Laptops Manual Just for NoteBook Manual

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The nicotine-filled mist gives the taste and experience of smoking without the smoke

Mr Kicklas said the rigid, plastic cigarettes include a small battery and cartridge. The battery is designed to generate an electric charge when the device is inhaled. The charge sets off vapour in the cigarette tube. The nicotine-filled mist gives the taste and experience of smoking without the smoke.

Still, it's tempting to draw parallels with the ''cash for comment'' scandal of 1999, in which radio hosts John Laws and Alan Jones were paid by banks and other companies for favourable coverage.

''That's not a fair comparison,'' counters one PR manager. We're talking about celebrities in 2011, not serious radio hosts in the '90s. As if anyone in generation Y would bat an eyelid to discover that Kim Kardashian is paid to tweet. Everyone just expects and accepts it.''

Apple's gains coupled with Microsoft misses on mobile devices, which increasingly are issued by companies and used by workers, may signal that "Windows' dominance is at an end," says Forrester's report.

However, Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, continues to be a corporate mainstay, Forrester says. Apple sold $US12 billion worth of iPads and iPhones to enterprise customers in 2011 and that could more than double to $US28 billion by 2013, Forrester estimates.

"It's a paradigm shift," said Ian Clifford, chief executive of Toronto-based ZENN Motor Co., which has licensed EEStor's invention. "The Achilles' heel to the electric car industry has been energy storage. By all rights, this would make internal combustion engines unnecessary."

Clifford's company bought rights to EEStor's technology in August 2005 and expects EEStor to start shipping the battery replacement later this year for use in ZENN Motor's short-range, low-speed vehicles.

The technology also could help invigorate the renewable-energy sector by providing efficient, lightning-fast storage for solar power, or, on a small scale, a flash-charge for cell phones and laptops.

Sanyo Electric, which is going through an extensive business restructuring, is the largest producer of lithium-ion batteries for laptop computers, with about a 40 percent share of the global market. Demand for rechargeable batteries has been growing as notebook computers become increasingly popular compared to desktop computers.

"This invention could free us from power cables and ideally replace batteries to a good extent, at least in the context of a home or office setting," said Aristeidis Karalis, a student member of the MIT team that worked four years on the problem.

Monitoring bioterrorism threats, for example, would require an entire array of nanosensors, nanoprocessors to analyse the signals received, and nanotransmitters to relay information to a centralised facility, he said.

"Since my early teenage years, I've wanted to be an asteroid miner. I always viewed it as a glamorous vision of where we could go," Peter Diamandis, one of the founders of Planetary Resources, told a news conference on Tuesday at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Ted Baillieu went to the 2010 state election promising to use Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to help authorities keep track of serious sex offenders, convicted arsonists on supervision orders, and some suspects released on bail before trial.

The shift to GPS is designed to improve current monitoring technology, which relies largely on the criminal's proximity to a base unit to pick up a signal, but is limited when the offender is out of range.

Canberra, the hub of political power, is its first proof-of-concept location in Australia. Australia follows Israel and Denmark as greenfield markets to be chosen as test beds for the company’s recharge technologies. Australia is the first country to be chosen for deployment on a continental scale.

The company’s head of oil independence policy, Mike Granoff, who was in Melbourne to speak at the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, said switching cars from being powered by petroleum to electrical propulsion was not just a matter of being environmental.

Fire Chief Joseph Miller said the victim contacted the department on Wednesday to thank firefighters and told them he was recovering at a hospital in Mobile, Alabama, and anticipated being released later in the day.

''There's no question it's happening in Australia, too,'' says one PR expert who asked not to be named. ''Twitter and Facebook make up a big part of contracts nowadays.'' The team at MIT, a top US academic laboratory, has shown their fledgling "WiTricity" technology can power a 60 watt bulb from a power source two meters (seven feet) away.

The CEO of the Harry M Miller Group, Lauren Miller Cilento, says social media ''plays a massive role in new endorsement contracts … sometimes the companies spell it out and say, 'This is the kind of messaging we want on Twitter'.''

Apple declined to comment on its hiring moves. But Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett said a rash of recent job ads by Apple is "strong evidence that Apple is responding to the demands of companies for a direct, formal relationship" with the company rather than buying products from the Apple Store.

The growing appetite for Apple products in the workplace underscores the changing nature of the corporate market. Workers want lighter laptops, tablet computers with longer-lasting batteries and smartphones with apps in the office environment. And information technology departments and buyers are listening.

Magnesium is considered superior to lithium as an anode because it can store more of a charge, lasts longer and doesn't build up dendrites, tiny chemical deposits that can be a safety problem.

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a federal lab that evaluates engineering and electronics projects for the Pentagon

An Israeli scientist put together the first rechargeable magnesium-sulphur battery in 2000, but it didn't hold much of a charge. Pellion has used high-powered computers to screen 10,000 substances to see if they would work together with magnesium. Pellion officials said recently that they have narrowed it down to a few dozen candidates, while Toyota reported in August that it is using magnesium, sulphur and a special electrolyte.

