Very Important Information about Pets, Pregnancy And Parenting And More

American Airlines expanded the availability of in-flight Internet access Wednesday, launching airborne e-mail, Web and other online services on some of its longer, nonstop flights.

The move could create a new stream of revenue as the aviation industry faces high fuel prices and other challenges, but it also could create new headaches as passengers retrieve sensitive e-mails and Web sites in confined quarters.

American tested in-flight access on two flights on June 25. With Wednesday’s launch, the airline is making service available for $12.95 per flight on its Boeing 767-200 aircraft connecting New York with Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami. American said most flights on those routes use the 767-200.

“Today the days of being cut off from the rest of the world while in the air become history,” said Jack Blumenstein, chief executive of Aircell LLC, the company providing Internet services for American and other airlines.

Several other airlines have been testing or considering in-flight services.

The system will block Internet-based phone calls, giving passengers relief from chatty seatmates.

However, American and other U.S. airlines have said they will not filter sites based on their content, raising the prospect of passengers surfing pornography with kids nearby. Airlines say they already have general policies to address unruly passengers, and those would apply as they do now to passengers who browse adult magazines.

Less clear is how executives reading corporate e-mail containing confidential information will fend off snooping eyes.

Apple Inc. said Tuesday that batteries from a single supplier are to blame for the meltdown of some models of its tiny iPod Nano digital music player.

The company’s written statement came in response to a Japanese government report that two iPod Nanos overheated in Tokyo, scorching nearby paper and a woven straw mat.

Apple said the flaw affected first-generation Nanos, sold between September 2005 and December 2006, in very rare instances. The company’s statement added that “There have been no reports of serious injuries or property damage, and no reports of incidents for any other iPod Nano model.”

Japan’s government has been working with Apple to investigate three separate cases of iPods that overheated while being recharged, according to Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry official Hiroyuki Yoshitsune. A defect in the lithium-ion battery was suspected in all three cases.

Millions of lithium-ion laptop batteries made by Sony for Apple, Dell Inc., Lenovo Inc. and other PC makers were recalled in 2006 and 2007 after it was discovered that they could overheat and ignite.

Apple did not immediately return a call seeking the name of the company that made the iPod batteries in question. Yoshitsune declined to name the supplier.

No one was injured during the two Tokyo incidents disclosed Tuesday. Yoshitsune said the cases involved an iPod Nano, model number MA099, which singed nearby paper in August, and model MA005, which burned a traditional Japanese tatami mat in January. Both music players were twisted out of shape from the heat and became unusable, he said.

The latest problem follows a similar report from the Japanese ministry in March about sparks shooting out of an iPod Nano.

Apple’s iPod players are extremely popular in Japan and coveted as fashion items, even though Japanese manufacturers produce a host of iPod rivals.

The obesity epidemic in America has gotten worse — not better — in the last year, despite public service campaigns warning about the health risks posed by carrying too much weight, a new report found.

Adult obesity rates increased in 37 states, while there were no decreases in any states, according to the annual report released Tuesday by the nonprofit Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The obesity rates rose for a second consecutive year in 24 states and for a third consecutive year in 19 states, according to the report, F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America, 2008″.

More than 25 percent of adults are obese in 28 states, up from 19 states last year. And more than 20 percent of adults are obese in every state except Colorado. In 1991, no state had an obesity rate greater than 20 percent.

Eleven of the 15 states with the highest obesity rates are in the South. Northeastern and Western states have the lowest obesity rates.

“Despite widespread acknowledgement that obesity is endangering the health of millions of Americans, the country is still failing to respond clearly or comprehensively,” Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said in the news release. “We must work together, governments, schools and communities, to improve nutrition and increase physical activity for all ages. We must ensure that strong policies are implemented and enforced in every state, not only to help reverse existing obesity rates, but to prevent obesity among our nation’s children and generations to come.”

The five fattest states and their obesity rates are Mississippi (31.7 percent), West Virginia (30.6 percent), Alabama (30.1 percent), Louisiana (29.5 percent) and South Carolina (29.2 percent). The five slimmest states are Colorado (18.4 percent), Hawaii (20.7 percent), Connecticut (20.8 percent), Massachusetts (20.9 percent), and Vermont (21.1 percent), according to the report.

