Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295598220?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, March 31, 2013
Five Best Sleep Tracking Gadgets or Apps
Earlier in the week, we asked you to tell us which sleep tracking gadgets or apps you thought were the best. We tallied your nominations, and here's a look at the top five. We know it's a bit unfair to include gadgets alongside smartphone apps, but depending on what you're looking for when it comes to sleep tracking, it's good to have options, both robust and complete (but may cost money) and affordable for the gear you already own (and free).
FitBit One
Sleep tracking is just one of the features of the FitBit One. Clip it on your pocket or somewhere else on your person and it'll keep track of the steps you take over the course of the day and how active you are overall. It'll also generate great-looking reports and feedback on your activity levels. When it comes to sleep though, just slip your FitBit One into the included wristband and set it to sleep mode. It'll track your movements overnight, including the times you get up and move around, or when you're awake tossing and turning in bed. Turn it off in the morning, and after you sync it with the FitBit web site or app, you'll get a complete report of how well you slept, along with how many times you woke up and what times during the night you were active. It won't diagnose sleep issues, but if you're worried you're tossing and turning a lot, or if your partner is the root of your sleep ailments, this gadget will tell you. iOS and Android apps complete the picture and give you access to all the data the FitBit collects from your smartphone. The FitBit One is $100, and the apps are free.
Sleep As Android
Sleep As Android is (as the name implies) Android only, but it does a great job of watching your sleep cycles. Originally it was intended to just wake you gently at the best possible time of the morning when your sleep cycle was at the best time for you to rise, but the app has come a long way since then. The app still helps you track your sleep and shows you graphs of your sleep habits overnight, but the app will also warn you if you're running on a sleep deficit and you should get back into a regular sleeping pattern. The app even pays attention to the sound in the room while you're sleeping to catch you snoring, record you talking in your sleep if that's a problem you have, or help you diagnose sleep illnesses you might not otherwise know about, like sleep apnea. Sleep As Android will wake you up gently at the best time in the morning for you to wake without being late with nature sounds, soothing music, captcha or puzzle alarms, or whatever you choose from the music on your phone or a special playlist to get you started. You can snag a 2 week trial free, after which you'll have to drop $3 for an unlock code, and a few bucks more for other useful in-app purchases.
Jawbone Up
After a bit of a rocky start with the original Jawbone, the Jawbone Up has come a long way and addressed a number of the concerns that made the original a tenuous buy. Like most activity and fitness trackers, sleep is only one thing the Up pays attention to. It'll also track your steps and your activity level, and even makes it easy to log food and drink to keep track of your diet. It'll even remind you if you've been idle too long and tell you to get up and move around. When it comes to sleep, the Up can track how many hours you've slept, and pays attention to your activity overnight, including when you toss and turn and when you're sleeping deeply versus sleeping lightly. The Up will show you everything it's recorded in a report the next day on the web site, or through the Jawbone Up iOS or Android mobile apps, so you can start trying to figure out what the root cause of your sleep issues may be, and work your way to a better night's rest. A Jawbone Up will set you back $130, and the mobile apps are free.
Sleep Cycle
Sleep Cycle is an iOS app that also watches your sleep habits from your nightstand in order to help wake you up at the best possible time of the morning. We've mentioned it before, a long time ago, but the app has grown a good bit since then, and still has a loyal following. It's $1, and for the money you get motion monitoring (and even advises you on where you should place your iPhone while you sleep so it can make use of its accelerometer?right next to your pillow) so the app will know when you toss and turn and when you wake in the middle of the night. The app collects its data and then presents it to you in easy-to-understand graphs, and lets you even mark conditions for the night, including behaviors you may have changed, so you can see their effect on your night's rest. The app also functions as an alarm clock, and will wake you to your own music or any one of over a dozen soothing alarm melodies for a gentle start to the day. Plus, the app runs in the background so you can set your regular alarm and go about your business.
Sleepbot
SleepBot for Android is another great Android utility for tracking your sleep patterns and measuring how well you sleep over the course of several nights. We covered it a while ago, but the app has grown and added a wealth of new features since then. The app tracks you sleep, but it also tracks movement overnight, auto-recording so you can hear whether you snore or if you're having breathing problems overnight (or if you're talking in your sleep), and is even packed with tips to help improve your sleep hygiene and fall asleep faster (and stay deeply asleep). The app also has an easy-to-use widget that lets you "clock in" and "clock out" when you go to bed and when you wake up to start and stop the app from tracking your activity, and it supports a number of other Android alarm clocks, so you don't have to give up the app you love to use Sleepbot to track your sleep. Best of all, the app is completely free, and pairs with the Sleepbot webapp for even more detailed analysis.
Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them to an all out vote.
Honorable mentions this week go to Sleep Time for Android and iOS, which does a lot of what many of the others app here in the round up also do: it keeps track of your movements and your sleep cycles, and wakes you up gradually at the right time during your sleep cycle so you're not late, but you're also not groggy and feel terrible when it's time to get up. For more information on Sleep Time, check out our article about it. It's free for Android users, and $2 for iOS users.
Also, before you buy a sleep tracking gadget or try out an app to help improve your night's sleep, our own Adam Dachis did a lot of the work for you. Check out how he got a better night's sleep with the help of technology to learn what worked (and what didn't) for him.
Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don't just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is?and make your case for it?in the discussions below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it?it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!
Title photo by groenmen.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/LmaG0apxbYk/five-best-sleep-tracking-gadgets-or-apps
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3 of 4 reptiles stolen from Calif. museum found
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) ? Three of four reptiles that were swiped from a science museum and thrown together into a garbage bag during a heist were recovered Friday, though a 3-foot-long ball python remained at large, officials said.
The 3?-foot savannah monitor lizard, a 7-foot-long red-tailed boa constrictor and another 3-foot-long ball python were in good condition, said Mary Ellen Wright, the director of the Fresno Discovery Center. Authorities were searching for the missing python in an area frequented by a suspect, who has been arrested.
Wright had been worried about the reptiles' confinement together in the bag "because they are mortal enemies," she said.
"It would be like throwing two pit bulls in a locked room," she added, noting that the monitor lizard has sharp, 2-inch claws.
The reptiles were taken in a robbery that has perplexed museum officials and authorities, who have not released a motive.
Fresno Police Lt. Donald Gross said Friday Devin Michael Madej, 20, was arrested on suspicion of burglary and possession of stolen property.
The museum's education coordinator, Ian Goudelock, said the burglar didn't appear to be out to intentionally hurt the animals though the museum planned to have the reptiles checked by a veterinarian.
"It's just a strange theft. We're still trying to figure out why," he said. "It does kind of more or less have a happy ending."
Surveillance video showed the burglar broke into the Central California museum sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday, smashed the tanks that held the four reptiles ? worth hundreds of dollars ? and popped them into a garbage bag.
He also went into the center's gift shop and stole children's toys, the phone system and the security monitor, the Fresno Bee reported.
___
Information from: The Fresno Bee, http://www.fresnobee.com
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-4-reptiles-stolen-calif-museum-found-232302632.html
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Saturday, March 30, 2013
President Obama Sends Easter and Passover Message
President Obama dedicated his weekly address to the celebration of two religious holidays this week - Easter and Passover - and urged Americans to engage in prayer and reflection over the weekend.
"For millions of Americans, this is a special and sacred time of year," President Obama said. "This week, Jewish families gathered around the Seder table commemorating the Exodus from Egypt and the triumph of faith over oppression. And this weekend, Michelle, Malia, Sasha and I will join Christians around the world to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the hopeful promise of Easter.
"In the midst of all of our busy and noisy lives, these holy days afford us the precious opportunity to slow down and spend some q
obama uiet moments in prayer and reflection," he added.
PHOTOS: President Obama's First Term Captured In Photos
The president will be in Washington, D.C., over Easter weekend. And on Monday, the first family will welcome Americans to the White House for the annual Easter egg roll festivities.
"This weekend, I hope we're all able to take a moment to pause and reflect, to embrace our loved ones, to give thanks for our blessings, to rededicate ourselves to interests larger than our own," he said. "And to all the Christian families who are celebrating the Resurrection, Michelle and I wish you a blessed and joyful Easter."
The Republicans used their weekly address, delivered by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., to not only spread well-wishes for Easter and Passover, but also to advocate for the building of the Keystone XL pipeline to lower energy prices.
"The Keystone XL pipeline is a no-brainer," Terry said in the GOP address. "The people and the Congress have spoken. The experts have weighed in. Now it's the time to build the Keystone pipeline. No more delays, no more politics. If the president continues to drag his feet, Congress is prepared to act.
"Doing all of this isn't just about the dollars and cents. It's about coming together to solve longstanding problems to ensure our children will have the same chances, the same hope and freedoms we've had," he said. "These are the blessings we celebrate during the rites of Easter and Passover. It's a time to unite in prayer and celebration - to renew traditions, lift up our spirits and tell old stories that remind us how trials and suffering can be overcome with courage and resolve. It's a time for perspective. If we look for opportunities to work together and seize on them - if we choose to build on and not squander past sacrifices - we come that much closer to realizing the promise of a more perfect union and peace for one and all."