Nokia sells products in 130 countries and employs 110,000 people worldwide. In the second quarter, it sold 100 million mobile devices, claiming a 38 percent share of the global market.

Sanyo said it was supporting Lenovo's recall and has already taken toward "working together with Lenovo and putting the first priority on consumer safety." The obstacle facing developers is finding the right kind of cathode and electrolyte to use with magnesium.

"Lithium-ion is only at the halfway point of what's theoretically possible," said Dane Boysen, director of the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy battery program, which has awarded $US36 million to 10 projects since 2010.

One of the grantees, Envia Systems of Newark, California, said in February that it could now more than double the power stored in its rechargeable lithium-ion battery, thanks to its new manganese-based cathode and silicon-carbon anode. The claim was verified by the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, a federal lab that evaluates engineering and electronics projects for the Pentagon.

General Motors has an agreement with Envia to use its new advanced lithium-ion battery for the Chevy Volt in the next two to three years. Boysen says the technology could make its way further into the consumer market relatively quickly, allowing laptops to run for 12 hours straight instead of six hours as is common now, for example.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed new regulations in January that would require lithium batteries be treated as hazardous cargo. Battery shipments would have to have special packaging and workers who ship them would have to receive special training. There would also have to be special labeling and pilots would have to be told that their cargo contained lithium batteries.

The regulations, which have not yet been made final, have been strongly opposed by the electronics industry, battery makers and some cargo carriers, including UPS. Industry officials have estimated the cost of the proposed regulations at over $1 billion a year.

The battery models to be recalled are different from those involved in a massive recall of Sony Corp. lithium-ion battery packs last year. Sony announced that recall after it was found that they could overheat and catch fire.

In the latest case, company investigations found batteries manufactured on December 3, 2005, were a cause of the problems, and there were about 5,100 of them sold in Japan, the U.S., Europe, Australia, China, the spokesman said. The brands included Dynabook, Dynabook Satellite, Satellite and Tecra, the spokesman said.

The cabin in a Madrid suburb close to the headquarters of the Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica has the appearance of a normal telephone box but is also equipped with electric sockets that can be used for recharging. The dual-purpose phone cabin, the first of its kind, has been developed by Telefonica and electricity company Endesa, a statement said.

The affected Acer models were sold in the U.S. and Canada from May 2004 through November 2006 for between $500 and $1,500. Spain on Wednesday unveiled a telephone box in which users can both make a phone call and recharge the battery of an electric car.

The laptops possibly containing the recalled batteries were the TravelMate series with 4-digit model numbers beginning with 242, 320, 321, 330, 422, 467, 561, C20, and the Aspire series beginning with model numbers 556, 560, 567, 930, 941, 980.

Acer, whose U.S. division is based in San Jose, says consumers should immediately stop using the recalled batteries and contact the company for a free battery replacement. The laptops could still be safely used if powered by the AC adapter, the company said.

"Doing something as simple as keeping a spare battery in its original retail packaging or a plastic zip-lock bag will prevent unintentional short-circuiting and fires," Krista Edwards, deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said in a release.

The National Transportation Safety Board earlier this month said it could not rule out lithium batteries as the source of a cargo plane fire at Philadelphia International Airport last year. But because the batteries were shipped with others produced around the same time, Toshiba was recalling a total of 10,000 batteries, according to Sony spokesman Tomio Takizawa.

Coe would not say how much the replacement program would cost, but said the company is not changing its capital expenditure estimates. Nor will the rollout of U-verse be affected, he said. The Federal Aviation Administration has found that fire-protection systems in the cargo hold of passenger planes can't put out fires sparked in lithium batteries.

The batteries came from Avestor, a Canadian company that went bankrupt in October 2006. AT&T stopped installing those batteries in early 2007, after the first incident, Coe said. AT&T also hired a consultant to investigate their safety, but was told the batteries posed no greater risk than alternative batteries from other suppliers.

By putting the next-generation batteries in its environmentally friendly autos, Nissan hopes to catch up with its rivals Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co, which lead in green vehicles, Nikkei said.

Nokia said 100 incidents of overheating in the Matsushita-made batteries had been reported worldwide, but there has been no serious injuries or damage. All cases of overheating occurred while the phones were being charged, Nokia said.

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While the pack fully satisfied specifications and internal testing standards

Nokia said 100 incidents of overheating of the Matsushita-made BL-5C batteries have been reported worldwide, but added that "no serious injuries or property damage have been reported."

"Consumers with a BL-5C battery subject to this advisory should note that all of the approximately 100 incidents have occurred while charging the battery," the Finnish company said. "According to Nokia's knowledge this issue does not affect any other use of the mobile device."

