Weekly Universe

Scalpers Cause Christmas VIA Shortage at Starbucks

2025-11-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

If you can't find Christmas VIA Instant Coffee packets at Starbucks this year, it might be because scalpers are buying them up in bulk, to resell at double or triple the price!

As recently as 2020 and 2021, I still found Christmas VIA packets at the several Starbucks near where I live after Christmas. Because it was post-Christmas, they were always on sale.

But these past few year, I couldn't find any Christmas VIA packets by mid-November. This year I entered a Starbucks on November 11 and was told the Christmas VIA was already sold out!

Were people buying them up in bulk?

Learn the shocking truth in the Weekly Universe!

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Melatonin Helps Prevent Macular Degeneration

2024-06-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

From Medical Express (June 7, 2024)

A team of medical researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Ophthalmic Bioinformatics has found further evidence that regular consumption of melatonin reduces an older person's chances of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a disease that often leads to blindness.

In their study, published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology, the group researched case histories of 200,000 older patients looking for an association between regular consumption of melatonin and the development of AMD...

In recent years, research teams have been finding that people taking melatonin supplements may be less likely to develop the condition. In 2020, one team found that the higher levels of melatonin can prevent retinal damage due to AMD.

The following year, another team found that patients with AMD tended to have lower-than-average amounts of melatonin in their blood and tears. In this new effort, the research team looked at the medical records of 200,000 older people covering the years 2008 to 2023 looking for an association.

They found that out of 121,523 patients aged 50 years or older who had no evidence of AMD, many were regular users of melatonin supplements. They also found that many patients who began taking melatonin supplements after developing AMD experienced slower degradation than patients who did not begin to take the supplements.

Read the entire article.

Genetic Discovery Might Help Prevent Glaucoma

2023-07-08T10:23:00.002-07:00

Medicalxpress reports [July 3, 2023]:

"International research led by QIMR Berghofer has found hundreds of new genes linked to a person's risk of developing glaucoma, including key genetic targets that could, for the first time, pave the way for treatments that prevent the retinal damage that causes blindness.

The findings, from the largest-ever global genetic study of the degenerative eye disease, have been published in Nature Genetics.

The research significantly advances our understanding of the genetics of glaucoma, building on a previous 2021 study to identify another 185 previously unknown genes linked to glaucoma risk, bringing the total number to 312 genes."

Read the rest of the article.

Strawberries Might Prevent Alzheimer's

2022-08-01T22:09:00.004-07:00

An amazing report from Medical Express:

Could strawberries as a snack or in your cereal, salads or smoothie help protect your brain from Alzheimer's? Maybe so, according to a new study from researchers at RUSH.

RUSH researchers found that a bioactive compound found in strawberries called pelargonidin may be associated with fewer neurofibrillary tau tangles in the brain. Tau tangles are one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, which is caused by abnormal changes with tau proteins that accumulate in the brain. The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease on July 19.

"We suspect the anti-inflammatory properties of pelargonidin may decrease overall neuroinflammation, which may reduce cytokine production," said Dr. Julie Schneider, author of the study. Schneider is associate professor and neuropathologist in the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Cytokines are proteins produced by cells and can regulate various inflammatory responses. Inflammation in the brain has been linked to Alzheimer's pathology such as plaques and tangles. The data suggests that pelargonidin may protect the aging brain from developing Alzheimer's disease pathology.

Among berries, strawberries are the most abundant source of pelargonidin. ...

Read the entire article.

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Shroud of Turin's Image Really Is Jesus!

2022-06-12T23:20:00.004-07:00

From The Western Journal:

New Discoveries on Shroud of Turin Directly Contradict 1988 Carbon Dating, Put It Roughly Around Judea Some 2,000 Years Ago

A new report finds the Shroud of Turin dates back to the era of the earthly ministry of Jesus, contradicting 1988 evidence that dated the cloth as being centuries newer.

A new scientific procedure says fabric in the shroud is about 2,000 years old, according to a Christian Broadcasting Network report last week.

The study also analyzed traces of pollen on the shroud.

“The pollen samples that were gathered they, a lot of them, are from plants that are native to not just the Middle East, but specifically the area around Judea, Palestine, and Syria and stay where it was in that time period,” said Brian Hyland, an exhibit curator at the Museum of the Bible, according to CBN. ...

