'Survival of the wrongest' : Columbia Journalism Review

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In late 2011, in a nearly 6,000-word article in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); "><i>The New York Times Magazine</i></a>, health writer Tara Parker-Pope laid out the scientific evidence that maintaining weight loss is a nearly impossible task—something that, in the words of one obesity scientist she quotes, only "rare individuals" can accomplish. Parker-Pope cites a number of studies that reveal the various biological mechanisms that align against people who've lost weight, ensuring that the weight comes back. These findings, she notes, produce a consistent and compelling picture by "adding to a growing body of evidence that challenges conventional thinking about obesity, weight loss, and willpower. For years, the advice to the overweight and obese has been that we simply need to eat less and exercise more. While there is truth to this guidance, it fails to take into account that the human body continues to fight against weight loss long after dieting has stopped. This translates into a sobering reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">But does this mean the obese should stop trying so hard to lose weight? Maybe. Parker-Pope makes sure to include the disclaimer that "nobody is saying" obese people should give up on weight loss, but after spending so much time explaining how the science "proves" it's a wasted effort, her assurance sounds a little hollow.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The article is crammed with detailed scientific evidence and quotes from highly credentialed researchers. It's also a compelling read, thanks to anecdotal accounts of the endless travails of would-be weight-losers, including Parker-Pope's own frustrating failures to remove and keep off the extra 60 pounds or so she says she carries.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In short, it's a well-reported, well-written, highly readable, and convincing piece of personal-health-science journalism that is careful to pin its claims to published research.<br><br>There's really just one problem with Parker-Pope's piece: Many, if not most, researchers and experts who work closely with the overweight and obese would pronounce its main thesis—that sustaining weight loss is nearly impossible—dead wrong, and misleading in a way that could seriously, if indirectly, damage the health of millions of people.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Many readers—including a number of physicians, nutritionists, and mental-health professionals—took to the blogs in the days after the article appeared to note its major omissions and flaws. These included the fact that the research Parker-Pope most prominently cites, featuring it in a long lead, was a tiny study that required its subjects to go on a near-starvation diet, a strategy that has long been known to produce intense food cravings and rebound weight gain; the fact that many programs and studies routinely record sustained weight-loss success rates in the 30-percent range; and Parker-Pope's focus on willpower-driven, intense diet-and-exercise regimens as the main method of weight loss, when most experts have insisted for some time now that successful, long-term weight loss requires permanent, sustainable, satisfying lifestyle changes, bolstered by enlisting social support and reducing the temptations and triggers in our environments—the so-called "behavioral modification" approach typified by Weight Watchers, and backed by research studies again and again.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Echoing the sentiments of many experts, Barbara Berkeley, a physician who has long specialized in weight loss, <a href="http://www.refusetoregain.com/2011/12/the-fat-trap-my-response.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">blogged</a> that the research Parker-Pope cites doesn't match reality. "Scientific research needs to square with what we see in clinical practice," she wrote. "If it doesn't, we should question its validity." David Katz, a prominent physician-researcher who runs the Yale Prevention Research Center and edits the journal <i>Childhood Obesity</i>, charged in his <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/weight_b_1179562.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">Huffington Post blog</a> that Parker-Pope, by listing all the biological mechanisms that work against weight loss, was simply asking the wrong question. "Let's beware the hidden peril of that genetic and biological understanding," he wrote. "It can be hard to see what's going on all around you while looking through the lens of a microscope." In fact, most of us know people—friends, family members, colleagues—who have lost weight and kept it off for years by changing the way they eat and boosting their physical activity. They can't all be freaks of biology, as Parker-Pope's article implies.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The <i>Times</i> has run into similar trouble with other prominent articles purporting to cut through the supposed mystery of why the world keeps getting dangerously fatter. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">One such piece</a> pointed the finger at sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/magazine/13obesity.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">another</a> at bacteria. But perhaps the most controversial of the <i>Times</i>'s solution-to-the-obesity-crisis articles was the magazine's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">cover story</a> in 2002, by science writer Gary Taubes, that made the case that high-fat diets are perfectly slimming—as long as one cuts out all carbohydrates. His article's implicit claim that copious quantities of bacon are good for weight loss, while oatmeal, whole wheat, and fruit will inevitably fatten you up, had an enormous impact on the public's efforts to lose weight, and to this day many people still turn to Atkins and other ultra-low-carb, eat-all-the-fat-you-want diets to try to shed excess pounds. Unfortunately, it's an approach that leaves the vast majority of frontline obesity experts gritting their teeth, because while the strategy sometimes appears to hold up in studies, in the real world such dieters are rarely able to keep the weight off—to say nothing of the potential health risks of <a href="http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/high-protein-low-carbohydrate-diets" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">eating too much fat</a>. And of course, the argument Taubes laid out stands in direct opposition to the claims of the Parker-Pope article. Indeed, most major <i>Times</i> articles on obesity contradict one another, and they all gainsay the longstanding consensus of the field.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">The problem isn't unique to the <i>Times</i>, or to the subject of weight loss. In all areas of personal health, we see prominent media reports that directly oppose well-established knowledge in the field, or that make it sound as if scientifically unresolved questions have been resolved. The media, for instance, have variously supported and shot down the notion that vitamin D supplements can protect against cancer, and that taking daily and low doses of aspirin extends life by protecting against heart attacks. Some reports have argued that frequent consumption of even modest amounts of alcohol leads to serious health risks, while others have reported that daily moderate alcohol consumption can be a healthy substitute for exercise. Articles sang the praises of new drugs like Avastin and Avandia before other articles deemed them dangerous, ineffective, or both.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">What's going on? The problem is not, as many would reflexively assume, the sloppiness of poorly trained science writers looking for sensational headlines, and ignoring scientific evidence in the process. Many of these articles were written by celebrated health-science journalists and published in respected magazines and newspapers; their arguments were backed up with what appears to be solid, balanced reporting and the careful citing of published scientific findings.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">But personal-health journalists have fallen into a trap. Even while following what are considered the guidelines of good science reporting, they still manage to write articles that grossly mislead the public, often in ways that can lead to poor health decisions with catastrophic consequences. Blame a combination of the special nature of health advice, serious challenges in medical research, and the failure of science journalism to scrutinize the research it covers.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Personal-health coverage began to move to the fore in the late 1980s, in line with the media's growing emphasis on "news you can use." That increased attention to personal health ate into coverage of not only other science, but also of broader healthcare issues. A <a href="http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/7869.pdf" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">2009 survey</a> of members of the Association of Health Care Journalists found that more than half say "there is too much coverage of consumer or lifestyle health," and more than two-thirds say there isn't enough coverage of health policy, healthcare quality, and health disparities.<br><br>The author of <a href="http://www.kff.org/entmedia/mh031109pkg.cfm" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">a report</a> based on that survey, Gary Schwitzer, a former University of Minnesota journalism researcher and now publisher of healthcare-journalism watchdog <a href="http://http//www.healthnewsreview.org/" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">HealthNewsReview.org</a>, also conducted a study in 2008 of 500 health-related stories published over a 22-month period in large newspapers. The results suggested that not only has personal-health coverage become invasively and inappropriately ubiquitous, it is of generally questionable quality, with about two-thirds of the articles found to have major flaws. The errors included exaggerating the prevalence and ravages of a disorder, ignoring potential side effects and other downsides to treatments, and failing to discuss alternative treatment options. In the survey, 44 percent of the 256 staff journalists who responded said that their organizations at times base stories almost entirely on press releases. Studies by other researchers have come to similar conclusions.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Thoughtful consumers with even a modest knowledge of health and medicine can discern at a glance that they are bombarded by superficial and sometimes misleading "news" of fad diets, miracle supplements, vaccine scares, and other exotic claims that are short on science, as well as endlessly recycled everyday advice, such as being sure to slather on sun protection. But often, even articles written by very good journalists, based on thorough reporting and highly credible sources, take stances that directly contradict those of other credible-seeming articles.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">There is more at stake in these dueling stories than there would be if the topic at hand were, say, the true authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Personal healthcare decisions affect our lifespan, the quality of our lives, and our productivity, and the result—our collective health—has an enormous impact on the economy. Thirty years ago, misleading health information in the press might not have been such a problem, since at the time physicians generally retained fairly tight control of patient testing and treatment decisions. Today, however, the patient is in the driver's seat when it comes to personal health. What's more, it is increasingly clear that the diseases that today wreak the most havoc—heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's—are most effectively dealt with not through medical treatment, but through personal lifestyle choices, such as diet, exercise, and smoking habits.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Consider the potential damage of bad weight-loss-related journalism. Obesity exacerbates virtually all major disease risks—and more than one in 20 deaths in the US is a premature death related to obesity, according to a <a href="http://abbmcertification.org/inc/assets/articles/Cause%20Specific%20Deaths%20assoc%20overweight.pdf" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">2007 <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> study</a>. Obesity carries an annual price tag of as much as $5,000 a year in extra medical costs and lost productivity, for a total cost to the US economy of about $320 billion per year—a number that could quadruple within 10 years as obesity rates climb, according to some studies. (There is, of course, a lot of uncertainty in cost projections, and this research does not account for the impact of the Affordable Care Act.) On top of these costs are the subjective costs of the aches, discomforts, and compromised mobility associated with obesity.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Meanwhile, there's a wide range of convincing-sounding yet wildly conflicting weight-loss-related claims made by prominent science journalists. People who might otherwise be able to lose weight on the sort of sensible, lifestyle-modification program recommended by most experts end up falling for the faddish, ineffective approaches touted in these articles, or are discouraged from trying at all. For example, innumerable articles (including Parker-Pope's <i>Times</i> piece) have emphasized the notion that obesity is largely genetically determined. But study after study has shown that obesity tends to <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/index.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">correlate to environment</a>, not personal genome, as per the fact that people who emigrate from countries with traditionally low obesity rates, such as China, tend to hew to the obesity rates of their <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17493563" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">adopted countries</a>. What's more, global obesity rates are rapidly rising year by year, including in China, whereas the human genome barely changes over thousands of years. And <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22069379" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">studies clearly show</a> that "obesity genes" are essentially neutralized by healthy behaviors such as exercise.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It is not encouraging to those trying to muster the focus and motivation to stick to a healthy-eating-and-exercise program to hear that their obesity is largely genetically determined, suggesting—sometimes explicitly—that the obese are doomed to remain so no matter what they do. A 2011 <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i> study (<a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/when-fat-runs-in-the-family/]]." target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">as reported in <i>The New York Times</i></a>) found that people tend to binge after they find out they carry a supposed fat-promoting gene. Other studies have shown—in keeping with common sense—that one of the best predictors of whether someone starting a weight-loss program will stick with it is how strongly the person believes it will succeed. When journalists erode that confidence with misleading messages, the results are easy to predict.