SECOND American Airlines Flight Returns To JFK After Row Of Seats Comes Loose -

SECOND American Airlines Flight Returns To JFK After Row Of Seats Comes Loose - 




An American Airlines flight from Boston to Miami had to make an emergency landing in New York over the weekend.

CBS 2′s Jessica Schneider reported another incident involving loose seats occurred Monday.

An American Airlines spokesperson said flight 443 departed JFK at around 7:15 a.m. Monday en route to Miami. A row of three seats came loose like Saturday’s flight from Boston.

Passengers were moved to other seats and the flight landed safely at JFK. All of the passengers were put on another plane which landed in Miami at 2:15 p.m.

On Saturday, American Airlines Flight 685 was diverted to JFK after a row of three seats had become loose in the coach cabin of the Boeing 757, an airline spokesperson said.

Three passengers were moved to other seats on the flight before the plane landed safely around 12:50 p.m., officials said.

No injuries were reported in either incident.

Like the aircraft from Saturday’s flight, flight 443, also a 757, had recently had maintenance done, officials said. American Airlines is taking a total of eight aircraft with similar seating assemblies out of service as a result. The airline is looking at this as a maintenance issue.

In a call to air traffic control, the pilot of flight 685 can be heard saying, “Got an unusual one for you.  Passenger seats rows 12D, E and F uh, came loose out of the floor. Passengers are unable to uh, sit in that seat.”

Several hours later, passengers were placed on another flight to Miami.

The airline is conducting an internal investigation.

Read more -
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/10/01/american-airlines-flight-makes-emergency-landing-at-jfk-after-row-of-seats-come-loose/

Pictures of Adorable Babies, Animals Improve Concentration -

Pictures of Adorable Babies, Animals Improve Concentration - 


The findings of a new study indicate that looking at pictures of images universally agreed upon as cute can help improve one’s ability to focus.

Researchers at the Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences at Hiroshima University in Japan sought to figure out how the experience of viewing “kawaii” – Japanese for “cute” – images affects behavior.

“Kawaii … things are popular because they produce positive feelings. However, their effect on behavior remains unclear,” the study, which was published in PLOS One on Sept. 26, stated. “In this study, three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of viewing cute images on subsequent task performance.”

The three tasks used in the study tested the participants’ motor, visual and global-local letter recognition skills before and after looking at pictures deemed adorable.


“Results show that participants performed tasks requiring focused attention more carefully after viewing cute images,” the study concluded.

The report added, “In the first two experiments, viewing cute images improved performance on tasks that required carefulness. Experiment 3 showed that viewing cute images narrows the breadth of attentional [sic] focus and reduces the global precedence effect in a subsequent task.”

Researchers additionally asserted that cute images could be used to foster careful behavior and improved focus in situations such as driving a car and completing work.

A reported 48 right-handed students at the university – 24 men and 24 women between the ages of 18 and 22 – were used in the first two experiments.

In the third task, 36 right-handed students in the same age range, also split in half by gender, were asked to participate.

The relative cuteness of the images themselves was also examined by the team conducting the study, to help establish “the psychophysiological state underlying the feeling of cuteness.”

“The images of baby animals were rated as cuter and more infantile than the images of adult animals in all the three experiments,” researchers found. “When the participants rated the images of both baby and adult animals … the former were rated as more pleasant than the latter.”

Read more - 
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2012/10/01/study-pictures-of-adorable-animals-improve-concentration/

The less a candidate blinks during debates, the likelier he’ll win -

The less a candidate blinks during debates, the likelier he’ll win - 



When President Obama and Mitt Romney take the stage on Wednesday in Denver for the first of three presidential debates, keep an eye on how often both men blink — the results could bring the White House race into better focus. 

According to the analysis of Joseph Tecce, a Boston College psychophysiologist who has spent decades studying the body language of presidential hopefuls, the candidate who blinks more during debates has lost every election but one since 1980. The lone exception was in 2000, when a faster-blinking George W. Bush bested Al Gore in the electoral college ... but lost the popular vote.

During the 2008 general election, Tecce’s theory has borne out nicely: Obama, who blinked 62 times per minute, trounced McCain who clocked in at 104 times per minute.

“If you drive a car 100 miles an hour, you will lose your driving license, and if you blink 100 times a minute, you will lose an election,” Tecce opined in a recent presentation.

