Some computer keyboards harbor more harmful bacteria than a toilet seat, research has suggested. Consumer group Which? said tests at its London offices found equipment carrying bugs that could cause food poisoning. Out of 33 keyboards swabbed, four were regarded as a potential health hazard and one harbored five times more germs than one of the office's toilet seats. Microbiologist Dr Peter Wilson said a keyboard was often "a reflection of what is in your nose and in your gut". During the Which? tests in January this year, a microbiologist deemed one of the office's keyboards to be so dirty he ordered it to be removed, quarantined and cleaned. It had 150 times the recommended limit for bacteria - five times as filthy as a lavatory seat tested at the same time, the research found.
Should somebody have a cold in your office, or even have gastroenteritis, you're very likely to pick it up from a keyboard, according to Dr Peter Wilson Consultant microbiologist
The equipment was swabbed for bugs, such as those that can cause food poisoning like E.coli and staphylococcus aureus. Dr Wilson, a consultant microbiologist at University College London Hospital, told BBC Radio 5 Live sharing a keyboard could be passing on illnesses among office workers.
"If you look at what grows on computer keyboards, and hospitals are worse, believe it or not, it's more or less a reflection of what's in your nose and in your gut," he said. "Should somebody have a cold in your office, or even have gastroenteritis, you're very likely to pick it up from a keyboard."
Which? said one of the causes of dirty keyboards was users eating lunch at their desk, with crumbs encouraging the growth of bacteria. Poor personal hygiene, such as not washing hands after going to the toilet, could also be to blame, it said
Which? computing editor Sarah Kidner advised users to give their computer "a spring clean". "It's quite simple to do and could prevent your computer from becoming a health hazard," she said. She said dust and food crumbs should be shaken out of keyboards and they should be wiped with a soft, lightly dampened, lint-free cloth. They should also be disinfected with alcohol wipes.
They also found that, compared to men, on average women have three to four times the amount of germs in, on and around their work area.
If you flush with the lid up, a polluted plume of bacteria and water vapor erupts out of the flushing toilet bowl. The polluted water particles float for a few hours around your bathroom before they all land. Some of them will land on your tooth brush.
Scientists also found that in the home, the kitchen sponge had the highest germ count, followed by the kitchen sink. The lowest bacteria count, out of 15 household locations, was the toilet seat. He said (perhaps a little jokingly), "If an alien came from space and studied the bacterial counts, he probably would conclude he should wash his hands in your toilet". He went on to say what they might do in your sink.
So if you flush with the lid up, you are probably brushing your teeth with toilet water. I guess that's one story to tell the males in your household, so that they put the lid down, because if the put the lid down, they have to put the seat down as well.
In mid-2001, he and his team looked for five different types of bacteria (E. coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Streptococcus, Salmonella and Staphyloccus aureus). They studied offices at four locations - New York City, San Francisco, Tampa in Florida, and Tucson, Arizona. At each site, they tested surfaces three times a day for 5 days. They sampled 12 different surfaces - desktop, phone, computer mouse, computer keyboard, microwave door handle, elevator button, photocopier start button, photocopier surface, toilet seat, fax machine, refrigerator handle and the water fountain handle. The team wanted to see the effect of cleaning the surface. So at each location, one group of employees used disinfecting wipes to clean the surfaces they worked with, while the other group did not. (The study was partly funded by a company which makes disinfecting wipes.)
The results were astonishing. In terms of bacteria per square inch, they found that the phone receiver was the filthiest - 25,000 (probably because many people can share the same phone). This was followed by the desktop at 21,000, the computer keyboard at 3,300 and the computer mouse at 1,700. The least contaminated surface was the toilet seat with only 49 bacteria per square inch - making it about 50 times cleaner than the desktop. Gerba says that, for bacteria, the "desk is really the laptop of luxury. They can feast all day from breakfast to lunch and even dinner."
After the charitable endeavor of Idol Gives Back, it was back to the business of elimination on American Idol. American Idol is never a show to steer away from controversy, which was evidenced by the American Idol finalists performing an encore of “Shout To The Lord.” As Reality TV Magazine reported, the song was edited to change “My Jesus” to “My Shepherd” during the Idol Gives Back performance. This time, the finalists sang the “My Jesus, My Savior” line. After a celebrity dance video, Ryan Seacrest revealed that over thirty-one million votes were cast for the top 8 finalists. First, Seacrest called Brooke White to center stage. Seacrest had Brooke read his card that revealed she was safe. Next, Seacrest called David Cook to center stage and revealed that he was safe. Finally, Seacrest called David Archuleta to center stage and revealed that he was also safe. american idol resultsamerican idol resultsAfter an Idol Gives Back video segment with Forest Whitaker, American Idol 6 winner Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown performed “No Air.” For the Ford music video, the American Idol top 8 finalists performed “I Just Want To Celebrate.” First, Ryan Seacrest called Jason Castro to center stage and revealed that he was safe. Next, Seacrest called Kristy Lee Cook to center stage and revealed that she was also safe. Since five finalists had been announced as safe, it meant the american idol resultsjason castro is outjason castro is out
First came BlogRush and then Entrecard; does the blogosphere have room for another link/banner exchange program? Since most bloggers would do anything for an extra few clicks, here’s the scoop on BlogUpp!, a free service that promises to “Connect smart.” Signing up is a breeze, without any type of registration. Just enter your blog’s link, grab the snippet of code and embed on your blog. According to the company, “BlogUpp! snapshots your blog and reads your RSS regularly.”