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">When science journalism goes astray, the usual suspect is a failure to report accurately and thoroughly on research published in peer-reviewed journals. In other words, science journalists are supposed to stick to what well-credentialed scientists are actually saying in or about their published findings—the journalists merely need to find a way to express this information in terms that are understandable and interesting to readers and viewers.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">But some of the most damagingly misleading articles don't stem from the reporter's failure to do this. Rather, science reporters—along with most everyone else—tend to confuse the findings of published science research with the closest thing we have to the truth. But as is widely acknowledged among scientists themselves, and especially within medical science, the findings of published studies are beset by a number of problems that tend to make them untrustworthy, or at least render them exaggerated or oversimplified.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It's easy enough to verify that something is going wrong with medical studies by simply looking up published findings on virtually any question in the field and noting how the findings contradict, sometimes sharply. To cite a few examples out of thousands, studies have found that <a href="http://www.webmd.com/menopause/features/hrt-revisiting-the-hormone-decision" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">hormone-replacement therapy</a> is safe and effective, and also that it is dangerous and ineffective; that virtually every vitamin supplement lowers the risk of various diseases, and also that they do nothing for these diseases; that low-carb, high-fat diets are the most effective way to lose weight, and that high-carb, low-fat diets are the most effective way to lose weight; that surgery relieves back pain in most patients, and that back surgery is essentially a <a href="http://www.srs.org/professionals/advocacy_and_public_policy/cms_spinal_surgery.pdf" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">sham treatment</a>; that cardiac patients fare better when someone secretly prays for them, and that secret prayer has no effect on cardiac patients. (Yes, these latter studies were undertaken by respected researchers and published in respected journals.)<br><br>Biostatisticians have studied the question of just how frequently published studies come up with wrong answers. A highly regarded researcher in this subfield of medical wrongness is John Ioannidis, who heads the Stanford Prevention Research Center, among other appointments. Using several different techniques, Ioannidis has <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">determined</a> that the overall wrongness rate in medicine's top journals is about two thirds, and that estimate has been well-accepted in the medical field.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A frequent defense of this startling error rate is that the scientific process is supposed to wend its way through many wrong ideas before finally approaching truth. But that's a complete mischaracterization of what's going on here. Scientists might indeed be expected to come up with many mistaken explanations when investigating a disease or anything else. But these "mistakes" are supposed to come in the form of incorrect <i>theories</i>—that a certain drug is safe and effective for most people, that a certain type of diet is better than another for weight loss. The point of scientific studies is to determine whether a theory is right or wrong. A study that accurately finds a theory to be incorrect has arrived at a correct finding. A study that mistakenly concludes an incorrect theory is correct, or vice-versa, has arrived at a wrong finding. If scientists can't reliably test the correctness of their theories, then science is in trouble—bad testing isn't supposed to be part of the scientific process. Yet medical journals, as we've seen, are full of such unreliable findings.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Another frequent claim, especially within science journalism, is that the wrongness problems go away when reporters stick with randomized control trials (RCTs). These are the so-called gold standard of medical studies, and typically involve randomly assigning subjects to a treatment group or a non-treatment group, so that the two groups can be compared. But it isn't true that journalistic problems stem from basing articles on studies that aren't RCTs. Ioannidis and others have found that RCTs, too (even large ones), are plagued with inaccurate findings, if to a lesser extent. Remember that virtually every drug that gets pulled off the market when dangerous side effects emerge was proven "safe" in a large RCT. Even those studies of the effectiveness of third-party prayer were fairly large RCTs. Meanwhile, some of the best studies have not been rcts, including those that convincingly demonstrated the danger of cigarettes, and the effectiveness of seat belts.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Why do studies end up with wrong findings? In fact, there are so many distorting forces baked into the process of testing the accuracy of a medical theory, that it's harder to explain how researchers manage to produce <i>valid</i> findings, aside from sheer luck. To cite just a few of these problems:</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>Mismeasurement</b> To test the safety and efficacy of a drug, for example, what researchers really want to know is how thousands of people will fare long-term when taking the drug. But it would be unethical (and illegal) to give unproven drugs to thousands of people, and no one wants to wait 20 years for results. So scientists must rely on animal studies, <a href="http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:SlHL4tGJF00J:www.cs.princeton.edu/picasso/abstracts_F06/krishna_files/Kola-Landis2004.pdf+%22Can+the+Pharmaceutical+Industry+Reduce+Attrition+Rates%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjNdDVyQM68tXynXI2sNT72R6Bu11YC1Enzi2gxLjbOGCqtqdP22t5n6WRr2ggZs82UyHUHvdcgkKQuxxJHtPYVNhQ7TdKQdrjbVj1bbeBS9tk9bEps3B0l_Pbor9UNZj5rP-UD&sig=AHIEtbTDkk8JsHATi1FWVw7NFPcLljvQNw" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">which tend to translate poorly to humans</a>, and on various short-cuts and indirect measurements in human studies that they hope give them a good indication of what a new drug is doing. The difficulty of setting up good human studies, and of making relevant, accurate measurements on people, plagues virtually all medical research.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>Confounders</b> Study subjects may lose weight on a certain diet, but was it because of the diet, or because of the support they got from doctors and others running the study? Or because they knew their habits and weight were being recorded? Or because they knew they could quit the diet when the study was over? So many factors affect every aspect of human health that it's nearly impossible to tease them apart and see clearly the effect of changing any one of them.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>Publication bias</b> Research journals, like newsstand magazines, want exciting stories that will have impact on readers. That means they prefer studies that deliver the most interesting and important findings, such as that a new treatment works, or that a certain type of diet helps most people lose weight. If multiple research teams test a treatment, and all but one find the treatment doesn't work, the journal might well be interested in publishing the one positive result, even though the most likely explanation for the oddball finding is that the researchers behind it made a mistake or perhaps fudged the data a bit. What's more, since scientists' careers depend on being published in prominent journals, and because there is intense competition to be published, scientists much prefer to come up with the exciting, important findings journals are looking for—even if it's a wrong finding. Unfortunately, as Ioannidis and others have pointed out, the more exciting a finding, the more likely it is to be wrong. Typically, something is exciting specifically because it's unexpected, and it's unexpected typically because it's less likely to occur. Thus, exciting findings are often unlikely findings, and unlikely findings are often unlikely for the simple reason that they're wrong.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Ioannidis and others have noted that the supposed protection science offers to catch flawed findings—notably <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05032.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">peer review</a> and<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7101/full/442344a.html" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">replication</a>—is utterly ineffective at detecting most problems with studies, from mismeasurement to outright fraud (which, confidential surveys have revealed, is far more common in research than most people would suppose).</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">None of this is to say that researchers aren't operating as good scientists, or that journals don't care about the truth. Rather, the point is that scientists are human beings who, like all of us, crave success, status, and funding, and who make mistakes; and that journals are businesses that need readers and impact to thrive.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It's one thing to be understanding of these challenges scientists and their journals face, and quite another to be ignorant of the problems they cause, or to fail to acknowledge those problems. But too many health journalists tend to simply pass along what scientists hand them—or worse, what the scientists' PR departments hand them. Two separate 2012 studies of mass-media health articles, one published in <i>PLoS Medicine</i> and the other in <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d8164" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); "><i>The British Medical Journal</i></a>, found that the content and quality of the articles roughly track the content and quality of the press releases that described the studies' findings.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Given that published medical findings are, by the field's own reckoning, more often wrong than right, a serious problem with health journalism is immediately apparent: A reporter who accurately reports findings is probably transmitting wrong findings. And because the media tend to pick the most exciting findings from journals to pass on to the public, they are in essence picking the worst of the worst. Health journalism, then, is largely based on a principle of survival of the wrongest. (Of course, I quote studies throughout this article to support my own assertions, including studies on the wrongness of other studies. Should these studies be trusted? Good luck in sorting that out! My advice: Look at the preponderance of evidence, and apply common sense liberally.)</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">What is a science journalist's responsibility to openly question findings from highly credentialed scientists and trusted journals? There can only be one answer: The responsibility is large, and it clearly has been neglected. It's not nearly enough to include in news reports the few mild qualifications attached to any study ("the study wasn't large," "the effect was modest," "some subjects withdrew from the study partway through it"). Readers ought to be alerted, as a matter of course, to the fact that wrongness is embedded in the entire research system, and that few medical research findings ought to be considered completely reliable, regardless of the type of study, who conducted it, where it was published, or who says it's a good study.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Worse still, health journalists are taking advantage of the wrongness problem. Presented with a range of conflicting findings for almost any interesting question, reporters are free to pick those that back up their preferred thesis—typically the exciting, controversial idea that their editors are counting on. When a reporter, for whatever reasons, wants to demonstrate that a particular type of diet works better than others—or that diets never work—there is a wealth of studies that will back him or her up, never mind all those other studies that have found exactly the opposite (or the studies can be mentioned, then explained away as "flawed"). For "balance," just throw in a quote or two from a scientist whose opinion strays a bit from the thesis, then drown those quotes out with supportive quotes and more study findings.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Of course, journalists who question the general integrity of medical findings risk being branded as science "denialists," lumped in with crackpots who insist evolution and climate change are nonsense. My own experience is that scientists themselves are generally supportive of journalists who raise these important issues, while science journalists are frequently hostile to the suggestion that research findings are rife with wrongness. Questioning most health-related findings isn't denying good science—it's demanding it.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Ironically, we see much more of this sort of skeptical, broad-perspective reporting on politics, where politicians' claims and poll results are questioned and factchecked by journalists, and on business, where the views of CEOs and analysts and a range of data are played off against one another in order to provide a fuller, more nuanced picture.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Yet in health journalism (and in science journalism in general), scientists are treated as trustworthy heroes, and journalists proudly brag on their websites about the awards and recognition they've received from science associations—as if our goal should be to win the admiration of the scientists we're covering, and to make it clear we're eager to return the favor. <i>The New York Times</i>'s highly regarded science writer Dennis Overbye <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/science/27essa.html?_r=0" target="_blank" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(187, 0, 0); ">wrote in 2009</a> that scientists' "values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view." But given what we know about the problems with scientific studies, anyone who wants to assert that science is being carried out by an army of Abraham Lincolns has a lot of explaining to do. Scientists themselves don't make such a claim, so why would we do it on their behalf? We owe readers more than that. Their lives may depend on it.</p></div><a href="http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/survival_of_the_wrongest.php?page=all&print=true">http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/survival_of_the_wrongest.php?page=all&print=true</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

