Caffeine is the most frequently used central nervous system stimulant in the world, and coffee consumption accounts for about 80 percent of caffeine use.

Drinking coffee offers a boost of energy and a lift in well being, said Alberto Ascherio of Harvard School of Public Health.

“This short-term effect is what drives the consumption of caffeine,” said Ascherio, whose study appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Here we are looking at long-term chronic use of caffeinated coffee,” Ascherio said in a telephone interview.

His team studied more than 50,000 women enrolled in a health study of nurses. The women had an average age of 63, and none were depressed when they enrolled in the study.

Ascherio’s team measured coffee consumption based on data on the women for 14 years dating back to 1976. They then classified the women according to how much coffee they drank and followed them for an additional 10 years.

“We found that those women who regularly drink four or more cups of coffee a day have 20 percent lower risk of developing depression than those who rarely or never drink coffee,” Ascherio said.

The team focused specifically on coffee, but they had similar findings when they looked at overall caffeine consumption, including caffeinated soft drinks and chocolate. They found that women who were in the top fifth of caffeine consumption had a 20 percent lower risk of depression than women in the bottom fifth.

The team built a two-year gap or latency period between when they measured caffeine consumption and their assessment for depression to make sure they were not just capturing women who were too depressed to be regular coffee drinkers.

Ascherio said there have been very few studies that look at the long-term effects of coffee consumption. One smaller study in Finland showed men who drank a lot of coffee were less likely to commit suicide.

And Ascherio’s own team has shown that drinking a lot of coffee may be protective against Parkinson’s disease in both men and women.

He said it is not yet clear how coffee might protect against depression, but there are some hints.

Animal studies have shown that caffeine protects against certain neurotoxins. And brain receptors that respond to caffeine are concentrated in the basal ganglia, an area that is important for both depression and Parkinson’s disease.

Ascherio said low-dose, chronic stimulation of these receptors may make them more efficient.

He stressed that the study does not prove that coffee lowers depression risk — only that it might be protective against depression in some way.

And many more studies will be needed to show whether coffee can be used to prevent depression, Ascherio said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/pjSydu Archives of Internal Medicine, September 26, 2011.

Today,I just have to share this one best marriage proposal idea. This salon girl becomes one of those stunned girlfriend to find out of her boyfriend’s proposal. Her beau,David Jones–a Cleveland-based video producer, conveniently enough–did a yesterday to in a successful bid for the hand of his girlfriend, Dee Horton.

On Thursday, Horton and her co-workers at a Medina, Ohio hair salon tuned in to the midday newscast on Cleveland’s WJW-TV. Jones had told her that he’d be portraying some sort of superhero in a commercial. But as she went about trimming a client’s hair with one eye on the broadcast, she soon realized that she was the sole member of this particular commercial’s target demographic. “A lot of people say we’re living on love, like it’s a bad thing,” Jones said in the commercial. “How about you and I show the world what true love is all about?” He then pulled out a ring and proposed, and a few seconds later Jones emerged in the salon with a WJW camera crew, and dropped to his knees to perform such stunning proposal in person.

Jones said in an earlier statement that he wanted his marriage proposal to be “something neither one of us would ever forget,” and he clearly achieved his goal. For her part, Horton said that she contracted cancer shortly after she and Jones began dating, but he stuck by her side and cared for her as she endured surgery and radiation treatments. We wish them all the best. (Catch the video via: Fox 8 WJW in Cleveland )

The French-language site Mac4Ever (translated link) posted a photo it claims is the new 15-inch MacBook Pro’s product box showing the purported laptop’s new specs. The latest MacBook Pro will reportedly include a 2Ghz Intel Core i7 quad-core processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, a 500 GB optical drive, 1,440-by-900 display resolution, two USB slots, a SDXC card slot, a FireWire 800 port, an 8x Super Drive, a FaceTime HD camera, and an AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics card with 256 MB of VRAM. The computer weighs 5.6 pounds, according to the screenshot. It’s not clear what the specs would be for the 13- and 17-inch MacBook Pros.

