Facebook May Give Older Adults a Mental Boost

Older adults may get a mental boost from using Facebook, early results from a small study suggest.

During the study, 42 adults, ages 68 to 91, who were not familiar with the social networking site were divided into three groups: one group was trained to use Facebook and post once a day; one group was trained to use an online diary site and create short diary entries  visible only to themselves; and one group received no training on either site.

Participants also completed a battery of cognitive  tests before and after their training.

After eight weeks, people in the Facebook group performed 25 percent better than they did at the study’s start on a task that measured their ability to focus on relevant information while a stream of new information is presented — a mental process the researchers refer to as “updating.” People in the other two groups didn’t improve in their updating ability.

However, both the Facebook group and the online diary group showed improvements in how quickly they were able to process information compared to the group that did not learn to use a new site.

“To me this suggests that just learning and using one of these two websites provided a boost for how quickly people process information,” said study researcher Janelle Wohltmann, a graduate student in the University of Arizona department of psychology.

The findings are preliminary, and Wohltmann is still analyzing the results to determine if there are any more differences between the groups. Larger studies will also need to be conducted to confirm the results.

Wohltmann hopes to find out why Facebook, but not the online diary site, improved people’s updating ability.

She speculates that Facebook’s format, which shows updates from both the user and his or her friends, may play a role.

“In these ‘mental updating’ tasks, participants are being asked to continuously focus on only the most relevant information, and to forget other pieces of information as they become irrelevant.  When you view the news feed in Facebook, new information is continuously popping up from your Facebook friends,” while the online diary site only shows new information that you write, Wohltmann said. “I wonder if perhaps the fact that you are constantly filtering through new pieces of information while viewing Facebook may have something to do with it,” she added.

For people who don’t want to join Facebook, other tasks may have similar effects on brain function, Wohltmann said.

Studies suggest that “staying mentally, physically and socially active in older age helps maintain or boost cognitive function,” Wohltmann said. Learning new activities, volunteering or exercising are some ways to stay active, she noted.

The findings were presented this month at the annual meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society in Hawaii.

Pass it on: Older adults who were trained to use Facebook saw improvements in some aspects of their cognitive function, a new study finds.

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Diane Lane Signed Divorce Papers from Josh Brolin on Valentine's Day

By Ken Lee

02/22/2013 at 02:50 PM EST

Diane Lane and Josh Brolin

Justin Lubin/NBC/AP

There were likely no flowers or candy exchanged on Feb. 14 between Josh Brolin and soon-to-be ex-wife Diane Lane.

Lane signed her divorce documents on Valentines's Day, documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court reveal. Lane also cited Feb. 13 as the date of their official separation, although a source tells PEOPLE it was earlier than that.

"They've been separated for several months. This was a hard decision for both of them to make," says a source close to the couple of their split. "The relationship just ran its course."

The pair, who married in a 2004 ceremony at Brolin's central California ranch, were first introduced by the actor's stepmother, Barbra Streisand, at a party in 2002.

Brolin, 45, was recently arrested and held for public intoxication just before midnight on New Year's Eve 2013, but he was released without charge.

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Flu shot did poor job against worst bug in seniors

ATLANTA (AP) — For those 65 and older, this season's flu shot is only 9 percent effective against the most common and dangerous flu bug, according to a startling new government report.

Flu vaccine tends to protect younger people better than older ones and never works as well as other kinds of vaccines. But experts say the preliminary results for seniors are disappointing and highlight the need for a better vaccine.

For all age groups, the vaccine's effectiveness is moderate at 56 percent, which is nearly as well as other flu seasons, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

For those 65 and older, it is 27 percent effective against the three strains in the vaccine, the lowest in about a decade but not far below from what's expected. But the vaccine did a particularly poor job of protecting older people against the harshest flu strain, which is causing most of the illnesses this year. CDC officials say it's not clear why.

Vaccinations are now recommended for anyone over 6 months, and health officials stress that some vaccine protection is better than none at all. While it's likely that older people who were vaccinated are still getting sick, many of them may be getting less severe symptoms.