Nokia mobile phone users were asked to check the 26-character serial number on the back of their phones to compare it with the identification numbers on the Nokia website batteryreplacement, or contact a local Nokia call center.

Nissan has fallen behind Japanese rivals Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. in developing hybrids and other ecologically friendly technologies that reduce gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Tokyo-based Nissan has started selling hybrid cars, including the Altima, but licenses the technology from Toyota. Hybrids switch between a gas engine and electric motor to deliver better mileage and a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Computer maker Lenovo Inc. announced the voluntary recall of 205,000 battery packs a day earlier, 100,000 in the United States, the remainder overseas, Sanyo said in a release. The recall targets Sanyo's 9-cell Lithium-ion extended-life battery pack.

"While the pack fully satisfied specifications and internal testing standards, these incidents occurred due to a strong external impact to the battery pack of a specific notebook PC model from a certain angle," the Japanese manufacturer said.

Batteries work by converting a chemical reaction into electrical energy. Electrons form a circuit by flowing from one electrode - a positively charged cathode - to another one - a negatively charged anode - through an electrolyte, which can be either liquid or solid. The voltage difference between the two electrodes produces an electrical current. Italian physicist Alessandro Volta make the first one in 1800 by stacking layers of zinc, cloth and silver.

In the 20th century, heavy but long-lasting lead-acid batteries were developed for vehicles, while portable yet disposable alkaline batteries were commercialised for torches, smoke detectors and almost everything else.

"There are currently no approved and tested containers that can sufficiently contain the known effects of accidental lithium metal battery ignition," the safety directive said. "Common metal shipping containers, pails and drums are not designed to withstand a lithium metal cell fire."

The halon fire suppression systems used in the lower cargo compartments of passenger and cargo planes aren't able to put out fires caused by lithium metal batteries. However, the systems can extinguish fires caused by lithium ion batteries, which are rechargeable batteries similar to the kind used in many cell phones and laptop computers.

Takeuchi said the current gold standard for batteries is lithium-ion, which was commercialised more than 20 years ago and is now commonly found in computers, camcorders and mobile phones. Since the early 1990s, there have been dozens of incidents of batteries igniting in flight or during cargo handling. But exactly what triggered many of the fires is not well understood.

Some researchers are trying to pack more power into existing lithium-ion cells; others are looking to incorporate such elements as sulphur, zinc, magnesium and even air into new types of batteries.

The FAA's safety directive said that recent research conducted by its scientists shows that when batteries are exposed to high temperatures they have the potential to create "thermal runaway," a chain reaction leading to self-heating and the release of a battery's stored energy.

From iPhones and laptops to electric vehicles, much of our plugged-in lifestyle seems tied to finding a suitable wall outlet. Yet consumer frustration has only grown as each new device drains batteries ever more quickly. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that the phrase "ihatebatterylow" has become a big hit on Facebook and Twitter.

Dubai authorities are leading an investigation of the accident with assistance from the National Transportation Safety Board and FAA. The cause of the crash hasn't yet been determined. The warning follows last month's crash of a United Parcel Service plane in Dubai that killed both pilots.

The safety directive urges air carriers to ask shippers to identify bulk battery shipments in shipping documents. It also recommends stowing battery shipments in cargo compartments in the belly of planes, where there are halon gas fire suppression systems. There are no fire suppression systems required in the main cabins of cargo or passenger planes.

Hitachi makes everything from home appliances to nuclear reactors but has been restructuring its operations, and ecological batteries are a device that can feed into its growth businesses.

Hiroaki Nakanishi, Hitachi president since April, has said a focus on green businesses such as hybrid railways and batteries will be key in an effort to return to profitability for the fiscal year through April 2011, from the red ink the previous year.

Mitsubishi now gets its batteries from a joint venture with Japanese battery maker GS Yuasa Corp., but is hoping to expand its model lineup in electric vehicles, said spokesman Tetsuji Inoue. Nissan has already received 20,000 orders for its electric vehicle, the Leaf, going on sale in the U.S. and Japan, with first deliveries set for December, spokesman Mitsuru Yonekawa said.

Toyota has taken a lead in sales of hybrids, which are equipped with an electric motor and a standard petrol engine, making them more economical and environmentally friendly than conventional autos.

"Improving 1000-fold performance of a supercomputer means you need 1000 times more power. You basically need a power plant next to your data centre," said Heike Riel, who leads the nanoscale electronics group at IBM research center in Zurich.

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Batteries will be to automobiles what semiconductors were to computers

Sony said its own Vaio laptops don't use the battery in question. Last month, however, the company recalled 440,000 Vaio notebooks worldwide because of a wiring flaw that can cause overheating.

The safety commission said PC users should remove laptop batteries immediately and contact the manufacturer to request a replacement. Details, including laptop model numbers and contact information for Dell, HP and Toshiba, have been posted on the commission's website.

