Category Archives: Society

Government, Health, Medical, Research, Science, Society

Health risk for women in their 30s who do not exercise…

HEART RISK

A major study has found that a lack of exercise puts younger women at far greater risk of heart attacks than smoking or being obese.

Researchers found inactive women in their 30s are almost 50 per cent more likely to develop heart disease in their lifetime than those who are fit.

The team has now called on governments to launch public health campaigns on the importance of exercise, arguing it would have a far greater impact on reducing heart disease deaths than drives to discourage smoking or promote healthy eating.

The scientists looked at the records of 32,541 women aged 22 to 90, including details about lifestyle and whether they had heart disease. Armed with this data, they used a mathematical formula to work out their risk of heart disease during their lifetime based on whether they were inactive, were smokers, had hypertension (high blood pressure) or were obese.

A lack of exercise was found to pose the greatest risk to women across all age groups.

Those in their early 30s who were classed as inactive were nearly 50 per cent more likely to suffer from the condition in their lifetime than active women.

The risk decreased slightly with age. Inactive women in their late 40s were 38 per cent more at risk, falling to 28 per cent in the late 50s.

By comparison, the risk was 40 per cent for women smokers in their 30s and 30 per cent for the obese. Although obesity and being unfit are closely linked, the researchers from the University of Queensland pointed out that many slim women are inactive.

The latest UK figures show a quarter of women are classified as inactive, while just over half do the recommended two and a half hours of physical activity a week.

Heart disease, which includes heart attacks and strokes, is by far the biggest killer in Britain, claiming 82,000 lives a year.

Experts have previously claimed that exercising can halve the risk of getting the condition because it lowers the blood pressure, reduces cholesterol which blocks arteries, and improves circulation.

Professor Wendy Brown, one of the team’s lead researchers, described inactivity as the ‘Cinderella risk factor’ for heart disease. She said: ‘Our data suggests that national programmes for the promotion and maintenance of physical activity across the adult lifespan, but especially in young adulthood, deserve to be a much higher public health priority for women than they are now.’

The study’s findings, first published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, concluded: ‘Continuing efforts to reduce smoking rates in young adult women are warranted… however, from about age 30, the population attributable risk for inactivity outweighs that of the other leading risk factors, including high Body Mass Index, which is currently receiving much more attention.’

A spokesperson for the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘We already know physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease. Interestingly, this study shows its dominant influence on heart disease amongst women, and suggests a greater need to promote regular physical activity… It is important to remember that heart disease is linked to other factors such as smoking, obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.’

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Europe, European Union, Foreign Affairs, Russia, Society, Ukraine, United States

Preventing dismemberment of Ukraine requires conciliatory compromise…

UKRAINE

In the aftermath of the Donetsk referendum on independence for the new ‘People’s Republic’, Roman Lyagin, the region’s self-styled electoral commissioner, has proclaimed a charade of an election result. The fact that the total of the yes, no and spoilt votes exceeded 100 per cent, Western observers – including the British Foreign Secretary William Hague – rightly concluded that this contest was ‘illegitimate’ and had ‘zero credibility’.

Despite the surreal nature of the plebiscite, the outcome is nothing other than deadly serious. The most populous regions of Ukraine, with 4.5 million people and the industrial powerhouse of the economy, now stands on the brink of merging with Russia. We should be under no illusion: the shadowy circle of kleptocratic pro-Kremlin leaders who organised this poll, with the resulting 89 per cent ‘yes’ vote, is leading the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk along a road that seems certain to end in union with Russia.

Ukraine’s new post-revolutionary government has no answer to the challenge. In what was described as a military offensive by the Ukrainian army prior to Sunday’s vote in restoring control over Donetsk, that strategy can only be deemed a fiasco upon reflection. The city of Mariupol, with its half-a-million residents, has effectively been conceded to the pro-Russian movement.

A chink of light may, however, provide a way out of the crisis. One of the referendum’s absurdities was a vague and indiscreet question that asked voters to assent to ‘self-rule’, clearly something which should have been clarified as to meaning. If Kiev were now to open proper talks and dialogue with the pro-Russian movement and make a generous and specific offer of regional autonomy, that might allow both sides to step back from the brink. Those hardliners in Kiev will no-doubt have difficulty in negotiating with a motley collection of Russian allies, particularly as Moscow is once again ramping up the threats to turn off Ukraine’s gas supplies, but the alternative will only exasperate an already tense and bitterly volatile situation.

It seems certain now that, given the events in Ukraine over the past few months, unless a bold and conciliatory move is made by Kiev, the dismemberment of Ukraine looks inevitable.

