ROCKEFELLER

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

USA possible target for E-coli outbreak

03. June 2011

e-coli disease (Photo: astrographics.com)

The deadly e-coli outbreak in Europe has been making the news for quite some time now. Even though the e-coli bacteria is known to be harmless, they have caused a violent pandemic in Europe that all started with a bunch of tainted cucumbers in northern Germany, which then spread to other European countries like Sweden and Denmark. There where more than a thousand critically affected people and the death toll started numbering in hundreds by around two weeks. The government of these countries is trying hard to fight it with not -so -surprising mixed results. But it seems that USA is next in the hit list of the E-coli bacteria, after Europe, as the Center for disease control and prevention, federal board came up with a shocking report that found out exploitable loopholes in the US food system which can show a possibility of an E-coli outbreak just like Europe.

The food and drug administration (FDA) is doing a thorough investigation in the outbreak of this disease, but they are having the same amount of luck and success the European authorities had in Europe. The actual source of the E-coli bacteria in Europe has not yet been found but the highest suspicion goes to vegetables like cucumbers and leafy greens like spinach. Even though the authorities from the FDA assure the people that they will not have to completely stop eating vegetables from the country, they are developing more stricter standards to scrutinize all the incoming greens like cucumbers and lettuces that are imported to the country. Even though studies show that an E-coli outbreak is possible but not imminent, the paranoid people are pushing the FDA and USDA hard for more protection against the E-coli outbreak.

The e-coli bacteria is generally known to be as deadly as a common cold or a flu. But there are so many types of e-coli diseases and bacterias that a few of them can actually cause life threatning symptoms like severe stomach infection which can lead to loss of blood or organ failure. The farmers from major agricultural states like California claim that they do not need the regulation of the FDA for growing crops as they are aware of the consequences of another E-coli outbreak. They are already taking measures by growing all fruits and vegetables at least 5 feet away from animal feces as E-coli is widely known to grow and breed in the intestines of herbivors animals.

This is still a theory, but if an E-coli does manage to hit USA the same way it hit Europe, it will only be a matter of time before it spreads to Asia and Africa and so on. This means that a once harmless bacteria will possibly be treated with the same precaution taken with deadly diseases like Malaria and typhoid.

(rockefellernews/yk)

Rating: 8.0/10 (1 vote cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

Zoe Kravitz Covers ‘Asos’ Magazine July 2011

02. June 2011

Zoe Kravitz-covers for ASOS. (Photos:ASOS)

Zoe Kravitz is on the cover of Asos Magazine for its July 2011 issue. The 22-year-old actress shares about her fame, career, band and her family.

She is definitely one of the most beautiful actresses of today’s generation. She’s the daughter of Lisa Bonet the boho queen and Lenny Kravitz singer. The 22-year-old actress looked fabulous on the cover of the Asos magazine. Zoe mentions about her career, ”All that ‘it girl’ s*** makes me kind of uncomfortable. I’m only at the beginning of my career, but I feel successful in that I haven’t sold out in any way, shape or form. I feel good about the choices I’ve made, and I don’t feel like I’ve let go of any of my values. Fame has become this obsession for people, which kind of creeps me out.”

Zoe Kravitz-labeled as the 'It Girl'. (Photos:ASOS)

About her career she also shares, ”I’m in a very lucky position, because I’ve been around [fame] so long, I don’t feel like I have to chase it.” In the movie ‘X-Men: First Class’ she plays the role of Angel Salvadore a butterfly mutant. The flick also stars Jennifer Lawrence and January Jones. It will be shown this coming June 2011.

Zoe had starred in independent films. She had a lead role for the movie ‘Yelling to the Sky’. She mentions, ”That was a really crazy, amazing experience. It was my first leading role, so it was a real challenge for me as an actor. It was very low budget, we shot it in 18 days, and it was not luxurious, but it was art. The heart and soul that went into making that film was wonderful and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

Zoe Kravitz-daughter of the famous Lenny Kravitz. (Photos:ASOS)

Besides acting Zoe is also a singer. She has a band called ‘Elevator Fight’. She mentions, “I just always did it from when I was a kid. I was a drama club geek. And having the band is great, because with acting there are long periods of time when you’re not doing anything, and I don’t like just sitting around, I go crazy.”