Blogupp provides a great service on boosting your incoming traffic with a simple widget. It is the easiest and most effective recipe to exchange link by showing the blog thumbnail image. You are not necessary to register the service. Just finish the step 1 and get the code into your blog.
 | idol | May 7, '08 9:10 PM
for everyone |
| blogupp | May 7, '08 9:06 PM
for everyone |
BlogUpp offers free advertising for your blog, provided it's with quality content. The catch, if you want to call it that, is that BlogUpp reserves 1 impression out of 10 for itself, so that for each 10 unique community impressions your blog displays, it gets shown on other blogs 9 times. And everyone gets bonus impressions from the start. Hence you get free advertising in exchange for giving a little love to other bloggers (who will be doing you the same courtesy). All in all, it’s very easy to setup, as there is no registration required, and no account is needed. Only blogs that are related to yours get advertised on your own blog. BlogUpp reads your RSS feeds regularly to insure that you’re only hooked up with like blogs, and shares your article along with the snapshot of the blog.
The Harry Potter films are a fantasy series based on the Harry Potter novels by British writer J. K. Rowling. The five films currently released became the highest grossing film series of all time when not adjusted for inflation, with USD$4.48 billion in worldwide receipts.[2] The series consists of five motion pictures with the latest instalment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, released in cinemas in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 12 July 2007[3], and in Canada, Asia, Australia and the United States on 11 July 2007[4]. In the United States, the revenue from the midnight opening was $12 million and first day revenues overtook Spider-Man 2's record ($40.4 million) for the highest Thursday opening at $44.2 million. Warner Brothers holds the rights to produce adaptations of the two remaining novels, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. [5] The first of these entered production in the fall of 2007 and has a projected release date of November 21, 2008, and will be directed by David Yates. [6] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be split into two films, part one (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1) is due out in November 2010; the second part (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) is due out in May 2011 harry potter, voldemort, he who must not be named,
Carly Smithson is gone. Michael Johns was booted weeks ago. David Archuleta is a top-two lock. Asia'h Epperson and Danny Noriega didn't even get well-deserved slots in the final dozen. American Idol has — as it does around this point almost every season — become a little boring. To be fair, none of this season's contestants have been true howlers. But many of the best have made premature exits. Maybe Aussie Michael Johns' rock-soul riffs were too hard to neatly package. Noriega's androgynous sexuality too controversial for Middle America. Too bad. Smithson had, without a doubt, the strongest voice of any contestant this season and one of the best in Idol history. She sounded — and acted — like a real singer. She sometimes looked nervous, seemed awkward and got her feelings hurt (and not in that pouty White way). But when Smithson connected with the right song, it was magic — and light years ahead of anything else we've heard this season. The final battle is shaping up to be a double-David whammy, unless this week's wide-open Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame theme throws a wrench into things. Archuleta is terrifically cute and safe for 'tween consumption. But it also makes him — here comes that word — boring.
The 39-year-old complainant in the Cebu surgery scandal is eyeing administrative charges against superiors of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center over the incident. Lawyer Magdalena Lepiten, one of the complainant’s lawyers, said on Saturday that the aggrieved party will focus on expanding the list of personalities covered by administrative charges. “We believe the hospital administrators and supervisors should be made accountable. If they managed the hospital well, this would not have happened," Lepiten said in an interview on dzRH radio. She said they are leaving it to the Ombudsman to determine criminal charges against those involved in taking a video of the operation and posting it to the Internet. Earlier, the health department named five doctors and nurses who now face administrative sanctions for their involvement in the incident. The lawyer also said that they will push for more sensitivity training for medical professionals, asserting that government doctors do not see anything wrong with debasing their patients. “Government doctors have become insensitive by dehumanizing and debasing their patients. That is a reflection of their competence. They think they are competent so long as the operation is successful. They must be trained that sensitivity to their patients is also a measure of competence," she said. She added that there is a need for “more education how to treat people regardless of sexuality or sexual orientation." “I don’t think this is isolated case," she said, referring to the case she was handling. Lepiten added that her client is currently trying to find work and is continuing to shy away from media.
| internet | May 6, '08 11:28 AM
for everyone |
It seems like only yesterday that the press was talking about an Internet collapse, but it actually was more than a decade ago and happened because the press thought Bob Metcalfe was predicting the Internet was going to overload and collapse. This time it happened because Nemertes Research, my fellow columnist Johna Till Johnson's company, put out a report that generated a lot of misleading headlines, including the one in Network World . Other headlines were the China Daily's “Internet outages may occur by 2010 as capacity stalls”; iTwire's “Internet to go down in 2010?"; the Times of India's “Superhighway traffic jam could clog Internet”; and InternetRetailing.net's “E-commerce could slow to a halt by 2010." That would be scary stuff if the report actually said anything like that.