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Google, Government, Human Rights, Society, Technology

Google’s buyout of drones raises privacy fears…

GOOGLE X

Intro: The addition of drones to Google’s robot army marks the outbreak of aerial combat in its battle for global internet supremacy

The internet giant Google has purchased a company that develops military-style drones in a controversial £36million deal.

Titan Aerospace makes unmanned aircraft that run on solar power and can remain airborne for five years at a time.

Google claims the technology will provide internet access to remote corners of the world. But the move has provoked privacy concerns over the internet company’s ability to snoop on people from great heights. The drones fly at 65,000ft – almost twice as high as passenger planes.

Because the drones are solar powered and always above the clouds they do not need to land to refuel, so the drones are able to cover up to 3million miles before needing to land for maintenance.

However, critics have raised fears over the company’s newly-acquired powers of mass global surveillance. Titan is merely the latest addition to its growing arsenal of robotics firms, and Google is highly secretive about its technological ambitions – all of its projects are run by a closely-guarded division mysteriously known as ‘Google X’.

A spokesperson for Big Brother Watch, a privacy campaign group, said:

… The regulation of drones is something that urgently needs addressing. Given Google’s track record is littered with overstepping the line and infringing people’s privacy, combining their hunger for data with drone technology is a mind boggling proposition.

COMMENT & ANALYSIS

Google’s multi-million dollar bid for a company that makes solar-powered drone aircraft marks the outbreak of aerial combat in its battle with Facebook for global internet supremacy.

The search engine giant has bought Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico start-up that previously caught the eye of Mark Zuckerberg, for an undisclosed price thought to be in the region of £36m ($60m).

Zuckerberg opted instead to snap up Ascenta, a tiny British engineering company based in rural Somerset – which is also working on solar-powered drones – for $20m.

The deals take both companies, which are dabbling in areas such as robots, driverless cars and contact lens cameras, even further into the realms of science fiction.

Despite mounting fears on stock markets over the bursting of a new tech bubble, in similar style to the early 2000s dotcom boom and bust, the Californian colossi remain ready to pay millions of pounds of investors’ money on futuristic technology.

Why, though, some may ask, the sudden interest in aviation? The answer is that Google and Facebook are vying to gain a stranglehold on potentially lucrative new online markets as some of the world’s poorest countries begin to be connected to the internet. Laying cables in the ground, they reckon, will take too long and cost too much, so they are trying to beam out signals from on high instead.

In their eyes, this is an altruistic enterprise, giving poor people cheap access to the internet. The drones, it is claimed, could also provide invaluable data on climate change, environmental damage and natural disasters. Google is excited in welcoming Titan Aerospace to the ‘Google family’.

Behind the gushing, however, critics perceive this new bonding as a highly dysfunctional one. The Titan deal is certain to ignite fresh fears over the internet giants’ power to pry into every aspect of people’s lives once they are equipped with robotic aircraft that can conduct surveillance from a high altitude.

It will also raise further questions among investors who are growing increasingly sceptical of tech stocks. Splashing millions on Titan, even though the company’s drones are still at the prototype stage, will be grist to the mill for the doubters. Eyebrows were previously raised following Google’s takeover of robotics company Boston Dynamics.

Facebook, for its part, has come under fire for its recent acquisition of WhatsApp in a $19bn deal, and its $2bn purchase of Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset maker.

Google’s takeover of Titan promises to put at its disposal a swarm of dragonfly-shaped planes that can encircle the globe, staying aloft for up to five years, without ever having to refuel, since they are run on power generated by sunlight.

Titan’s Solara 60 drone has a 60 metre wingspan and is covered in around 3,000 solar panels generating electricity to power its flight. Its cruising speed is around 65mph and it has a range of more than 2.8miles.

The Solara 60 and another model, the smaller Solara 50, is a prototype but commercial versions are expected to be delivered next year.

The lightweight aircraft will be deployed as part of Google’s ‘Project Loon’. The name refers to balloons, rather than lunacy, but the idea stemmed from Google’s launching in 2013 of a number of large, high altitude balloons over the Southern Hemisphere to transmit internet signals.

The company’s growing robotic arsenal includes the sinister-looking Atlas, one of the terrifying looking robots acquired in the takeover of Boston Dynamics, a military manufacturer that produces animal-like and humanoid machines for the battlefield.

Google’s founders, Page and Sergey Brin, claim their mission is ‘to organise the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful’, which sounds innocuous enough.

Yet the very idea of two young billionaires who invented a clever algorithm and went on to command their own robot army and a fleet of drones would, until recently, have sounded like the tale of a Bond villain.

Still, to many, the prospect will be more than a little disquieting.

 

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