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Thursday, July 11, 2013

Singer Randy Travis recovering from brain surgery

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ? Country music stars and fans joined together to urge prayers for Randy Travis overnight as he recovered from brain surgery following a stroke at a Texas hospital.

Travis remained in critical condition after surgery Thursday morning to relieve pressure on his brain, publicist Kirt Webster said. The 54-year-old Grammy Award-winning singer had been improving while being treated for heart failure caused by a viral infection when he had the stroke.

Stars including Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum and Martina McBride and the Grand Ole Opry used Twitter to express their concerns and join Webster's call for prayers for Travis, a popular and pivotal figure in country music. Hundreds posted messages with the hashtag PrayforRandy.

"We're all pulling for you Randy," Brad Paisley said via Twitter.

The setback occurred hours after doctors said Travis was showing signs of improvement since the start of treatment Sunday for congestive heart failure and the insertion of a pump to help his heart increase blood flow.

His doctors said Wednesday in a video statement that his heart problem stemmed from an upper respiratory infection caused by a virus, but they have not released any information since.

Infections, both viral and bacterial, may start elsewhere in the body but sometimes can affect the heart, either because the infection itself spreads or because immune cells that are fighting it enter the heart and cause inflammation.

About 20 different viruses, including the flu, can lead to this so-called myocarditis, and there's no way to predict who is at particular risk, said Dr. Justine Lachmann of Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. When younger people develop heart failure, it's usually for this reason.

Most people recover from myocarditis, but a small number rapidly develop life-threatening illness ? experiencing a domino effect as the inflammation weakens the heart muscle, leading to congestive heart failure, in which the heart can't pump properly. Doctors treat them with supportive care, trying to allow the heart muscle to rest and recover, sometimes by inserting devices such as the one Travis received to help the heart pump.

His heart problems in turn led to the stroke and can cause other complications.

It was not clear what kind of stroke Travis suffered. The most common type of stroke is caused by a blood clot that travels to the brain. The other kind happens when a blood vessel in the head bursts or leaks. Stroke patients who get treatment quickly are usually given a drug to dissolve the clot that caused the stroke.

Drs. William Gray and Michael Mack of the Baylor Health Care System in Texas described Travis' condition and hospitalization for the first time in a video statement earlier Wednesday, noting his condition had stabilized and he had "shown signs of improvement."

Hours later, he was in the operating room. Doctors had not yet addressed Travis' current condition Thursday.

The "Three Wooden Crosses" singer was in good health until three weeks before he was hospitalized, when he contracted a viral upper respiratory infection, Gray said.

Travis was admitted to Baylor Medical Center McKinney near his home in Tioga, about 60 miles north of Dallas, through the emergency room Sunday. He was transferred to The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano after having the pump installed via catheter.

Travis' illness comes as he's been trying to put his life back together following a series of embarrassing public incidents involving alcohol. Travis pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in January following an arrest last year and received two years of probation and a $2,000 fine. He was required to spend at least 30 days at an alcohol treatment facility and complete 100 hours of community service.

He recently made several public appearances, including a spot on the Country Music Association Festival's nightly concert lineup and a poignant performance at George Jones' funeral.

Webster said from the hospital Travis' fiancee Mary Beougher was at his side and that he is surrounded by family and friends, including his brother, Dennis Traywick, and his pastor, Jeff Perry. Kenny Rogers, the Oak Ridge Boys, Chuck Norris, Lyle Lovett, Ray Price and several others have called to check in on Travis.

The North Carolina-born Travis is a traditional country purist known for hits "Forever and Ever, Amen" and "I Told You So." His 1986 Warner Bros. debut album "Storms of Life" sold 3 million copies, and helped return country music to the sound of Hank Williams and George Jones.

"I always feel like he's part of our family, he's in our family," Keith Urban said in an interview Wednesday morning in Nashville. "And I was one of those guys in Australia that bought 'Storms of Life' and became a Randy fan very quickly in late '80s, and I really feel for him right now."

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Associated Press writer Kristin M. Hall in Nashville and AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/singer-randy-travis-recovering-brain-surgery-080935284.html

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College Drinking: Guys Get 'Wasted'; Women Become 'Tipsy'

When college-age guys and gals are asked to describe how drunk one of their friends is, they tend to apply more moderate terms to women, even when females are heavily intoxicated, a new study reveals.

Researchers found that students are more likely to describe women's level of intoxication with words like "tipsy" or "buzzed," suggesting they've downed a moderate amount of alcohol, while men's drinking tends to be described in terms reflecting excessive consumption, such as "hammered," "trashed" or "wasted."

In other words, people of both sexes tend to express women's drinking in moderate terms.

"This is likely due to differences in social and gender norms for female drinkers compared to male drinkers," said study researcher Ash Levitt, a research scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo, SUNY.

The drinking culture on campus may still make it seem that it is less acceptable for women to drink as much as guysdo, and women who drink a lot may be negatively perceived by other women and men ? this may be why women downplay even heavy drinking by using terms like "tipsy" to describe themselves, the researchers suggest.

