweeter, but it will be the best lemon you've tasted in your life."
More importantly, this "miracle" can be used to manufacture sweet tasting foods without sugar or sweeteners, which have always been plagued by an after-taste.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7367548.stm

http://www.localforage.com/local_forage/2007/04/natural_sweeten.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum

http://huttshealthhub.blogspot.com

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Focus on stigmatisation of mentally ill wrong...

2012-07-15T06:33:37+02:00

Focus on stigmatisation of mentally ill wrong - a new story from New Zealand this week...

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists have come under fire from the Sensible Sentencing Trust following a press release published in the wake of Dean Clark's murder by a mental health patient under District Health Board care.

Sensible Sentencing Trust Mental Health Issues spokesman, Graeme Moyle, whose brother Colin was murdered in 2007, in similar circumstances to Mr Clark has criticised claims in the press release as inaccurate and out of date.

"The College of Psychiatrists is concerned" Mr Moyle said, "not about public safety and the fact that dangerously unwell patients are abandoned and untreated, but with the possibility that media coverage of events like Mr Clarks murder may lead to labeling and stigmatising of those with mental illness. Give me a break! Maybe if these patients were given the care and treatment they require before these incidents occur the media would have nothing to report. Perhaps the RANZCP should look at how these tragedies could be prevented in the first place, rather than attacking the press when they report on them".

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/14234154/focus-on-stigmatisation-of-mentally-ill-wrong-sensible-sentencing/

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The crazed users of the synthetic cannabis drug "bathsalts" even committing cannabilism...

2012-07-14T12:35:32+02:00

You may or may not have heard or read about the new drug sensation - the 'bathsalts' publicity that is reportedly reaching fever pitch in the US - what isn't? Frankly I only became aware a few days ago.

There are horror stories of people under this drug's disgusting influence committing all sorts of violent acts including cannibilism; attacking and eating the family dog and even other humans. It is another of those synthetic cannabis drugs known as K2. How low can these so-called human beings go? In NZ 28 varieties of these synthetic drugs have been banned so far. These are crazed zombie-like people depicted in many horror films in recent years. One crazed person attacked a car's driver and police had to shoot the man repeatedly to stop his crazed attack.

http://www.inquisitr.com/263330/man-on-bath-salts-like-drug-kills-and-eats-family-dog/

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/10/obama-signs-federal-ban-on-bath-salt-drugs/

President Obama has already signed a Federal ban on the drug...

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Scientists have assembled a "timeline" of the unseen progress of Alzheimer' before symptoms appear...

2012-07-13T12:41:24+02:00

Scientists have assembled a "timeline" of the unseen progress of Alzheimer's before symptoms appear.

A team at Washington University School of Medicine looked at families with a genetic risk of the disease.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, they say signs appeared up to 25 years before the expected onset of the disease.

UK experts said the ability to detect Alzheimer's early would give the best chance of successful treatment.

'Key changes'

The 128 people in the study, from the UK, US and Australia, had a 50% chance of inheriting one of three mutations that are certain to cause early Alzheimer's, which often develops in people's 30s and 40s - much earlier than the more common form of Alzheimer's which generally affects people in their 60s.

Those who carry the mutations will go on to develop the disease.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18796309#

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17368317 Eyesight a clue:

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What about using high speed vacuum tube trains?

2012-07-11T12:48:19+02:00

Terraspan's giant, 4,000 mph (6,437 km/h) vacuum tube train, which also doubles as a superconducting power line.

In the 1800s, when pneumatic tubes shot telegrams and small items all around buildings and sometimes small cities, the future of mass transit seemed clear: we'd be firing people around through these sealed tubes at high speeds. And it turns out we've got the technology to do that today – mag-lev rail lines remove all rolling friction from the energy equation for a train, and accelerating them through a vacuum tunnel can eliminate wind resistance to the point where it's theoretically possible to reach blistering speeds over 4,000 mph (6,437 km/h) using a fraction of the energy an airliner uses – and recapturing a lot of that energy upon deceleration. Ultra-fast, high efficiency ground transport is technologically within reach – so why isn't anybody building it?