British filmmaker David Rolfe said that in a new film, “Who Can He Be,” his team produced a 3D image from data that was pulled from the fabric.

“We can see what I believe to be the body of the crucified Jesus in front of us,” he said, according to CBN.

“The only way that the image could’ve got on to that cloth is a miraculous one. A miracle that emanated from the body with unbelievable amounts of energy but within an infinitesimally short space of time,” he said.

Read the entire article.

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Weird Science: Physicists Discover Key to Invisibility!

2022-06-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

Induced transparency: The precise control of the energy flow (indicated by glowing particles in the fog) makes the artificial material become entirely transparent for the optical signal. Credit: Andrea Steinfurth / University of Rostock

Sissy Gudat at Phys.org reports:

Space, the final frontier. The starship Enterprise pursues its mission to explore the galaxy, when all communication channels are suddenly cut off by an impenetrable nebula. In many episodes of the iconic TV series, the valiant crew must "tech the tech" and "science the science" within just 45 minutes of airtime in order to facilitate their escape from this or a similar predicament before the end credits roll.

Despite spending a significantly longer time in their laboratories, a team of scientists from the University of Rostock has succeeded in developing an entirely new approach for the design of artificial materials that can transmit light signals without any distortions by means of precisely tuned flows of energy. They have published their results in Science Advances.

"When light spreads in an inhomogeneous medium, it undergoes scattering. This effect quickly transforms a compact, directed beam into a diffuse glow, and is familiar to all of us from summer clouds and autumn fog alike," Professor Alexander Szameit of the Institute for Physics at the University of Rostock describes the starting point of his team's considerations. Notably, it is the microscopic density distribution of a material that dictates the specifics of scattering.

Szameit continues, "The fundamental idea of induced transparency is to take advantage of a much lesser-known optical property to clear a path for the beam, so to speak."

Read the entire article.

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Conspiracy Watch: Alek Minassian "Incel Rebellion" Is Fake News -- A Hoax!

2018-05-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

The mainstream media is widely reporting that Toronto mass murderer, Alek Minassian, was motivated by "incel rage." This is because of a message that Minassian allegedly left on his Facebook account, stating that "The Incel Rebellion has begun!"

But did Minassian post that message? Or was it a hoax perpetrated by someone else? This video suggests the latter:

In which case -- we still don't know Minassian's real motive for murdering ten people!

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Is Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel a Cross-Dresser?

2018-03-03T00:36:00.001-08:00

Conspiracy Watch: Hillary Clinton Chose Bernie Sanders -- To Run Against Her!

2017-09-07T05:39:00.000-07:00

In her current book, What Happened, Hillary Clinton blames Senator Bernie Sanders (among other people) for costing her the 2016 presidential race.

But a mysterious poster, known only by the handle of "Teotwawki," believes that Hillary herself drafted Sanders to run against her!

The cryptic Teotwawki theorizes:

I always suspected that Sanders was selected, possibly even by the Clintons themselves, to run as a foil against Hillary. She couldn’t go through the primaries completely unopposed. There would be no debates and no air time. But they needed someone so far left that it made even Hillary look more centrist. It just got out of hand that Sanders thought he had a serious run at the nomination.

You can read Teotwawki's post at Free Republic.

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Conspiracy Watch: Racist Alt Right Creating Fake Antifa Groups -- To Cancel Their Own Events

2017-05-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

Racist "white nationalist" Alt Right groups are creating fake Antifa groups to cancel their own events.

That's the shocking conspiracy theory advanced by Libertarian Party official Chuck Moulton. You can read the details about his astounding conspiracy theory in the Weekly Universe.

Planters Nuts Downsized Yet Again!

2015-06-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

In 2011 the Weekly Universe reported the downsizing of Planters Deluxe Mixed Nuts from 21 oz to 18.25 oz. Even so, the Santa Monica, California Vons supermarket kept the same price -- $9.99.

Over the next four years, the price on Planters Deluxe Mixed Nuts increased to $13.98 -- occasionally reverting to a "sale" price of $9.99. Then just last month, it was downsized yet again -- from 18.25 to 15.25 oz. -- yet still priced at $13.98!

Only four years ago, Planters Deluxe Mixed Nuts cost $9.99 for 21 oz -- now it's $13.98 for 15.25 oz. That's an approximately 92% price increase in four years -- a nearly doubling of the price!