In announcing the alliance, Argonnne drew comparisons to Sematech, the government-supported collaboration with private industry in the 1980s to make US manufacturers competitive in semiconductor technology.

"Sematech played a key role in improving manufacturing in the US semiconductor industry," said Sanford Kane, a former director of Sematech. "Batteries will be to automobiles what semiconductors were to computers."

Lenovo cut 1,000 jobs worldwide last year and had an operating loss in the most recent quarter for the division that covers the U.S. and Canada. The company's chief financial officer has told analysts the situation in North America "is the cause of greatest concern."

Meanwhile, in Asia, companies such as Dell are gaining ground and sales growth for Lenovo is slowing, adding pressure on the company to increase sales in Europe and the U.S. Standby power already accounts for about 10 per cent of the electricity use in homes and offices, the European Union has estimated.

HP says the computers at issue were sold in stores and online from August 2007 through July 2008. The battery packs were also sold separately. Friday's recall pales in comparison to the recall in 2006 and 2007 of nearly 10 million of a model of Sony batteries that were used by almost every major PC manufacturer.

The companies' business models are similar because neither is tied with a single automaker, unlike rival Panasonic Corp. which exclusively supplies hybrid auto batteries to Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest automaker, said Hitachi spokesman Atsushi Konno.

Hitachi, which has produced 1.2 million lithium-ion automotive battery cells for hybrid buses and trucks, supplies Japanese truckmaker Isuzu Motors, and plans to supply General Motors Corp. Data centers such as those run by Google already use more than 1 per cent of the world's energy and their demand for power is rising fast with the trend to outsource computing.

The Japanese so far have a head start in supplying such batteries. They say they see that as a chance for an edge over rivals because only a handful of battery makers have the technology so far to supply automakers.

Toshiba's Japanese rival Panasonic Corp. supplies batteries for Toyota Motor Corp., the world's top automaker, while NEC Corp. does it for Nissan Motor Co. Sanyo Electric Co., a Panasonic subsidiary, has deals with Volkswagen AG, Honda Motor Co. and Toyota.

Automakers are stepping up their focus on lithium-ion batteries amid increasingly interest in fuel-efficient vehicles at a time of soaring petrol prices. Lithium-ion batteries are smaller and lighter than the nickel-metal hydride batteries now used in hybrid and electric cars.

But automakers have been cautious about their use following problems with lithium-ion batteries for laptop computers catching fire. Nissan Motor Co. and NEC Corp. said earlier this month they will invest 115 million US dollars to mass produce new batteries for electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles.

Short battery life is an increasing problem for consumers needing to charge their phones daily, and for top smartphone vendors - Nokia, Apple and RIM - alike.

"Battery technology has not kept up with the increasing power demands of today's smartphones. As such, power management and efficiency is the biggest challenge facing smartphone vendors in delivering a great, consumer-friendly user experience," said Canalys analyst Tim Shepherd.

The company said no reports have been filed for batteries made after 2006, and noted that the recalled units are a small fraction of the more than 260 million it has shipped over six years. But automakers can also hope to play the electronics makers against each other to bring down costs.

This also pales in comparison to the recall of nearly 10 million of a different model of Sony batteries in 2006 and 2007, which affected almost every major PC manufacturer, including Dell and Apple.

The National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture said lithium ion batteries "are anticipated to replace gasoline as the principal source of energy in future cars and military vehicles."

"Today, United States automobile manufacturers and defense contractors depend upon foreign suppliers -- increasingly concentrated in Asia -- for lithium ion battery cells," it said. "We will replace batteries of the first-generation iPod nanos with new ones if customers find that the batteries overheat," the Apple Japan spokesman said.

Evolta - $5.40 for four in Japan, about 15 percent higher than other AA batteries _ went on sale in April in Japan, with overseas sales planned later this year. The robot was designed by robotics scientist Tomotaka Takahashi.

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Electric cars have been a centrepiece at this month’s Frankfurt auto show

Guinness World Records certified Evolta as "the longest-lasting AA alkaline battery cell," based on testing under guidelines set by the industry's International Electrotechnical Commission this year.

Ordinary Tokyo taxis can clock up as many as 300 kilometres (186 miles) a day, the company says, and the city is by far the world's largest taxi market with 60,000 cabs -- more than New York, Paris and London combined.

"By building a good business model, we believe this technology can have a significant impact on the economy and society," Japanese energy agency official Minoru Nakamura told a press conference.

The two companies have already been working together since 2008 and have jointly developed Cleanbat, a battery system technology for lithium-ion batteries with liquid-cooled thermal management and high precision electronics.

Electric cars have been a centrepiece at this month's Frankfurt auto show, where an array of top auto companies, including German giant Volkswagen and US giant Ford, displayed new electric and hybrid models.