The next frontier of speed

Vacuum tube-based transport has a lot of things going for it. Speed, for one. Anyone who has spent time on a fast motorcycle knows that even without any wind, the air itself is a brutally powerful force working against your engine as you get up above 125 mph (200 km/h). In fact, air resistance is the number one problem to combat as speeds increase. Airliners have to fly 40,000 feet up in the air to take advantage of the reduced drag you get when the air thins out a bit. And even with this advantage, they still can't cruise much faster than 570 mph (917 km/h) without being horribly inefficient.

Take air resistance and rolling resistance away by operating in a vacuum and magnetically levitating your vehicle, and it takes more or less the same amount of energy to accelerate from 3,000 to 3,050 mph (4,828 to 4,908 km/h) as it takes to get from 50 to 100 mph (80 to 161 km/h). And once you reach your top speed, you simply stop accelerating, apply no further energy, and coast. You lose very little speed until you reach your destination, at which point you can slow your vehicle down electromagnetically and recapture almost all the energy you put in to speed it up.

Theoretically, with the right length of vacuum tube set up, you could zoom all the way around the world in a matter of hours, nearly ten times faster than today's airliners. Operating in a vacuum, these vehicles would make almost no sound, even as they smashed through the sound barrier, because there'd be no air for them to create sonic vibrations in. With no actual points of contact or friction with the track or tube, there would be virtually no energy lost to heat dissipation.

http://www.gizmag.com/terraspan-vacuum-tube-train-supersonic-ultra-fast/23267/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=362338df7a-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

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Berries and your brain...

2012-07-11T10:52:17+02:00

Summer in the Northern Hemisphere signals an influx of fresh berries. These seasonal fruits are more than just tasty: they may also be good for your brain and your long-term health.

Nutritionists have long touted the benefits of berries' high antioxidant levels. But now neuroscientists are also looking deeper into the mental benefits of consuming berries: a particular subclass of antioxidants found in berries, anthocyanidins, can cross the blood brain barrier and affect the brain.

In a 2012 article from Annals of Neurology, researchers investigated the effects of anthocyanidin-rich blueberries and strawberries over long periods of time.

http://nz.mg261.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.partner=tnz&.rand=9mr43g8jp1drk

http://luminosity.com

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Pomengranate juice may slow the progression of prostate cancer...

2012-07-10T11:27:50+02:00

Pomegranate Juice May Slow Progression of Prostate Cancer

Drinking 250ml of pomegranate juice daily may slow the progression of localized prostate cancer that hasn't spread.

The study included 48 men who had surgery or radiation therapy to treat localized prostate cancer.

When the study started in 2003, the men's PSA levels were doubling every 15 months.

100% of the men that drank the pomegranate juice daily, slowed down the times it took for their PSA levels to double as reported by the researchers.

Following this, the researchers including Stanford University urologist Allan Pantuck MD kept tracking the patients every 3 months. 15 of the patients stayed with the study for up to 64 months (a little more than 5 years) and it typically took four times longer for their PSA doubling time at the start of the study.

In 2007, another team of researchers bought pomegrantes, and make their own pomegranate juice, and tested it against hman cancer cells grafted into mice. Those tumours grew slower than other tumours treated with a placebo.

Other studies have shown other benefits such as drinking 1.7 ounces of pomegranate juice per day lowered systolic blood pressure by as much as 5 percent.

Pomegranate juice is a great source of antioxidants and phytonutrients and contains a concentrated source of potassium.

Sources: http://www.healthdiaries.com/ eatthis/11-health-benefits-of- pomegranate-juice.html; http://www.ehow.com/about_ 5062936_nutrients- pomegranates-contain.html#; http://www.webmd.com/prostate-

Acknowledgements: Chris Rogers for Quantum Health
www.quantumhealth.com.au

http://huttshealthhub.blogspot.com

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Is Einsteins's theory outdated? Is Einstein right?