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FEMA frustrated by drop in ND flood policies
FARGO, N.D. (AP) ? As North Dakota faces another possible major flood this spring, federal officials are frustrated by the number of people in the state who lack insurance for such a disaster.
Along the Red River and its tributaries, in flood-prone Fargo and Cass County, the number of insurance policies dropped by more than 40 percent from 2011 to 2012, FEMA officials said. Residents there have battled flooding in for five of the last seven years.
"It's an amazing phenomenon how people can go through these things, then drop their flood insurance and try to buy it back in time," FEMA spokesman Dave Kyner said. "I guess that's one of the most frustrating things for us here."
Flood policies in all of North Dakota declined 32 percent, which coincided with a dry year throughout the state.
Policies must be in effect for 30 days for flood damage to be covered. FEMA officials did not have figures for 2013 but said they have received calls recently from agents indicating a flurry of activity.
Richard Thomas, who lives in a subdivision south of Fargo that has lost nearly 20 homes to flooding or buyouts, said he considered dropping his insurance before deciding it was a bad idea.
"Our property is fairly high, so I thought about getting it when I thought I would need it," he said. "But the window (for getting insurance) is pretty small so I didn't want to try and time it."
The National Weather Service says there's a 50 percent chance this spring that Fargo will have one of the area's top five floods of all time, at around 38 feet. The first flood outlook in January called for a 6 percent chance that the river would reach 30 feet, but late winter snows bumped up the forecast.
Darren Dunlop, who lives in a north Fargo neighborhood protected by a permanent floodwall, said he started buying insurance a few years ago so he would be grandfathered in if there were policy changes.
"My insurance agent told me that when the new flood plain comes in, you will be required to have it," Dunlop said. "If you don't have it, you will have to buy it from the feds and it will be at an astronomically high rate."
The average flood policy in the U.S. is about $600 a year, according to the federal website http://www.Floodsmart.gov. Where a person lives and the age, elevation and structure of the home can affect the cost.
Policyholders can receive some money for flood-protection efforts, including sandbags. Thomas said he was paid $1,000 for a portable plastic tube called an AquaDam, which he calls his second insurance policy.
"Everyone out here is done with sandbags," Thomas said of the Forest River subdivision where he lives. "We're an AquaDam community."
Kyner said North Dakota had more disaster declarations than any other state in the six-state FEMA region between 1964 and 2010 and is among the top in the country for FEMA declarations in the last 15 years.
Kyner said when the historic Souris River flood wiped out 4,160 homes and businesses in Minot in 2011, the number of insurance policies in the city stood at 383. By the end of the year, that number had ballooned to 2,622. Last year it dropped 39 percent.
FEMA officials said people in Fargo and Cass County may have a false sense of security because of improvements made in flood protection since 2009, including the construction of new levees and the demolition of houses on the flood plain.
"People tend to think if they are close to the river, they have a high propensity for flooding, they need flood insurance, and if they're away from the river, they don't," said Norm Ashford, FEMA's insurance specialist. "But we actually pay 20 to 30 percent of our claims that are not close to the river."
Asked who needs flood insurance, Ashford said, "Everyone."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fema-frustrated-drop-nd-flood-policies-183758351.html
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Killer waves: Scientists study how tsunamis changed history
USGS
Beach damage between Banda Aceh and Krueng Sabe on Jan. 28, 2005, after a devastating tsunami.
By Becky Oskin
LiveScience
In a jumbled layer of pebbles and shells called the "Dog's Breakfast deposit" lies evidence of a massive tsunami, one of two that transformed New Zealand's Maori people in the 15th century.
After the killer wave destroyed food resources and coastal settlements, sweeping societal changes emerged, including the building of fortified hill forts and a shift toward a warrior culture.
"This is called patch protection, wanting to guard what little resources you've got left. Ultimately it led to a far more war-like society," said James Goff, a tsunami geologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The Maori?were victims of a one-two punch. An earthquake on the nearby Tonga-Kermadec fault triggered the first tsunami in the mid-15th century. It was soon followed by an enormous wave triggered by an exploding volcano called Kuwae, near Vanuatu. The volcano's 1453 eruption was 10 times bigger than Krakatoa and triggered the last phase of worldwide cooling called the Little Ice Age.
The tsunamis mark the divide between the Archaic and Classic periods in Maori history, Goff said. "The driver is this catastrophic event," he told OurAmazingPlanet.