Zoe also mentions, ”Google will be the end of me. We got a lot of attention as a band at first, but for all the wrong reasons. I don’t like half the songs and performances that are out there because they-re terrible. Two years in and we’ve finally got a group of songs that we really like. We’ve found our sound, which is a little bit more punk and a little more rock.”

Zoe’s parents divorced when she was five years old. ”I think my parents did a good job of it. We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve got to a point where we’re really close and we talk every day and I can literally tell them everything, which is great,” she shares.

Photos courtesy of Asos

(rockefellernews/kp)

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

Microsoft demonstrates the windows 8 operating system

02. June 2011

windows (Photo: evandoo.com)

Microsoft has had a long lasting lucrative market share in the computer industry segment because of its windows brand of products, but the product which is the best from the lot, remains a source of debate till today. Even with the release of the windows vista and windows 7 afterwards, windows XP seems to be the most popular type of windows product according to most if not all people. So the subtle bottom line is the fact that Microsoft may be losing its touch because since the commencement of windows XP, they have failed to come up with a windows operating system that would be as innovative as windows XP. But on June 1st 2011, the company gave a sneak preview into the windows 8 which is a new operating system designated to succeed windows 7 and will hopefully be as good and popular as windows XP .

The windows 8 was demonstrated at the D9 meeting at the All things digital conference on June 1st, by Steven Sinosky an operating manager for the windows software development department. According to Sinosky, windows 8 will be like a windows 7 on steroids because, besides being compatible with laptops and smartphones, it will also feature tiles instead of icons, where the users will be able to surf through the files and folder, unlike the use of a mouse. This windows 8 for PC’s and smart phones will contain the 10th version of internet explorer which may add up to a more user friendly and fast browsing experience.

On the company’s official blog, several top corporate executives like Julie Larson-Green posted that this new windows program will be like building the entire windows brand from scratch where they start from the chip and end up in the interface. Larson Green also feels that it will help the scaling of small touch only screens to large ones without the use of a

This is really amazing on how Microsoft is bouncing back from its gradual stock decline and market share, but only time will tell whether windows 8 is innovative enough. Even though for the time being, Apple is a dominant player in the smart phone market, Microsoft may compete with it the same way it had competed for the PC market way back in the late 70s and early 80s.

(rockefellernews/yk)

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

Lauren Conrad Covers ‘Lucky’ July 2011

02. June 2011

Lauren Conrad-the 25-year-old star looking fresh and beautiful. (Photos:Lucky)

Lauren Conrad is on the cover of Lucky for its July 2011 issue. The reality star who is now a designer shares about the new things that she’s doing right now. Lauren is a also an NY Times best selling author aside from being an actress and a fashion designer.

She wears her own clothing line which called ‘Paper Crown’. She wears a blazer and paired it with leather shorts and high heels from Christian Louboutin. The 25-year-old star shares about the cancellation of her MTV show and her reasons for doing “The Hills”.

Lauren Conrad-covers for Lucky Magazine. (Photos:Lucky)

Lauren flaunts her collection as she debuts her career as a fashion designer. She shares, ”It’s easier to launch the line without MTV. A lot of people in fashion don’t want to be linked with anything that has to do with reality TV. Showrooms were turning us down.”

Lauren Conrad-shows off her talent as a fashion designer. (Photos:Lucky)

She also announced last September that she will be doing a new reality show for MTV but it was cancelled because ”didn’t feel their viewers were savvy enough to appreciate it”. She also told Lucky that, ”It didn’t feel like a perfect fit. It’s difficult to compete with all the Jersey Shore-type shows out there. Besides, there weren’t any scenes of me getting drunk or fighting, so what’s the point?”

Photos courtesy of Lucky

(rockefellernews/kp)

Rating: 9.0/10 (2 votes cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

sleep apnea made better by a diet low in energy

02. June 2011

sleep apnea (Photo: submittedthestar)

Sleep apnea is one of the common sleep related disorder that is faced by people who have a history of insomnia or other chronic sleeping problems. As wikipedia puts it, sleep apnea is a period of sleep where the person will suffer from low breathing activity that may last from a few seconds to around 10 minutes. This means that a sleep apnea affected person will face breathing difficulties in his sleep, which may have not experienced by him in his waking life. Sleep apnea may sound harmless, but it can be fatal in some cases and in the most extreme of the cases, the victim may suffocate himself to death. This is why many people will spends hundreds of dollars per week just to visit a good doctor or psychiatrist. But a group of researchers from Karolinska institute from Sweden have come up with a study that shows a positive relation between a low energy diet and sleep apnea.