Lenovo, which has its world headquarters in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, said consumers should stop using the recalled products immediately. It said the batteries can overheat if the laptop is dropped a certain way, striking the battery on a corner edge. The advisory was made with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Sanyo officials defended the batteries Friday, saying the problems resulted from a strong external impact to the battery and were not triggered by the batteries themselves. While taxis represent only two percent of all passenger vehicles in Tokyo, they emit about 20 percent of all carbon dioxide (CO2) from vehicles.

Doe Run declared force majeure on lead output from the United States' sole primary producer in Herculaneum, Missouri, following a fire last week which will stop production for up to six weeks.

The outage at Herculaneum is expected to boost U.S. physical lead premiums, which have already been trending higher due to a scarcity of scrap batteries. Spot premiums are between 6.5 and 8 cents per lb.

One of the biggest setbacks to developing efficient electric planes is range. Most concepts aren’t able to get around this barrier as battery packs can’t provide enough boost for long distances. They’re heavy too which only limits planes from going far.

The former Boeing employee has set a few world records for e-motorcycles with one of them being the fastest electric motorcycle which can touch speeds of an impressive 200 mph. But considering his background with Boeing, it appears that aviation was a natural shift and prompted Yates to try to come up with a way that would allow existing battery systems to provide enough boost to allow electric planes to fly long distances.

People with congestive heart failure are often treated with warfarin to prevent blood clots, but a large randomized double-blinded trial has found that aspirin works just as well. The study appeared online last week in Neurology.

Researchers recruited 2,305 patients with heart failure and normal heart rhythm. Half were given regimens of warfarin and dummy aspirin, the other half aspirin and dummy warfarin. The scientists followed them for up to six years, tracking incidents of stroke, hemorrhage and death. The study was published online last week in The New England Journal of Medicine.

A new study has found that consumption of omega-3 fatty acids, plentiful in fish and nuts, is associated with lower blood levels of beta-amyloid protein. Yates is seeking to reinvent how battery packs are used instead of waiting around for a breakthrough to be made in battery technology.

Amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease and are known to increase the risk for mental decline; blood levels of the protein may reflect levels of its deposits in the brain. Researchers studied 1,219 mentally healthy people over 65, recording their diet over one and a half years and testing their blood for beta-amyloid and for vitamins and other nutrients.

None of the nutrients was associated with reduced beta-amyloid levels except for omega-3 fatty acid. After controlling for age, education, ethnicity, alcohol intake and apolipoprotein E genotype (a genetic marker for dementia risk), the scientists found that higher levels of omega-3 intake were associated with significantly lower beta-amyloid blood levels.

Like many other primary care doctors, I sometimes sense the shadow of depression hovering at the edges of the exam room. I am haunted by one mother with severe postnatal depression. Years ago, I took proper care of the baby, but I missed the mother’s distress, as did everyone else.

Five years after California started cracking down on junk food in school cafeterias, a new report shows that high school students there consume fewer calories and less fat and sugar at school than students in other states. The findings suggest that state policies can be successful to some extent in influencing the eating habits of teenagers.

The study found that California high school students consumed on average nearly 160 calories fewer per day than students in other states, the equivalent of cutting out a small bag of potato chips. That difference came largely from reduced calorie consumption at school, and there was no evidence that students were compensating for their limited access to junk food at school by eating more at home.

Upending the cliché of muscleheads, scientists at the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging recently set out to examine whether changes in muscles prompted by exercise might subsequently affect and improve the brain’s ability to think.

In an unusual move that may prompt millions of women to rethink their use of popular bone-building drugs, the Food and Drug Administration published an analysis that suggested caution about long-term use of the drugs, but fell short of issuing specific recommendations.

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which are sold as generic versions of brands like Fosamax and Boniva

The F.D.A. review, published in The New England Journal of Medicine online on Wednesday, was prompted by a growing debate over how long women should continue using the drugs, known as bisphosphonates, which are sold as generic versions of brands like Fosamax and Boniva, as well as Novartis’s Reclast.

In the world of social media, we are our own self-portraitists. Our digital identity is doctored to show the best version of our lives. (Maybe a more apt name for Facebook would have been “Best Face” book.) It’s not a new observation to point out the disparities between our online identities and our real selves, but for me, as a cancer patient, that gap has never felt larger.

If you had visited my Facebook profile last June, you would have found pictures of a smiling 22-year-old girl with long, wavy hair. She’s exploring the streets of Paris with a chubby King Charles spaniel named Chopin; eating tiramisù with her boyfriend Seamus at a cafe in the Marais district; having sunset picnics along the Seine with friends after work. This was a happy, successful, carefree person. On Facebook, aren’t we all?

Her face swollen and bleeding, Megan was taken to an emergency room and stitched up. No one realized she had suffered a severe concussion until three weeks later, when a player ran into her during another game and she fell to the ground, suffering a seizure on the field.

Doctors believe she experienced what’s known as second impact syndrome, a sequence of events in which a child or teenager sustains a hit before a concussion fully heals, which can cause the brain to bleed or swell, even if the second impact is a moderate one.