'Survival of the wrongest' : Columbia Journalism Review

In late 2011, in a nearly 6,000-word article in  The New York Times Magazine , health writer Tara Parker-Pope laid out the scientific eviden...

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Burberry's Architectural Appliqué

The latest addition to Chicago's Magnificent Mile has polarized the city's architecture critics. Cheryl Kent—Blair Kamin's stand-in at the <i>Chicago Tribune</i> while he takes in all Cambridge, MA, has to offer—<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/cityscapes/chi-burberry-store-michigan-avenue-20121129,0,46949.story">calls Burberry's flagship store</a> at Michigan and Ontario "not architecture—it's a building as billboard." Lynn Becker, in <a href="http://arcchicago.blogspot.com/2012/12/tartan-check-mate-burberrys.html">a piece on his blog</a> that seems to exist in order to refute Kent and her critique, is more accepting of the store's questionable architectural merits, particularly in relation to Michigan Avenue as "a series of malls separated by stretches of architectural glop." I'm somewhere between outright dismissal and thinking it's good because it's better than bad.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/8388661666/" title="Burberry Store by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Burberry Store" height="539" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8186/8388661666_4b7220a977_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />If you know Burberry (and, who doesn't?), then the building is instantly recognizable as their store. Basically the exterior is Burberry's signature tartan (below) enlarged to the size of a five-story building, turned 45 degrees, and rendered in reflective chrome on a black background. Kent, mistakenly in my opinion, calls the building a "decorated shed," referring to the famous polemic in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/026272006X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=aweeklydoseof-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=026272006X"><i>Learning from Las Vegas</i></a>. The building actually confuses the distinction between the shed and the "duck," but I'd say it leans closer to the duck. The tartan facade, after all, is an architectural expression, not a sign applied to a blank box. The shed is more accurately depicted in the <a href="http://www.apple.com/retail/northmichiganavenue/">Apple store up the street</a>, which cuts the company's logo into the facade. Burberry's building isn't <a href="http://www.longaberger.com/homeOfficeFacts.aspx">a Longaberger</a>, but it's not too far off.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/burberry.jpg" /><br />[Burberry tartan | image <a href="http://www.conrandesigngroup.com/assets/blogs/2012/burberry">source</a>]<br /><br />Does it really matter if Burberry's store is a shed or a duck? It does if we judge the building as architecture rather than as signage. By angling the tartan 45 degrees, the in-house architects (with <a href="http://www.bapc.net/">Callison Barteluce</a>) are being playful with the pattern. But when I look at the tartan (above) I see so much more than an alternating rhythm of three wide stripes and one narrow band. I see things happening when these lines overlap; the stripes darken and change color, implying depth and a layering of lines. But what is the result on Michigan Avenue? Chrome stripes of equal value against a black background; absolutely no layering is evident on the facade. Further, the windows are orthogonal to the box, cutting against the diagonal stripes as if they are merely surface appliqué.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/8387574093/" title="Burberry Store by archidose, on Flickr"><img alt="Burberry Store" height="514" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8088/8387574093_5c23a68d71_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />Lynn Becker compares the new Burberry store to Herzog and de Meuron's <a href="http://archidose.org/wp/2003/03/24/prada/">Prada store in Tokyo</a>, placing the former in a lineage of the "luxury retail flagship wars that have, until now, passed the city by." What this comparison reveals to me is the disconnect between inside and outside that happens at Burberry. The diamond pattern does not disappear upon going inside Prada, but Burberry opted for a black box interior whose majority is divorced from the exterior. This aligns it with the malls that litter North Michigan Avenue, their windowless bases serving the retail tenants rather than passersby.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/dior-ginza.jpg" /><br />[Dior Ginza, Tokyo, Office of Kumiko Inui | image <a href="http://www.inuiuni.com/projects/234/">source</a>]<br /><br />The windows cut into the exterior are easily the design's best parts, even as they are troubling. They visually link inside and outside; they accentuate vertical movement across its five stories (elevation facing Ontario, visible in top photo); and likewise they promote the stairs as an active means of moving up and down floors through a prominent placement that gives shoppers views down Michigan Avenue. So this makes me wonder, why don't the windows and tartan pattern coincide, à la <a href="http://www.toyo-ito.co.jp/WWW/Project_Descript/2000-/2000-p_13/2000-p_13_en.html">Toyo Ito's design for Tod's Omotesando</a>? Why not use architecture itself to express a brand (if one must) rather than having the pattern trump architectural creativity? <a href="http://www.inuiuni.com/projects/234/">Kumiko Inui's Dior Ginza</a> hints at the potential that happens when a fashion house entrusts an architect to be creative with pattern, material, and transparency.

