Alan Mulally insisted Ford resurrect the Taurus namplate, then turned the Explorer into a midsize crossover sport/utility. Can he, will he, name the sleek new Vertrek -- an obvious hint for the 2013 Escape replacement -- the Escape?
The Vertrek concept, unveiled at the North American International Auto Show, goes on sale in early 2012 and is Escape in size and European Kuga in its use of Martin Smith's sleek "kinetic design" language. Like the Focus and C-Max with which it will share its front-drive platform, the Vertrek's profile features a "Zorro Flip" with converging Z-shaped accents between the front quarter-panel, the doors, and the rear quarter-panel.
Ford Vertrek Concept Side
Click to view Gallery
The hood's center bulge, with its unusual cutout pattern just ahead of the windshield, is said to be production-ready, though the skylight-style glass roof panel behind it isn't. The deeply drawn lower-profile accents also are a good indication of production. Don't count on the sequential LED taillamps and certainly not the sleek, low sideview mirrors, which help create a "wing" look by connecting with the dashboard.
The deep-bucket 2+2 seats are pure concept, but the interior materials give good hints at the level of attention Ford's interior designers paid to the inside. From the outside, add a thick B-pillar, remove the power-operated foldout running boards, and you've got a good look at the next Escape.
"We've pulled the A-pillar forward" and made a sleeker roofline, with a sport coupe-like rear roof resembling the current Kuga's, says J Mays, Ford's group vice president for design and chief creative officer. "People actually think we've lowered the car, but we haven't."
Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/future/concept_vehicles/1103_ford_vertrek_concept_first_look/index.html#ixzz1BqBDt3it
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Royal Wedding
There have been reports that Prince William and Kate Middleton may forgo gifts entirely, directing their wedding attendees to donate to a few select charities. However, our inside source from Brides Magazine tells us that the couple may also be planning to do a gift registry at the mid-range Peter Jones store in London's Sloane Square. "It's a department store that all other young middle-class brides want to register at," we're told. "Makes William and Kate seem 'normal.'" Kate has been known to shop at Peter Jones: recently, she and mother Carole were snapped browsing the post-holiday sales at the store.
Our friends over at Lonely Planet have reviewed Peter Jones, writing "...Upmarket china, furnishings and gifts are its forté, though it stocks accessories and cosmetics, too. The Top Floor (and that's where it's at) is a restaurant-café-bar with stunning views."
A reviewer at the British Yelp site says, "The great thing about Peter Jones is that it is classic and slightly boring...This is not where you go for cutting edge, but rather for sharp knives, washing machines and light bulbs, not to mention spare buttons and all the little things which fashionable shops just don't have."
Our friends over at Lonely Planet have reviewed Peter Jones, writing "...Upmarket china, furnishings and gifts are its forté, though it stocks accessories and cosmetics, too. The Top Floor (and that's where it's at) is a restaurant-café-bar with stunning views."
A reviewer at the British Yelp site says, "The great thing about Peter Jones is that it is classic and slightly boring...This is not where you go for cutting edge, but rather for sharp knives, washing machines and light bulbs, not to mention spare buttons and all the little things which fashionable shops just don't have."
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Stop Heavy Drinking
People who drink regularly, especially heavy drinkers, may be more likely than teetotalers to suffer atrial fibrillation, a type of abnormal heart rhythm, according to a research review.
In an analysis of 14 studies, a team led by Satoru Kodama at the University of Tsukuba Institute of Clinical Medicine in Japan found that the heaviest drinkers were more likely to be diagnosed with the condition than people who drank little to no alcohol.
Though definitions of "heavy" drinking varied, it meant at least two or more drinks per day for men, and one or more per day for women. In some studies, heavy drinkers downed at least six drinks per day.
While doctors have long known that a drinking binge can trigger an episode of atrial fibrillation (AF), the findings -- reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology -- suggest that usual drinking habits may also matter.
"What we revealed in the current (study) is that not only episodic but habitual heavy drinking is associated with higher risk of AF," said Hirohito Sone, a colleague of Kodama's, told Reuters Health by email.
Atrial fibrillation is the most common abnormal heart rhythm and is not in itself life-threatening, but patients with it are at significantly higher risk of strokes. It may also result in palpitations, fainting, chest pain or congestive heart failure.
When all the study results were combined, heavy drinkers were 51 percent more likely to suffer atrial fibrillation than either non-drinkers or occasional drinkers.
Overall, the risk edged up 8 percent for every increase of 10 grams in participants' daily alcohol intake.
More than 2.6 million U.S. citizens will suffer from atrial fibrillation this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The condition becomes more common with age and additional risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.
Since coronary heart disease is much more common cause of death than atrial fibrillation, Sone said moderate drinking -- up to one or two drinks per day -- is probably still a heart-healthy habit for most people.