There’s no question that the case of 9-year-old Hannah Poling of Athens, Ga., has fueled the controversy about childhood vaccines. But what’s less clear is whether it will help unlock the mysteries of autism.

Hannah was 19 months old and developing normally until 2000, when she received five shots against nine infectious diseases. She became sick and later was given a diagnosis of autism. During a soccer game two years ago, Megan Wirtz, a goalie for her high school team, was bending down to pick up a ball when an opposing player mistakenly kicked her in the face.

Late last year government lawyers agreed to compensate the Poling family on the theory that vaccines may have aggravated an underlying disorder affecting her mitochondria, the energy centers of cells. (To read more about the decision, click here.) Vaccine critics say the Hannah Poling settlement shows the government has finally conceded that vaccines cause autism.

Last fall, 13-month-old Aidan Truett of Hamilton, Ohio, developed what seemed like an upper respiratory infection. He lost interest in food and vomited a few times, but doctors attributed it to a virus. After nine days of severe symptoms and more doctor visits, the hospital finally ordered an X-ray to look for pneumonia.

What they found instead was totally unexpected. The child had ingested a “button” battery, one of those flat silver discs used to power remote controls, toys, musical greeting cards, bathroom scales and other home electronics.

Two months ago, Jackie Sherrill of Grove City, Ohio, was sitting on her couch when her 20-month-old toddler, Morgan, who was sitting beside her, suddenly reached over. In an instant, Morgan, who had a bottle in her mouth, tumbled off the couch, crashing into an ottoman as she plunged to the floor.

As she wiped away her daughter’s tears, Ms. Sherrill noticed that Morgan had a broken tooth and a cut mouth, damage from the hard plastic bottle she had been drinking from. Morgan didn’t suffer any long-term harm, but it was then that Ms. Sherrill decided to begin transitioning her daughter from bottles to normal cups

“Depression is an illness that feeds upon itself,” said Dr. William Beardslee, professor of child psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has spent his career studying depression in children and developing family interventions. “Very often people who are depressed don’t seek the care they need.”

California is one of several states that have sought to reduce childhood obesity by targeting junk food in schools. A decade ago it became the first state to ban the sale of soft drinks in grade schools, and it later enacted a similar ban in high schools.

Since 2007, the state has also enforced nutrition standards for “competitive foods” in schools, the snacks and foods that are not included in meal plans but that students can get on school grounds — from vending machines, for example. California law limits the amount of fat, sugar and calories that can be found in these foods.

To study the effect of this policy, the researchers examined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the eating habits of high school students in California, comparing it with data on students from 14 states that did not have nutrition standards for vending machine snacks and other foods sold outside of school lunches and other meal plans.

Over all, 680 students were included in the study, which was financed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. But government officials say Hannah’s case involved a rare medical condition, and there is still no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism.

The researchers were especially interested in the possibility that the action starts outside the brain – and specifically in the muscles. “We wondered whether peripheral triggers might be activating the cellular and molecular cascades in the brain that led to improvements in cognition,” says Henriette van Praag, the investigator at the National Institute on Aging who led the study.

Muscles are, of course, greatly influenced by exercise. Muscle cells respond to exercise by pumping out a variety of substances that result in larger, stronger muscles. Some of those compounds might be entering the bloodstream and traveling to the brain, Dr. van Praag says.

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people have faced the challenge of communicating what it feels like to be sick

Because serious complications are so rare, most doctors believe that for women with documented osteoporosis who are at very high risk for spinal fractures, the benefits of the drugs far outweigh the risks. However, some women with moderate bone density and no other risk factors continue to take the drugs for years even though they are unlikely to gain any benefits.

“I think a lot of people are going to come off this drug,” said Dr. Clifford J. Rosen, an endocrinologist and researcher at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute. The F.D.A. review analyzes only long-term use and does not address whether a woman should be prescribed a bone drug in the first place to reduce her fracture risk.

But every time I logged onto my Facebook account, my profile felt more like a stranger’s than my own. In the midst of a medical crisis, I found myself preoccupied by a social media question. To share or not to share? I wondered to what extent my digital life ought to reflect my real one.

As long as illness has been around, people have faced the challenge of communicating what it feels like to be sick. But social platforms like Facebook and Twitter make it easier to share than ever before. Even so, I found myself hesitating to answer the Facebook prompt that asks, “What’s on your mind?”

More than 1.6 million Americans suffer a sports-related concussion every year, and a growing number occur among high school and college athletes. According to federal statistics, more than 150,000 teenage athletes sustained concussions on the playing field from 2001 to 2005, though that figure accounts for only those who were taken to emergency rooms, so the true number, experts say, is likely to be much higher.

While researchers have known that girls run a greater risk of suffering concussions than boys playing the same sports, the new study is among the first to look at the effect of both age and sex on a range of symptoms.