The box also mentions something called a Thunderbolt port, which is rumored to be using Intel’s Light Peak high-speed connection technology that will supposedly rival USB. The box says this port is compatible with peripherals and also acts as a MiniDisplay port, backing up rumors that appeared online on Wednesday.

Missing from the purported specs is any mention of the previously rumored hybrid SSD-optical storage system. Under this scheme, the OS X operating system would sit on the SSD for a faster start-up time while file storage would be handled by the larger optical drive.

It’s not clear when Apple will open up its online store again, but if it’s waiting to unveil refreshed MacBook Pros, it may have to wait until later today. Intel is hosting a press event Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific time in San Francisco to launch its Light Peak technology that is purportedly used in the new MacBook Pro’s Thunderbolt technology.

Leveling up with App Store subscription plan, Google announces Google One Pass but is less than the 30 percent charged by Apple for subscriptions to applications sold through the App Store for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Google unveils payment platform for online content as it launched an online payment platform for digital newspapers and magazines. This is as a subscription service unveiled by Apple a day earlier came under fire for the size of the bite it takes from publishers.

This Online Payment System competes the price of Apple,Google will take a 10-percent share of revenue from transactions handled by “Google One Pass,” less than the 30 percent charged by Apple for subscriptions to applications sold through the App Store for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.Publishers who opt to use Google One Pass to charge readers for digital content can set their own prices and terms.

Readers who purchase from a One Pass publisher can access their content on tablets, smartphones and websites using a single sign-on with an email and password.More inportantly,the service helps publishers authenticate existing subscribers so that readers don’t have to re-subscribe in order to access their content on new devices.

Google said publishers can offer readers a variety of options including full subscriptions or even single articles for purchase.”With Google One Pass, publishers can customize how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see what works best for them,” Google said.
CEO Eric Schmidt announced Google One Pass during his speech at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Such an online payment system had been rumored for months, but Google obviously timed its announcement to promote the fact that its terms are more favorable–and flexible–to publishers than Apple’s.

Such an online payment system had been rumored for months, but Google obviously timed its announcement to promote the fact that its terms are more favorable–and flexible–to publishers than Apple’s.

Google One Pass is currently available from publishers in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States.

Facebook can be addicted. But beware of who are accessing your profile if you really do are connected with them or if your private life is being accessed by any intruder.Here are some steps for those who are still struggling with on how to protect your identity.

• Visit Facebook.com, log in to your profile and click ‘Account’ in the top-right corner. From there, choose ‘Privacy Settings.’

• From the ‘Privacy Settings’ page, click on ‘View Settings’ to see who can search for you, send messages to your account, see your education and work settings and more. Change all of these drop-down menus to ‘Friends Only.’

• Return to the ‘Privacy Settings’ page and choose ‘Customize Settings’ near the bottom of the page. This new page will load a number of different privacy options, but you’ll want to click through each one and change the setting to ‘Only Me’ so that nobody else can see your Facebook activity.

• Stay on the ‘Customize Settings’ page and scroll down to ‘Things Others Share.’ Here, you’ll want to edit and disable settings so that your friends are unable to write on your wall, comment on posts and check you in to places.

• Return to the ‘Privacy Settings’ page and, under ‘Apps and Websites’ in the bottom-left corner, select ‘Edit Your Settings.’ This page shows all of the third-party websites and applications that you have given access to some of your Facebook information. If you see anything on this list that you want to remove, just click to remove it from the list.

• Stay on the ‘Apps and Websites’ page, scroll down to ‘Instant Personalization’ and select ‘Edit Settings.’ Uncheck the box at the bottom of this page to block other websites from accessing your Facebook interests. Select ‘Confirm’ when a pop-up asks you if you’re sure you want to disable this option.