Tecce bases his theory on the well-established relationship between our eye movements and our emotional state. Typically, stress and other unpleasant feelings cause people to blink more often. As social creatures, we also recognize faster blinking as a sign of distress in others.

Explaining the apparent link with election results is a bit trickier though. Does the audience find the faster-blinking candidate unnerving and form a negative impression? Or does the candidate who is trailing in the polls tend to be under greater stress — and therefore likely to blink more often? Tecce says that both factors likely come into play.

This year, Romney seems to be an early favorite to blink less, based on Tecce’s analysis of the candidates’ most-recent convention speeches. Romney blinked 33 times a minute during his acceptance address, while Obama did 41 times a minute. 

Still, Tecce said, he expects the blinking contest will be tight.

“It appears from previous performances that they are both relatively close in blink rate and both in the normal range,” Tecce told The Daily. “Consequently, we will have to watch carefully in the coming debates to see if this pattern holds or whether there will be an observable difference between these two candidates. If their rates hold now, as it has in the past, there may not be enough of a difference for voters to be affected.”

Read more - 
http://www.thedaily.com/article/2012/09/29/100112-news-debate-blinking/

Broker in Drunken Stupor Moves Oil Markets to 8 Month High -

Broker in Drunken Stupor Moves Oil Markets to 8 Month High - 



On June the 30th 2009 oil mysteriously jumped by more than $1.50 a barrel during the night, to reach its highest price in eight months, the kind of swing that is caused by a major geopolitical event.

The amazing, true cause of this price spike has now been released by a Financial Services Authority investigation (FSA).

Although not authorised to invest company cash in trades Steve Perkins, a long standing, senior broker at PVM Oil Futures, had managed to spend $520 million on oil futures contracts throughout the night.

On the morning of the 30th an admin clerk called Mr Perkins to ask why he had bought 7 million barrels of crude during the night. Mr Perkins had no recollection of the transactions, and it turned out that he had made the trades during a “drunken blackout.”

By the time PVM had realised the transactions had not been authorised by a client, they had incurred losses of $9,763,252.

Between the hours of 1.22am and 3.41am, Mr Perkins gradually bought 69 percent of the global market, whilst driving prices up from $71.40 to $73.05, by bidding higher each time.

At 6.30am, presumably sobering up and realising what he'd done, he sent a message to his managing director claiming an unwell relative meant he would not be able to make it into work.

Following an official investigation Mr Perkins admitted to having a drink problem, had his trading license revoked for five years, and was given a fine of £72,000.

The FSA have said that they will re-approve his license after the five year period, if he has recovered from his drink problem, although they warned that “Mr Perkins poses an extreme risk to the market when drunk.”



Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/12/10/2955421/broker-in-drunken-stupor-moves-oil-markets-to-8-month-high

'Internet addiction' to be classified as mental illness... -

'Internet addiction' to be classified as mental illness... - 



Think twice the next time you play a videogame or surf the Net: ‘Internet-use disorder’ is set to be added to the list of mental illnesses in the worldwide psychiatric manual. Kids are identified as being especially at risk.
The international mental health encyclopedia known as the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ (DSM-IV) will include Internet-use disorder as a condition “recommended for further study” in its forthcoming May 2013 edition.
Psychologists believe that Internet addiction should be categorized like other addiction disorders as it has similar symptoms, including emotional shutdown, lack of concentration and withdrawal.
Parents have noted their children becoming angry and violent when their electronic gadgets are taken away from them, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. In other instances, kids preferred to play a videogame over eating or social interaction.
One step closer to mental illness
The listing is another step towards classifying Internet addiction as a mental illness: The DSM-IV’s new inclusion demonstrates that there are risks posed by overusing technology and that more research is required, which could lead to formal diagnoses of the disorder in the future.
Psychologists are pushing to broaden the diagnoses of Internet-use disorder to include more than just gaming addictions, which could expand the age group of those affected by the illness.
''With kids, gaming is an obvious issue. But overall, technology use could be a potential problem,'' Director of the Brain and Psychological Sciences Research Centre Mike Kyrios told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Australia was one of the first countries to recognize the problem and offer public treatment, and established clinics to treat video game addiction.
That such widely used technologies can cause deep harm to children has lead to further examinations of adults habits surrounding devices used 24/7 for reading, gaming, and social interactions.
When addiction borders on insanity
Addiction to online games is not a new phenomenon, with some cases grabbing international headlines over the past few years.
In a 2009 incident, 17-year-old Daniel Petric of Ohio shot his mother and injured his father after they confiscated his Halo 3 videogame because they feared he was playing it too much.
Chris Staniforth, 20, suffered a blockage to his lungs and died while playing his Xbox for up to 12 hours in 2011.
A year later, another gaming addict died after playing an online videogame for 40 hours straight at an Internet café in Taiwan.
Similar behavior has also been exhibited by adults: A Korean couple was arrested in 2010 after their infant daughter starved to death while the pair played an online game for hours. The videogame the two were playing involved raising a virtual baby.