Burberry's Architectural Appliqué

The latest addition to Chicago's Magnificent Mile has polarized the city's architecture critics. Cheryl Kent—Blair Kamin's stand...

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Fecal Treatment Gains Favor for Some Illnesses - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The treatment may sound appalling, but it works.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can quickly cure severe intestinal infections caused by a dangerous type of bacteria that antibiotics often cannot control.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A new study finds that such transplants cured 15 of 16 people who had recurring infections with Clostridium difficile bacteria, whereas antibiotics cured only 3 of 13 and 4 of 13 patients in two comparison groups. The treatment appears to work by restoring the gut's normal balance of bacteria, which fight off C. difficile.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The study is the first to compare the transplants with standard antibiotic therapy. The research, conducted in the Netherlands, was published Wednesday in The <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_england_journal_of_medicine/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about New England Journal of Medicine" class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">New England Journal of Medicine</a>.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Fecal transplants have been used sporadically for years as a last resort to fight this stubborn and debilitating infection, which kills 14,000 people a year in the United States. The infection is usually caused by antibiotics, which can predispose people to C. difficile by killing normal gut bacteria. If patients are then exposed to C. difficile, which is common in many hospitals, it can take hold.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The usual treatment involves more antibiotics, but about 20 percent of patients relapse, and many of them suffer repeated attacks, with severe diarrhea, vomiting and fever.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Researchers say that, worldwide, about 500 people with the infection have had fecal transplantation. It involves diluting stool with a liquid, like salt water, and then pumping it into the intestinal tract via an enema, a colonoscope or a tube run through the nose into the stomach or small intestine.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Stool can contain hundreds or even thousands of types of bacteria, and researchers do not yet know which ones have the curative powers. So for now, feces must be used pretty much intact.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Medical journals have reported high success rates and seemingly miraculous cures in patients who have suffered for months. But until now there was room for doubt, because no controlled experiments had compared the outlandish-sounding remedy with other treatments.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The new research is the first to provide the type of evidence that skeptics have demanded, and proponents say they hope the results will help bring fecal transplants into the medical mainstream, because for some patients nothing else works.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"Those of us who do fecal transplant know how effective it is," said Dr. Colleen R. Kelly, a gastroenterologist with the Women's Medicine Collaborative in Providence, R.I., who was not part of the Dutch study. "The tricky part has been convincing everybody else."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">She added, "This is an important paper, and hopefully it will encourage people to change their practice patterns and offer this treatment more."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">One of Dr. Kelly's patients, Melissa Cabral, 34, of Dighton, Mass., was healthy until she contracted C. difficile in July after taking an antibiotic for dental work. She had profuse diarrhea, uncontrollable vomiting and high fevers that landed her in the hospital. She suffered repeated bouts, lost 12 pounds and missed months of work. Her young children would find her lying on the bathroom floor.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Initially, she rejected a fecal transplant because the idea disgusted her, but ultimately she became so desperate for relief that in November she tried it.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Within a day, her symptoms were gone.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"If I didn't do it, I don't know where I'd be now," she said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a href="http://www.einstein.yu.edu/departments/medicine/divisions/gastroenterology-liver-diseases/faculty/profile.asp?id=2519" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Dr. Lawrence J. Brandt</a>, a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said that the Food and Drug Administration had recently begun to regard stool used for transplant as a drug, and to require doctors administering it to apply for permission, something that he said could hinder treatment.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">A spokeswoman for the agency, Rita Chappelle, said officials could not respond in time for publication.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">C. difficile is a global problem. Increasingly toxic strains have emerged in the past decade. In the United States, more than 300,000 patients in hospitals contract C. difficile each year, and researchers estimate that the total number of cases, in and out of hospitals, may be three million. Treatment costs exceed $1 billion a year.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Fecal therapy has often been used to cure gut trouble in cows and horses. Books on traditional Chinese medicine mention giving it to people by mouth to cure diarrhea in the fourth century; one book called it yellow soup.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In 1958, Dr. Ben Eiseman, of the University of Colorado, published a report about using fecal enemas to cure four patients with life-threatening intestinal infections.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The senior author of the new study, Dr. Josbert Keller, a gastroenterologist at the Hagaziekenhuis hospital in The Hague, said that before conducting the research, he and his colleagues had performed the transplant in about 10 cases, and it almost always worked.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"After the first four or five patients, we started thinking, 'We can't go on doing this kind of obscure treatment without evidence,' " Dr. Keller said. "Everybody is laughing about it."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The researchers studied adults who had been suffering from C. difficile for months and had had at least one relapse after antibiotics. They were picked at random to be in one of three groups. Only one group, 16 people, had the transplant: they took the antibiotic vancomycin for four days, had their intestines rinsed and then had the fecal solution pumped into their small intestines through a nose tube. A second group, 13 people, had the intestinal wash and 14 days of vancomycin; a third group, also 13 people, had only vancomycin.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The donors were tested for an array of diseases to make sure they did not infect the patients. Their specimens were mixed with saline in a blender and strained, to produce a solution that Dr. Keller said resembled chocolate milk.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Dr. Keller said that patients were so eager to receive transplants that they would not join the study unless the researchers promised that those assigned to antibiotics alone would get transplants later if the drugs failed.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Among the 16 who received transplants, 13 were cured after the first infusion. The other three were given repeat infusions from different donors, and two were also cured. In the two groups of patients who did not receive transplants, only 7 of 26 were cured.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Of the patients who did not receive transplants at first and who relapsed after receiving antibiotics only, 18 were subsequently given transplants, and 15 were cured.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The study was originally meant to include more patients, but it had to be cut short because the antibiotic groups were faring so poorly compared with the transplant patients that it was considered unethical to continue.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The results come as no surprise to doctors who have tried the procedure. <a href="http://www.med.umn.edu/gi/faculty/khoruts/home.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Dr. Alexander Khoruts</a>, a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota, said he had performed the transplants in more than 100 patients with C. difficile. He said that it worked the first time in 90 percent, and that the other 10 percent were cured with a second treatment. The procedure can be done with a stool solution that has been frozen and thawed, he said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">One of Dr. Khoruts's concerns about the procedure is that many people assume it can be used for a variety of intestinal problems. He cautioned that, so far, the only real evidence is for C. difficile.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">Eventually, he said, if researchers can determine which bacteria are crucial, it should become possible to create products containing them, and to spare everyone the unpleasantness of dealing with stool specimens.</p></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/health/disgusting-maybe-but-treatment-works-study-finds.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0&pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Fecal Treatment Gains Favor for Some Illnesses - NYTimes.com

The treatment may sound appalling, but it works. Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can quickly cure ...