"Year in and year out, the vaccine is the best protection we have," said CDC flu expert Dr. Joseph Bresee.

To be sure, the preliminary data for seniors is less than definitive. It is based on fewer than 300 people scattered among five states.

But it will no doubt surprise many people that the effectiveness is that low, said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious disease expert who has tried to draw attention to the need for a more effective flu vaccine.

Among infectious diseases, flu is considered one of the nation's leading killers. On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

This flu season started in early December, a month earlier than usual, and peaked by the end of year. Older people are most vulnerable to flu and its complications, and the nation has seen some of the highest hospitalization rates for people 65 and older in a decade.

Flu viruses tend to mutate more quickly than others, and it's not unusual for multiple strains to be spreading at the same time. A new vaccine is formulated each year targeting the three strains expected to be the major threats. But that involves guesswork.

Because of these challenges, scientists tend to set a lower bar for flu vaccine. While childhood vaccines against diseases like measles are expected to be 90 or 95 percent effective, a flu vaccine that's 60 to 70 percent effective in the U.S. is considered pretty good.

By that standard, this year's vaccine is OK. The 56 percent effectiveness figure means people have a 56 percent lower chance of winding up at the doctor for treatment of flu symptoms.

For seniors, a flu vaccine is considered pretty good if it's in the 30 to 40 percent range, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan flu expert.

Older people have weaker immune systems that don't respond as well to flu shots. That's why a high-dose version was recently made available for those 65 and older. The new study was too small to show whether that made a difference this year.

The CDC estimates are based on about 2,700 people who got sick in December and January. The researchers traced back to see who had gotten flu shots and who hadn't. An earlier study put the vaccine's overall effectiveness slightly higher, at 62 percent.

The CDC's Bresee said there's a danger in providing preliminary results because it may result in people doubting — or skipping — flu shots. But the data was released to warn older people who got shots that they may still get sick and shouldn't ignore any serious flu-like symptoms, he said.

The new data highlights an evolution in how experts are evaluating flu vaccine effectiveness. For years, it was believed that if the viruses in the vaccine matched the ones spreading around the country, then the vaccine would be effective. This year's shot was a good match to the bugs going around this winter, including the harsher H3N2 that tends to make people sicker.

But the season proved to be a moderately severe one, with many illnesses occurring in people who'd been vaccinated.

____

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Wall Street drops again, data raises growth concerns

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Thursday and were on track for their biggest two-day decline since November as weak data suggested expectations for economic growth were overly optimistic.

The two-day decline marked the U.S. stock market's first sustained pullback this year. The Standard & Poor's 500 is up 5.2 percent so far this year. The benchmark index has climbed for seven straight weeks, putting it near five-year highs.

In the latest economic data, initial claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week while the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said its index of business conditions in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region fell in February to minus 12.5, the lowest in eight months.

"The Philly Fed report was troublingly weak, and adds to concerns about whether growth will remain up," said Brad Sorensen, director of market and sector analysis at Charles Schwab in Denver. "The only growth we're seeing is sluggish."

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted their worst daily declines of the year after the minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent meeting sparked concerns that the central bank may rein in its economic stimulus measures.

"The upside momentum in markets appears to be coming to an end as we consolidate recent gains," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive at Sarhan Capital in New York. "If the S&P breaks under its 50-day moving average, something more serious could be in store."

The S&P 500 would need to fall 1.9 percent to reach that level of 1,473.58.

Other reports showed consumer prices were flat in January while existing-home sales edged higher and left the inventory of homes at the lowest level in 13 years.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc shares gained 2.5 percent to $70.94 and helped curb the Dow's decline after the world's largest retailer reported earnings that beat expectations, though early February sales were sluggish.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 70.03 points, or 0.50 percent, at 13,857.51. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 11.23 points, or 0.74 percent, at 1,500.72. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 36.50 points, or 1.15 percent, at 3,127.92.

