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Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach can battle back by growing their own food. [Click image for a larger version] Dean Fosdick Dean Fosdick Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies. At the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta this winter, D. Landreth Seed Co. of New Freedom, Pa., sold three to four times more seed packets than last year, says Barb Melera, president. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say, 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in...

Clinton T. Rubin knows full well that his recent results are surprising — that no one has been more taken aback than he. And he cautions that it is far too soon to leap to conclusions about humans. But still, he says, what if ... ? And no wonder, other scientists say. Dr. Rubin, director of the Center for Biotechnology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is reporting that in mice, a simple treatment that does not involve drugs appears to be directing cells to turn into bone instead of fat. All he does is put...

It has always been believed, but never proven that French clay can kill several varieties of bacteria that cause diseases. Today, a researcher at Arizona State University at Tempe is leading a study to show why certain minerals kill certain bacteria. French clay has been shown to kill Mycobacterium ulcerans, or M. Ulcerans, which is so epidemical in Africa. It also treats Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is responsible for deadly infections that are difficult to treat. Furthermore, it has been known for thousands of years that people have used clay for healing wounds, helping indigestion, and killing intestinal worms....

Foreign investors slashed their holdings of US securities by a record amount as the credit squeeze intensified, according to the latest Treasury figures. The Treasury International Capital report – known as the Tic – for August will be closely watched because it appears amid growing concerns about the weakness of the US dollar, which hit a record low recently against a basket of major currencies. “The bad news is that [the data] plainly show how vulnerable the dollar is to a continuation of the credit crunch-risk averse environment,” said Alan Ruskin, chief international strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital. “There is...

1 Best Free Web Browser Internet Explorer is a good browser but it has become such a target for malicious exploits that it is now a major security risk. Quite separately, the browser itself is now looking dated with most alternative products offering tabbed browsing and other productivity enhancements. There are several excellent alternatives but Mozilla Firefox is the stand-out pick. It's safer than Internet Explorer, so safe in fact that many users have reported no spyware infections since they started using the product. It's also browses faster than Internet Explorer and since the release of version 1.0, it's stable...

BoingBoing reader Mary Kalin-Casey says, The new Google Maps zoom feature zooms all the way into my living room window. See cat on cat perch. I'm all for mapping, but this feature literally gives me the shakes. I feel like I need to close all my curtains now. I'm going to look into whether it's possible for a person to have pictures of their home removed from Google Maps. Meanwhile, I'm happy to show bb readers the photo in the interest of illustrating creepy privacy violations. Heck, the whole world can see him anyway. Link. Dang, it's so detailed, I...

Niacin expected to grow as heart treatment CLEVELAND, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- A Cleveland doctor says use of niacin as a cholesterol drug is likely to increase following the failure of a drug that was found to increase heart problems. Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at the famed Cleveland Clinic and president of the American College of Cardiology, said niacin, a B vitamin that raises HDL, commonly known as good cholesterol, is likely to increase in prominence after trials of the Pfizer Inc. cholesterol drug torcetrapib failed, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Raising HDL levels in patients helps to...

If you want to feel younger, forget your statins By James LeFanu, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 11:20pm GMT 17/03/2007 A doctor accused of wittingly prescribing useless or possibly lethal drugs would vehemently - and understandably - deny it. This makes it rather difficult to oppose the prevailing medical consensus on statins - the cholesterol-lowering drugs prescribed to four million people in Britain at a cost of £1 billion a year. That's quite a sum. It could pay the salaries of 700,000 nurses or build two spanking new teaching hospitals. An even bigger sum is £15 billion. That is the profit...

Source: University of Alberta Date: March 17, 2007 Why Computers Frustrate Older Adults Science Daily — A number of evolving social changes highlight the importance of making computer technology accessible and usable for older adults. For instance, older adults are using email increasingly to keep up their social contact with others and are using the Internet to look up health information. An innovative research study was conducted at the University of Alberta which analyzed the performance outcomes of older adults when being tested on the computer and Internet. What researchers found can be applied as a 'best practice' when teaching...