An estimated two-thirds of Americans are now overweight or obese. That compares to 1980, when the national average of obese adults was 15 percent.

Obesity is defined as a body mass index — BMI, a ratio of weight to height — of 30 or more. A person who is 5-feet, 8-inches tall and weighs 197 pounds has a BMI of 30.

The report said that rates of type 2 diabetes — a disease typically associated with obesity — increased in 26 states last year. Four states now have diabetes rates above 10 percent. And all 10 states with the highest rates of diabetes and high blood pressure are in the South.

Besides type 2 diabetes, obesity has been linked to coronary heart disease and stroke, cancer, osteoarthritis, gall bladder disease, liver disease and pregnancy complications, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The report also noted a relationship between poverty and obesity rates. It found that seven of the 10 states with the highest obesity rates are also among the 10 states with the highest poverty rates.

While a number of promising policies designed to promote physical activity and good nutrition have been introduced in communities, the report’s findings suggest that these policies aren’t being adopted or implemented at levels sufficient to reverse the obesity epidemic.

“America’s future depends on the health of our country. The obesity epidemic is lowering our productivity and dramatically increasing our health care costs. Our analysis shows that we are not treating the obesity epidemic with the urgency it deserves,” Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health, said in a news release. “Even though communities have started taking action, considering the scope of the problem, the country’s response has been severely limited. For significant change to happen, combating obesity must become a national priority.”

Among the report’s other findings:

• While all 50 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws related to physical education and/or physical activity in schools, only 13 states include language to enforce the laws. Of these states, only four have sanctions or penalties if the laws are not implemented.
• While the Dietary Guidelines for Americans were updated in 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture school meal program has yet to adopt the recommendations.
• Eighteen states have enacted laws requiring school meals to exceed USDA nutrition standards. But, only seven of these laws have specific enforcement provisions, and only two state laws include sanctions if its requirements aren’t met.
• Ten states do not include specific coverage for nutrition assessment and counseling for obese or overweight children in their Medicaid programs.
• Twenty states explicitly do not cover nutritional assessment and consultation for obese adults under Medicaid.

The report offered a series of recommendations to combat the obesity epidemic, including investing in community-based disease-prevention programs that promote physical activity and good nutrition; improving the nutritional quality of foods available in schools and child-care programs; increasing the amount and quality of physical education and activity in schools and child-care programs; encouraging employers to provide workplace wellness programs; and requiring public and private insurers to provide preventive services, including nutrition counseling for children and adults.

Tasmanian cave glow-worms are energy conservationists, which switch off lights at night-time, according to a discovery made by Queensland University researcher.

The study revealed the glow-worm’s prey-luring light output is governed by circadian rhythms, regardless of ambient light levels.

It aimed to investigate the physiology and behaviours of cave dwelling glow-worms, which are actually immature or larval stage of a mosquito-like fly found in parts of Australia and New Zealand.

David Merritt, who led the study, said unlike their rainforest dwelling counterparts, the cave-dwelling glow-worm can detect the time of day, even from the deepest stretches of their caves.

“In the rainforest, exposure to light during the day causes them to switch off, but in caves there is no light to cause that to happen, however they switch off of their own accord and they do it in synchrony,” Merritt said.

“The most unexpected result of the study was they are out of sync with their surface relatives: they glow most brightly when it is daylight outside the cave.”

Merritt suggested this discovery could strengthen the Queensland and Tasmanian insect eco-tourism industries and ensure the glow-worms can continue to do what they do best - shine.

“The more we know about the factors that influence the glow intensity the better off managers of these sites will be in ensuring that the display is as attractive as possible while maintaining the long-term health of the glow-worm colonies,” he said.

Merritt’s research could also help safeguard the species against climate change, by providing insight into their predatory behaviours and the impact of seasonal rhythms and human activity on the caves and their fauna.

China has banned the use of its Olympic gold medalists‘ names as Internet addresses by anyone but the athletes themselves.

The move announced Tuesday came after companies registered the names of winning Chinese athletes at the 2004 Athens Olympics as Web addresses, prompting an outcry by sports fans.

“The move will better protect the interests of the Olympic gold medalists,” said an official of the government’s China Internet Network Information Center, quoted by the state Xinhua News Agency. It identified him only by the surname Hu.

