LONDON (Reuters) - British retail sales rose faster than expected in September, supporting hopes that the economy recorded strong third-quarter growth.
Retail sales volumes rose 0.6 percent on the month to show growth of 2.2 percent compared with a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday.
Economists had expected a rise of 0.4 percent on the month and 2.1 percent on the year.
Furniture sales provided the biggest boost for the increase in sales in September from August, likely linked to a recovery in the housing market.
Rising house prices, record low mortgage rates and hopes of economic recovery have given consumer spending a boost and a hot summer helped prompt heavy spending in July before shoppers tightened their purse-strings in August.
Food sales, which surged during July's heatwave, fell for a second month in September.
With inflation continuing to outstrip wage growth, economists have questioned whether the trend of rising consumption will be sustainable.
Store price inflation eased to an annual 0.9 percent in September, the slowest pace since April and down from 1.6 percent in August.
Retailers are generally still wary about the outlook for their businesses. In recent weeks store groups, including Tesco and Sainsbury's, have highlighted how consumers' disposable income is still falling.
Data released on Wednesday showed average weekly earnings growth including bonuses slowed to 0.7 percent in the three months to August compared with a year earlier. Inflation in Britain in September stood at 2.7 percent.
A survey from the British Retail Consortium showed retail sales recorded their second-weakest performance in September this year.
However, retail market research specialist Verdict on Monday forecast British retailers were set to enjoy their best growth in Christmas sales since the financial crisis.
The retail sector accounts for just under 6 percent of the British economy.
A first estimate of British gross domestic product in the third quarter is due to be released on Friday next week. Many economists expect growth picked up to around 0.8 or 0.9 percent from 0.7 percent in the second quarter.
(Reporting by Olesya Dmitracova and William Schomberg)
The average American adult spends at least 8 hours a day in front of a screen. Computers are becoming increasingly relevant to both working and home life and Americans now rely on processors for a number of essential tasks. So it makes sense that being able to program computers is an important skill, possibly the most important of the 21st century.
“[Writing code] is the new literacy. In this century if you want to have the power to change the world, writing code is the most practical thing you can do,” says Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of reddit and author of the new book Without Their Permission. He also invests in and advises over seventy tech startups and hosts a show, Small Empires, which explores the startup community.
Source: KPCB
Internet entrepreneurship, says Ohanian, is an increasingly viable career path for young Americans. “I want to take 'entrepreneur' off of a pedestal because we are all being entrepreneurial in the work that we do. It means having an idea and executing it, and the Internet is now enabling people to have this entrepreneurial lifestyle and impact at a much bigger scale. If you wanted to change the world in the industrial revolution you had to open a factory, in the internet revolution you need only open your laptop.”
Source: RealScience.US
Related: The One Skill Every American Needs to Learn
What does Ohanian have to say about the NSA spying scandal and the commodification of the Internet? Watch the video above to find out.
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From a young age I was introduced to what are still two of my favourite movie franchises of all time – Star Wars and Indiana Jones. I suppose it was inevitable, really. With parents who named me after a Doctor Who character, I would expect them to continue being awesome as I grew up.
You may notice that my last name is Jones. If you check out my profile you’ll also see that I majored in history and have a Masters in Museum Studies. Coincidence? Hell no. Indiana Jones was the original inspiration for my academic life choices and I still have every intention of becoming Doctor Jones one day. Mostly for the lols.
Imagine the surprise my seven year old self had when watching Temple of Doom and noticing that the establishment that Indie, Short Round and Willie just escaped from is named ‘Club Obi Wan’? To be put it delicately, my brain nearly exploded. I also couldn’t understand it when my other little girlfriends didn’t care. It’s okay, we’re no longer friends. I found their lack of faith disturbing.
As it turns out, they’re a lot more crossovers between the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies than this one Jedi Master easter egg.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
C-3PO & Obi Wan
So we’re at the beginning of the movie. Indie has just escaped from the infamous rolling boulder, golden idol in hand. He reaches the river bank and swings across a conveniently placed vine to his awaiting sea-plane. If you look closely, you can see that the plane’s serial number is OB-CPO. A subtle but undoubtedly purposeful reference to Obi Wan and C-3PO.
Princess Leia & R2-D2
When Indie and Sallah (John Rhy Davies) are preparing to remove the stone lid off the sarcophagus of the ark, the viewer is privy to a wall of hieroglyphics behind them. One of these is a depiction of Princess Leia inserting the Death Star Plans into R2-D2.