To be sure, many health experts do not agree with Dr. Poling’s conclusions. The case has “added nothing to the discussions of what causes or doesn’t cause autism,” said Dr. Edwin Trevathan, director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Friday, many of the main players involved in this debate — including Hannah’s mother and her grandparents, prominent vaccine skeptics and some of the government’s top vaccine researchers — took part in the federal government’s first-ever public meeting to discuss a government-wide research agenda to explore the safety of vaccines.

Such deaths are extremely rare. There were fewer than 10 documented during the last six years. But ingestion of lithium cell batteries, which children may mistake for candy and elderly adults for medication, is a surprisingly common problem, documented this week in two reports in the medical journal Pediatrics.

About 3,500 cases of button cell battery ingestion are reported annually to poison control centers. But while swallowing batteries has occurred for years, the development of larger, stronger lithium cell batteries has increased the risk of severe complications.

The report on injuries involving bottles, pacifiers and sippy cups, the first nationwide look at such injuries, found that in the 20-year period from 1991 through 2010, more than 45,000 children under the age of 3 — an average of about 2,270 children a year — were treated in emergency rooms for injuries related to bottles, pacifiers and sippy cups.

“This is the equivalent of about one child every four hours,” said Sarah A. Keim, a study author and a researcher at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. She noted that the true number is likely to be much higher, since the study looked only at children who had been taken to emergency rooms. “We expect that less severe injuries were handled by the parents themselves, or that the child was taken to a pediatrician,” she said.

Depression damages the interactions between parents and children, and disrupts family routines and rituals. Children with a depressed parent are themselves more likely to manifest symptoms of depression, research shows, along with other psychiatric problems and behavior issues. They are more likely to make visits to the emergency room and more likely to be injured.

A depressed parent may have trouble following a plan of preventive care if a child has a medical problem like asthma. But higher rates of depression in parents whose children have chronic medical problems may also reflect the stress of dealing with those problems, especially for psychologically vulnerable parents.

Still, California’s students had not suddenly become health nuts. They were still eating junk food — just slightly less of it than their peers in other states. And their vitamin and mineral intake was similar to that of students in other parts of the country.

“Students may not be buying as many candy bars at school, but that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily eating salads instead,” Dr. Taber said, noting that schools still offer items like baked chips and desserts that comply with the regulations but offer little in the way of nutrition.

The second compound, GW1516, a cholesterol drug, also stimulates biochemical changes in muscle cells like those caused by endurance exercise. But in the Salk studies, it had amplified endurance primarily in animals that also ran, allowing them to run farther than another set of running mice that didn’t get the drug. But it hadn’t done much muscle-wise for animals that remained sedentary.

By using these drugs in unexercised animals under well-controlled conditions, the scientists from the National Institute on Aging sought to determine whether changes in muscles then initiated changes in the brain.

But an accompanying article by Dr. Rosen and others, also published in The New England Journal of Medicine, offers more specifics, concluding that the women most likely to benefit from long-term use of the drugs are those who, after three to five years of treatment, continue to have very low bone density, as measured by something called a “T score” that is lower than minus 2.5. Women with a history of spinal fracture or with an existing fracture also are most likely to benefit from long-term use of the drugs, the researchers concluded.

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18May/12Off

many women who are prescribed bone drugs have been given a diagnosis of osteopenia

However, many women who are prescribed bone drugs have been given a diagnosis of osteopenia, moderate to low bone density that is not low enough to be called osteoporosis. These women are unlikely to benefit from long-term use and should probably stop taking the drugs after about three years, the researchers said.

Five weeks into my first hospitalization, my doctors informed me that my disease hadn’t responded to the chemotherapy. Exhausted and depleted from the treatments, I couldn’t imagine starting the process over in a few weeks. It was the first time that it struck me that I might not get better for a long time, or at all. My cancer wasn’t seasonal, or something I could temporarily hide. Illness was going to be a part of my life. For now.

After the hospital, I went home to my parents’ house, to my childhood bedroom. I had completed an almost total retreat from the world. I found it hard to even pick up phone calls from my closest friends. What did I possibly have to report? My days were a dreadful routine of meals, medicine and the view of the ceiling from my bed.

Over the course of two years, Dr. Covassin and her colleagues followed a large group of high school and college athletes from California, Michigan, Louisiana and Tennessee. At the start of the study, the athletes were given baseline tests that looked at memory and other cognitive skills. Those who suffered concussions in the two years that followed, about 300 in all, were given three different postconcussion tests commonly used in professional sports.

Over all, after concussions, the high school athletes performed comparatively worse for their age than older college athletes on measures of verbal and visual memory, and female athletes reported more symptoms and showed greater declines in visual memory compared with their male counterparts. The cognitive impairments were also more likely to persist over time in younger athletes, lasting an average of 10 to 21 days after concussion in high school students. That is about two to three times as long as the five- to seven-day period of persistent symptoms that has been documented in college athletes.