The Chinese government controls the awarding of Web addresses using the “.cn” suffix but has no power over those assigned in other countries.

The General Administration of Sport gave the agency a list of Chinese Olympians ahead of the games and registered all possible domain names using their names, Xinhua said.

People who registered those names before the games can keep them but “were advised to give it to the medalist `as a gift’,” Xinhua cited CNNIC as saying.

Domain names based on the names of a least 10 gold medalists, including weightlifter Chen Xiexia and gymnast Yang Wei, were registered before the games, according to Xinhua.

A Russian Proton-M rocket Tuesday sent a US telecommunications satellite, the Inmarsat-4 F3, into Earth orbit, a spokesman for a Moscow-based producer of space launch systems said.

The rocket was launched from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan at 2.43 am, said Alexander Bobrenyov, spokesman for the Khrunichev state research and production space centre.

According to the federal space agency Roskosmos, “within eight hours five mid-course burns will bring the orbital unit from the suborbital trajectory to a final transfer orbit, where the satellite will separate”, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

The US satellite will reach an altitude of about 36,000 km following five switches of the Briz-M engine, he said.

Inmarsat-4 satellites are among the largest and most sophisticated commercial communication satellites, capable of delivering advanced voice and broadband data communications to mobile users.

German politicians called for tougher privacy laws on Tuesday after officials revealed personal and financial information on millions of Germans was readily available for cash on the Internet.

The scandal over the illegal trading of bank account and phone data came just months after snooping cases at some major German corporations raised alarms.

“The data scandals unfortunately highlight how urgent this issue is,” said parliamentarian Sebastian Edathy from the Social Democrats (SPD), who share power with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU).

“Parliament must … find a quick response to these blatant cases of abuse,” Edathy, who chairs parliament’s internal affairs committee, told Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.

He said he would call a meeting of lawmakers and experts to assess tougher data protection laws after the summer break.

Data protection and privacy protection are sensitive issues in a country haunted by domestic spying by the Nazi Gestapo and communist East Germany’s Stasi secret police.

The new debate was triggered by reports that a call centre employee alerted authorities to a problem with his company’s data collection practices by handing over data on some 17,000 addresses and bank account details to a privacy protection office in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Prosecutors have launched an investigation.

On Monday, privacy officials also said they were able to buy 6 million pieces of personal data, including bank and phone details, undercover on the Internet for 850 euros ($1,248).

Officials have said the information seemed to have been stolen from lottery firms’ files or mobile phone contracts.

Germany’s liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the far-left Left party called for higher fines for data protection infringements.

Greens lawmaker Renate Kuenast said individuals must be able to know who has their details and what happens to them.

“These rights belong in the constitution,” Kuenast said.

Germany’s Interior Ministry has said it will consider whether to change the rules once the investigation into the Schlewsig-Holstein case had been completed.

Data protection questions have played a prominent role in Germany in past months, at a time when the government is trying to loosen privacy laws to help police fight terrorism and crime.

Deutsche Telekom, Europe’s biggest telecommunications firm, shocked clients earlier this year with revelations that it illegally monitored phone records in 2005 and discount retailer Lidl was investigated after accusations it was monitoring staff.

A new research has shown that an infant’s sensitivity to negative emotional expressions is likely to develop around six months.

Scientists from University of Tampere studied how the infants, between 5-7 months, react to negative facial expressions. They found that infants aged 5 months react very differently to a fearful face than those aged 7 months.

“At the age of 7 months babies will watch a fearful face for longer than a happy face, and their attentiveness level as measured by EEG is higher after seeing a fearful than a happy face,” said Mikko Peltola, researcher at the University of Tampere.

“By contrast, infants aged 5 months watch both faces, when they are shown side by side, for just as long, and there is no difference in the intensity of attention in favour of the fearful face,” Peltola added.

The researchers believe that important developmental changes take place in the way that infants process significant emotional expressions

A fearful face attracts intense attention by the age of 7 months. In addition, it takes longer for infants to shift their attention away from fearful than from happy and neutral faces.

“Our interpretation of this is to suggest that the brain mechanisms that specialise in emotional response and especially in processing threatening stimuli regulate and intensify the processing of facial expressions by age 7 months,” said Peltola.