C-3PO & R2-D2
This appearance occurs mere moments after the one above. Indie has just lifted the lid off the sarchophagus and turns around to look at the pillar behind him. Lo and behold there are hieroglyphic versions of C-3PO and R2-D2. I must say that I appreciate the amount of R2 love in this movie.
Temple of Doom
Obi Wan
For those of you who skipped my incessant rambling and got straight to the easter egg list, this reference can be found at the beginning of the movie. Indie, Short Round and the ever unpopular Willie have just escaped a nightclub in Shanghai. As their car speeds past the front of the establishment you can see that it’s called ‘Club Obi Wan’.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Okay, so this isn’t so much an appearance of a character as it is a homage to Star Wars itself. At one point during the movie Indie utters the classic line “I have a bad feeling about this.” The line itself (or variations thereof) is somewhat of a running gag in the Star Wars films, having been spoken by Han Solo, Obi Wan, Leia, C-3PO, Luke and Anakin at various times.
There’s equal opportunity when it comes to Indiana Jones and Star Wars crossovers though. Check out these Indie references from within the Star Wars Universe
The Phantom Menace
Nazis!
During a scene on Coruscant where the camera is panning to look at the busy air traffic, one can spot a couple of familiar looking vehicles – one of which is the Nazi tank from The Last Crusade.
Indie
During the podracing scene there is a point where the camera pans to crowd you can see Indiana walking to his seat.
Empire Strikes Back
Bullwhip
This little gem can be spotted at the beginning of the movie when the main characters are still on Hoth. If you look closely at Han, you will see that on the left side of his utility belt he’s wearing the bullwhip that would be made famous by the Indiana Jones trilogy.
Now I can hear some perceptive readers say “But Tegan, Raiders of the Lost Ark hadn’t even been filmed, let alone released yet.” Right you are! Raiders wasn’t released until a year after Empire, in 1981. However, Lucas had already written the story and already had both the bullwhip and Harrison Ford in mind. This wasn’t the only time that Lucasfilm included preemptive easter eggs within the films – they would often include references to upcoming franchise games also.
Ark of the Covenant
This sacred item turns up when our heroes are in Cloud City on the planet of Bespin. During the incinerator room scene you can see a pile of junk in the background. Amongst the garbage is the iconic wooden box that the Ark is placed into at the end of Raiders. The big giveaway is the Nazi eagle that is printed on the side.
That’s it folks, I hope you’ve enjoyed my Indiana Jones/Star Wars nerdgasm. I also hope that it’s inspired you to rewatch the movies and find these delicious easter eggs for yourself. Sure, you could Google them instead, but where’s the fun in that?
If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:
Bonus Facts:
Star Wars has an overabundance of easter eggs across both trilogies. Here are some of my other favourites, and particularly geeky ones, all from The Phantom Menace. Seriously, that movie as basically one giant easter egg.
During the aforementioned Coruscant skies scene, you can see the Voyager from Star Trek flying past.
During the senate scene on Coruscant you can see a group of E.T. style aliens sitting at the bottom left of the screen. There are also a group of Klingons, but they’re slightly harder to find.
During the podracing scene, Indie isn’t the only famous face in the crowd. If you look closely enough, you may just spot Manny – the main character of the cult hit Grim Fandango. Unsurprisingly, it’s a Lucasarts game. If you look even closer you may even see Cornelius and Zira from Planet of the Apes.
There’s a shout out to 2001: A Space Odyssey when C-3PO is initially activated by Anakin. His first words are “I am completely operational, and all of my circuits are functioning perfectly.” This is, of course, an exact line used by the ever terrifying HAL 9000.
Tegan Jones writes for the wildly popular interesting fact website TodayIFoundOut.com. To subscribe to Today I Found Out's “Daily Knowledge” newsletter,click here or like them on Facebook here. You can also check 'em out on YouTube.
Patients with poor nutrition before bladder cancer operation have higher risk of complications
Public release date: 16-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Katy Jones katy_jones@unc.edu 919-962-3405 University of North Carolina Health Care
Patients with bladder cancer are two times more likely to have complications after a radical cystectomy procedure if they have a biomarker for poor nutritional status before the operation, according to study findings presented last week at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Surgeons from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a potentially modifiable risk factor for such postsurgical problems: a low preoperative level of albumin, a marker of the protein level in the blood.