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Red China Behind California Drought

2014-07-08T03:03:00.000-07:00

Drought-stricken California is dying of thirst -- and Red China is to blame!

Read how the Chinese are doing it -- in the Weekly Universe's latest shocking report!

Deming, New Mexico Cops, Bobby Orosco and Robert Chavez, Are Alien Hybrids

2013-11-08T04:16:00.000-08:00

Ever since they cleverly faked a spaceship "crash" in Roswell, New Mexico, aliens have been quietly infiltrating that sad, sorry state. It's now reached the point that New Mexico's law enforcement, judicial, and medical establishments have been completely infiltrated -- by buttocks-obsessed alien hybrids!

The evidence is irrefutable.

On January 2, 2013, in Deming, New Mexico, two police officers -- Bobby Orosco and Robert Chavez -- stopped David Eckert, 63, for failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. The allegedly "human" cops then claimed to have seen Eckert tighten his buttocks. This evidently excited the two cops, because they then claimed "probable cause" for suspecting Eckert of hiding drugs in his anus.

So "cops" Orosco and Chavez took Eckert to the Gila Regional Medical Center, where they forced him -- against Eckert's consent -- to undergo multiple anal searches, enemas, and a colonoscopy.

According to Chris Ramirez, of KOB Eyewitness News 4:

While there, Eckert was subjected to repeated and humiliating forced medical procedures. A review of Eckert's medical records, which he released to KOB, and details in the lawsuit show the following happened:

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.

2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.

8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures.

Any human being -- even of very low IQ -- would have very quickly seen that Eckert's anus hid no drugs. Clearly, officers Bobby Orosco and Robert Chavez were in it for thrills. But what normal human being -- or any human being -- would get so excited over repeatedly seeing an elderly man defecate, given enemas, and have his anus probed?

Clearly NO human being -- not even the sickest perv -- would be excited by that! Only the Grays -- a creature so obsessed with the human buttock that it has traveled millions of light-years, at a cost of trillions of galactic credits, to satiate its sicko sexual fantasies -- would do what Orosco and Chaves did to Eckert.

That, plus New Mexico's long and well-documented history as a center of alien butt-probe activity, lead to the irrefutable conclusion that Deming police officers Bobby Orosco and Robert Chavez have Gray alien DNA in their system.

See KOB-TV news report, below:

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UFO's Above Pennsylvania

2013-06-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

Alien abductions, silent spacecrafts, and magical extraterrestrial technology all come together through eyewitness accounts in UFOs Above Pennsylvania.

* Return to the 1960s, when a UFO was seen above a prominent eastern PA university!

* Witness a young boy being chased by an alien craft through the streets of his western Pennsylvania suburb!

* Feel a woman's terror as alien lights blast through her vacation cabin in central Pennsylvania!

* Discover the real, nightly alien invasion that nobody has talked about until now -- and that no one can stop!

Authors Gerard Medvec and Mark Sarro also co-wrote Ghosts of Delaware. Medvec has published over 60 articles and four short stories. Sarro wrote Ghosts of West Chester. He is a paranormal investigator and talk show host.

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Night Lights Cause Breast Cancer, Heart Disease!

2012-06-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

Thomas Edison's discovery of the light bulb set the night ablaze! People began to work and play long after sunset!

But it now looks as if Edison's blessing came with a deadly curse! The human species evolved to go to sleep at night -- and not doing so has deadly health consequences!

According to William Weir, reporting for the Hartford Courant (June 20, 2012):

The American Medical Association Wednesday adopted recommendations based on a report co-authored by a University of Connecticut researcher asserting that certain types of nighttime lighting can adversely affect health and may be linked to breast cancer and other medical conditions.

The AMA's house of delegates voted to adopt policies based on the report "Light Pollution: Adverse Health Effects of Nighttime Lighting," co-authored by Richard Stevens, an epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut Health Center. He was one of four writers.

With the AMA accepting the report, Stevens said, funding should become more readily available for further research.

"There is no question that lighting suppresses circadian rhythms," he said, adding that the next step will be to determine how much it affects specific medical conditions.

Dr. Steven Lockley, a professor of medicine at Harvard University and one of the report's four authors, said the AMA's policies will help educate the public about artificial light, particularly regarding the risks of working night shifts. Studies consistently have shown that shift workers are at a higher risk for breast cancer, heart disease and other health problems.