The study was conducted by Kari Johannson and was published in the British medical journal. Since sources from previous studies indicate that around 70% of all sleep apnea patients are overweight, Kari and the team of researchers recruited 63 men who had the body muscle index of 40, which would classify them to be overweight. The men were aged from 30-65 and some of them were patients of sever obstructive sleep apnea. The team then picked 58 people from the lot and put them on a low energy diet for around nine weeks along with a year of following the Cambridge diet plan with all the vitamin supplements that were required.

The team of researchers analyzed the 58 people and found out that around 48 people where able to cut back on their sleep apnea disorder my more than 50% and the remaining 10% were able to get rid of their sleep problems by around 100%. The study also confirmed that people with sever obstructive sleep apnea had a better scope of improvement than those with moderate obstructive sleep apnea.

This is indeed a milestone in the field of sleep apnea and makes on thing clear to all afflicted people, that they should stop spending ludicrous amount of money on therapists and doctors, when they can avoid sleep apnea by just eating right,staying of the junk food and getting plenty of exercise, except in very sever cases, where it would be a good idea of visiting a good doctor or therapist.

(rockefellernews/yk)

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

Google targeted by a group of Chinese hackers

02. June 2011

gmail warning (Photo: technobuzz.com)

Google may be the worlds most powerful and most used search engine, but this does not mean that each country will show the same favorable view against it. China for example is a country where communism, if not completely, still persists so the Chinese have one of the strictest policies on internet surfing and social networking. This is one of the main reasons why Google has a had time in doing business in China. But now Google may have a much harder time in doing any business in China because, according to a reports released on Wednesday June 1st, a group of Chinese hackers have targeted the Gmail service of Google, with a motive that has not yet been clear.

According to spokesperson for Google, this attack is a reminiscent of the 2009 Google hack which caused a temporary cold war between Google and the Chinese government. But this attack is not known to be as sophisticated as the 2009 one as it relied on small time hacker attacks like phishing scams, in order to gain access to the email accounts of the users who fall for them. The attack was linked to the infamous city of Jinan in China. The place is infamous because it hold as vocational training school who had computers that where linked as the prime suspects of many hack attacks that had targeted Google and more than 20 companies in the United states.

Since it was not a very sophisticated hack attack, Google did not have much of a difficulty in curbing the attack, and by using their own security measures, they were able to restore most of the compromised Gmail accounts by 24 hours. But even though the White house had been suspected by Google to be a victim of these attacks, a person speaking on the behalf of the White house said that the security reports from the FBI indicate that there is not evidence about any high ranking government official having their account hacked, however it is assumed that some small level executives in the White house may have got their accounts hacked. It was apparent that USA was not the only targeted country for these Chinese hackers as it is said that other Asian countries like South Korea also had people who had to say goodbye to their email accounts.

After this incident Google said that it had plans to pull away its Chinese language search engine version from mainland China to Hong kong in order to deal with the tension between Google and China. But the Chinese officials said in a statement that they are not happy with the accusations put on them by Google as they feel that they alone are not be blamed for this. But nevertheless, investigations continue.

(rockefellernews/yk)

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

Malicious videos concoct new ways to operate on Facebook

02. June 2011

facebook scams (Photo: technobolt)

If there is one website that has one of the highest number of users, as consumers and business owners, it will be Facebook. Facebook.com as a social networking site is so popular among the global audience that there a large number of internet users who do not anything about the internet beyond Facebook, because for these people, Facebook is the internet. It will not be easy to blame these people because the website offers all feature that a web surfer would expect from a website. But all this popularity and interactive feature come at a price as Facebook is one of the most vulnerable websites for cyber crime. The cyber crime attacks and criticism from parent watchdog groups have gotten to a point where Facebook founder,Mark Zuckerberg, himself gave an interview stating that children below the age of 13 will not be allowed on the service. But it seems that in spite of all the measures taken to curb hack attacks on the website, there were reports of a malicious software that masqueraded as a fake video and an anti-virus program to get access to the victims computer.