A better way to show a connection is with studies that measure people's drinking habits, then follow them over time to see who develops atrial fibrillation, said Kenneth Mukamal of Harvard University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who led two of the studies included in the analysis.
One of Mukamal's studies found a connection only between heavy drinking, with men who had five or more drinks a day having a higher risk of developing the condition over time than occasional drinkers.
In an analysis of 14 studies, a team led by Satoru Kodama at the University of Tsukuba Institute of Clinical Medicine in Japan found that the heaviest drinkers were more likely to be diagnosed with the condition than people who drank little to no alcohol.
Though definitions of "heavy" drinking varied, it meant at least two or more drinks per day for men, and one or more per day for women. In some studies, heavy drinkers downed at least six drinks per day.
While doctors have long known that a drinking binge can trigger an episode of atrial fibrillation (AF), the findings -- reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology -- suggest that usual drinking habits may also matter.
"What we revealed in the current (study) is that not only episodic but habitual heavy drinking is associated with higher risk of AF," said Hirohito Sone, a colleague of Kodama's, told Reuters Health by email.
Atrial fibrillation is the most common abnormal heart rhythm and is not in itself life-threatening, but patients with it are at significantly higher risk of strokes. It may also result in palpitations, fainting, chest pain or congestive heart failure.
When all the study results were combined, heavy drinkers were 51 percent more likely to suffer atrial fibrillation than either non-drinkers or occasional drinkers.
Overall, the risk edged up 8 percent for every increase of 10 grams in participants' daily alcohol intake.
More than 2.6 million U.S. citizens will suffer from atrial fibrillation this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The condition becomes more common with age and additional risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.
Since coronary heart disease is much more common cause of death than atrial fibrillation, Sone said moderate drinking -- up to one or two drinks per day -- is probably still a heart-healthy habit for most people.
A better way to show a connection is with studies that measure people's drinking habits, then follow them over time to see who develops atrial fibrillation, said Kenneth Mukamal of Harvard University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who led two of the studies included in the analysis.
One of Mukamal's studies found a connection only between heavy drinking, with men who had five or more drinks a day having a higher risk of developing the condition over time than occasional drinkers.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Old Dog same tricks
Maine – Nearly 10,000 years ago, man's best friend provided protection and companionship — and an occasional meal.
That's what researchers are saying after finding a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated dog in the Americas.
University of Maine graduate student Samuel Belknap III came across the fragment while analyzing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in southwest Texas in the 1970s. A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog — not a wolf, coyote or fox, Belknap said.
Because it was found deep inside a pile of human excrement and was the characteristic orange-brown color that bone turns when it has passed through the digestive tract, the fragment provides the earliest direct evidence that dogs — besides being used for company, security and hunting — were eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source, he said.
Belknap wasn't researching dogs when he found the bone. Rather, he was looking into the diet and nutrition of the people who lived in the Lower Pecos region of Texas between 1,000 and 10,000 years ago.
"It just so happens this person who lived 9,400 years ago was eating dog," Belknap said.
Belknap and other researchers from the University of Maine and the University of Oklahoma's molecular anthropology laboratories, where the DNA analysis was done, have written a paper on their findings.
The paper has been scientifically reviewed and accepted, pending revisions, for publication in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology later this year, said editor in chief Christopher Ruff. He declined comment on the article until it has been published.
Dogs have played an important role in human culture for thousands of years.
There are archaeological records of dogs going back 31,000 years from a site in Belgium, 26,000 years in the Czech Republic and 15,000 years in Siberia, said Robert Wayne, a professor of evolutionary biology at UCLA and a dog evolution expert. But canine records in the New World aren't as detailed or go back nearly as far.
For his research, Belknap — who does not own a dog himself — had fecal samples shipped to him that had been unearthed in 1974 and 1975 from an archaeological site known as Hinds Cave and kept in storage at Texas A&M University. The fragment is about six-tenths of an inch long and three- to four-tenths of an inch wide, or about the size of a fingernail on a person's pinkie.
He and a fellow student identified the bone as a fragment from where the skull connects with the spine. He said it came from a dog that probably resembled the small, short-nosed, short-haired mutts that were common among the Indians of the Great Plains.
Judging by the size of the bone, Belknap figures the dog weighed about 25 to 30 pounds. He also found what he thinks was a bone from a dog foot, but the fragment was too small to be analyzed.
Other archaeological digs have put dogs in the U.S. dating back 8,000 years or more, but this is the first time it has been scientifically proved that dogs were here that far back, he said.