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Attune Foods

<div style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Attune Foods</span></u></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxgt-mpozqXHb6nkAHV6AWJvf_E1pYH4Nid7T1TEjEyxvUZgtINSHOAgYOHi5Vfs9CqWOFsyMcowrVevXBTECsM-1Cypgo8gIDTEq2Q4okkk5OWgcks8Me7VZGDwLXIt-FRHVjuZcSn9A/s1600/attune+foods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxgt-mpozqXHb6nkAHV6AWJvf_E1pYH4Nid7T1TEjEyxvUZgtINSHOAgYOHi5Vfs9CqWOFsyMcowrVevXBTECsM-1Cypgo8gIDTEq2Q4okkk5OWgcks8Me7VZGDwLXIt-FRHVjuZcSn9A/s320/attune+foods.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Feel like your getting cheated out of your favorite cereal with all of those added ingredients that are unhealthy?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They may sound good for you when they are really not until you read the labels!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Their team is involved in improving our ways that we eat foods in the home.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Switch it up with <a href="http://www.attunefoods.com/">Attune Foods</a> where they make their cereals with pure and simple ingredients with no added sugars or flavoring and make you feel your best during the day!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What I love about this company is that they make all kinds of products such as cereal, crackers and chocolate bars!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They are gluten free and high in fiber.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I was sent two boxes of Uncle Sam's cereal for reviewing purposes.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I will talk a little bit about them.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ladies and gents hold onto your cereal bowls and get ready.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ9UHxoJHaf3IXbL1jYPzf1qAa9dwwAoV5PtvaA5zDHyP9b-r6IVQCb-4bacyEJveagWahhkDGzl6M54DBCH6A66QTeoGd57oh8AJCz2BaE_Qmb7IdjvQGTl7t2CvQ0kL0Fg-wKmweHnc/s1600/raisin+bran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ9UHxoJHaf3IXbL1jYPzf1qAa9dwwAoV5PtvaA5zDHyP9b-r6IVQCb-4bacyEJveagWahhkDGzl6M54DBCH6A66QTeoGd57oh8AJCz2BaE_Qmb7IdjvQGTl7t2CvQ0kL0Fg-wKmweHnc/s320/raisin+bran.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Facts: </span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They take hard red winter wheat berries that's all the way from South Dakota and roll them, toast and flatten them.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They also use flax seed as well!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Makes you wonder how other cereals are made, which is probably through a processor.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I know ugh.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Each Uncle Sam's cereal has seven grams of protein, ten grams of fiber and you won't believe it, less then one gram of sugar!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How awesome is that?!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u>Raisin Bran</u></span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ03BSd7R64um6Lf-RWWrohyphenhyphenNdxKqjBGlhS2416D0r_QsEflcd-U0nWEVEdkPxfxQsSN17G3e8db7TBcZIwKA9VtcrrjwP5BlagXP6tvQECRFYvL8xAPtqAQ6pqB49AwYOSIg_gy1iQfw/s1600/Raisin+Bran+Attune+Foods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ03BSd7R64um6Lf-RWWrohyphenhyphenNdxKqjBGlhS2416D0r_QsEflcd-U0nWEVEdkPxfxQsSN17G3e8db7TBcZIwKA9VtcrrjwP5BlagXP6tvQECRFYvL8xAPtqAQ6pqB49AwYOSIg_gy1iQfw/s320/Raisin+Bran+Attune+Foods.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I love Raisin bran because it's high in fiber and so good.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have never tried this kind before though and couldn't wait to dig in.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You know how other raisin bran brands have huge bran flakes in them?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Uncle Sam's has little tiny ones!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I added in some Vanilla almond milk and dug right in!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So delicious.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u>Original </u></span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><u><br /></u></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Toasted whole wheat flakes and flax seed for a deliciously healthy meal or as a snack on top of some yogurt with fresh fruit!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Want to check out their products and learn all about them?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Check them out on these sites here.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.attunefoods.com/">http://www.attunefoods.com/</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/attunefoods">https://www.facebook.com/attunefoods</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/attunefoods"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">https://twitter.com/attunefoods</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/102516892582284922787/posts">https://plus.google.com/u/0/102516892582284922787/posts</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://pinterest.com/attunefoods/"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">http://pinterest.com/attunefoods/</span></a></div>

Attune Foods

Attune Foods Feel like your getting cheated out of your favorite cereal with all of those added ingredients that are unhealthy? They may sou...

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Make Google Reader your Powerhouse sharing system

Productivity and simplicity, these are two things the modern knowledge worker craves. <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.google.com/reader" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Google Reader">Google Reader</a> is my "secret weapon" of productivity and I'd like to show you how I get the most out of this program.<br /><br /><h2>What is <a class="zem_slink" href="http://google.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Google">Google</a> reader?</h2><h2>1- Make a list of the places where you want to share</h2>Begin with the end in mind by knowing where you want to share. <a class="zem_slink" href="http://facebook.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Facebook">Facebook</a>? Your blog? <a class="zem_slink" href="http://twitter.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Twitter">Twitter</a>? <a class="zem_slink" href="http://pinterest.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Pinterest">Pinterest</a>? I have a list of my places where I share every day including: my blog here, <a href="http://www.vickidavis.me/">my tumblr blog</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/coolcatteacher">Facebook fanpage</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/#/coolcatteacher">Twitter</a>,<a href="https://plus.google.com/115916382183421477315"> Google+</a>, <a href="http://pinterest.com/coolcatteacher/">Pinterest</a>, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.linkedin.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="LinkedIn">LinkedIn.</a><br /><br /><h2>2- Enable Share It</h2><h3>a) Go to your <a href="http://reader.google.com/">Google Reader</a> Settings (shown in screenshot)</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagYtsYV4_VP4gMSEtancdu-lcVClwob2Tcgyu_-1On8bEIrQFDMyVqvMhJWNvHqJ3VY1hYf9oVIegPZRw0HlhjM5cVn2M1FXUGAnVnstGnwKIsA4SFCjxC9x9yIspWri6WsqyxOA2cFC0/s1600/google+reader+settings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagYtsYV4_VP4gMSEtancdu-lcVClwob2Tcgyu_-1On8bEIrQFDMyVqvMhJWNvHqJ3VY1hYf9oVIegPZRw0HlhjM5cVn2M1FXUGAnVnstGnwKIsA4SFCjxC9x9yIspWri6WsqyxOA2cFC0/s640/google+reader+settings.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><h3>b) Click on Send To</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKrGowmDK5PUZgiXPtlzTzk_OsKJIMH1ffuZHZBllNT0pZ4eTLYfg-vnJbDSR2mAPiXil4MZV2LKl5_ph1qEk38EJQzFLPwUw6_sou6-_NM7xvz4mTRuShiZBV3cS7vwVYkTsC9FPi9LiV/s1600/send-to-settings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKrGowmDK5PUZgiXPtlzTzk_OsKJIMH1ffuZHZBllNT0pZ4eTLYfg-vnJbDSR2mAPiXil4MZV2LKl5_ph1qEk38EJQzFLPwUw6_sou6-_NM7xvz4mTRuShiZBV3cS7vwVYkTsC9FPi9LiV/s640/send-to-settings.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><h3>c) Enable the services that you want to share to.</h3>Blogger, Delicious, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://digg.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Digg">Digg,</a> Facebook, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://friendfeed.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="FriendFeed">FriendFeed</a>, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://instapaper.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Instapaper">Instapaper</a>, Myspace, Orkut, Ping.fm, Posterous, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Tumblr, Twitter are all available. Just make sure you add Google reader on your pop up blocker's list of approved sites.<br /><br /><h3>d) Add information to add other sites.</h3><br />I use <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.diigo.com/" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Diigo">Diigo</a> and need it to be integrated into Google Reader. I found some older directions from the<a href="http://www.jeffisageek.net/blog/2009/08/13/add-diigo-to-google-readers-new-send-to-feature/" target="_blank"> "Jeff is a geek" blog</a> and they work.<br /><br />Under name, I put Diigo.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi44fAUzjRwDgIOUQSJQwTLCo4F3kHCba5P2aND8qYnPQpr02zY1MFd9iLwnVVI0ozHMXPX0mr5CDa2k7CeWamobjk6LdRuqr_09tosHFC_klgl8q9liL038sa6S9vO8oBKe_WV05zScdX6/s1600/diigo-add-to-google-reader.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi44fAUzjRwDgIOUQSJQwTLCo4F3kHCba5P2aND8qYnPQpr02zY1MFd9iLwnVVI0ozHMXPX0mr5CDa2k7CeWamobjk6LdRuqr_09tosHFC_klgl8q9liL038sa6S9vO8oBKe_WV05zScdX6/s640/diigo-add-to-google-reader.png" width="640" /></a></div><h2>e) Another option is to enable <a href="http://ifttt.com/">ifttt.com</a></h2>If this then that is a website that helps you automate things. You can set up many different "triggers" from Google reader that are very simple. For example, some of the most popular recipes as shown in the chart, make use of the star in Google Reader by sending things that are starred to Buffer or Evernote or Instapaper or Delicious or Pocket.<br /><br />You could also use with any other trigger on ifttt.com including Diigo.  You could also schedule a tweet by tagging mathchat and it could tweet the title and add #mathchat on the end. I'm looking to set that up on my Ifttt.com tweak when I do my next PLN maintenance time. (I schedule at least 2-3 hours once a quarter to prune my google reader and tweak all my social media settings.)<br /><br />I choose to use tags to do this, although admittedly, I"ve realized I'm not entirely happy with that. So, something tagged tumblr sends to tumblr. The problem is that when it goes to tumblr - the words and tags are there, but I don't necessarily want the tag to say "tumblr." I haven't decided what to do about that, but overall, it is very useful.<br /><br />For example, I"m finishing up <a href="http://www.eyeoneducation.com/Collaborative-Writing-Project">Collaborative Writing in the Cloud</a> and as I've found things relating to the book, everything I tag wiki_book goes automatically to my notebook on the topic in evernote so it is all there when I head to research.<br /><br /><h2>f) Find a great <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="RSS">RSS</a> app for your Tablet Device </h2>If you have an ipad or tablet, find a device that allows you to share easily like <a href="http://www.eyeoneducation.com/Collaborative-Writing-Project">Mr. Reader </a>to use as your <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="News aggregator">RSS reader</a> (I wrote a snippet at "<a href="http://vickidavis.me/post/24192152406/mr-reader-is-my-favorite-rss-app-for-the-ipad-it">Mr. Reader is my favorite RSS app</a>" but I am curious if some of you want to know more about it. <a href="mailto:vicki@coolcatteacher.com">Let me know</a>, I do requests. ;-)<br /><br />I found Mr. Reader because I had a list of required places it had to share. At the time, it was the only one that shared to Diigo. It shares to everything and I read my Mr. Reader at least two hours a week as I share and write blog posts.<br /><h2>In Conclusion</h2>Google Reader is so powerful because it can power great apps like Flipboard (see <a href="http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2011/04/15-fantastic-ways-to-use-flipboard.html">15 Fantastic Ways to Use Flipboard</a>).<br /><br />It is one of the keys behind my own ability to share and find things. It is an essential tool for researchers and I teach all of my ninth graders and tenth graders how to build their PLN in Google Reader by scraping news, blogs, and more using RSS. RSS is a powerful and essential tool with a name that intimidates smart people from even trying.<br /><br />I'm very concerned that Google got rid of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.google.com/ig" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="iGoogle">iGoogle</a> and they may get rid of Google Reader. THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY HELPFUL APP. I USE IT ALL THE TIME. If you don't use it, we'll all lose it. So, please, if you use the product, share with others, so we can keep it. It is a valuable research tool. I also think that Google is missing the boat because they are looking at volume not WHO those people are. If the Maven's as Malcom Gladwell discusses in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316017930/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwbrighc-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0316017930" id="static_txt_preview" style="background-color: white; color: #996633; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; text-align: center;" target="_blank">Outliers: The Story of Success</a>  the mavens, the people who share with everyone and influence a lot of people. If those people, the mavens, are using your product, and you get rid of it, you'll be alienating the wrong people. (Yet, again. iGoogle was a mistake, in my opinion.)<br /><br />Educators who care, share.<br /><br />Remember your noble calling, teacher.<br /> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_c.png?x-id=d99a6b78-2595-436a-85be-0dfb63159d06" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div>