The benchmark S&P 500 index has dropped 1.9 percent over the past two sessions, the biggest two-day decline since November.

Wall Street will soon face another test with the upcoming debate in Washington over the automatic across-the-board spending cuts put in place as part of a larger congressional budget fight. Those cuts, set to kick in on March 1 unless lawmakers agree on an alternative, are expected to depress economic growth.

Semiconductor stocks ranked among the weakest of the day, pressuring the Nasdaq as the Philadelphia Semiconductor index <.sox> fell 1.8 percent. Intel Corp fell 2.2 percent to $20.27 while Advanced Micro Devices lost 4.8 percent to $2.57 as the S&P's biggest percentage decliner.

The semiconductor sector has performed well so far in 2013, rising 8.4 percent.

In company news, shares of supermarket operator Safeway Inc jumped 13.4 percent to $22.83 and ranked as the S&P 500's top percentage gainer after the company reported earnings that beat expectations.

In contrast, shares of VeriFone Systems Inc tumbled nearly 40 percent to $19.28 after the credit-card swipe machine maker forecast first- and second-quarter profits well below expectations.

Of the 427 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results so far, 69.3 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data through Thursday morning.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.9 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Berry Petroleum Co jumped 17.3 percent to $45.25 after oil and gas producer Linn Energy LLC said it would buy the company in an all-stock deal valued at $4.3 billion, including debt. Linn Energy shares advanced 1.9 percent to $37.33.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)

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Deadly Bombings Hit Southern India City

Mahesh Kumar A/Associated Press

A member of the bomb squad with a sniffer dog arrived at a blast site in Hyderabad on Thursday.

NEW DELHI — Two bombs planted on bicycles killed at least 13 people and wounded some 70 in a busy shopping district in the southern India city of Hyderabad at the height of Thursday’s evening rush hour, the largest terrorist bombing in the country since September 2011.

Sushil Kumar Shinde, India’s home affairs minister, said the central government had warned state governments that such an attack was planned. “We have had some information for the last two days of such an incident,” he said.

Hyderabad, one of India’s largest cities and a leading center of the country’s burgeoning pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, has suffered other such attacks in recent years, usually linked to sectarian friction. The blast sites on Thursday — in the Dilsukh Nagar neighborhood, packed with shops, restaurants, theaters and a huge produce market — were quickly mobbed by protesters, reporters, the curious, and politicians and their large security contingents. Television news footage in the hours afterward showed chaotic scenes, with some investigators trying to find the remains of explosive devices while huge numbers of people jostled for space around them.

Mr. Shinde, speaking to journalists in New Delhi, said that the bicycles were 150 meters away from each other and the bombs detonated about 10 minutes apart , killing eight at one site and three at the other. But he forewarned that the toll could rise, and it did so, with 13 reported dead by midnight.

In a Twitter message, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. “This is a dastardly attack, the guilty will not go unpunished.”

They and other officials sought to diminish the chances of the kind of sectarian rioting that has long plagued the country.

Asked in a news conference if he believed that Muslim extremists were to blame for the bicycle blasts, Mr. Shinde said: “We have to investigate. We should not come to conclusion immediately.”

Mr. Singh, said in another Twitter message, said: “I appeal to the public to remain calm and maintain peace.”

Asaduddin Owaisi, a Muslim member of Parliament from Hyderabad, called the blasts “cowardly.”

“I feel that the priority is to maintain peace,” he said. “Let us not fall pray to rumors.” The crush of government officials at the blast sites, along with their with enormous entourages and their own police squads, was portrayed by NDTV-News as particularly unhelpful. The money and resources spent on protecting bureaucrats and politicians has become a source of increasing controversy in India, especially in the wake of a highly publicized gang-rape case in December in New Delhi. But Indian politicians, like those elsewhere, often compete with each other to show who is tougher on acts of terrorism and other crimes.

“We’ve seen political leaders come into the area and hold press conferences,” the anchor on NDTV said. “That’s the last thing they should be doing.”