Read the rest of Weir's frightening report!

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Police "Automatic Electronic Tracking System" Monitors Millions of Cars

2012-06-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

Big Brother is watching wherever you drive -- using a vast computerized network that tracks license plates on streets and highways!

That's the shocking news according to Jon Campbell, who writes in the L.A. Weekly (June 21, 2012):

Using a vast and automatic electronic tracking system that is all but unknown to the California public, on the day of Robles' murder, police in Los Angeles County cities had made a detailed record of the alleged getaway vehicle's movements.

The information came complete with GPS coordinates — even photographs.

In a situation evoking the hit movie Minority Report, the suspects were being watched even before they were considered suspects.

L.A. Weekly has learned that more than two dozen law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County are using hundreds of these "automatic license plate recognition" devices (LPRs) — units about the size of a paperback book, usually mounted atop police cruisers — to devour data on every car that catches their electronic eye.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles Police Department are two of the biggest gatherers of automatic license plate recognition information. Local police agencies have logged more than 160 million data points — a massive database of the movements of millions of drivers in Southern California.

Each data point represents a car and its exact whereabouts at a given time. Police have already conducted, on average, some 22 scans for every one of the 7,014,131 vehicles registered in L.A. County. Because it's random, some cars are scanned numerous times, others never.

Read the rest of Campbell's startling report!

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Protect YOUR Right to Health Supplements!

2012-05-24T21:40:00.001-07:00

From the Alliance for Natural Health:

The Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (S.3187) is a bill that is considered "must-pass" legislation and without notice, Senators Dick Durbin and Richard Blumenthal offered their anti-supplement amendment (No. 2127) to the bill. Their amendment creates duplicative, unnecessary, and unexpected new regulations while upending current law and the regulatory process.

As you know, Sen. Durbin has engaged in this sort of dirty-trick legislative process before in an attempt to regulate away your supplements. The amendment will:

Circumvent the FDA's New Dietary Ingredient Industry Guidance. FDA and the dietary supplement industry are currently engaged in conversations regarding implementing a new dietary ingredient notification process. The Durbin amendment creates an entirely new law that would require new FDA regulations, likely erasing nearly two decades of DSHEA's positive influence in favor of Durbin's knee-jerk approach to governing.

Require that a "facility engaged in the manufacturing processing, packing, or holding" of dietary supplements to register with the FDA. Title III of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 already requires supplement facility registration! Extra regulation drives up costs of supplements.

Hurt businesses and the economy with burdensome and unexpected new regulations. Supplement manufacturers have thirty days to register their products after marketing or face charges of misbranding. Given that there are thousands of products currently in the market, these regulations will force significant numbers of products off the market as industry adjusts to the new regulations, costing the industry significant revenue, and causing the loss of American jobs. Most importantly, this amendment would drastically limit you access to supplements as companies would likely remove their products from store shelves in order to meet Durbin's thirty-day deadline.

Contact your senators IMMEDIATELY and tell them to OPPOSE the Durbin and Blumenthal amendment no. 2127 to the FDA Safety and Innovation Act (S.3187).

TO FIGHT BACK ... CLICK HERE!

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Kim Kardashian Lied -- Skechers Shape-Ups Are a Scam -- They Suck!

2012-05-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Skechers Shape-Up "toner shoes" are just no damned good! They do NOT provide the health benefits touted by celebrity Skecher shill and airhead Kim Kardashian. They might even injure your knees -- as reported by the Weekly Universe last year!

Now government watchdogs are catching up with what Universe readers knew all along -- Skechers Shape-Ups suck! According to a May 16, 2012 AP report:

The government wants you to know that simply sporting a pair of Skechers' (SKX) fitness shoes is not going to get you Kim Kardashian's curves or Brooke Burke's toned tush.

Skechers USA Inc. will pay $40 million to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission that the footwear company made unfounded claims that its Shape-ups shoes would help people lose weight and strengthen their butt, leg and stomach muscles. Kardashian, Burke and other celebrities endorsed the shoes in Skechers ads.

The settlement, announced Wednesday, also involves the company's Resistance Runner, Toners, and Tone-ups shoes. Skechers made deceptive claims about those shoes, too, says the agency.

Consumers who bought the shoes will be eligible for refunds.