David C. Johnson, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and a senior urology resident at UNC School of Medicine, and colleagues evaluated the impact that patients' nutritional status before radical cystectomy had on the rate of complications within 30 days after the operation. Radical cystectomy is a procedure that involves surgical removal of the bladder and lymph nodes.
Researchers mined the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) database to analyze postoperative complications data from 1,085 patients who underwent radical cystectomy at 315 medical centers across the United States from 2005 to 2011. ACS NSQIP is the leading nationally validated, risk-adjusted, outcomes-based program to measure and improve the quality of care in private sector hospitals.
"Poor nutrition is a known risk factor for adverse results after radical cystectomy," Dr. Johnson explained. "The prevalence of nutritional deficiency is very high in patients with bladder cancer, partly because of their disease and partly because of their advanced age 73 years on average."
Bladder cancer will be newly diagnosed in more than 72,500 people this year, the American Cancer Society estimates, and about one-third of all cases involve cancer that has spread into the muscular wall of the bladder, which permits spread to other organs. For these patients, radical cystectomy is the standard treatment, but the complication rate after the operation remains high, particularly for infections and poor wound healing, explained study authors.
"Nutrition is clearly an important issue among post-cystectomy bladder cancer patients, and our study highlights this on a large scale through use of the American College of Surgeons' NSQIP database. As UNC is a Bladder Cancer Center of Excellence, we are making strides to use this information to benefit our patients," said Angela Smith, MD, assistant professor of urology, UNC Lineberger member, and senior author and lead investigator on the study.
"We are currently implementing a nutritional protocol in which all cystectomy patients will receive a preoperative nutritional assessment by a certified clinical nutritionist to address and optimize nutritional deficiencies. Furthermore, a nutritionist will be involved in postoperative care, both on an inpatient and outpatient basis. We hope that proactive emphasis on nutrition will lead to improved outcomes in this vulnerable population."
Among study patients who experienced complications within the first month after the surgical procedure, the authors looked for the presence of any of three known preoperative nutritional factors that could affect surgical results. These factors were a low albumin level (less than 3 grams per deciliter, or g/dL), weight loss greater than 10 percent of body weight six months before the operation, and obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kilograms per square meter or higher.
Study results showed that 575 patients (53 percent) experienced complications within the first month after the surgical procedure. Of these patients, 32 (6 percent) had a low preoperative albumin level, 28 (5 percent) had major weight loss within the six months before the operation, and 182 (32 percent) were obese at cystectomy.
The investigators found that only low albumin level was a significant predictor of experiencing a postoperative complication, after controlling in the statistical analysis for patient age, involvement of a trainee surgeon in the operation, the year the operation took place, and a history of a prior operation. Patients with low albumin levels before the surgical procedure had 2.1 times the risk of having a complication within 30 days after the operation compared with those whose albumin level was in a normal range or above (3 g/dL and higher), the authors reported.
It is unclear from this study whether preoperative correction of low albumin levels, such as from nutritional supplementation, will translate to fewer problems after radical cystectomy. However, based on their findings, Dr. Johnson still recommends that patients whose albumin levels are low before a scheduled radical cystectomy see a nutritionist to learn whether they need to make dietary changes before their operations.
###
Dr. Johnson's other coauthors for the study were: E. Will Kirby, MD; Jed E. Ferguson, MD, PhD; Jonathan Matthews, MPH; Michael E. Woods, MD, FACS; Matthew E. Nielsen, MD, MS, FACS; Mathew C. Raynor, MD; Raj S. Pruthi, MD, FACS; and Eric M. Wallen, MD, FACS.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Patients with poor nutrition before bladder cancer operation have higher risk of complications
Public release date: 16-Oct-2013 [
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Katy Jones katy_jones@unc.edu 919-962-3405 University of North Carolina Health Care
Patients with bladder cancer are two times more likely to have complications after a radical cystectomy procedure if they have a biomarker for poor nutritional status before the operation, according to study findings presented last week at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Surgeons from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a potentially modifiable risk factor for such postsurgical problems: a low preoperative level of albumin, a marker of the protein level in the blood.
David C. Johnson, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and a senior urology resident at UNC School of Medicine, and colleagues evaluated the impact that patients' nutritional status before radical cystectomy had on the rate of complications within 30 days after the operation. Radical cystectomy is a procedure that involves surgical removal of the bladder and lymph nodes.