Kiran Kumar Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, held a news conference away from the scene late Thursday night and asked people to stay away from the blast areas. Renuka Chowdhury, a leader of the Indian National Congress Party, pleaded with other politicians to stay away as well.

“I really wish politicians would recognize this,” Ms. Chowdhury said.

The bombings in recent years in Hyderabad have often used homemade explosives.

In May 2007, 13 people died after a bomb went off at the Mecca Masjid, including some who were killed in clashes between the police and Muslim protesters afterward. In August 2007, a pair of synchronized explosions tore through two popular gathering spots in Hyderabad, killing at least 42 and wounding dozens. Police found and defused 19 more bombs in the hours after the blasts, left at bus stops, theaters, pedestrian bridges and intersections.

In New Delhi in September 2011, a briefcase exploded near the high court, killing at least 12 people and injuring scores.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

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Diane Lane and Josh Brolin Split

02/21/2013 at 02:25 PM EST

Josh Brolin and Diane Lane

Frank Micelotta/PictureGroup

After eight years of marriage, Josh Brolin and Diane Lane are splitting, their reps confirm to PEOPLE.

The pair, who married in a 2004 ceremony at Brolin's central California ranch, were first introduced by the actor's stepmother, Barbra Streisand, at a party in 2002.

But just four months after saying "I do," Brolin, 45, was arrested for spousal battery, following "a misunderstanding at [the couple's] home," his rep said at the time. Lane, 48, did not press charges.

Brolin was more recently arrested for public intoxication just before midnight on New Year's Eve 2013.

Spotted without his wedding ring the following day, Brolin, donning sunglasses, seemed unfazed by the trouble as he ate with a male friend at Sauce on Hampton in Venice, Calif.

A few days later, Lane headed to the Palm Springs Film Festival – without her husband – where she presented an award to her former Unfaithful costar, Richard Gere.

Brolin was previously married to Alice Adair, with whom he had two children. Lane previously wed Christopher Lambert, and they had one child together.

•Reporting by JENNIFER GARCIA

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Obama admin. tackles colonoscopy confusion

WASHINGTON (AP) — The new health law requires that most insurance plans cover all costs for preventive care, including colon cancer screening.

But it didn't turn out to be that simple.

Many patients ended up with a bill when the doctor performing the colonoscopy removed precancerous growths known as polyps. Why the bill? Because a preventive screening had turned into a procedure.

Now the Obama administration is trying to straighten out the confusion: Polyp removal is part of preventive care, and therefore free of charge to the patient.

Health plans also must cover an expensive genetic test for breast cancer if a woman's doctor orders it. And the lowly aspirin for heart trouble is covered too, if prescribed.

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Wall Street drops as energy sector drags

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Boiko Borisov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Submits Resignation

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov of Bulgaria submitted his government’s resignation on Wednesday after a tumultuous week of public anger over rising electricity prices, corruption and worsening living standards that ignited mass protests nationwide and led to bloody clashes with the police on Tuesday night.

“The people gave us power, and today we are returning it,” Mr. Borisov said on Wednesday morning in Parliament, according to local news reports.

The speaker of Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, said the resignation of the prime minister and his cabinet would not be effective until Parliament put it to a vote on Thursday. Since Mr. Borisov controls Parliament, acceptance would seem sure.

The protests — the biggest in at least 15 years — were triggered by electricity price increases and corruption scandals, including one over the nominee to head the state electricity regulatory commission, which sets rates. She was accused of selling cigarettes illegally online and her nomination was later withdrawn.

Tempers were inflamed further when Bulgaria’s finance minister Simeon Djankov, the architect of painful fiscal probity, stepped down on Monday. Rather than allaying anger, analysts said the resignation was greeted by the public as an admission that the government’s economic policies, had not worked.

Tens of thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets across the country to protest. Some yelled “Mafia!” Others burned their utility bills.

While the country’s fiscal prudence has helped it to avoid having to seek an international bailout like Hungary or Romania, analysts said that rising unemployment and weak growth, coupled with wage and pension freezes and tax increases, had mobilized the country’s increasingly disgruntled middle class, who felt themselves squeezed during the financial crisis.

