NEWS ON 1-7 JANUARY 2016
Brighter Future for Vegetable 
Salads could become more colorful - and healthier -thank to unusually red tomatoes that could help to protect people against cancer and heart disease. Peter Bramley and his colleagues at Royal Holloway College , London , have genetically engineered tomatoes so that they contain unusually large amounts of lycopene and B -carotene. These compound are among a group of chemicals called antioxidantsthat are thought to mop up highly reactive compounds called free radicals inside cells. Left at large , free radicals can damage DNA , possibly leading to cancer-causing mutations. Free radicalsare also believed to play a role in the development of heart disease, triggering reactions that lead arteries to fur up with fatty deposits.
Bramley 's tomatoes are so red because they contain twice as much lycopene , the pigment that makes tomatoes red as normal. "Normal tomatoes usually have paler portions inside ,buf these one have even ,red pigmentation throughout ," he says.
They also contain abnormally high level of B -carotene , the compound that makes carrots bright orange. Both are carotenoids, a group of compounds found widely in fruit and vegetables. "If we can establish that higher levels of carotenoinds in the diet are beneficial, we are developing technology to modify common fruit and vegetables so that they produce more ," he says.
Bramley produced the extra lycopene and beta-carotene by inserting a gene into tomatoes that makes phytoene synthase, the compound in plants that triggers the synthesis of many carotenoids.
Bramley and his colleagues have just begun to evaluate some 30 other types of carotenoid. They are also studying which genes, or groups of genes, they may need to insert to raise the production of beneficial carotenoids. If the work with tomatoes is successful, Bramley hopes to engineer other fruits and vegetables, including peppers and carrots.
Source : http://www.nutrition-matters.co.uk/html_docs/macronutrients/gmfoodscarotenoids.htm? 
What did you get from this news?
I also knew that unusually red tomatoes can help to protect people against cancer and heart disease. Also, salad is beneficial food for the people who love healthy diet as well.
Fact or Fiction: Do Babies Resemble Their Fathers More Than Their Mothers? 
Does junior really have his father's nose? A common bit of parenting folklore holds that babies tend to look more like their fathers than their mothers, a claim with a reasonable evolutionary explanation. Fathers, after all, do not share a mother's certainty that a baby is theirs, and are more likely to invest whatever resources they have in their own offspring. Human evolution, then, could have favored children that resemble their fathers, at least early on, as a way of confirming paternity.
The paternal-resemblance hypothesis got some scientific backing in 1995, when a study in Nature by Nicholas Christenfeld and Emily Hill of the University of California, San Diego, showed that people were much better at matching photos of one-year-old children with pictures of their fathers than with photos of their mothers.
Case closed? Hardly. "It's a very sexy result, it's seductive, it's what evolutionary psychology would predict—and I think it's wrong," says psychologist Robert French of the National Center for Scientific Research in France. A subsequent body of research, building over the years in the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, has delivered results in conflict with the 1995 paper, indicating that young children resemble both parents equally. Some studies have even found that newborns tend to resemble their mothers more than their fathers.
In a 1999 study published in Evolution & Human Behavior, French and Serge Brédart of the University of Liège in Belgium set out to replicate the paternal-resemblance finding and were unable to do so. In a photo-matching trial with pictures of one-, three- and five-year-old children and their parents, subjects identified mothers and fathers equally well.
A more recent study in the same journal employed a larger set of photos than were used by either Christenfeld and Hill or Brédart and French in their studies and still concluded that most infants resemble both parents equally. "Our research, on a much larger sample of babies than Christenfeld and Hill's, shows that some babies resemble their father more, some babies resemble their mother more, and most babies resemble both parents to about the same extent," says Paola Bressan, a psychologist at the University of Padova in Italy who co-authored the 2004 study. Bressan added that, to the best of her knowledge, "no study has either replicated or supported" the 1995 finding that babies preferentially resemble their fathers.
Source : http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/babies-paternal-resemblance/ What did you get from this news?
When I read this news completely, I saw that some studies claim that most babies resemble their fathers. Some claim that most babies resemble their mothers. In short, babies resemble both parents in approximately equal measures.
When will China Become a Global Superpower 
(CNN) -- China is now synonymous with the term "emerging" superpower -- almost every reference to the country makes some mention of its future global prowess, both economic and military. But while few question China's rise and its existing might, when will we be able to drop the "emerging" tag and simply refer to the country as a superpower -- much like the U.S. is perceived today?
Already a significant regional power in Asia -- only India and Japan offer any kind of credible competition -- China is already increasing its global influence with its economic policies in Africa, Latin America and Europe, according to analysts. But many experts believe that for a country to become a true global power, it needs both unrivalled economic and military dominance.