Researchers mined the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) database to analyze postoperative complications data from 1,085 patients who underwent radical cystectomy at 315 medical centers across the United States from 2005 to 2011. ACS NSQIP is the leading nationally validated, risk-adjusted, outcomes-based program to measure and improve the quality of care in private sector hospitals.
"Poor nutrition is a known risk factor for adverse results after radical cystectomy," Dr. Johnson explained. "The prevalence of nutritional deficiency is very high in patients with bladder cancer, partly because of their disease and partly because of their advanced age 73 years on average."
Bladder cancer will be newly diagnosed in more than 72,500 people this year, the American Cancer Society estimates, and about one-third of all cases involve cancer that has spread into the muscular wall of the bladder, which permits spread to other organs. For these patients, radical cystectomy is the standard treatment, but the complication rate after the operation remains high, particularly for infections and poor wound healing, explained study authors.
"Nutrition is clearly an important issue among post-cystectomy bladder cancer patients, and our study highlights this on a large scale through use of the American College of Surgeons' NSQIP database. As UNC is a Bladder Cancer Center of Excellence, we are making strides to use this information to benefit our patients," said Angela Smith, MD, assistant professor of urology, UNC Lineberger member, and senior author and lead investigator on the study.
"We are currently implementing a nutritional protocol in which all cystectomy patients will receive a preoperative nutritional assessment by a certified clinical nutritionist to address and optimize nutritional deficiencies. Furthermore, a nutritionist will be involved in postoperative care, both on an inpatient and outpatient basis. We hope that proactive emphasis on nutrition will lead to improved outcomes in this vulnerable population."
Among study patients who experienced complications within the first month after the surgical procedure, the authors looked for the presence of any of three known preoperative nutritional factors that could affect surgical results. These factors were a low albumin level (less than 3 grams per deciliter, or g/dL), weight loss greater than 10 percent of body weight six months before the operation, and obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kilograms per square meter or higher.
Study results showed that 575 patients (53 percent) experienced complications within the first month after the surgical procedure. Of these patients, 32 (6 percent) had a low preoperative albumin level, 28 (5 percent) had major weight loss within the six months before the operation, and 182 (32 percent) were obese at cystectomy.
The investigators found that only low albumin level was a significant predictor of experiencing a postoperative complication, after controlling in the statistical analysis for patient age, involvement of a trainee surgeon in the operation, the year the operation took place, and a history of a prior operation. Patients with low albumin levels before the surgical procedure had 2.1 times the risk of having a complication within 30 days after the operation compared with those whose albumin level was in a normal range or above (3 g/dL and higher), the authors reported.
It is unclear from this study whether preoperative correction of low albumin levels, such as from nutritional supplementation, will translate to fewer problems after radical cystectomy. However, based on their findings, Dr. Johnson still recommends that patients whose albumin levels are low before a scheduled radical cystectomy see a nutritionist to learn whether they need to make dietary changes before their operations.
###
Dr. Johnson's other coauthors for the study were: E. Will Kirby, MD; Jed E. Ferguson, MD, PhD; Jonathan Matthews, MPH; Michael E. Woods, MD, FACS; Matthew E. Nielsen, MD, MS, FACS; Mathew C. Raynor, MD; Raj S. Pruthi, MD, FACS; and Eric M. Wallen, MD, FACS.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers — supervising sound editors who together won Oscars for Skyfall and The Bourne Ultimatum — are joining Formosa Group, the post-production sound company started earlier this year in West Hollywood.
The pair had been with the Todd-Soundelux business (under various owners and monikers) for nearly 28 years, and they have been working together for 25 years with shared supervising sound editor credits on films including G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Ray, Seabiscuit, Black Hawk Down and Gladiator. They have received seven Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) Golden Reel Awards out of 27 nominations and three BAFTA Awards out of six nominations.
Hallberg additionally received an Oscar for best effects, sound effects editing for Braveheart (shared with Lon Bender) and an Oscar nomination for best effects, sound effects editing for Face/Off (shared with Formosa Group’s Mark Stoeckinger).
Baker Landers holds the distinction of being the first woman to win two Oscars for sound editing. She recently completed Carrie and is finishing RoboCop before moving to Formosa Group.
Hallberg’s latest credits include Into The Storm and Delivery Man, and his first film at Formosa Group will be Child 44.
The pair join Formosa Group’s roster of sound veterans including Stoeckinger, Odin Benitez, Scott M. Gershin, Greg Hedgepath, Andy Koyama, Mark Mangini, Julian Slater, Todd Toon and Martyn Zub.