The malicious code was discovered by Sophos, which is an eminent software vendor for windows and Mac related computers. The executive engineers for the company explained that a fake video of scandalous incidents, like IMF chief Dominique Strauss Kahns rape video or pop singer Rihanna’s X rated picture video, would be realized as a link on the Facebook walls of the victims. When the unsuspecting victim would click on the link out of curiosity, instead of showing the promised video, the link would take the victim to a series of other links and eventually to a website that tells their visitors to download an anti-virus program to keep their computer safe. But the outcomes of the victims will differ depending upon Mac or PC users.

If the victim is using a PC, then the website will coerce them to download an video compatible version of Adobe player for security reasons. If the victim is using a Mac, then the website will send a security breach warning pop-up which will give an option to take care of it by pressing the FIX button on the screen. But it keeps getting more vile, as in both cases the victims will be taken to virus infested pornographic websites every five minutes, if they do not shell out at least $60 to pay for the phony software license. The website would then post a link to the video on the wall of the victim’s friends in order to get circulated more.

According to Sophos, the website that did the malicious downloading was newtubes.in and later shocking.in. Sean Sullivan who is a head researcher for F-secure labs said in a statement that he is not sure why Facebook is not taking strict enough measures to deal with these hackers. A spokesperson for Facebook declined to comment much but said that they are working on a solution.

(rockefellernews/yk)

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

Celebrity Nail Art Ideas

01. June 2011

Keri Hilson and Nicki Minaj-hot pink is the hottest color for nails. (Photo:Getty Images)

Glam up your nails with the most stylish shades of nail polish. Take inspiration from the celebrity nail art and get ideas. The celebrities all love the glitz and glamour. The celebrities have the hottest manicure and let’s take a look at their stylish nails.

Katy Perry and Solange Knowles-singing sensations with stylish nails. (Photos:Getty Images)

If your fond of the classic and neutral shades why don’t you go for a vibrant shade that’s perfect for the season. Try out the hottest colors for summer. Find out the best shade for your skin tone to get that stylish look. Get that eye catching manicure and pair it with your stylish outfit. Use a quick drying and easy to apply nail polish to paint your nails. Find out the hottest collections from your favorite nail polish brands.

Nicole Scherzinger and Eva Longoria-stylish nail ideas. (Photo:Getty Images)

Neon shades are also perfect for this season. But this shade is harder to pull off compared to other low key colors. But if you want something edgy to the neon shades are perfect for you. If you want something classy go for the reds, blacks and whites. Nicole Scherzinger loves the pin-up look and she has been sporting the classy red shade on her nails.

Mischa Barton had a trendy and chic manicure with a vibrant blue shade. Eva Longoria had a pink colored manicure while Solange Knowles had an orange manicure. Add some modern twist in your look by adding vibrant colors to your tips and toes.

Image courtesy of Getty Images

(rockefellernews/kp)

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?

Lady Gaga’s Diet

01. June 2011

Lady Gaga-check out her diet plan. (Photo:Getty Images)

Lady Gaga is known for her eccentric fashion style. But along with her eccentricity she’s one of the sexiest performers of today’s generation. She maintains a fit and sexy figure with the help of her personal trainer Harley Parternak. Check out the 5 step program that Lady Gaga does to maintain her figure:

1. Eat 5 meals per day

Eating 5 meals a day helps you to control your eating habits. Plus, it also helps so you won’t get hungry. By eating 5 times a day you can keep the metabolism running so your ensure that you lose weight without getting hungry.

2. Prepare your meal

Spending a few hours in the kitchen as you prepare your meal will help you get the right amount of nutrients. It also ensures that you get to prepare the right foods that are rich in nutrition. Some may not like the idea of cooking food but it’s the best way to start up your diet.

3. Use 5 main ingredients

A meal should have fiber, protein, healthy carbs, healthy fat and sugar free beverage. You can get all the nutrients with these ingredients and healthy.

4. Exercise everyday

Doing exercises help you stay healthy and fit. There are a lot of exercises to choose from. You can do it at home or at the gym. According to Harley Pasternak doing “short, intense workouts get the best results”.

5. Have a break

After all the strict diet give yourself a break and have a guilt free day to eat the foods that you love. This way you won’t have to suffer because you gave up your favorite foods.

Photo Courtesy: Getty Images

(rockefellernews/kp)

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

This article has no comments yet. Comment this article »

Do you like this story?