Goff is one of many scientists searching for ancient tsunamis in the Pacific and elsewhere. The devastating 2004 Indonesia tsunami and earthquake, which killed 280,000 people, brought renewed focus on the hazards of these giant waves. Understanding future risk requires knowing where tsunamis struck in the past, and how often. As researchers uncover signs of prehistoric tsunamis, the scientists are beginning to link these ocean-wide events with societal shifts.
Government of Australia
"Following 2004, there has been a lot of rethinking and a greater appreciation for how such events would have impacted coastal settlements," said Patrick Daly, an archaeologist with the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
Vulnerable islands
The West's written history and legends clearly illustrate the consequences of tremendous tsunamis in the Mediterranean. A great wave destroyed Minoan culture on the Greek island of Crete in 1600 B.C. The same tsunami may be responsible for the legend of Atlantis, the verdant land drowned in the ocean. More recently, in 1755, an enormous tsunami destroyed Lisbon, Portugal, Europe's third-largest city at the time. The destruction influenced philosophers and writers from Kant to Voltaire, who references the event in his novel "Candide." [10 Tsunamis That Changed History]
But islands face a much greater threat from tsunamis than coastal communities. After the Lisbon tsunami, the king of Portugal immediately set out to rebuild the city, which was only possible thanks to the presence of untouched inland areas.
"An island becomes totally cut off from the outside world," said Uri ten Brink, a marine geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Woods Hole, Mass. "Islands are a lot more vulnerable to such disasters. It's the same kind of thing as during bad hurricanes. It takes a lot longer to recover."
Exposed on all sides, islands are simply more likely to be hit by tsunamis. People settle in shallow bays, which are protected from storms but actually magnify the height of incoming tsunami waves. Food in these societies comes from marine resources, which are destroyed by tsunamis, and croplands that become inundated with saltwater. Boats are smashed, halting trade and communication. Goff said women, children and the elderly are most likely to die, and in Polynesian culture, elders hold the knowledge needed to build boats, make tools and grow food.
The islands of the Pacific are particularly vulnerable. About 85 percent of the world's tsunamis strike in the Pacific Ocean, thanks to its perilous tectonics. Tsunamis are waves triggered when earthquakes, landslides or volcanic eruptions shove a section of water. Ringed by subduction zones, spots where one of Earth's plates slides beneath the other, the Pacific suffers the world's most powerful earthquakes, and it holds the highest concentration of active volcanoes.
USGS
A coal barge and tug carried onto land in Lho Nga, Sumatra in 2004. The tsunami runup reached 104 feet (32 m) here.
But the kind of tsunami that can change history, one that sweeps across the entire ocean, is rare.
"There are many tsunamis where there's been no cultural response or no obvious one," Goff said. "The smaller events aren't going to be the game changers."
Polynesia and tsunamis
But Goff thinks he's found a "black swan" that hit 2,800 years ago, the result of an enormous earthquake on the Tonga-Kermadec subduction zone, where two of Earth's tectonic plates collide. The tsunami scoured beaches throughout the Southwest Pacific, leaving distinctive sediments for scientists to decode. Goff's findings are detailed in several studies, most recently in the February 2012 issue of the journal The Holocene.
The tsunami coincides with the mysterious long pause, when rapid Polynesian expansion inexplicably stopped for 2,000 years. Before the pause, settlers had swiftly crossed from New Guinea to Fiji, Tonga and Samoa over the course of about 500 years.
"It's one of those archaeological conundrums," Goff said. "Why? Well, if I just had my culture obliterated, it might take me a little time to recover. It's probably not the only explanation, but it very well could have been the root cause of why they stopped," he told OurAmazingPlanet.
Two tsunamis in the 15th century had a similarly chilling effect on Polynesian society. After leaving Samoa between AD 1025 and 1120, Polynesians spread across the Pacific Ocean, discovering nearly all of the 500 habitable islands there, according to a study published Feb. 1, 2011, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Polynesian network covered an area the size of North America, all traversed by wooden canoes. [7 Most Dangerous Places on Earth]
Following the tsunamis, the culture contracted, with the rise of chiefdoms, insularity and warfare, Goff said. "There was a major breakdown at exactly that time," Goff said. "You have to live on what you have on your island, and that causes warfare and a fundamental shift in how they go about living."
Indian Ocean tsunami history
Paleotsunamis also froze trade in the Indian Ocean, according to recent studies by geologists and archaeologists.
Along the Sunda fault off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which spawned the deadly 2004 tsunami, growth patterns in coral reefs record past earthquakes. Combined with sediment layers that point to past tsunamis and historic records of cultural shifts, the clues suggest a 14th century tsunami with an impact as great as the modern cataclysm.