2012-07-10T04:28:20+02:00

Scientists have been plagued by Einstein’s theories which state nothing can travel faster than light. But over the past decade or so, we have seen a new branch of physics theorized, one which might give Einstein cause for pause. It’s called Superluminal Electromagnetic Field / Wave Propagation, which is basically a form of faster than light relativity. Experiments have been conducted by several scientists which involve light and radio sources traveling at speeds well in excess of the speed of light. Seem possible?

Earlier this year, a physicist called John Singleton created an application of this theory which he believes could greatly advance semiconductors.

Called a polarization synchrotron, the device combines radio waves with a rapidly spinning magnetic field. The effect is described as “abusing the radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light”.

So is Einstein's theory outdated? Is Einstein right? Read more below:

http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/faster-than-light-radio-waves-could-revolutionize-computer-industries-20090630/

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Banjo the prehistoric super-killer has been unearthed in Victoria...

2012-07-08T07:01:41+02:00

Introducing 'Banjo' from prehistoric Australia - (no relation to Banjo Patterson) -Australovenator wintonensis is his official title. Scientists have discovered a frightening weapon used by one of Australia's deadliest prehistoric predators to attack its prey...

A bizarre bony-toothed, giant bird fossil, with a 5m wingspan, has been discovered in Victoria.

The 5-million-year-old giant bony-toothed bird Pelagornis. (Credit: Museum Victoria / Peter Trusler)

BIZARRE GIANT BONY-TOOTHED birds once soared over Australia, palaeontologists have discovered.

The Pelagornis, with a wingspan of 5m, was the largest flying animal to exist on Earth after the extinction of pterosaurs 65 million years ago.

Dated to five million years old, the fossil leg bone discovered in Beaumaris Bay in Melbourne, Victoria, by palaeontologist Erich Fitzgerald from Museum Victoria, gives new insight into the evolution of seabirds in Australia.

"Pelagornis is just one of Victoria's long-lost marine megafauna, which included bus-sized sharks, giant penguins, killer sperm whales and dugongs. Life was larger back then," said Erich in a statement.

Bony-toothed birds

Pelagornis is part of the Pelagornithidae family, a group of ancient birds which sport a tooth-like projection on their beaks. "Bony-toothed birds are enigmatic extinct seabirds with a long history spanning over 50 million years," Erich said. "They were previously known from all continents except Australia...We knew next to nothing about the evolution of seabirds in Australia [and] this finding shows us that there has been a significant change in seabird diversity between five million years ago and now."

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/giant-bony-toothed-bird-fossil-found-in-australia.htm

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/aussie-banjo-dinosaur-had-giant-claw.htm

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The 'Doggerland' of Europe

2012-07-04T06:30:46+02:00

Britain's own "Atlantis" has been located at the bottom of the North Sea - it was a huge undersea world finally swallowed by the sea 6500 years ago.

"Doggerland" was a huge stretch of land ranging from Scotland to Denmark. Prehistoric Britain was connected to mainland Europe. It was not an island like it is today. Great hairy mammoths and other large animals roamed freely there. It has been described as the real heartland of old Europe, populated by tens of thousands of human beings. But the effects of natural climate change saw a general warming that melted the iceflows and led to rising sea levels. It was slowly submerged by water over a period of time from 18000- 5500 BC. As the land was revealed by the melting ice it would have been utilised by those early Europeans tens of thousands of years ago.

In recent times a team of climatologists, archaeologists and geophysicists have mapped the underwater area using new data from oil and gas companies drilling in the North Sea. Their divers have revealed the full extent of that lost land once roamed by mammoths - the submerged "Doggerland" was once larger than many of the modern European countries. Old Britannia settled and named by the Romans has a history of tens of thousands of years earlier than the invading legions of Julius Caesar. It also dwarfs the legendary Atlantis in comparison.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167731/Britains-Atlantis-North-sea--huge-undersea-kingdom-swamped-tsunami-5-500-years-ago.html

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That cheeky bald eagle stealing off a fisherman...

2012-07-03T10:46:01+02:00

That cheeky bald eagle stealing off a fisherman...

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/bald-eagle-steals-catch-fisherman-pole-photos-203014992.html View the pictures:

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Is New Zealand's smoke free prisons policy a success...