• Return to the ‘Apps and Websites’ page, scroll down to ‘Public Search’ and select ‘Edit Settings.’ To keep search engines from finding your Facebook profile, uncheck the box on this new screen.

So bear in mind that once you’re out there in the open anything can be taken away from you on cyberspace. Your personal informations are, so to day, laid out in the open. Being famous online doesnt necessarily mean you get all the good benefits of being famous because it also has a price that you may not be aware that you have to pay.

Here’s for a free veggie spending! Veggie Bomb Free is a game that has players trying to strike passing vehicles with vegetables.

It’s a hand-eye coordination test that has you timing your throws for maximum impact, and while Veggie Bomb Free isn’t extremely deep, it’s an interesting diversion and, of course, free. If you’re looking for a quick and easy game with no obligation, this isn’t a bad one.
Filtatron

At $4.99, you can add Filtatron as one of your iPhone applications. It turns your iPhone into a sound capturing and mixing studio. It allows you to create your own sound samples and filter them with the app’s audio editing software, giving you a lot of control over sound even if you don’t have access to much equipment.

Wait there’s more, Filtatron includes audio sharing capabilities: email and FTP uploading of audio files tops the list, but the app also lets you share audio between other apps with its copy-and-paste functions.
SoundStream

MobileMe users will find this app to be pretty cool. It uses Apple’s device service to stream music from MobileMe to your iOS gadgets through your network or cloud sharing, allowing you to play your music on multiple devices from anywhere. Plug your iPod Touch or iPhone into a stereo and you can stream music from your computer – or do the same in your car with your iPhone’s 3G connection. You can include this to your iPhone apps at  $1.99.
Time Stash (iPhone)

This one is for free, i think its because time is for free, you just have to maximize it wisely. But what i do know is that all of us has this dillemma of  spending  way too much time working on a particular project, while another is being neglected. This is where you’ll find this app very useful. Time Stash is meant to help you see how you’re spending your time to maximize your effectiveness.

Users enter what they’re working on into the app and start a timer, then stop it when they’re finished. Time Stash saves the activity and the time devoted to it, and you can go back and add things later if you forget to time them. It’s simple, but like those apps that keep track of everything you eat during a day, it can be eye-opening and effective.

It was reported that Apple spokesman Steve Dowling confirmed the purchase Sunday, but would not provide any further information, including how much the deal was worth.

“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans,” he said.

Lala has developed an application — not yet available to the public — that allows users to buy the right to stream songs from a digital locker for an unlimited time on their iPhones for 10 cents each.

The song quality is lower than what Apple’s iTunes songs offer, but tracks can played in seconds, and cost much less than the songs on iTunes, which generally are priced at 69 cents to $1.29 each.

Lala, a private company based in Palo Alto, Calif., was launched in 2006 with $35 million in venture capital from Bain Capital LLC, Ignition Partners and Warner Music Group. Lala began as an online CD-trading site but relaunched in October 2008 as a music retailer.

Exactly how the hands posed is how the “Twilight” can also be felt. Beautiful yet full of suspense.  That’s the essence of Parts Modeling. You make sure that you’re posing for the right emotion and not just pure display of the part.

Kimbra Hickey proved that part modeling can be her fame stepping stone when 5 years ago, she became the “Twilight” novel cover art hand model.

“I just stumbled on it. I’ve never been recognized as a hand model, but when I started going to bookstores and telling people who were in line paying for ‘Twilight’ that those were my hands, before you know it, I had a line of people waiting for autographs.” Hickey states.

Being technically gaining celebrity status, Hickey is now touring with various “Twilight” themed conventions, autographing covers and recreating her famous hand pose for photos with fans.

