Cell Phones & High Blood Pressure

The highlight of the 28th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Society of Hypertension this week was a study suggesting that mobile phone calls may raise your blood pressure. The study, conducted at Northern Italy’s Guglielmo da Saliceto Hospital, found that subjects talking on their telefonini had a significant rise in blood pressure, from 121/77 to 129/82. Frankly, we wonder if  BP rose because subjects were irritated when their phone calls were interrupted by blood pressure tests.

More:

“New research shows what raises and lowers blood pressure: Cell phones, salt and saying om,” EurekaAlert

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Image (“Cell Phones & Blood Pressure, after Adriaen Brouwer”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Eastern Delights

“For six years, Rafat Shororo longed for the taste of a KFC sandwich he had eaten in Egypt. This week, he got his finger lickin’ fix at home in the Gaza Strip after a local delivery company managed to smuggle it from Egypt through underground tunnels.

‘It has been a dream, and this company has made my dream come true,’ says Mr. Shororo, an accountant, as he receives his order from the delivery guy.

The al-Yamama company advertises its unorthodox new fast-food smuggling service on Facebook. It gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals despite having to triple the price to 100 shekels ($30) to cover transportation and smuggling fees. The deliveries go from the fryers at the Al-Arish KFC joint 35 miles away to customers’ doorsteps in about three hours.”

– ”KFC smugglers bring buckets of chicken through Gaza tunnels,” Ahmed Aldabba, Christian Science Monitor

Also:

“Delivering KFC by Tunnel, Not Too Fast but Satisfying,” Fares Akram, New York Times

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Image (“Arabian Delights, after Ludwig Deutsch [detail]”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Newt Gingrich and His Pocket Communicator

Newt Gingrich, disgraced  former Speaker of the House and future Moon Colony Governor, is baffled by the nomenclature for his … pocket communicator device thingy. It’s a pager, a Personal Digital Assistant, a GPS, a Gameboy, an Email Appliance, a Walkman, a camera, and a can opener telephone, all in one — and it fits in your pocket!

Mr. Gingrich is the leading intellectual of the Republican Party and its chief (perhaps only) Futurist. So what should he call this miraculous machine?

Can the Feds Hear Your Phone Calls?

Did the government eavesdrop on Associated Press reporters? No. G-men subpoenaed the records of phone calls, the numbers of calls to and from AP reporters. Unsavory, but entirely legal. 

But is the Federal government capable of recording and listening to all your phone calls, or are we talking through our tinfoil hat? It’s your call:

“Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?” Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian

“Is the U.S. Government Recording and Saving All Domestic Telephone Calls?” Bruce Schneier, Schneier on Security

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Image by Mike Licht; download it free (no roaming charges!) here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht,NotionsCapital.com.

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Coffee

Coffee conquers Outer Space in this video Hyun Ji A.J. Bae, Janice Ahn, Yoon Sun Lee, and Zach Eastburg produced at Art Center College of Design.

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Mothers Day, a Horror Story

This is a tale of love, obsession, madness, candy, and carnations. It is the story of Mother’s Day.

The holiday was passionately promoted by single-minded spinster Anna Jarvis (1864-1948), described by Michael Farquhar as “… a woman of fierce loyalty and tireless enterprise and a total raving lunatic.”

Miss Jarvis worshipped her mother’s memory, and no wonder. Her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis (1832 – 1905), was truly a saint. Daughter of a clergyman, Ann Maria Reeves married merchant and minister Granville E. Jarvis and gave birth to 11 children, only four of whom survived into adulthood.  In 1851 Mrs. Jarvis, a Sunday School teacher, founded Mothers Day Work Clubs in West Virginia. These met in local churches but were no parish sewing circles.  The clubs dealt with health care, disability, infant mortality, poverty, employment, worker safety, food safety, and sanitation issues. Mrs. Jarvis’ brother, James E. Reeves, MD, a public health authority, was a supporter and frequent club lecturer.

The Civil War divided West Virginia communities and families, but Mrs. Jarvis kept Mothers Day Work Club members together. The women treated wounded soldiers on both sides and helped combat typhoid fever and measles epidemics.  After the war Mrs. Jarvis organized an annual Mothers’ Friendship Day to help reunite neighbors who had supported opposing sides. People honored mothers with carnations. After her husband died in 1902, Mrs Jarvis (and her daughters) moved to Philadelphia and lived with her son Claude, a prosperous businessman.

Yo Mamma!

Mothers Day advice from Mr. T.

Footnotes here, here, and here.

Related:

“10 New Things Science Says About Moms,” Randy Rieland, Smithsonian Magazine blog

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71 More Children Killed By Guns Since Newtown

“In the last five months there have been at least 71 of them. None older than 12, several as young as five or six months, all of their lives ended by a bullet.”

New Chair of Congressional Adultery Caucus

Disgraced Former Governor Mark Sanford, noted Republican adulterer, has defeated comedian Steven Colbert’s sister and is the new Representative of South Carolina’s First Congressional District. He held that office once before, then became the Palmetto State’s governor and secretly ran off to Argentina with his mistress, telling aides he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Sounds like a good candidate for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Berlusconi Big House Bound?

A Milan appeals court upheld the October tax fraud conviction of former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, which carries a four year prison sentence. Wednesday’s appellate court ruling also upheld the lower court’s decision barring Mr. Berlusconi from public office for five years and from management  of any company for three years.