2012-07-02T07:44:10+02:00

Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is offered to all prisoners and staff who want to quit the smoking habit.

The year-old smoking ban smoke-free in prisons is being hailed as a success by the Government and the Corrections Department.

Corrections Minister Anne Tolley says the ban, introduced on July 1 last year, had improved air quality and safety with a 72 percent reduction in fire-related incidents.

Department chief executive Ray Smith says it was the single most important health initiative that could have been taken for 8500 prisoners and 4500 staff nationwide.

The campaign started two years ago, and from November 1 last year to May 22 this year 4177 of the 5661 identified smokers have taken up the NRT offer.

Because smoking is not now permitted in New Zealand prisons, it will be difficult to assess just how many prisoners have actually given up the smoking habit; not until they have been released from prison.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Smoke-free-prisons-a-success/tabid/1607/articleID/259855/Default.aspx

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The internet is part of the global information community - not the private realm of the USA...

2012-06-29T07:25:48+02:00

Prison for linking to a website; you would have to be joking? But you are not joking!

Jimmy Wales created Wikipedia. Now he's created a petition to stop the U.K. from sending a 24-year-old Internet entrepreneur to the US to be prosecuted for linking to TV shows on his website.

Two years ago, Richard O'Dwyer was in his second year of college in the U.K. In his spare time he ran a website that acted as a search engine for users to find links to watch TV and movies online.

He respected the rules -- deleting content when he received requests to remove it. But despite this, he’s now been accused of copyright violation and could face 10 years in a U.S. prison, after the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, signed an extradition order in March.

Richard is not a U.S. citizen, he's lived in the U.K. all his life, his site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the U.S. The U.S. is trying to prosecute a U.K. citizen for an alleged crime which took place on U.K. soil.

Given the thin case against him, it is an outrage that he is being extradited to the U.S. to face charges. That's why I've just launched a petition on Change.org to stop his extradition -- and why I hope you will sign it today. Click here to sign the petition.

When I met Richard, he struck me as a clean-cut, geeky kid. Still a student, he reminds me of many great entrepreneurs and the kind of person I can imagine launching the next Wikipedia or YouTube.

Copyright matters but from the beginning of the internet, we have seen a struggle between the interests of the "content industry" and the general public.

Richard is the human face of that battle, and if he's extradited and convicted, he will bear the very real human cost.

The internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship as a response to mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand up for our rights online.

Together, the public won the battle against SOPA and PIPA. We proved that when we work together we can protect freedom on the internet. Together, I know we can win this battle too.

Join me and sign my petition to stop the extradition of UK citizen Richard O'Dwyer.

Thanks,

- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder (Link below)

This story has so many similarities to the Kim Dotcom controversy in New Zealand. Mr Dotcom has to face an extradition order hearing in August. Like Richard O'Dwyer, Mr Dotcom is not an American citizen and does not have an American based website. Just in recent days the New Zealand High Court has come out in favour of Kim Dotcom - declaring the charges against him invalid and the police raid and confiscation of his property illegal. One would get the impression that the United States thinks it owns the internet - they don't, it is a global source of information. It is important that the global community sends a message to the United States.

Peter Petterson
Wellington
New Zealand

http://nz.mg261.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.partner=tnz&.rand=9mr43g8jp1drk

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Great way to spend a thousand bucks - control a US Government drone aircraft...

2012-06-28T04:00:32+02:00

So you have a spare thousand bucks, eh? There are certainly a lot of cool things you could spend it on. But scientists at a Texas college came up with a real cool idea - hacking into a US Government drone aircraft. A group of researchers led by Professor Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas at the Austin Radionavigation Laboratory, recently succeeded in raising the eyebrows of the US Government - by spending a thousand dollars on parts and actually controlling one of the Department of Homeland Defence's unmanned drone aircraft. Read about it here:

http://rt.com/usa/news/texas-1000-us-government-906/

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Google gearing for battle with its major show-and-tell...

2012-06-27T10:14:12+02:00

The leaked images of the Nexus 7 first reported by Gizmodo Australia.