Darcy Morey, a faculty member at Radford University who has studied dog evolution for decades, said a study from the 1980s dated a dog found at Danger Cave, Utah, at between 9,000 and 10,000 years old. Those dates were based not on carbon-dating or DNA tests, but on an analysis of the surrounding rock layers.
"So 9,400 years old may be the oldest, but maybe not," Morey said in an e-mail.
Morey, whose 2010 book, "Dogs: Domestication and the Development of a Social Bond," traces the evolution of dogs, said he is skeptical about DNA testing on a single bone fragment because dogs and wolves are so similar genetically.
Belknap said there may well be older dogs in North America, but this is the oldest directly dated one he is aware of. For many years, researchers thought that dog bones from an archaeological site in Idaho were 11,000 years old, but additional testing put their age at between 1,000 and 3,000 years old, he said.
That's what researchers are saying after finding a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated dog in the Americas.
University of Maine graduate student Samuel Belknap III came across the fragment while analyzing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in southwest Texas in the 1970s. A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog — not a wolf, coyote or fox, Belknap said.
Because it was found deep inside a pile of human excrement and was the characteristic orange-brown color that bone turns when it has passed through the digestive tract, the fragment provides the earliest direct evidence that dogs — besides being used for company, security and hunting — were eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source, he said.
Belknap wasn't researching dogs when he found the bone. Rather, he was looking into the diet and nutrition of the people who lived in the Lower Pecos region of Texas between 1,000 and 10,000 years ago.
"It just so happens this person who lived 9,400 years ago was eating dog," Belknap said.
Belknap and other researchers from the University of Maine and the University of Oklahoma's molecular anthropology laboratories, where the DNA analysis was done, have written a paper on their findings.
The paper has been scientifically reviewed and accepted, pending revisions, for publication in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology later this year, said editor in chief Christopher Ruff. He declined comment on the article until it has been published.
Dogs have played an important role in human culture for thousands of years.
There are archaeological records of dogs going back 31,000 years from a site in Belgium, 26,000 years in the Czech Republic and 15,000 years in Siberia, said Robert Wayne, a professor of evolutionary biology at UCLA and a dog evolution expert. But canine records in the New World aren't as detailed or go back nearly as far.
For his research, Belknap — who does not own a dog himself — had fecal samples shipped to him that had been unearthed in 1974 and 1975 from an archaeological site known as Hinds Cave and kept in storage at Texas A&M University. The fragment is about six-tenths of an inch long and three- to four-tenths of an inch wide, or about the size of a fingernail on a person's pinkie.
He and a fellow student identified the bone as a fragment from where the skull connects with the spine. He said it came from a dog that probably resembled the small, short-nosed, short-haired mutts that were common among the Indians of the Great Plains.
Judging by the size of the bone, Belknap figures the dog weighed about 25 to 30 pounds. He also found what he thinks was a bone from a dog foot, but the fragment was too small to be analyzed.
Other archaeological digs have put dogs in the U.S. dating back 8,000 years or more, but this is the first time it has been scientifically proved that dogs were here that far back, he said.
Darcy Morey, a faculty member at Radford University who has studied dog evolution for decades, said a study from the 1980s dated a dog found at Danger Cave, Utah, at between 9,000 and 10,000 years old. Those dates were based not on carbon-dating or DNA tests, but on an analysis of the surrounding rock layers.
"So 9,400 years old may be the oldest, but maybe not," Morey said in an e-mail.
Morey, whose 2010 book, "Dogs: Domestication and the Development of a Social Bond," traces the evolution of dogs, said he is skeptical about DNA testing on a single bone fragment because dogs and wolves are so similar genetically.
Belknap said there may well be older dogs in North America, but this is the oldest directly dated one he is aware of. For many years, researchers thought that dog bones from an archaeological site in Idaho were 11,000 years old, but additional testing put their age at between 1,000 and 3,000 years old, he said.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Home Business
usiness success starts off with "never say never." Anyone can succeed in a business no matter their background or education, so get out of the way any doubts you have right now. Rather than doubt, you just figure it out. Many have started their business with far less advantages than you have. They just go out and do and succeed. So do not think you have to be smart, and especially do not be too smart. Some of those with the greatest obstacles were too dumb to think that they cannot succeed. Because failure never entered their mind, it never entered their life. You can actually do much better in your own business than you can working for someone else. Two qualities you need are to be a stickler for stingy and the emboldened self-determinedness to go out on your own. A home business is the way to go because of the low overhead. You have home expenses you already pay, so you just convert your current space to the place where you also generate income. The icing on the cake is the tax advantages you will get. Find out about them by researching and educating yourself on any and every kind of advantage you can get as a businessperson. Be shrewd and responsible and your dreams become possible.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Ipad
t's impossible to walk the floor at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show without stumbling across a multitude of keyboard-less touch-screen computers expected to hit the market in the coming months. With Apple estimated to have sold more than 13 million iPads last year alone, the competition is clearly for second place, but even that prize is worth pursuing.