The results were published online today (July 10) in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Drinking on campus

In the study, researchers asked 145 college students to read a brief story of a situation involving four friends ? two men and two women ? celebrating the main character's birthday in a bar.

In each story, the researchers switched the sex of the main character, how much he or she drank, and how this person behaved. Study participants rated on a scale from 1 to 5 how well each of four moderate drinking terms (including "buzzed" and "tipsy") or 11 heavy drinking terms (including "obliterated" and "tanked") applied to the main character in the story. [7 Ways Alcohol Affects Your Health]

Participants correctly perceived whether the character was moderately versus heavily intoxicated, Levitt said. "However, moderate terms were applied more to female characters, even when they were heavily drinking," he said. ?

Troubling implications

If college-age women underestimate both their own and other women's level of intoxication by using moderate, and perhaps more polite, terms to describe it, "then they may downplay the risky and potentially dangerous situations that could have very real, negative consequences," Levitt said.

For example, if a woman tells her friends she's feeling "tipsy," they may think it's safe for her to get behind the wheel. Or, she may overestimate her ability to fend off a potential sexual assault.

College-age men may face a similar increase in health risks, but for different reasons, Levitt pointed out.

"The fact that men tend to gravitate toward heavy terms more than moderate terms may reflect that men are influenced by norms for college drinking, such as how much other college men drink," Levitt said. Consuming large amounts of alcohol might be seen as a normal part of a male's college experience ? an expected behavior for a guy and his buddies that's considered fun.

"Such behavior is not only misguided, but it also has dangerous consequences," Levitt said, adding that alcohol poisoning and rising rates of severe drinking problems in college students ? both men and women ? are some troubling trends.?

The new results support the findings of a previous study by the same researchers that found similar differences in thelanguage choices used by both sexes to describe themselves after drinking, Levitt said.

The earlier research showed that college-age women tended to use words such as "light-headed" or "loopy" even after drinking heavily, and that guys were more likely to describe themselves as "smashed" or "plastered," regardless of the amount of alcohol they consumed.

FollowLiveScience @livescience, Facebook &Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/college-drinking-guys-wasted-women-become-tipsy-210229210.html

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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Keen On? Draper University Of Heroes: Tim Draper Is Looking For The Best And The Brightest (Is That You?)

Do you have spark? Are you a hero? If so, Tim Draper may want to get inside your head. Draper, best known, of course, as?the founder and a managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, has founded a "new kind of university" in an old hotel in San Mateo designed to attract the "best and brightest".

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/L4nD76YkNQY/

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Side Effect Sports Muscle Builder Sample Review!

Lifthard72's review of SES' Muscle Builder!!!

As Many of you know Side Effect Sports, and their reps have been all over Bodybuilding.com and their forums promoting their products as well as providing support for not only their products but others who have been training. Sort of a break out brand, I'm lucky enough to have a few of their products to try!

I received this sample, as well as a sample of Post Workout, Fat Burner, and Pre Workout, within an order I Placed a while ago. I also received a cool little shaker cup as well that works fairly decent! Lets start out with some pics!

I mixed one sample packet with 8oz of water and upon my first glance at it, as you can see it started to mix immediately (did not shake it) Although as you can see in the next pic there was a bit of settling at the bottom, but this was BEFORE shaking it.

The next two pictures were taken a bit after shaking it for about 5 seconds. (got dressed in between shaking and taking the pic)

The reason I took so many pictures is because mix-ability is a huge aspect for me and I HATE grainy powders, they almost make me gag. SO as you can see, this was great!
MIXABILITY 10/10-------As stated earlier, before I even began to mix this stuff up it was already starting to dissolve in 8oz of water. The directions state to drink/mix in 10-14 oz of water, and so I tried the bare -minimum(most of their other products say 8-12oz). After a few shakes it was all dissolved. Did not see or taste/feel any grains, clumps, or anything else. One of the better products I take as far as mixability![/size]

TASTE 9/10 The taste of this product actually reminded me of kool-aid! A very nice not too strong Fruit punch Flavor, Next time I try the product through I will probably mix it with more water just because I like my flavors a little more watered down. Aside from that I found it very yummy, not too sweet and no chemically taste or after taste to it. SES got the flavor right with this one.

INGREDIENT PROFILE 9/10
Love the ingredient Profile although, I am intrigued by the Ion Channel Transport aspect that they put in most of their products. It seems interesting to me and it's something I would just like to read up on. I know some people will call the various versions of creatine busts or frauds, and I am one to usually just take mono, but I did like the CKG and GKG in it. I have taken Arginine AKG before and it has worked well for me so that AKG in general must work well in my body. I did not rate this a 10 unfortunately because of the "proprietary blend" and the fact that I see Sucralose at the bottom. I know a lot of products have that in it but it would be nice to see one without, simple as that!