In joining Formosa Group, Hallberg and Baker Landers reteam with several of their former colleagues from the Todd-Soundelux business, including Gershin, Stoekinger, and president and COO Robert C. Rosenthal.
Formosa Group — a sister company to Picture Head and Audio Head – is based on The Lot in West Hollywood. It also maintains a second West Hollywood facility, dubbed Formosa 66; and a west side facility, Formosa West.
Those long dark stretches of highway out in the middle of nowhere without any streetlights might soon be a thing of the past thanks to the engineers and designers at the Netherlands-based Kaal Masten. They've created the Spirit, a standalone solar-powered streetlight that gets all the energy it needs from the sun, so it can be installed and provide lighting anywhere—even remote locations without access to power grids.
Requiring three years to develop and perfect, the Spirit can be customized as required, even soaring almost 60 feet tall making them ideal for even large multi-lane highways. Using a combination of solar cells and high-efficient LEDs, the street light recharges its batteries during the day when the sun is out, capturing enough power—even on cloudy days—to stay lit all night long.
In fact the only maintenance they'd need is a new battery every few years, but even that part's environmentally friendly since their power supplies are completely recyclable. And since power lines don't have to be spliced and connected, installation is simple enough that it's easy for that sketchy part of town to not be so sketchy anymore. [Kaal Masten via Inhabitat]
The health of the world's oceans are inextricably linked to human health and well-being; more than one-third of people worldwide depend on seafood for 20 percent of their animal protein, according to the United Nations.
To gauge how well the oceans are doing, a large team of researchers created a wide-ranging measure of the oceans' health. Yesterday (Oct. 15), the second annual edition of the Ocean Health Index was released, which shows that unsustainable fishing has taken a toll on fish populations around the world, putting many people's food security at risk, said Ben Halpern, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the project's lead scientist.
The index ranks the health of the oceans in 10 different categories, including subjects like purity of water and levels of tourism, on a country-by-country basis. This year the world's oceans scored a 65 out of 100 possible points, unchanged from when it was first released last year, Halpern told LiveScience. While it could be worse, the score suggests there's "definite room for improvement," he said.
Overfished
The index's category of "natural products" — a measure of how well humans sustainably use non-food ocean products such as fish oil, sponges, ornamental fish and coral products — received the lowest score this year, with a 31 out of 100, according to the index's website. The low score is an indicator of overfishing, which takes fish and other ocean resources out of the ocean faster than they can be replenished, a statement from the index said. For this same reason, the category of food production also scored low, a 33. [Video: Humans Hit the Oceans Hard]
The index also found that many countries have less natural protection from storms and hurricanesthan they did several decades ago, with a number of these are in the annual path of tropical cyclones, according to the index.
Halpern said the index has helped him visualize and integrate many disparate aspects of the world's oceans into a single whole. "It was really transformative in how it helped me understand the oceans [and] gives me far deeper insight into what is doing well and what isn't when it comes to improving the oceans' health," Halpern said.
Halpern and colleagues have worked on the index for more than six years, and at different times up to 20 scientists have been employed full time. The plan is to update the index every year, to see how patterns change over time. For instance, in the span of one year certain changes have popped up; for example, increased pollution in Eastern European countries has reduced several countries' scores, Halpern said.
Some debate
Not all ocean scientists are finding the index useful, though.
Jake Rice, chief scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, told LiveScience he was "cautiously positive about it" when the index first came out last year. Since then, however, he thinks that the index has gotten too complicated, in part due to criticisms that it was oversimplifying. "Now it's harder to interpret what the values mean," he said.
Rice also said that the index appears to be unduly affected by countries' economies and relative isolation, and that values aren't likely to change much from year-to-year. For that reason, the index may say more about static or slowly changing aspects of each country — such as the geography and economy — than about the relative health of the ocean in each area. And because of this, a yearly update provides little value for a lot of effort, he added.
That said, over longer time scales, it could help show trends in ocean health in different countries, Rice said.
Becky Goldburg, director of ocean science for the PEW Charitable Trusts, an environmental and public policy group, said the index helps to combine disparate information about the world's oceans and how conditions change over time. The focus on overfishing is apt, she said, since "it's certainly one of the major problems in ocean management."
EmailDouglas Main or follow him onTwitterorGoogle+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook or Google+. Article originally on LiveScience.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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