| Researchers find most Americans snack-crazed on the job
NEW YORK -- Apple in your top drawer, granola bar in your briefcase, sesame seeds -- raw and unsalted -- in a bowl on your desk. Yes, these are the healthy staples used to stave off the midafternoon siren call of the office vending machine. Clearly, they don't work. Close to three-quarters of 2,063 full-time U.S. workers surveyed said they scarf down an unhealthy snack such as chips or candy at least once a week on the job. And 27 percent say they do it three or more times a week. The results are from a phone survey in this summer by Opinion Research Corporation for Nationwide Better Health, a Columbus, Ohio-based health and productivity management company. The survey also found 38 percent of respondents placing the blame for their habit on work-related stress, and 48 percent saying their cafeterias and office vending machines offer no healthy alternatives to the yummier, junkier snacks.
Keeping cat burglars out of the bird feeder
Dear Dr. Fox: I would like to offer a suggestion to C.B.S. of Salisbury, Md., who had the problem of neighborhood cats hanging around the birdhouses and feeders.Try laying down chicken wire on the ground under them in whatever diameter needed. It's said that cats don't like the feel on their paws; and the birds can still feed off the ground.My birds have learned to be somewhat aware of my cats -- I have eight. Luckily, the cats have outgrown stalking the birds, but I still try not to encourage ground feeders.I used the chicken wire a few years ago when a Carolina wren insisted on nesting on my kitchen window ledge. All seven babies flew off safely, so it must have at least helped.It's worth giving the chicken wire a try; but, truthfully, controlling outside cats is next to impossible.-- S.R.C, Great Falls, Va.Dear S.R.C.: Thanks for the good advice.
Healthy Indoor Environment First Step in Managing Allergic Diseases
Taking steps to reduce indoor air pollution and maintain a healthy home or office is the best defense against allergic diseases including chronic rhinosinusitis and asthma, according to a team of experts presenting the latest research at the Healthy Indoor Environment Conference held in conjunction with the ACAAI Annual Meeting. .
Pet doctor -- Heartworm disease in cats easily prevented
Recently the Sun Herald carried a column by a California veterinarian who wrote on the topic of heartworm disease and heartworm prevention. In his piece, he mentioned that heartworm prevention may be optional for your cat. While that may be true in some parts of the world, it certainly isn't for the Southeastern United States. We fully realize that Your Pet's Doctor is distributed worldwide, but our home base is on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We don't want any cats getting heartworms, here or anywhere else, either. Let's look at the reasons in favor of using monthly heartworm preventive for your kitty: • Heartworm disease is deadly in cats. It is a very treatable disease in dogs, but there is no treatment for cats, only prevention.
Similarities to other massacres - but this was a very Finnish affair
In the old days Finns used to believe in the dark power of Tuonela, the mythical land of the dead. Now they believe in YouTube, the land of the virtual living. The crazed marginalised teenager who takes out his frustration on his teachers and schoolmates, who chases them through classrooms like mice in a maze, has become a universal phenomenon: the massacres at Virginia Tech, Columbine and Erfurt in Germany conformed to a pattern. A pupil is snubbed, is deemed a failure, and retreats into an interior world that structured by his computer, video games that tap his inner aggressions, throbbing downloaded music and a locked room. .
|