The Philippines gets its own version of Playboy magazine without full frontal nudity in deference to the country’s influential Roman Catholic Church. About 86 per cent of the country’s 91 million people are baptized Roman Catholic, and the government’s classification board routinely deletes scenes of nudity from movies. Playboy ran into difficulties when it began publishing in Indonesia in April 2006, minus nudity. It temporarily suspended operations because of protests in the world’s largest Muslim population. The Philippines version is the 25th international franchise of Playboy, which has a global readership of almost 15 million people, according to Playboy Enterprises Inc. The publication will contain articles and fiction from some of the country’s best-known writers, according to Dolor. ******************************** Hugh Hefner (born April 9, 1926) is an American magazine publisher, entrepreneur, and media mogul, best known as the founder, majority owner,and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy.
american idol finals david archuleta david cooke syesha mercado jason castro
"American Idol" will host the series' two-night grand finale from a new home at NOKIA Theatre L.A. LIVE Tuesday, May 20 (8:00-9:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) and Wednesday, May 21 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on Fox. After weeks of performing on the American Idol stage, the two remaining finalists will perform live Tuesday in front of a theater audience of over 7000 as well as millions of viewers watching at home. Then, on Wednesday night, at the end of a two-hour music celebration, Ryan Seacrest will announce the next "American Idol."
battle of the daves david versus david cooke versus archuleta
david cooke david archuleta syesha mercado jason castro
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is also called the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E) In other words, a PageRank results from a "ballot" among all the other pages on the World Wide Web about how important a page is. A hyperlink to a page counts as a vote of support. The PageRank of a page is defined recursively and depends on the number and PageRank metric of all pages that link to it ("incoming links"). A page that is linked to by many pages with high PageRank receives a high rank itself. If there are no links to a web page there is no support for that page. Google assigns a numeric weighting from 0-10 for each webpage on the Internet; this PageRank denotes a site’s importance in the eyes of Google. The scale for PageRank is logarithmic like the Richter Scale and roughly based upon quantity of inbound links as well as importance of the page providing the link. Numerous academic papers concerning PageRank have been published since Page and Brin's original paper.[2] In practice, the PageRank concept has proven to be vulnerable to manipulation, and extensive research has been devoted to identifying falsely inflated PageRank and ways to ignore links from documents with falsely inflated PageRank. Alternatives to the PageRank algorithm include the HITS algorithm proposed by Jon Kleinberg, the IBM CLEVER project and the TrustRank algorithm.
After a Tuesday show that saw the musical attributes of the American Idol Top Five overshadowed by Paula Abdul's perplexing and new-found ability to predict the future, which contestant would be heading home on Wednesday (April 30)? And why can't Paula just tell us the results in advance and save me an hour?
America's Nanny Brooke White ends up going home, leaving Syesha Mercado safe.
| smoking | May 6, '08 10:45 AM
for everyone |
Smoking is an addiction. Tobacco contains nicotine, a drug that is addictive. The nicotine, therefore, makes it very difficult (although not impossible) to quit. In fact, since the U.S. Surgeon General's 1964 report on the dangers of smoking, millions of Americans have quit. Still, more than 430,000 deaths occur in the U.S. each year from smoking-related illnesses. The reason for these deaths is that smoking greatly increases the risk of getting lung cancer, heart attack, chronic lung disease, stroke, and many other cancers. Moreover, smoking is perhaps the most preventable cause of breathing (respiratory) diseases within the USA. Smoking harms not just the smoker, but also family members, coworkers, and others who breathe the smoker's cigarette smoke, called secondhand smoke or passive smoke
Oscar De La Hoya (born February 4, 1973) — nicknamed "The Golden Boy" — is a Mexican American boxer who won a gold medal for the United States Boxing Team at the Barcelona Olympic Games. De La Hoya comes from a boxing family. His grandfather Vicente, father Joel Sr., and brother Joel Jr. were all boxers, but it was Oscar who took his boxing talent to superstar status. De La Hoya became Ring Magazine's "Fighter of the Year" in 1995 and Ring Magazine's top-rated Pound for Pound fighter in the world in 1997. De La Hoya has defeated over a dozen world champions and has won 6 world titles. De La Hoya's amateur career included 223 wins, 163 by way of knockout, with only 5 losses. He won the United States' only boxing gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics, by knocking down his opponent; a win which he dedicated to his deceased mother. After the superfight with Floyd Mayweather in 2007, Oscar De La Hoya became the richest fighter ever in the history of boxing.
THE SKYROCKETING commodity prices that have made the Farm Belt one of the most prosperous regions of the United States have had a rather different impact on large areas of the developing world. Foodstuffs have gone up 41 percent in price since October 2007, pushing many people over the line from poverty into privation or even hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organization, a branch of the United Nations, has identified 36 "crisis" countries, 21 of which are in Africa. The World Food Program, another U.N. agency, estimates that it will need $500 million on top of what donor nations have already pledged to fill what the WFP calls a global " food gap."
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