After the 14th-century tsunami, Indian Ocean traders shifted to the sheltered northern and eastern coasts in the Straits of Malacca, and activity ceased in coastal settlements in the same area hit by the 2004 wave, said Daly of Singapore's Earth Observatory.
"We think that the 14th-century tsunami disrupted one of the main trading routes connecting the Indian Ocean with China and Southeast Asia, a far more powerful impact on a global scale than what happened in 2004," Daly said.
After about a century, there was a gradual shift back, leading to the establishment of the flourishing Acehnese Sultanate from the 16th century, he said.
"It is interesting to think that later settlement only began after the memory of the previous event had faded," Daly told OurAmazingPlanet. "A huge, unexpected deluge of water that wiped out everything along the coast would have been really traumatic and incomprehensible to people in the past, and it is reasonable to suspect that the survivors would have been very apprehensive about moving back into such areas."
Repeating the past
Warnings would be passed down in oral or written stories and legends. The Maori offer detailed accounts of a series of great waves that hit the New Zealand coast. Along the Cascadia subduction zone, west of Washington state, tribal mythology documents a 1700 tsunami, with warnings to flee to high ground.
But because history-changing waves are rare, the warnings may be lost to time, or disregarded. In Japan, stone markers warned of the height of past tsunamis, and told residents to flee after an earthquake. Not all heeded the ancient admonitions when the 2011 Tohoku earthquake struck and sent a massive wave ashore.
By studying past tsunamis and their causes, researchers such as Goff and ten Brink of the USGS hope to reduce the destruction and loss of life from future waves. Right now, ten Brink is on Anegada Island in the Caribbean, investigating whether a tsunami there between 1450 and 1600?came from Lisbon or a local source. The project started as a hunt for evidence of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, one similar in size to those in Japan and Sumatra. Goff is assembling a database of Pacific paleotsunamis, including the 1450 wave, which ran 100 feet (30 meters) inland along the New Zealand coast.
"The reason we're interested in looking at old tsunamis is we're worried about how often these things happen," Goff said.
The question is whether increased knowledge about the scope and frequency of tsunamis will change current and future decision-making. [Read: Tsunami Warnings: How to Prepare]
"The early evidence from the last few destructive tsunamis suggests that we don't necessarily learn lessons that well, and people in general seem to be willing to remain in highly vulnerable areas," Daly said.
Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet, Facebook?or Google +. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Friday, March 29, 2013
Google adds Street View to ghost town inside Japan nuclear zone
AP / Google
This March 2013 image released by Google shows its camera-equipped Street View vehicle as it moves through Namie in Japan, a nuclear no-go zone where former residents have been unable to live since they fled from radioactive contamination from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant two years ago.
By Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press
TOKYO? ? Concrete rubble litters streets lined with shuttered shops and dark windows. A collapsed roof juts from the ground. A ship sits stranded on a stretch of dirt flattened when the tsunami roared across the coastline. There isn't a person in sight.
Google Street View is giving the world a rare glimpse into one of Japan's eerie ghost towns, created when the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami sparked a nuclear disaster that has left the area uninhabitable.
The technology pieces together digital images captured by Google's fleet of camera-equipped vehicles and allows viewers to take virtual tours of locations around the world, including faraway spots like the South Pole and fantastic landscapes like the Grand Canyon.
AP / Google
This screenshot, made from the Google Maps site provided March 27, 2013 by Google, shows stranded ships left as a testament to the power of the tsunami which hit the area two years ago.
Now it is taking people inside Japan's nuclear no-go zone, to the city of Namie, whose 21,000 residents have been unable to return to live since they fled the radiation spewing from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant two years ago.
Koto Naganuma, 32, who lost her home in the tsunami, said some people find it too painful to see the places that were so familiar yet are now so out of reach.
She has only gone back once, a year ago, and for a few minutes.
"I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited I can take a look at those places that are so dear to me," said Naganuma. "It would be hard, too. No one is going to be there."
Namie Mayor Tamotsu Baba said memories came flooding back as he looked at the images shot by Google earlier this month.
He spotted an area where an autumn festival used to be held and another of an elementary school that was once packed with schoolchildren.
"Those of us in the older generation feel that we received this town from our forbearers, and we feel great pain that we cannot pass it down to our children," he said in a post on his blog.
"We want this Street View imagery to become a permanent record of what happened to Namie-machi in the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster."
Street View was started in 2007, and now provides images from more than 3,000 cities across 48 countries, as well as parts of the Arctic and Antarctica.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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