Read the rest of the AP report.

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Miracle Apples Lower Bad Cholesterol

2012-04-13T02:01:00.000-07:00

" 'I consider apples a magic food," said Bahram H. Arjmandi, Ph.D., director for the Center for Advancing Exercise and Nutrition Research on Aging at Florida State University....

"According to Arjmandi, apple pectin -- the white stuff under the skin -- binds to cholesterol in the gut and ferries it out of the body. This is well-known, but what surprised Arjmandi is how much cholesterol a couple of apples can remove from the body.

"In one recent study, he divided 160 women between the ages of 45 and 65 into two groups. One group ate 75 grams of dried apple per day -- about 2 1/2 ounces -- while the other ate the same amount of dried prunes. To his amazement, the women who ate apples experienced a 23% decrease in LDL 'bad' cholesterol, and increased their HDL 'good' cholesterol by 3 to 4% -- a boost difficult to achieve with drugs or exercise....

"Cholesterol is manufactured in the liver. Statin drugs, such as Lipitor and Crestor, reduce cholesterol very effectively by blocking an enzyme needed to make it. The problem is that statins can be hard on the liver, which is why people who take them must have a blood test periodically to make sure their liver is not becoming irritated and inflamed.

"The liver is one of the largest organs in the body, and it can remain pretty functional if only 50% of it stays healthy. You do not see an abnormality in the blood unless you do substantial damage to the liver.

" 'Drugs have their place,' said Arjmandi, 'but if you have to check your liver enzymes, that means the drug is doing something not so good for you, and I don't understand why we would go for drug therapies when eating two apples a day reduces LDL cholesterol so effectively. Eat apples and you not only don't harm your liver, but you substantially benefit your health.' "

Read the entire article, by Tom Valeo of the Tampa Bay Times.

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Caffeine Prevents Skin Cancer -- IF You Excercise!

2012-04-12T02:54:00.000-07:00

If you didn't already have enough reasons to go to Starbucks, China's Xinhua News Agency now reports that caffeine might protect you from skin cancer -- provided that you also exercise!

"The combined effects of exercise plus caffeine consumption may be able to ward off skin cancer, U.S. researchers reported Wednesday," according to the Xinhua News Agency. "The findings were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2012, held in Chicago on March 31 - April 4.

"The researchers evaluated the effects of caffeine and exercise on mice at high risk for developing skin cancer. Results showed that mice that took a dose of caffeine and exercised with a running wheel experienced 62% fewer skin tumors. The volume of tumors also decreased by 85% compared with the mice that did not consume caffeine or exercise.

"Positive effects were found with either caffeine or exercise alone, but to a lesser extent...."

Read the full report.

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Libertarian Filmmaker Seeks 9/11 Truth in Operation Terror

2012-03-10T00:31:00.001-08:00

Ted Brown, who currently serves as Secretary of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County, submits the following event notice:

"Is there another explanation for what happened on Sept. 11, 2001? Art Olivier thinks so.

"Art was a city council member and mayor of Bellflower, and later was the Libertarian Party candidate for Vice President (2000) and for Governor of California (2006). He has now become a filmmaker. His new film is called Operation Terror and will soon be out on DVD.

"Art will speaking to the upcoming Region 63 (Foothills) Libertarian meeting about making the film, what it's about, and why he thinks the 'official' explanation of those tragic events leaves a lot of questions.

Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Time: 7:00 p.m. for dinner & conversation; 8:00 p.m. for the program

Location: Panera Bread Restaurant, 3521 E. Foothill Blvd, in Pasadena (west of Rosemead Blvd, at the west end of the Hastings Ranch Shopping Center)"

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UFOs Invade New Mexico -- It Didn't Begin With Roswell

2012-02-17T01:54:00.000-08:00

It began in New Mexico with the Rowsell crash -- or did it?!

In his amazing new book, UFOs Over New Mexico: A True History of Extraterrestrial Encounters in the Land of Enchantment, Preston Dennett investigate New Mexico's UFO past -- going back all of 130 years! His startling new book covers alien sightings, saucer landing, UFO car chases, face-to-face alien encounters, Gray abductions, UFO crashes, cattle mutilations, Project Blue Book, and ... the bizarro Taos Hum!