Lawrence Saez, senior lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies, in London, says: "When China decides to take over Taiwan, that is when it will be a superpower. Unquestionably that will be the day." China regards Taiwan as part of its territory. It has vowed to use force against the island if it ever formally sought independence. "The tipping point is military, to have the ability to threaten your neighbors, threaten military action without the threat of challenge. China knows it would lose a war with the U.S. today," adds Saez, who thinks China will overtake the U.S. as a military superpower within the next 20 years.
Alexander Neill, senior Asia research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a London-based thinktank, says: "When it can truly challenge the U.S. (militarily), that is the day it will become a global superpower... a military with global reach, the ability to deploy around the world and defend its interests."
China's top military leaders have denied their country is seeking to become a military superpower; in early May Gen. Chen Bingde said America's armed forces remained far more advanced than China's. China has no intention to match U.S. military power, he said.
Source : http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/10/china.military.superpower/ What did you get from this news?
I also knew that China is currently one of the superpowers in Asia. Hence, we need to settle with circumstances that will happen in the future. Personally, I am studying English and Chinese language as well.
Walking Speed Could Predict Lifespan in Seniors 
Older people who walk quickly tend to live longer than those who slow way down as they age, found a new study.The findings do not mean that slow walkers are doomed to die early, the researchers warn. Nor will intentionally pushing yourself to hustle keep you young.Instead, the study suggests that, like blood pressure and cholesterol levels, the pace that you feel comfortable walking at can be a simple sign of your overall health.
In turn, a simple walking test could help doctors and patients make decisions about when to perform certain screening tests -- and when not to."We are not saying that if you just go out and walk faster, you will live longer. Absolutely not," said Stephanie Studenski, a geriatrician at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and at the Veteran Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System. "We are saying your body selects a walking speed that is best for you based on the health of all your body systems."
"The best way to live as long and well as you can is to be in the best health you can be," she added. "Walking speed might help you reflect or monitor how healthy you are."
There has long been a sense that slowing down is an ominous sign of aging, and not just in people. As pets get older, they may need more rest stops during their morning walks. Even C. elegans worms that wiggle slowly die sooner than worms of the same age that wiggle more quickly."Whether you're conscious of it or not, you may feel like grandpa's doing pretty good because he's got a spring in his step, he's out moving around, and he looks lively. But I'm worried about Aunt Mary because she's slowing down a lot," Studenski said. "The observation that there's something about how well you move that reflects health is almost implicit in human experience."
To test that notion, Studenski and colleagues gathered data from nine large, long-term aging studies that included a total of nearly 35,000 people, ages 65 and up. Each study had collected walking speed measurements and survival rates dating back between six and 21 years.Next to age and gender, the study found, the time it took a person to walk comfortably down a hall for a few yards was one of the best predictors of whether he or she would be alive five or 10 years later.
Source : http://news.discovery.com/human/health/walking-speed-seniors-longevity-110104.htm What did you get from this news?
I also knew that your most comfortable walking speed reflects the health of many organ systems. Walking slowly does not necessarily lead to an early death.
Is Vitaminwater Really a Healthy Drink? 
Over the past few years, an increasing number of worn-out consumers have reached for a bottle of Vitaminwater after a workout. The sports drink has emerged as a serious competitor to Gatorade and other noncarbonated beverages, so much so that Coca-Cola forked over $4.2 billion in cash to buy the brand from Glaceau back in 2007. On its July 21 earnings call, Coke CEO Muhtar Kent was particularly bullish about Vitaminwater, which is now being sold in 15 markets worldwide, including France, China and South Africa
But do some of these weekend warriors think they're just getting a healthy mix of vitamins and water, as the name of the product implies, when they chug that sweet drink? Probably so. But they're getting more: 33 grams of sugar and 125 calories, for every 20-ounce bottle. Hey, where's the sugar in the name?
Such mixed-message marketing has caused one food-health advocacy group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), to lead a class action claiming that Coca-Cola is violating consumer-protection laws with its Vitaminwater brand. According to CSPI nutritionists, Vitaminwater's sugar content more than offsets any advertised health benefits provided by the nutrients in the drink. "They added vitamins to crap," says Stephen Gardner, chief litigator for CSPI. "And it's still crap. Consumers shouldn't have to assume that the front of a label is a lie. You cannot deceive in the big print and tell the truth later."