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It's a mechanical problem that's troubled scientists since Archimedes and the ancient Greeks but now an electrician has come up with a new invention that could help save consumers thousands of pounds in energy bills. Scotsman Ian Gilmartin, 60, and his friend Bob Cattley, 58, both from Kendal, Cumbria have invented a mini-waterwheel capable of supplying enough electricity to power a house - for free. The contraption is designed to be used in small rivers or streams - ideal for potentially thousands of homes across Britain. It is the first off-the-shelf waterwheel system which can generate a good supply of...

Monasteries and Madrassas: Five Myths About Christianity, Islam, and the Middle Ages By H. W. Crocker III Does Islam need a Reformation? Not unless you think it would benefit from additional dollops of Puritanism; further encouragement to smash altars, stained glass, and other forms of ?idolatry?; prodding to ban riotous celebrations like Christmas and Easter; and support for fundamentalist Islamic schools that insist on sola Korana and sola Sunnah . Indeed, it would seem that Islam has already had its reformers. Railing against the corruption of the West (let's call it ?Rome? for short) have been such modern Islamic...

It's not easy to remove Microsoft's anti-piracy program, but it can be done Scot Finnie Today’s Top Stories or Other Windows Stories July 30, 2006 (Computerworld) -- Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) software is installed on computers running Windows XP via Microsoft's online update services. For most XP users, that means Automatic Updates, which Microsoft has worked very hard since Windows XP SP2 to make us run in full-automatic mode. WGA has already appeared in several beta versions, with slightly different behaviors, and Microsoft appears to be still actively developing this tool. For many people, the fact that the software giant...

I recently had the privilege of speaking with actor Stephen Baldwin for an interview that I had been looking forward to for quite some time. Stephen Baldwin is the youngest in a family of charismatic movie stars that consists of four handsome blue eyed brothers from my hometown of Long Island, New York. This modern day Hollywood dynasty includes brothers Alec, William, Daniel and the baby, Stephen. Stephen Baldwin first made a name for himself in the nineties television show, The Young Riders, and then went on to star in romantic comedies like: Threesome; the Academy Award winning crime...

Julian Nott and Jim Woodman tested their theory that manned smoke balloons of cotton and reed not only controlled these designs but may also have been used for ceremonial/religious festivals in which important members of the society who had died were transported on a ritualistic journey to the sun, the god they worshipped... "To our surprise," says Nott, "the quality of the smoke was crucial. Modern historians--laughing at the Montgolfiers, who believed that what was being burned to heat the balloon was important--claim that all that mattered was the heat. However, this balloon showed that it is essential to have...

Because of my many years as a conservative in elected office, I have been asked by others, "how did we get in this mess we are in?" The great author Robert Louis Stevenson wisely said, "Sooner or later in life, we all sit down to a banquet of consequences." That's what's happening now, we're at the banquet. Here is a brief synopsis of how it happened. Many Americans believe that the core religious values, which founded and sustained this nation, have not only been sadly neglected but also forgotten. In so doing, the public is finding out what political ignorance...

Mayor Louis Barletta of Hazelton, PA, burst onto the national scene last month when he testified before a special Senate “field hearing” in Philadelphia about the impact of illegal immigration on the quality of life in his tiny community (pop. 22,000 to 31,000, according to various estimates), a former coal-mining town just south of Wilkes-Barre: “We've seen a dramatic increase in gang-style graffiti, some of which has included threats to kill police officers,” Mr. Barletta said of his small town in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania. … Mr. Barletta said four men charged with murder in...

Napolean 5'2" Hitler 5'7" Attila 4'6" Stalin 5'4" Khrushchev 5'3" Ahmadinejad 5'0"

Can a tumor become a new form of life? This is the freaky but serious question that arises from a new study in the journal Cell. Scientists from London and Chicago have studied a peculiar cancer that afflicts dogs, known as canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) or Sticker's sarcoma. It is a cancer of immune cells called histiocytes, and dogs typically develop grapefruit-sized tumors that disappear after a few months. Some scientists have suggested that Sticker's sarcoma can be transmitted from dog to dog, either by mating or by licking or touching a tumor. They noted that the tumor cells...