Body Part modeling is just exactly how it sounds. Parts models make sure that the part they show to the camera is maintained to its flawless form. Like the hands being poreless and veinless. Parts models care for the parts as they consider it the most precious than their face on cam, may it be their hands, legs, nose, forehead, youa name the part. They earn quite reasonably definitely. They earn a living through body parts and some can be very in demand. Great fame as they say comes with great responsibility, and in Body Parts model, its the responsibility of maintaining a flawless freckle-free part.

Consider one of the famous Body Part Model Ashley Covington. She doesn’t lift a finger. She doesn’t cook, she doesn’t clean and she avoids anything that could ruin her manicure. She moisturizes her hands  20 to 30 times a day, and wear gloves 90 percent of the time.Why of the $1200 in a day worth of her hands, why settle for stressing out her hands?
Full-time or part-time Body Parts Modeling, just like any other career requires specialty, not just purely showing off.

I happen to be one of those who believe in the power of shooting stars. I make a wish at the sight of them up to now. Whether my wishes came true or not, I could’nt remember if they were, but the fact that I see them is wich come true enough.

The world’s expecting the annual Perseid meteor shower tonight for those fanatics of the shooting stars. It is said that in North America, the best time to watch will be between midnight to 5 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 12, but late Tuesday night and also Wednesday night could be one of the best time if  weather permits.The Perseids are bits of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which has laid down several streams of debris, each in a slightly different location, over the centuries as it orbits the sun. Every August, Earth passes through these debris streams, which spread out over time.

But whoever did discovered these meteor showers?

I t was Edward Claudius Herrick who was a bookworm whose father was a Yale graduate and founder of a girls’ school. His mother was a descendant of one of Yale’s founders. The Herricks lived in New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale. But the boy did not go to Yale. Edward’s parents though ,felt that his chronic eyelid inflammation would keep him from succeeding in higher education. So in 1827, at the age of 16, Edward became a clerk in a bookstore that served Yale students and faculty and was also the college’s publishing house.

Everyone in New Haven with intellectual interests stopped by the bookstore, and Herrick reveled in conversations with professors such as astronomer Denison Olmsted and chemist Benjamin Silliman. The young clerk worked hard, and at age 24 he became one of the bookstore’s owners. But during the next three years the business failed and left Herrick broke. On the evening of August 9, 1837, just as his business was teetering toward collapse, Herrick observed an unusual number of meteors in the night sky. From people who had stayed up very late that night, he heard that the meteors were even more numerous and brilliant after midnight.

Since then American astronomers in 1837 were still gripped by the excitement of the epic meteor deluge that had taken place four years earlier. On the night of November 12-13, 1833, more than a thousand shooting stars per minute had been seen radiating from the constellation Leo (Sky & Telescope: November 1995, page 24). Astronomers had been taken completely by surprise; it was the first time that most of them had paid attention to meteors at all. They were especially startled by Olmsted’s demonstration that the shower’s meteors must have been flying together in parallel from a distant region of space. Most astronomers had believed that meteors were mere atmospheric phenomena, to be ignored like clouds and weather.

So stay up star gazers, gear being romantic and bring along your partners on this annual show of the sky or just a simple gazing all by yourself could give you a bit of relaxation too.

More space info on:www.skyandtelescope.com

Aesthetics is the only reason.

Its said that the 10:10 position gives the clock or watch a number of benefits:

• The hands not overlapping, so they’re fully and clearly visible and their styling can be admired.

• The arrangement of the hands is symmetrical, which people generally find more pleasant than asymmetry, making the product more appealing to customers.

• The manufacturer’s logo, usually in the center of the face under the 12, is not only visible, but nicely framed by the hands.

• Additional elements on the face (like date windows and secondary dials), usually placed near the 3, 6, or 9, won’t be obscured.

According to the folks at Timex (who set their products at 10:09:36 exactly), the standard setting used to be 8:20, but this made the face look like it was frowning. To make the products look “happier,” the setting was flipped into a smile (occasionally, you’ll still see the 8:20 setting on some clocks or watches where the manufacturer’s logo is at bottom of the face above the 6).