Opposition political parties had been trying to exploit public anger over the government’s austerity measures as general elections planned for July approached. Elections are now expected in April or May, and analysts said the opposition Socialist party was expected to benefit from the turmoil.

Daniel Smilov, program director at the Center for Liberal Strategies, a political research organization, in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, said that Bulgarians were disillusioned that the overthrow of Communism in 1989 and the country’s subsequent democratization had not delivered the expected prosperity.

Bulgaria has struggled to shed a reputation for lawlessness and corruption. It remains poor, with an average monthly wage of just $480, the lowest in the European Union.

“What we are seeing is the result of a general distrust in government and the political system,” Mr. Smilov said, noting than protests had engulfed wealthy as well as poorer regions of the country. “These are not the bottom layers of society, but people in the middle strata who been hit hardest by the financial crisis. They fear they are losing their status, and they might become poor very fast.”

Trying to appease the protesters, the prime minister said on Tuesday that the license of the Czech utility CEZ, which provides power to many residential customers in Bulgaria, would be withdrawn. Mr. Borisov cited beatings of protesters Tuesday by the police as one reason.

“Every drop of blood for us is a stain,” he said. “I can’t look at a Parliament surrounded by barricades, that’s not our goal, neither our approach, if we have to protect ourselves from the people.”

Mr. Smilov said that after the Parliament accepted the government’s resignation, President Rosen Plevneliev would then appoint a caretaker government. Mr. Borisov said his party would not participate in an interim government.

Mr. Borisov’s resignation could signal the political demise of one of the country’s most colorful political figures. A former karate instructor, bodyguard, fireman and mayor of Sofia with a shaved head and a talk-tough approach, Mr. Borisov was once viewed as being so invincible that Bulgarians called him “Batman.”

As the owner of a private security company, he provided security services for Todor Zhivkov, the former Communist leader of Bulgaria. Mr. Borisov was then the personal bodyguard for Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the child czar who returned to be elected prime minister in 2001.

Mr. Borisov rose to oversee the police at the Interior Ministry, before being elected mayor of Sofia and then becoming prime minister in 2009.

“Mr. Borisov is a typical populist leader who came to power promising to take revenge against the transition on behalf of the poor,” says Andrei Raichev, a political analyst at Gallup International in Sofia. “Now the people realize that they were lied to.”

Mr. Raichev said that no one could predict how the public will react to the resignation. “We could even reach the absurd situation that the protests continue against no one,” he said. “Which means that they are against everyone.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article and an accompanying photo caption misspelled the given name of Bulgaria’s prime minister. He is Boiko Borisov, not Boyko.

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Twitter begins integrating advertising software

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc said on Wednesday it is opening up its platform to third-party advertising management software, taking another step to establish its ad-based business model ahead of an initial public offering.

The ads application programming interface, or API, would allow advertisers to connect their existing ad management software to their Twitter account to automate ads on the micro-messaging platform.

Twitter said that it would begin by integrating with ad software by Adobe Systems Inc, Salesforce Inc, Hootsuite, SHIFT and TBG Global.

“With the Ads API, marketers now have more tools in their arsenal to help them deliver the right message, to the right audience, on the desktop and on mobile devices — all at scale,” Twitter product manager April Underwood wrote in a blog post.

Under pressure to show growing revenues, Twitter in recent years has ramped up its ad-serving capabilities while building a sales staff to woo corporate marketers. The firm said last year it would allow marketers to target Twitter users based on a profile of their perceived interests and by location.

Twitter makes money every time a user clicks or retweets a “promoted” message paid for by an advertiser. The new API would allow great automation for advertisers, who previously had to manually write every promoted tweet.

In 2013, Twitter’s ad revenues are expected to grow nearly 90 percent to $ 545 million, according to eMarketer which noted that Facebook Inc experienced similarly rapid growth after opening its API to advertisers in 2011.

(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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