EFFECTIVENESS 10/10---N/A I gave this two ratings because I cannot tell an overall effectiveness based on 1 product from 1 workout, HOWEVER, after finishing up a supplement log last week my soreness has been greater. My program increases sets/reps etc each week as well as increases in weights, so I have progressively getting sorer. My diet has not changed, but I did notice the day after taking the Muscle Builder my DOMS were almost non existent and the only soreness was in my legs! (2 days of squatting in 3 total days) With that in mind, I feel I will never be able to be NOT sore if you have a good workout but I am extremely pleased I did not have to waddle at work the next day because my legs were too sore to walk like normal.

VALUE 8/10 Plain and simple I think any supplement over $30 is pretty expensive, especially being a college student, but looking at it on the bodybuilding.com store, you're getting 45 servings for roughly $35, assuming you workout 4 days a week like I do you're looking at 2.5-3 months out of this product making it very reasonably priced at about $12/month(before shipping obviously). Based on what it did, I think this is a GREAT VALUE, but is just tough for me to rate any higher than 8 because, well $35 is like a half tank of gas for me!

OVERALL 9/10 All together I cant really find too much to pick apart about this product. Im sure people will flame me and say "so and so wasn't proven to do anything and studies show this isnt effective" etc etc. Bottom line is I recovered damn good, call it a great placebo effect idc, I will definitely be looking into this product in the future. it made walking a hell of a lot easier!!!

Here is my review, unfortunately I was not allowed to link my thread so I kept it short and sweet! http://reviews.bodybuilding.com/Side...229772caadac4/

Source: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=155315363&goto=newpost

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Monday, July 8, 2013

Best iPad Music Players

Quite considerably, iPad's Music app is not one of Apple's masterpiece and arguably leaves much room for improvement. Two third-party apps has risen to thechallenge and I'd say gotten a lot of heads turning their way lately.

Now, if you want to enjoy the full breadth of these two apps and get them on your iPad, you may have to set your iPad keyboard case for a sturdier, more stable support as the music could be rather captivating.

Track 8

A product of Ender Labs, those of you familiar with Microsoft's Windows 8 own Metro music player will immediately recognize the look and feel of this app.

Artists, albums and playlists are all found in the home screen. Very efficient app.A swipe and your recent history gets on display as well as your most played album. A tap on the thumbnail of an album and voila the list of its tracks are shown. Another tap on any track and music flows.

Graphics-wise the play screen is pretty neat, purposely arranged. Moreover, there is no need to change screens when doing a switch from one track to the other as the album art and a list of all the songs are displayed. Added to this, customary media control buttons (e.g., pause, play, back) are right where you need them. Though a little small for comfort, the slider bar provided for track location and volume control are very helpful. A little oddity is there is no way of telling the length of a particular track until you play it. But overall, this app rocks.

The app is very fluid with its touch-screen approach and fits my iPad like wine to a glass with ice. It is very refreshing to see the actual artist face appearing at the background of each album.

This is app is pretty neat. It leaves you however, $1.99 less richer. A small price to pay, truly.

Bongiovi DPS

A product of Bongiovi Acoustics, this app boasts of a very user-friendly control and clean interface.

Right off the bat, you can access your music - be it albums, podcasts, audiobooks, playlists - from the home screen. Very comfy. A tap on any specific icon, albums for instance, gives you a choice of all albums. Unlike Track 8, you could actually see tracks and running times from the onset even before you get to play them. Another tap on any track and music sets in.

Order and good organization is what this app will bring you giving you smooth transition from one album or artist to another. For instance, a tap on the upper right corner displays the breadth of track names with details on album, artist and time. Very efficient.

Lest we forget, a swipe can also move you from one track to the next.

The best part of this iPad music player is its cost: nothing. The app is free. Love it.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sooperarticles/~3/nPf0PMt2TTg/best-ipad-music-players-1221407.html

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Garmin Monterra handheld GPS runs Android, ships in Q3 for $650

This technically isn't Garmin's first foray into Android territory, but it could prove to be one of the most successful. The navigation company's just introduced Monterra, a dedicated handheld GPS running a TBA version of Android. Basic specs are in line with what you'd expect from a mid-range smartphone, including a 4-inch touchscreen, an 8-megapixel camera with flash and geotag support, 1080p video capture, 6GB of internal storage and microSD expansion. Naturally, the display is optimized for outdoor use -- it's transflective, so you only need to use the LED backlight in low light, letting you conserve power during daytime river treks and sunlit hikes.

The device is ruggedized, with an IPX7 waterproof rating, and can run on either a rechargeable battery pack (included) or AA batteries. It includes WiFi, ANT+, Bluetooth 3.0, NFC, a built-in FM radio with NOAA weather and SAME alerts, dual-band GPS and GLONASS receiver, a 3-axis compass with accelerometer and gyro, a UV sensor for monitoring the sun's intensity and a barometric altimeter, which can report altitude and predict weather based on pressure shifts. There's also a handful of preinstalled apps designed to take advantage of this plethora of connectivity, including Europe PeakFinder, or you can download favorites from Google Play -- anything from farming aids to efficiency trackers can utilize many of Monterra's bundled sensors. The device is expected to ship in Q3, and should run you about $650 in the US or £600 in the UK.

Filed under: GPS