Read about the Farmington UFO wave, the landing at Socorro, and shocking new revelations about the Rowsell crash! Learn about the fed's attempts to grapple with "a strange, unknown presence" hovering over top-secret atomic installations and military bases!

UFOs Over New Mexico: A True History of Extraterrestrial Encounters in the Land of Enchantment is chock full 'o eyewitness testimony and astounding photographs!

Starkbucks Goes Green -- To Shortchange Customers

2011-11-27T21:05:00.000-08:00

The November 2011 issue of the New Agey Natural Awakenings reports:

"Starbucks Corporation has taken it all a step further by designing a pre-certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) prototype store. It features recycled floor tiles, reduced lighting and lower water usage and air conditioning set three degrees higher than usual."

Sounds like Starbucks plans to use:

1. Cheaper floor tiles.

2. Less water.

3. Less lighting.

4. Less air conditioning.

Which means that Starbucks is about to get cheaper, dirtier, darker, and hotter. All to save money. (Disguised as "going green" for the gullible.) This trend fits right in with Starbucks's switch to smaller napkins.

But will Starbucks pass along any of these savings to consumers in the form of lower prices?

Didn't think so.

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Reading Books Helps Prevent Alzheimer's Disease

2011-11-20T12:37:00.000-08:00

Anna Ferguson Hall, of Georgia's The Brunswick News, reports that:

"Overwhelming research has shown that older citizens who keep their minds sharp and active are more likely to retain a higher level of brain power as they age.

"Keeping the brain active through exercises like reading regularly is vital to preventing memory loss and reduced brain function, said Janice Vickers, executive director of Alzheimer's of Glynn/Brunswick.

" 'There is no question that reading can maintain a healthy brain as you age,' Vickers said. 'The saying is true: If you don't use it, you lose it.'

"An estimated 5.4 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, according to the National Alzheimer's Association. That's one in eight older Americans.

"Vickers said the disease, though prevalent in aging citizens, can be avoided or, at the very least, delayed. Working to prevent the condition at an earlier age is key to ensuring a quick mind like Connell's, Vickers said.

"That means flexing the brain as often as possible in a variety of ways.

"Cracking a book or other printed work awakens many functions in the brain, including concentration, vision and comprehension, Vickers said."

Read the entire article.

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Miracle Blueberrys Battle Breast Cancer

2011-10-07T02:32:00.000-07:00

[PRNewswire.com] In several studies recently conducted at the Beckman Research Institute at the City of Hope, Duarte, CA researchers found that feeding blueberry powder to mice significantly reduced the growth and spread of triple negative breast cancer cells, a very aggressive form of cancer!

Triple negative breast cancer accounts for 10 to 15% of all breast cancer cases and is highly resistant to traditional chemotherapy treatments. The results of this research led by Dr. Lynn Adams, in the laboratory of Dr. Shiuan Chen, are published in the October 2011 issue of The Journal of Nutrition.

In their research, the team fed groups of mice specially formulated diets containing 5% freeze-dried blueberry powder, 10% blueberry powder, or a control diet containing no blueberry powder.

All three diets had a similar nutrient composition and the animals ate and drank about the same amount regardless of group. The human equivalent of the 5% diet is about 2 cups of fresh highbush blueberries per day.

Researchers compared the size of the breast tumors that developed and discovered that on average, tumor size was 75% smaller in the 5% blueberry experimental group and 60% smaller in the 10% group as compared to the control group. The difference between the two blueberry groups was not significant.

Further confirmation of the results was obtained when the researchers conducted molecular studies on tumor tissue and found significant differences between the blueberry-fed and control groups in gene patterns known to be related to inflammatory diseases and the proliferation and spread of cancer cells.

In a second study that explored the effect of consuming blueberries on the spread of breast cancer (metastasis), the research team found that mice fed a diet containing 5% blueberry powder developed 70% fewer liver cancer tumors and 25% fewer lymph node tumors when compared to the control mice.

"Although these results were obtained with laboratory animals and cannot be applied directly to humans, we believe we have moved one step closer to ultimately finding a safe and effective diet strategy for controlling triple negative breast cancer, for which there are few therapy choices. Blueberries may well be part of that diet strategy," remarked Dr. Adams.

The research was funded by the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council and the National Institutes of Health.

The U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council consists of growers and packers in North and South America who market their blueberries in the United States. The members of the USHBC work together to promote the growth and wellbeing of the entire industry.

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