Make Google Reader your Powerhouse sharing system

Productivity and simplicity, these are two things the modern knowledge worker craves. Google Reader is my "secret weapon" of prod...

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Manti Te'o 2012 Highlights HD

<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DJfkFuJDPd4?feature=player_detailpage" width="640"></iframe><br />From: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">http://www.youtube.com</a>

Manti Te'o 2012 Highlights HD Manti Te'o 2012 Highlights HD

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Poetry 'n' Such with Paul Piatt

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiai3BtFB8mkYNX2KlOBevvMx0aWt9-4BAf8zzWjHqPB6lYj0AZnDRHeWIrJQar1CyiRyzTwryIJow1tAZBCV1YbK9wSuwALFlb20tH7yRHoxwaUzw1LeXeRcke9lgn8SD5bN_LmYX2faM/s1600/Paul_Delany.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiai3BtFB8mkYNX2KlOBevvMx0aWt9-4BAf8zzWjHqPB6lYj0AZnDRHeWIrJQar1CyiRyzTwryIJow1tAZBCV1YbK9wSuwALFlb20tH7yRHoxwaUzw1LeXeRcke9lgn8SD5bN_LmYX2faM/s400/Paul_Delany.jpg" width="285" /></a>Gentle and heartfelt greetings to all of you discerning drinkers of the warm and aromatic coffee of life that is the IWS website.<br /><br />Renown poet and IWS Literary Editor, Paul Piatt here once again, in order to share with you some of today’s finest in the world of poetry, prose, and people.<br /><br />Today during our continuing journey along the sullied yet hopeful boulevard of words made magical, and life’s pentameters made iambic, I artfully and empathetically attempt to put finger to keyboard, and apply a balm of solace to the rage that has angrily graced the pages of the IWS website this week.<br /><br />Jay and Matt, as if twins of Joshua, have spent this week openly trumpeting their anger and disdain for others who practice, preach, and or exhibit less than what one might consider ideal human behavior.<br /><br />I understand their frustration with the world that encompasses them.  I too, as a young man sojourning through middle America in the 60’s, experienced a similar frustration which I wrote about in a poem from 1963...<br /><br /><i><b>A Negro’s in Brooklyn</b></i><br /><i><br /></i><i>I slithered through the streets of Brooklyn</i><br /><i>like the snake through the Garden of Eden.</i><br /><i>I nostralized the greens a-cookin’</i><br /><i>and heard a colored family screamin’…</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>“Greens again mama? I can no longer do.”</i><br /><i>“You’ll get what I fix, and you’ll like it too.”</i><br /><i>“I want a steak like the white folk eat.”</i><br /><i>“Steak don’t grow on trees, eat your pigs’ feet.”</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>An overheard conversation righted my ship.</i><br /><i>For it was then I knew…</i><br /><i>Pigs’ feet keep one grounded.</i><br /><br />See, gentle readers? I too knew angst and anger yet kept it in check by the writing of words, and I hope too, that Jay and Matt, can use this as a lesson in therapy and self-actualization.<br /><br />I have another cathartic poem to offer unto Jay and Matt, and you as well today.<br /><br />My longtime friend and fellow wordsmith, Blanche Carte has this piece of excellelexiconitry from her new book, <i>“Riding Shotgun with Billy Joel.”</i>  I give you…<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltXUZeR2wWZQAeyjk8xDbtwikNWNnTo6IE7gcpnvrvPj98iiWXCq4PjVTq9YHOD88nww8839-uw2toIbZXOFnYUZXZ_GVpAWGYvEejP4YtlUrqcX1f63Vwb0gRL6V7vn5KUUJaRFC3UM/s1600/blanche_lincoln+HOT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltXUZeR2wWZQAeyjk8xDbtwikNWNnTo6IE7gcpnvrvPj98iiWXCq4PjVTq9YHOD88nww8839-uw2toIbZXOFnYUZXZ_GVpAWGYvEejP4YtlUrqcX1f63Vwb0gRL6V7vn5KUUJaRFC3UM/s400/blanche_lincoln+HOT.jpg" width="325" /></a><i><b>The Angry Cucumber</b></i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Here I sit.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Atop a mound of dirt,</i><br /><i>sweating in the oppressive heat of the seventh month sun.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>A bit of water here, a tint of water there.</i><br /><i>I am abused and manhandled as a mighty, yet gentle flavor grows within me.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Here I weep.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Beneath the August rain,</i><br /><i>fighting the aphids, the rabbits, the kids next door.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>A bit of tending here, a tint of tending there.</i><br /><i>I am plucked from the vine like an orphan stolen from his parents.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Dipped in vinegar…Seasoned with salt…Bathed in Rosemary.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>I am stuck inside a jar and when ready for the tongue, eaten by a toothless man.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>My earlier anger seems trite.</i><br /><br />I hope that my words and those of Blanche have comforted Jay, Matt, and all of you.<br /><br /><i>For now, as I travel the road less traveled,</i><br /><br /><i>Paul Piatt</i><br /><br /><a href="mailto:mattmaniws@ymail.com"><i>mattmaniws@ymail.com</i></a><br /><i><a href="https://twitter.com/MattMan_IWS" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">MattMan_IWS</span></a></i><br /><br />Annnnnd…Jay and I bitched a lot yesterday on the IWS Radio Show…It was a good time, and if you missed it live, you can catch it all right c’here:<br /><br /><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.adobe.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" height="105" id="143577" name="143577" width="210"><param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fshow_id%3D4273579&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fshow_id%3D4273579&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded" width="210" height="105" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" quality="high" wmode="transparent" menu="false" name="143577" id="143577" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object><br /><div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center; width: 220px;">Listen to <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/">internet radio</a> with <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid">Im With Stupid</a> on Blog Talk Radio</div></div>

Poetry 'n' Such with Paul Piatt

Gentle and heartfelt greetings to all of you discerning drinkers of the warm and aromatic coffee of life that is the IWS website. Renown poe...