The group achieved a victory last week, when a federal judge tossed out Coke's motion to dismiss the case. In a strongly worded 55-page opinion, Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn said the health claims on some Vitaminwater bottles may be in violation of FDA regulations since the drink "achieves its nutritional content solely through fortification that violates FDA policy." The judge thinks Coke could be violating the so-called jellybean rule, which says that a food- or drinkmaker cannot load otherwise unhealthy products with vitamins or other nutrients in order to claim it is healthy. A sugar product is a sugar product: you can't say a jellybean fights heart disease because it contains no cholesterol.
Source : http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2007106,00.html What did you get from this news?
I also knew that consumer often misunderstand that Vitaminwater offers health benefits.
Why Are Religious People Happier? 
Religious people tend to report more life satisfaction, and a new study explains why. It's not their spirituality, belief in heaven, or even the ritual act of praying or going to a house of worship that leads the pious to happiness. Rather, the study found, it's the close friends people gain through their religions that makes a difference.
The findings suggest that forging close bonds with people over mutually shared and meaningful interests might boost quality of life for anyone, religious or not. But there's something about being part of a congregation in particular that seems to build a sense of community and lead to fulfillment for many people.
"My co-author and I have found that religious people tend to volunteer more, care more about their community and do more good in their neighborhoods," said Chaeyoon Lim, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "All of that can be explained by friendships in the congregation that seem to make people not only happier, but also nicer people and better citizens."
Plenty of studies have established a link between religion and well-being, but the relationship poses a chicken-and-egg kind of problem. Does going to church really make people happier? Or do happier people tend to go to church? To decipher some of the details, Lim and colleague Robert Putnam of Harvard University used data from a survey that interviewed a representative sample of more than 3,000 Americans in 2006 and many of the same group again in 2007. The survey asked participants tons of questions about themselves, including dozens about the role that religion plays in their daily lives.
Results showed that frequency of attendance to religious services mattered more than anything besides health in determining how satisfied people were with their lives, the researchers report today in the journal American Sociological Review. The more often people went to services, the happier they reported being -- up to about weekly, at which point well-being ratings reached a plateau.
Twenty-eight percent of people who go to services weekly will say they are extremely satisfied with their lives, the study predicted, compared with less than 20 percent of people who never go to a place of worship. That's the same difference as between people who say they are in "very good" health compared to those in "good" health, and between people with a family income of $100,000 compared to those with an income of $10,000.
Source : http://news.discovery.com/history/religion/religion-happiness-social-bonds.htm What did you get from this news?
I also knew that close relationships explain why religious people tend to report more life satisfaction than others.
Thailand Could Be Asia-Pacific Top Green Tourism Destination
Thailand Could Be Asia-Pacific Top Green Tourism Destination
Thailand could be a leading green tourism destination in the Asia-Pacific region if all tourism-related parties seriously promote the country's potential and address the global warming problem, says the Thailand Ecotourism and Adventure Travel Association (TEATA).
Global warming affects tourism, yet tourism partly causes the problem as well. Consequently, tourists have become more responsible for the environment, especially those from Europe, America, and Japan, who are a premium market.
This has resulted in the trend toward environmentally friendly tourism in many countries such as Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. However, their green tourism sites remain substandard because it takes times to develop green tourism routes and products, says TEATA. It also takes time to train communities and green hotels and restaurants must be certified by international organisations.
Meanwhile, Malaysia, a rival with potential, has not taken up a green tourism drive seriously while Singapore and Hong Kong have few natural attractions.
TEATA has been promoting green tourism for 12 years but international green tourists accounted for fewer than 5% of the total tourist arrivals to Thailand in 2010."We believe the proportion of green tourists will exceed 5% this year. Although the number of green tourists is still very small, global warming will spur growth in this segment in the future. Green tourists are very loyal and responsible," said TEATA adviser Duangkamol Chansuriyawong.
Tourism operators agree and many of them want to go green but it is not easy to craft environmentally friendly tourism products. The government and the private sector must tailor marketing campaigns and promote them seriously. Thailand's green tourism has received good responses from Europe and TEATA is heading for North America, where green tourism is popular as well.
The association will promote green tourism routes in Thailand with Tourism Authority of Thailand offices in the United States. In Asia, Japan is its focus.TEATA already launched the green routes, which are operated by specialists with eco-tour guides. The programmes offer guests unique opportunities to stay in green hotels, enjoy eco-tourism activities, and experience life, culture and nature with local communities.
Source :
http://www.eturbonews.com/23255/thailand-could-be-asia-pacific-top-green-tourism-destination
What did you get from this news?
I also knew that Thailand could have potential as a leading green tourism destination. But Malaysia is a rival that it has potential to be a major green tourism destination. Yet, Thailand has received good support from European tourists.
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