Technology research firm Gartner Inc. expects that 55 million tablet computers will be shipped this year, most of them still iPads, but there will be room for rivals to vie for sales of the remaining 10 million to 15 million devices.
A bevy of consumer electronics makers, including major names such as Motorola Mobility Inc., Toshiba Corp. and Dell Inc., showed off their tablets in Las Vegas at CES, betting 2011 will be the year the gadgets finally take off.
Companies tried for years to popularize tablets, but the frenzy began only with the release of the iPad in April. Now companies whose names don't include the word "Apple" are doing everything they can to differentiate themselves from the tablet front-runner.
They're adding bells and whistles the iPad doesn't yet have — such as front and back cameras for video chatting and picture taking and the ability to work over next-generation 4G data networks — in hopes of taking on the iPad, or at least carving out a niche.
Motorola's Xoom sports a screen that measures 10.1 inches diagonally — slightly larger than the iPad's — and dual cameras for video chatting and taking high-definition videos.
It will also include the upcoming Honeycomb version of Google Inc.'s Android software. Honeycomb has been designed for the larger touch screens on tablets; current versions of Android, used in many of the tablets at CES, are meant more for the smaller touch screens on smart phones.
For example, Gmail on a Honeycomb tablet shows a list of e-mails in one column and the body of the one you're reading in a second column. On a current Android phone, you'd only see one column at a time.
Motorola, at least, is confident that its offering is more full-featured than the iPad.
Technology research firm Gartner Inc. expects that 55 million tablet computers will be shipped this year, most of them still iPads, but there will be room for rivals to vie for sales of the remaining 10 million to 15 million devices.
A bevy of consumer electronics makers, including major names such as Motorola Mobility Inc., Toshiba Corp. and Dell Inc., showed off their tablets in Las Vegas at CES, betting 2011 will be the year the gadgets finally take off.
Companies tried for years to popularize tablets, but the frenzy began only with the release of the iPad in April. Now companies whose names don't include the word "Apple" are doing everything they can to differentiate themselves from the tablet front-runner.
They're adding bells and whistles the iPad doesn't yet have — such as front and back cameras for video chatting and picture taking and the ability to work over next-generation 4G data networks — in hopes of taking on the iPad, or at least carving out a niche.
Motorola's Xoom sports a screen that measures 10.1 inches diagonally — slightly larger than the iPad's — and dual cameras for video chatting and taking high-definition videos.
It will also include the upcoming Honeycomb version of Google Inc.'s Android software. Honeycomb has been designed for the larger touch screens on tablets; current versions of Android, used in many of the tablets at CES, are meant more for the smaller touch screens on smart phones.
For example, Gmail on a Honeycomb tablet shows a list of e-mails in one column and the body of the one you're reading in a second column. On a current Android phone, you'd only see one column at a time.
Motorola, at least, is confident that its offering is more full-featured than the iPad.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
spectacular caves in Vietnam
For decades, geologists have known that Vietnam is home to some of the world's most spectacular caves, many of them largely unexplored. Now husband-and-wife cavers have documented perhaps the world's largest: Hang Son Doong, big enough in places to accommodate a New York City block of skyscrapers.
The cave in the Annamite Mountains contains a river and jungle (its name translates to "mountain river cave") and even its own thin clouds, and its end remains out of sight. It's part of a network of about 150 caves in central Vietnam near the Laotian border.
Click image to see more photos of the giant cave
Howard and Deb Limbert of England led the first expedition to enter Hang Son Doong in 2009, but they were stopped a couple of miles in by a huge calcite wall. The team returned recently to climb the wall, take measurements and try to find the cavern's end.
[Related: National Geographic's award-winning amateur photos]
Many more photographs taken in Hang San Doong and other newly explored caves have been published in the January issue of National Geographic and on its website, where you can view larger images. The site also has an interactive graphic of the river cave's path
The cave in the Annamite Mountains contains a river and jungle (its name translates to "mountain river cave") and even its own thin clouds, and its end remains out of sight. It's part of a network of about 150 caves in central Vietnam near the Laotian border.
Click image to see more photos of the giant cave
Howard and Deb Limbert of England led the first expedition to enter Hang Son Doong in 2009, but they were stopped a couple of miles in by a huge calcite wall. The team returned recently to climb the wall, take measurements and try to find the cavern's end.
[Related: National Geographic's award-winning amateur photos]
Many more photographs taken in Hang San Doong and other newly explored caves have been published in the January issue of National Geographic and on its website, where you can view larger images. The site also has an interactive graphic of the river cave's path
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