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'American Idol': The Idol Chatter live blog

From: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/">http://www.usatoday.com</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px;">Brian Mansfield </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; line-height: 14px;">10:38p.m. EST January 16, 2013</span><br /><img alt="American Idol" src="http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/idolchatter/2013/01/16/group1sm-1-4_3_r536_c534.jpg?1b79b3da202957124496e3768cfb7b67cdb10c81" /><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><i>Welcome to the first Idol Chatter live blog of</i>American Idol'<i>s 12th season. I'll be updating posts on this page throughout the Wednesday premiere show. Hope you'll join me here and comment often! -- Brian Mansfield</i></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Saving the best for last? </b>It's time for the last audition of the night, so it'll be a tearjerker. Ashlee Feliciano's family fosters and adopts medically complex children. Her parents have three biological children (including Ashlee) and have adopted four more through the foster-care system. Feliciano seems sweet, the kind of woman you hope gets good things.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Her version of Corinne Bailey Rae's <i>Put Your Records On </i>is certainly a good thing, confident and sure and in the pocket, and Feliciano jumps between her registers with impressive ease. "I don't think you understand what you just did," says Minaj, who thinks she'll inspire the show's young female viewers. Carey sees lots of potential, and Urban loves her nasal lower register. Jackson brings in the entire family so the judges can share their decision with them.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">"Oh, Ashlee, that's a yes," Urban tells her.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>The Turbanator. </b>One of the best voices we've ever heard, and we only get three notes? Uh-oh, time for a backstory.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Brett Holt is a huge <i>American Idol</i> fan -- he has auditioned seven times in the past. "I challenge anybody in America to take me on in <i>American Idol</i> trivia." Seacrest challenges him, and he does OK, though he does think it's Season 13 (that's OK, so does Seacrest). Brett has auditioned seven times in the past -- will this be the lucky day? For the briefest of seconds, it seems like he might. But then his version of Nat King Cole's <i>When I Fall in Love</i> goes off the rails. Then goes further and further off. But the student of <i>American Idol</i> finally gets his face time -- now he's a trivia answer of his own.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Next up: Gupurpreet Sangh Sarin, who changes his turban with every outfit (today it's lavender). He's got 40 or 50 turbans, which means he changes his headgear the way Danny Gokey did his glasses. Let's see if he's got Gokey's chops. At the very least, he has studied Indian classical music.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Actually, he does, doing a surprising soulful take on Maroon 5's <i>Sunday Morning</i>. Then Randy gets him to sing a few Indian scales. Minaj doesn't think he has a standout voice, though, and Urban worries that his voice may be a little too light for the competition. Carey digs him, though, and gives him a yes. Jackson's going to give him one more shot. But Urban says no, leaving Sarin's fate in Minaj's hands. Sarin tries to win her over by telling her he has a marigold turban the color of her hair. Danged if it doesn't work. "Turb! You're going to Hollywood."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Music of the night: </b>Albert Chang works as a receptionist for a medical clinic in New York. Ryan wonders what he likes to do when he's not in the office. And Albert doesn't have an answer for him. "Sing," Seacrest suggests. And so he does, having chosen the title song from <i>The Phantom of the Opera</i> -- and it's truly a harrowing experience, especially when he jumps into his high, squeaky voice. "Your range is better than Mariah's!" Minaj exclaims. For future bad contestants, she channels her inner Simon Cowell, putting on a British accent for so long that Mariah's afraid she's going to start doing it.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Angela Miller has 40% hearing loss in one ear and 20% in the other. Mariah wonders how that affects her singing. Miller tells her that she has to turn the monitors up incredibly loud when she's on stage. But it's not a problem for an a cappella rendition of Jessie J's <i>Mamma Knows Best</i>. "I haven't felt that for the whole day," Minaj says, "that thing that makes me feel something in my soul." The other three agree. "She's got real PO-tential," Jackson tells the judges after Miller leaves.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Shattering expectations: </b>Rozanna Shindelman, a 21-year-old from Staten Island, N.Y., doesn't usually sing in front of people, except for her parents -- who say they give her chills. They hear her singing To<i> Know Him Is to Love Him </i>before the judges and just look enraptured. But Jackson doesn't: "Dude, it was bad." Shindelman asks, "Was it really that bad?" Urban seconds Jackson's opinion: "Yes." Shindelman's audition is the first of a whole series of bad auditions where the judges struggle to break the news gently to the deluded wannabes.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Maybe 17-year-old blueberry farmer Sarah Restuccio will change things. She's a country singer who auditions with Carrie Underwood's <i>Mama's Song</i>. The judges look intrigued, but the guys, at least, might be on the bubble with her -- until Randy asks for a second song, and Restuccio says she can sing <i>Superbass</i>. She launches into a rap that has Minaj rocking, but the other three judges are mystified. Is she a country singer or a rapper or what? Minaj, who has already said Restuccio could be a "humongous" country star, totally gets it: "She's every little girl! There are so many girls that identify with her that comes from where she does. … I don't think her doing<i>Superbass </i>means she wants to be a rapper. … She doesn't have to choose anything." (BTW, my 11-year-old daughter totally agrees with Minaj -- she's ready to start voting now.)</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>***</b></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Ben, the four of us need look no more: </b>Day Two begins with a guy named Benjamin who looks like Rerun from <i>What's Happening</i> going to a costume ball as Michael Jackson. He's going to sing "two love songs for two beautiful ladies." Carey and Minaj's smiles soon turn to giggles, especially when he thrusts his hips toward them as he sings. "You obviously love Tom Jones," says Urban. All four judges are laughing hard, but they slowly learn that, despite his curly black wig and shiny red suit, Benjamin actually thinks he can sing.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Frankie goes to Hollywood: </b>Shira Gavrielov had a No. 1 hit in Israel when she was younger, and she makes a great impression on the <i>Idol</i> crowd. Minaj loves her choice of song -- Amy Winehouse's <i>Valerie</i>. It's a quick yes for her.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">The last contestant for Day One, Frankie Ford from Flatbush, was adopted at age 8. He sings on the subway to make money, which is actually pretty good experience for a singer who wants to learn to connect with an audience. Enough people told him that he had skills that he decided to audition. With the Eurythmics' <i>Sweet Dreams</i>. But he gets nervous, starts the song too hard, then has to stop. He regains his composure, and it's very different. He reinvents the song, with a remarkably strong yet subtle approach. The looks on the judges' faces change from concerned shock to big smiles. "I believe in you, man," Jackson tells him. Carey says: "What I think you have is an inner glow, which is always beautiful to see." Minaj doesn't think he has the best voice she's heard, but she believes people will want to hear more from him -- from his voice and his story. He's in -- and deservedly so.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>A key mistake: </b>One of <i>Idol</i>'s twists this year was to let family and friends nominate contestants. Then, Jackson goes on the road to check them out. The first singer to get surprised is Jessica Kartalis of Staten Island, N.Y., who gets a pass to go straight to the judges. Jackson asks for an original song, and Kartalis' choice begins <i>a cappella</i> -- which is a problem, because she starts the song in the wrong key, then sounds horribly out of tune when she starts playing her acoustic guitar. It's an audition-killing moment. Carey tells her she felt bad for her, but she's clearly not ready. (Takeaway lesson: If you're going to start a song <i>a cappella</i>, make sure you get your note first. It's only a strum away.) Oh, well, at least she didn't have to wait in line.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>The one-legged tap dancer: </b>Since she wanted to be a singer and she knew how much image plays into that career choice, Christina "Isabelle" dropped 50 pounds before leaving Duluth, Ga., for Berklee College of Music (my alma mater) in Boston. Her rendition of <i>Summertime</i> has a lot of heft, though. "OMG," says Minaj, who believes she'll go far in the competition. Urban wonders who she's been listening to, and she points at Carey. He's impressed by her "natural," "human" voice. "I think it was a great choice and something different (huh?)," says Carey, who'd like to see her explore more. Four yeses. "This proves that anyone -- shape, size, body type -- if you have confidence in yourself, you can go far," Christina says afterwards.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">The next contestant, tap dancer Evan Ruggiero, was shooting for Broadway at age 18 -- but got diagnosed with bone cancer a year later. "When you get diagnosed with cancer, everything stops," he says. Your life goes from career goals to staying alive. He went through 16 months of chemo and multiple surgeries, but the cancer recurred. Doctors told him they needed to save the dancer's life by amputating his leg. "Just because you have a disability doesn't mean you can't be the next <i>American Idol</i>," Ruggiero says. His take on Jason Mraz's <i>I'm Yours</i> is serviceable, but it's not especially impressive. Jackson gives him a little leeway, asks him to play something on the guitar: He chooses Bon Jovi's <i>Wanted Dead or Alive</i>. This tune suits him better -- he just might have a shot, especially with that backstory. Urban even adds the second vocal line, then says: "That's more in your wheelhouse," he says, but he's not sure the star factor is in place yet. Minaj is impressed with his ability to adapt to tough circumstances and thinks he has the potential to touch a lot of people -- but just not on this show, this year. Ruggiero takes the rejection in stride: "Maybe I touched someone out there who's watching this," he says. "This isn't the worst that could happen to me."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Baby, baby, he's bad: </b>James Bae's a 15-year-old Justin Bieber wannabe from Long Island, N.Y. "I sing in my room, thinking it's a concert, getting ready for the real one," he tells Urban. Unfortunately, nobody in his room has told him that his rendition of<i>One Less Lonely Girl</i> is completely tuneless. Taking a cue from the headphones Bae wears around his neck, Carey wonders if he has ever considering DJing. "It's artistic, you can still deal with music, but you <i>don't necessarily have to be a singer</i>," she says. They turn him down, but Minaj takes a moment to give him a few words to let him down easy. "I won't ever forget you," she tells him, in a moment that shows just how human she can be behind the Barbie-doll get-up.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Tenna Torres has got a friend: </b>Hey, Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj do have something in common -- they're both <i>Mean Girls</i> fans. But it's not long till they bring out the claws, in what's clearly going to be one of the season's recurring themes.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Next hopeful: 28-year-old New York singer Tenna Torres. "I've been listening to Mariah since I was 5 years old," says Torres, who attended Carey's Camp Mariah and actually sang for her at age 13. Carey makes a huge fuss over Torres' pictures of the two of them some 15 years ago.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">All the judges make a fuss over Torres' rendition of Carole King's <i>You've Got a Friend</i>, which is a sold mix of power, control and melodic invention. "If we could have somebody like this come out of this moment of <i>Idol</i> 12, I would be personally proud," Carey says. Urban finds her patience and pace refreshing. "Welcome to Hollywood!" Jackson tells Torres. Carey asks for copies of the photos.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;"><b>Back in the New York groove. </b>This year's first audition show takes place in New York (Thursday's will feature Chicago). The judges take their seats and get to work -- which means Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj are mixing it up over Nicki's fuzzy accessory.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Michael Buonapane stomps in riffing on Queen's <i>We Will Rock You</i>. It gets the judges to stop their bickering, but I don't think it makes a particularly good first impression. He doesn't do much better the second time around, spinning around in some sort of bizarre clogging dance-chant. "Let's say no, be friends," Randy says. "It's not you, it's us."</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">***</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">This year, <i>American Idol</i> has a great way to start the season -- just show last year's winner, Phillip Phillips, who's on his way to having the best-selling single in <i>Idol</i>history. Phillips plugs in his guitar and begins singing <i>Home</i>.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">"They say home is where the heart is -- so welcome home," Ryan Seacrest says as he recaps the history of the Georgia pawn-shop worker. "History has shown that an Idol can do anything," Seacrest says, going over some impressive sales and awards numbers the Idols have put together collectively over the years.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Then, it's time to introduce the judges: Returning original dawg Randy Jackson; country singer Keith Urban; pop star Nicki Minaj; and ("last but not least") diva queen Mariah Carey. Can this group improve on the crew from the past two years, which were often entertaining but more often repetitive?</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 60px;">Maybe, maybe not. It's good to know, though, that the contestants will react the same -- both good and bad. Some things never change.</div>

