In-depth application management paves the way from virtualization to the cloud
LAS VEGAS — March 22, 2011 — Today at the Microsoft Management Summit, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson demonstrated how private clouds built with Microsoft technologies can help IT organizations meet their companies’ demands for more agile services. Anderson introduced the new System Center 2012, which will enable IT managers to deliver private cloud services that empower business teams, provide greater insights into application performance, and allow IT to carry forward current investments as they adopt public cloud computing.(more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A daily dose of safflower oil, a common cooking oil, for 16 weeks can improve such health measures as good cholesterol, blood sugar, insulin sensitivity and inflammation in obese postmenopausal women who have Type 2 diabetes, according to new research.
This finding comes about 18 months after the same researchers discovered that safflower oil reduced abdominal fat and increased muscle tissue in this group of women after 16 weeks of daily supplementation.
This combination of health measures that are improved by the safflower oil is associated with metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms that can increase risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — Global warming is clearly affecting plants and animals, but we should not try to tease apart the specific contribution of greenhouse gas driven climate change to extinctions or declines of species at local scales, biologists from The University of Texas at Austin advise.
“Yes, global warming is happening. Yes, it is caused by human activities. And yes, we’ve clearly shown that species are impacted by global warming on a global scale,” says Parmesan, associate professor of integrative biology. (more…)
It’s not just how free the market is. Some economists are looking at another factor that determines how much a country’s economy flourishes: how smart its people are. For a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers analyzed test scores from 90 countries and found that the intelligence of the people, particularly the smartest 5 percent, made a big contribution to the strength of their economies.
In the last 50 years or so, economists have started taking an interest in the value of human capital. That means all of the qualities of the people who make up the workforce. Heiner Rindermann, of the Chemnitz University of Technology, wanted to look more closely at human capital, and particularly the factor that psychologists call cognitive ability. “In other words, it’s the ability of a person to solve a problem in the most efficient way—not with violence, but by thinking,” Rindermann says. He wrote the new study with James Thompson of University College London. (more…)
*U.K., France, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands Lead in Retail Site Visitation and Engagement*
LONDON, UK, March 21, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results from a study of online shopping in Europe. In January 2011, 270.6 million unique visitors in Europe visited sites in the Retail category, representing a market penetration of 74.5 percent of Internet users, up 8.5 percentage points versus last year. Retail sites also showed high penetration in individual markets, reaching at least 75 percent of the total online audience in 7 out of 18 European markets. In 2010, approximately one out of every ten Internet sessions in Europe included a visit to a retail site.
Retail Penetration and Engagement Growth in Europe
In the United Kingdom, the Retail category reached 89.4 percent of the total online audience (up 6.3 points from last year), the highest penetration of any European market. France ranked second with a reach of 87 percent (up 10.5 points), followed by Germany at 82.1 percent (up 9.0 points). Ireland and the Netherlands round out the list of markets with highest penetration, with Retail reaching 80.7 percent in Ireland (up 15.8 percentage points) and 80.2 percent in the Netherlands (up 4.9 percentage points).(more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Saying a prayer may help many people feel less angry and behave less aggressively after someone has left them fuming, new research suggests.
A series of studies showed that people who were provoked by insulting comments from a stranger showed less anger and aggression soon afterwards if they prayed for another person in the meantime.
The benefits of prayer identified in this study don’t rely on divine intervention: they probably occur because the act of praying changed the way people think about a negative situation, said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University. (more…)
Children with depressed parents get stressed out more easily than children with healthy parents—if the depressed parents are negative toward their child. That’s the conclusion of a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
The study is part of a long-term look at how a child’s early temperament is related to the risk for depression. The children were recruited for the study when they were three years old, an age when depression is rare. Thus, the researchers expect to see depression appear as the children grow. (more…)
Since the 1970s, hydrogen has been touted as a promising alternative to fossil fuels due to its clean combustion —unlike the combustion of fossil fuels, which spews greenhouse gases and harmful pollutants, hydrogen’s only combustion by-product is water. Compared to gasoline, hydrogen is lightweight, can provide a higher energy density and is readily available. But there’s a reason we’re not already living in a hydrogen economy: to replace gasoline as a fuel, hydrogen must be safely and densely stored, yet easily accessed. Limited by materials unable to leap these conflicting hurdles, hydrogen storage technology has lagged behind other clean energy candidates. (more…)