Video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. is retracting its hostile bid for smaller rival Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., but a deal — and a friendly one at that — is likelier than ever.

Take-Two, best known for the popular “Grand Theft Auto” video game series, confirmed Monday it expects to sign a confidentiality agreement with EA to begin formal discussions about “strategic alternatives.”

EA had said earlier it wouldn’t extend the Monday night deadline for its $2 billion tender offer to buy Take-Two. The companies have been unable to agree on a price for the past six months.

Now, EA says that if it does buy Take-Two, it no longer believes it can combine the company in time for the holidays, when video game companies make most of their money. Because of this, EA said it needs to review assumptions made to support its offer price of $25.74 per share.

“They are both posturing,” said Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter. “EA is saying `we want to pay less,’ Take-Two is saying they want more. The important thing is that they are talking.”

EA already has extended its deadline for the offer five times, mostly to let regulators continue their antitrust review. The company said it would let the offer expire at 11:59 p.m. EDT Monday, and added it “remains confident that antitrust issues will not prevent or delay a transaction.” The Federal Trade Commission is scheduled to complete its review by Thursday.

On Monday, EA said it will entertain a financial presentation by Take-Two under confidentiality agreements. Take-Two’s management said it plans to present EA with its three-year product release schedule, financial projections and other nonpublic information meant to support its claims of what the company is worth.

EA wants to buy Take-Two not just for the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise, the company’s main source of revenue, but also for its sports business and critically acclaimed titles such as “BioShock,” which is being made into a movie. Take-Two’s sales for the most recent fiscal year, which ended in October, totaled $982 million. EA, meanwhile, reaped sales of $3.67 billion in the year ended March 31.

On Friday, EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello called Strauss Zelnick, chairman of Take-Two’s board, to discuss the offer. Following further discussions over the weekend, EA agreed to hear Take-Two’s presentation.

In a letter made public Monday, Zelnick said the company “has made significant strides since EA first expressed interest” in Take-Two. In a separate statement, Zelnick said his company’s board remains “unwavering in its belief” that EA’s offer price was too low.

Shares of New York-based Take-Two slid $1.09, or 4.4 percent, to $23.75. This is still well above $17.36, the stock’s closing price on Feb. 22, the last trading day before EA announced its offer of $25.74 per share. This could signal that investors are confident a deal will go through, but the question is at what price, and when.

Pachter, for one, said if the companies’ managements “are as smart as I think they are,” this price will be somewhere between $26 and $27, and an agreement could happen this week. But if Take-Two decides to hold out for a higher price, like $30 or more, the analyst expects EA to go hostile again, and at a price closer to $20. This, Pachter noted, is less likely, given the “dearth of other bidders.”

If a deal does happen, EA has said it would give Take-Two’s creative teams — many of which have worked under a succession of CEOs over the past few years — a “stable management” that understands video games. Riccitiello took over at EA in April 2007 and has since reorganized the software publisher into a “city-state model,” with four game divisions and distinct, independent development studios.

Still, EA has been under pressure from investors to improve its creativity and rely less on sequels of existing hits — something the Take-Two acquisition could help accomplish.

Zelnick took over as chairman of Take-Two after a March 2007 shareholder coup ousted most of the company’s top executives and board members over poor results, accounting troubles and controversy surrounding violent and sexual content in games. Several former executives, including ex-Chairman and CEO Ryan A. Brant, pleaded guilty in 2007 to falsifying business records after a probe into backdated stock options.

Shares of Redwood City, Calif.-based EA fell 48 cents to $47.76.

Rock band AC/DC’s first studio album in eight years, “Black Ice,” will be sold exclusively in the U.S. via Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and the band’s Web site, beginning October 20. First single “Rock ‘n’ Roll Train” will hit U.S. radio on August 28.

In an unusual move, the exclusive release comes with the full cooperation of AC/DC’s label home, Columbia, which says it is planning “multiple activities for fans” leading up to release date.

The 15-track “Black Ice” is the follow-up to 2000’s “Stiff Upper Lip.” An extensive world tour in support of the set will begin in late October.

In addition, on September 9 Columbia will release “No Bull: The Director’s Cut,” a newly edited DVD of AC/DC’s July 1996 show at Madrid’s Plaza De Toros De Las Ventas.