World's Hot Daily News 'American Idol': The Idol Chatter live blog

From:  http://www.usatoday.com   Brian Mansfield  10:38p.m. EST January 16, 2013 Welcome to the first Idol Chatter live blog of American Ido...

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Frank Zamboni Honored With Playable Google Doodle

From:<a href="http://www.pcmag.com/">http://www.pcmag.com</a> <strong class="author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #006699; display: inline !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 8px 4px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;">By <span class="reviewer hcard" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="url fn" href="http://www.pcmag.com/author-bio/chloe-albanesius" style="border: 0px; color: #006699; display: inline-block; float: none; font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Chloe Albanesius</a></span></strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;">January 16, 2013 10:51am EST</span><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Frank Zamboni" height="400" src="http://www9.pcmag.com/media/images/371656-frank-zamboni.jpg?thumb=y" width="400" /></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Google has provided users with a new way to waste time today, thanks to an interactive homepage doodle in honor of entrepreneur Frank Zamboni.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Anyone who has spent any time at an ice-skating rink has undoubtedly laid eyes on Zamboni's most well-known invention - the Zamboni ice resurfacers. Today, in celebration of Zamboni's 112th birthday, Google's doodle lets you play Zamboni driver.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Visit Google.com and press the "play" button to enter Google's digital ice rink. Using the arrow keys, navigate the Zamboni around the rink, erasing scratch marks made by the skaters. Erasing all the marks will take you to higher levels, where you can also earn gas for your Zamboni. The game is complete with old-school video-game sounds, though they can be turned off. The more levels you complete, the more intricate the ice scrapings become.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Frank Zamboni was born in 1901 in Utah, but relocated to California in 1920, where his older brother George had an auto repair business, according to <a href="http://www.zamboni.com/about/zamboni-archives/the-zamboni-story/" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">his bio</a>. The family eventually shifted into refrigeration, and built a skating rink in Paramount, Calif. in 1939. At the time, the ice was resurfaced by pulling a scraper behind a tractor, while workers collected ice shavings and wiped away dirty water. The process took more than an hour, however, so Frank Zamboni started experimenting with other options in 1942.</div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8896966065785019252" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Frank Zamboni Google Doodle" border="0" class="right" src="http://www6.pcmag.com/media/images/371657-frank-zamboni-google-doodle.jpg?thumb=y" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; border: 0px; float: right; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;"></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">A prototype for the Zamboni we know today, however, was not developed until 1947, while it took another two years before Frank could adequately clear ice from a rink. At that point, he applied for a patent, which was awarded in 1953.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Frank Zamboni passed away in 1988, but his company lives on. In April 2012, Frank J. Zamboni & Co., Inc. <a href="http://www.zamboni.com/press/zamboni-company-to-deliver-machine-10000-2/" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">delivered</a>its 10,000th production machine to the National Hockey League's Montreal Canadiens.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is not the first interactive doodle for Google, meanwhile.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">A May 2012 <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404767,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">playable doodle</a> featured Robert Moog's signature Moog synthesizer, with all the accompanying bells and whistles. A <a href="http://www.moogmusic.com/content/google-doodle-how" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">quick-start guide</a> on moogmusic.com provided details on how to play the doodle, which also allowed users to record their creations and share them with friends.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">On Sept. 7, meanwhile, <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409414,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Google paid homage</a> to Star Trek with an interactive homepage doodle that celebrated the 46th birthday of the original TV series. Google dressed up the letters in its logo as Star Trek cast members, and with the click of a mouse, you could beam Kirk to an adventure beyond the confines of the starship USS Enterprise.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">Back in 2010, Google's <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364064,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">playable Pac-Man doodle</a> collectively consumed about 4.8 million hours of our time. Google eventually <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364106,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">created a standalone site</a> so people could continue their playtime.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3b3b3c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 9px; vertical-align: baseline;">For more of Google's doodles, see the <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/0,1206,l=262220&a=262220,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">slideshow</a> below. Recently, the company has honored the first computer programmer <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413020,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ada Lovelace</a>, <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407571,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Amelia Earhart</a>, as well as <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403995,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">artist Keith Haring</a>, zipper pioneer <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403445,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Gideon Sundback</a>, and even commemorated its own <a class="" href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410259,00.asp" style="border: 0px; color: #007ba1; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">14th birthday</a>with a birthday cake doodle.</div>

World's Hot Daily News Frank Zamboni Honored With Playable Google Doodle

From: http://www.pcmag.com   By  Chloe Albanesius January 16, 2013 10:51am EST Google has provided users with a new way to waste time today,...

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