SAN FRANCISCO: Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, opens overnight Australian time with a raft of expected announcements including the much-anticipated launch of a cut-price, 7-inch tablet, the Nexus 7.

While the hardware may grab the headlines, Google is mostly about software. So expect to see a bunch of new stuff around core Google areas including the cloud, maps, the Android and Chrome operating systems and Google TV.

One definite no-show, however, is Google chief executive Larry Page. Page, who turns 40 next March, and has been sidelined since earlier this month with an unexplained ailment which caused him to lose his voice.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-gears-for-battle-with-major-showandtell-20120627-21108.html

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"I have a dream" education program in Auckland ,NZ...

2012-06-26T06:11:11+02:00

When millionaire Scott Gilmour returned to New Zealand after 12 years in the US, he wanted to do something to uplift the educational achievements of children from poor homes - from the decile one schools.

Now Scott has been putting his money where his mouth is and has started his version of the American "I have a dream" project and is helping kids from poorer families in Auckland, a great many from Pasifika backgrounds. He has adopted many of the projects he observed in the Unites States, where whole classes where adopted and sponsored by wealthy business people. View the video below about Scott's project in Auckland:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/multimedia/tv/national/67994.html The video:

http://www.ihaveadream.org.nz/ The Trust:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PXZwbNNhrA American video:

http://toped.svefoundation.org/2012/06/19/californias-first-class-dreamers/ The Californian model:

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Jokes, taxes and Cameron's double standards...

2012-06-25T23:12:39+02:00

Here is my first piece since our protest. It is Tuesday morning here in New Zealand. I thought British readers would enjoy this post:

"Jokes, taxes, and Cameron's double standards - how to rip off the Exchequer"...

Just a short piece this week, kids.

Sit down, cross your legs – we’re going to talk about taxes.

Semi-hilarious and reasonably controversial British comedian Jimmy Carr has been unveiled by The Times newspaper as a rife tax-avoider.

Carr is one of those one-liner comics who seem to walk the same libel suit tightropes as Frankie ‘Visible Eczema’ Boyle with cracks about anyone and anything within hollering distance including - funnily enough – the UK Tory-led Government: more on which later.

Apparently, Carr has sent more than £3.3m to the tax-haven Island Jersey to a company called K2, which then sends that same coinage back in the form of a personal loan which is not subject to income tax.

All up, he pays roughly 1% tax of what he should.

The once-pudgy Carr was recently heckled about the sniveling scheme during a live show to which he responded “I pay what I have to and not a penny more”.

Some might look upon Carr’s actions as surprising given his regular slot as regular host of 10 O’clock Live, alongside David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker. To say that the show leans to the left would be an understatement. Yet that surprise blow to Carr’s reputation really ought to be lessened owing to his history as an exec at oil company Shell during the early part of his career.

The buffoonish Tory Prime Minister David Cameron has waded wondrously in to the debate, insisting that “people work hard, they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of [Carr’s] shows. They buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax avoiding schemes. That is wrong.”

This is coming from the man who rushed to look up the word “pasty” in the Oxford Dictionary during the ‘Pastygate’ scandal of March this year and the subsequent U-turn. Also from the man who has never had to ‘save up’ for anything in his life.

But this is also coming from the man who allowed the news of Amazon.com’s zero corporate tax bill to drift in to the ether. More than £7bn was transferred to a Luxembourg holding company over three years.

This is the same man who fell silent after members of his Customs and Revenues department made an allegedly illegal deal with Vodafone to cull their £4.8bn tax bill.

It’s a blunt slap to the face laced with hypocrisy that he berates an individual for being “morally wrong” whilst encouraging groups of people whose consequences have further reaching implications than Carr’s.

Think of all the police, health service, and education jobs could have been saved by the collection of both Vodafone and Amazon’s tax bills. Go after them Mr. Cameron! They are the ones who are morally reprehensible.

Vodafone UK once said on their website that “the maximisation of shareholder value will generally involve the minimisation of taxation” but if we’re to apply that ethos to Mr Carr, does that mean we’ll get better comedy out of him if he earns more and refuses to pay his fair share?