Read more - 
http://rt.com/news/internet-use-mental-illness-389/

AMERICAN AIRLINES Flight Makes Emergency Landing At JFK After Row Of Seats Comes Loose...

AMERICAN AIRLINES Flight Makes Emergency Landing At JFK After Row Of Seats Comes Loose...


An American Airlines flight from Boston to Miami had to make an emergency landing in New York over the weekend.

American Airlines Flight 685 was diverted to John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday after a row of three seats had become loose in the coach cabin of the Boeing 757, an airline spokesperson said.

Three passengers were moved to other seats on the flight before the plane landed safely around 12:50 p.m., officials said.


No injuries were reported.

Several hours later, passengers were placed on another flight to Miami.

The airline is conducting an internal investigation.

“Safety is our top priority,” American Airlines spokesperson Matt Miller said in a statement. “We never have – and never will – compromise the safety and reliability of our fleet.”

The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating the cause of the incident.

Read more - 
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/10/01/american-airlines-flight-makes-emergency-landing-at-jfk-after-row-of-seats-come-loose/

New Jersey children who fall $3.10 behind on lunch payments get one hard-boiled egg, crackers and milk for lunch -

New Jersey children who fall $3.10 behind on lunch payments get one hard-boiled egg, crackers and milk for lunch - 



At the Tewksbury school district in New Jersey, children who fall $3.10 behind on their food payments get one hard-boiled egg, a package of crackers and a carton of milk for lunch.
The Tewksbury district consists of two schools, one for grades K-4 and one for grades 5-8. Lunches at the school cost $2.40 per day. That means children are only allowed to fall one day behind in their lunch payments before getting stuck with the egg special.
The lunches at Tewksbury, like most in schools across the nation, are subsidized by the federal government.
Frankly, we’re confused. We thought the feds provide low-cost school lunches because many children come from impoverished homes where the food budget is tight, or from homes where meals are not prepared on a regular basis. The government wants to make sure every kid receives proper nutrition and the dignity that comes with eating a full lunch with classmates.
But at Tewksbury, kids who fall a day behind in their payments are left to gnaw on hard-boiled eggs while their friends eat the full serving on the menu.
Apparently school officials are willing to humiliate children into coughing up three dollars and ten cents.
We were unable to determine how many children, if any, have been affected by the new policy at this point.
Tanya Bischoff, the mother of three children in the Tewksbury district, said she asked a group of students at a soccer match this week if they knew of any students who had been affected.
Several kids told her that a fifth-grade boy had been reduced to eating the miniscule lunch, and all of his classmates knew about it.
“It’s a huge humiliation for a kid,” said Bischoff, who said she was stunned when she learned about the new policy. “That something that will probably stick with him the rest of his life.”

Read more - 
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/29/A-3-debt-in-Tewksbury-New-Jersey-schools-gets-you-one-hard-boiled-egg-and-crackers-for-lunch

Ikea is being criticized for deleting images of women from the Saudi version of its furniture catalogue -

Ikea is being criticized for deleting images of women from the Saudi version of its furniture catalogue - 



Ikea is being criticized for deleting images of women from the Saudi version of its furniture catalogue, a move the company says it regrets.

Comparing the Swedish and Saudi versions of the Ikea catalogue, Sweden’s free newspaper Metro on Monday showed that women had been airbrushed out of otherwise identical pictures showcasing the company’s home furnishings.

The report raised questions in Sweden about Ikea’s commitment to gender equality. The country’s trade minister Ewa Bjorling didn’t criticize Ikea directly but told Metro that you can’t delete women from society.

Ikea released a statement expressing regret, saying “We should have reacted and realized that excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalogue is in conflict with the IKEA Group values.”

Read more - 
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1264672--ikea-regrets-deleting-women-from-saudi-version-of-catalogue