The batteries that pose the greatest risk are those that begin with the number 20, which stands for 20 millimeters. They are larger and stronger than older models. Batteries numbered 2032, 2025 and 2016 are responsible for more than 90 percent of serious injuries.

“Industry has shifted to this battery, and it has very popular appeal,” Dr. Litovitz said. “There are a lot of reasons why we want to use this battery, but the problem is we’ve got to use it in a safer way.” Federal safety rules require toys that use the batteries to have battery compartments that are locked with screws. But devices intended for adults — like bathroom scales and remote controls — often hold the batteries in with a simple plastic cover that can fall off or be removed easily.

She added that in her estimation, if the guidelines for stopping bottle and pacifier use had been followed, “about 80 percent of the children in the study would not have been using the product at the time they were injured.”

Dr. Keim said that teaching children to use regular cups was important not because there is anything about the design of a normal cup that makes it safer, but that parents are simply more likely to make their children sit or stay in one spot while drinking from a lidless cup to prevent spills.

I often find myself urging mothers to pay more attention to their own medical problems and mental health. Pediatric colleagues tell stories of depressed parents who break down and cry during a child’s visit, but then say they’re too busy taking care of the family to get help for themselves.

I don’t love the “do it for your child’s sake” argument; I worry it suggests that the parent isn’t important in her own right. But to be honest, I make that argument anyway, because it works. “It’s the combination of being seated while drinking that I think would reduce the risk of injury,” she said.

Because the two drugs “don’t cross the blood-brain barrier much, if at all,” Dr. van Praag says, “we could be fairly confident that the changes we were seeing were related to an exercise-type reaction in the muscles” and not to brain responses to the drugs.

In the Fosamax trial, 10.6 percent of Fosamax users suffered a fracture during the first three years of use, compared with 21 percent of those in the placebo group, according to the F.D.A. analysis. But there was no benefit seen among women who continued the drug for the next 5 to 10 years.

In the Reclast trial, 9.8 percent of women taking the drug suffered a fracture in the first three years of the study, compared with 20 percent of women who were taking a placebo. By four to six years, the benefit had narrowed, with 8.6 percent of Reclast users suffering fractures, compared with 12 percent in the placebo group.

The two studies did not show any increased risk of serious side effects with long-term use of bisphosphonates, but experts say the studies simply were not large enough to detect a relatively rare adverse event. Even so, there have been numerous case reports of the unusual fractures and other side effects, prompting widespread concern about the risks with long-term use. No one knows how common the femur fractures are, but estimates have ranged from 1 in 10,000 users to 10 in 10,000.

For several months now, I’ve been posting updates — about chemotherapy, baldness, nausea and the like — mixed in with the normal stream of my friends’ party pictures, news updates and birthday messages. There’s a liberation in the type of public honesty you can engage in on social media. And in some ways, venturing back into social media has been better therapy than any prescription.

The findings also highlight the dangers of treating children and teenagers as “miniature adults,” he added. “The brain and head of a small child are disproportionately large for the rest of the body,” he said. “The result is that their heads are not as steady on their shoulders. When they take a big hit in a football game or are slammed with an elbow in a soccer game, their brains move inside their skulls. That’s when concussions occur.”

Battery ingestion is also a problem among the elderly, who often mistake hearing aid batteries for medication. But in those cases, the battery typically doesn’t get stuck because the digestive tract is larger and the battery used in hearing aids is smaller.

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18May/12Off

The difference between the Seidio and Mugen battery covers is pretty obvious

The problem is that most parents are not even aware when it happens, yet studies show the battery begins to cause severe damage within just two hours of ingestion. “It’s really a tight timeline, because a lot of these cases aren’t witnessed,” Dr. Litovitz said. “Children present with symptoms that are nonspecific, the parent doesn’t know the battery was ingested — that makes it difficult for the doctor to diagnose.”

Dr. Litovitz said the problem needed to be addressed by manufacturers of electronic products, who should secure the battery compartments in all devices, not just toys. When children ingest batteries, it’s usually not because they found one loose in the home. In 60 percent of the cases involving children under age 6, the child has removed the battery from the electronic device.

And there’s the worry that even if you identify a problem, there may not be good help available. When poverty and lack of access are combined with parental depression, not surprisingly, the risks are that much greater.

The implication, she continues, is that exercise may need to be aerobic if it’s going to substantially affect the brain. “You probably need to increase blood flow, which mostly occurs during endurance training,” she says. Also, in animal studies, AMPK production has been found to increase principally after running. Of course, “it’s very hard for us to study weight lifting in mice,” Dr. van Praag says, so it’s possible that other types of exercise might improve AMPK production and cognition too, she says.

“It’s a very new thing that they submit a paper to The New England Journal that presents all sides of the argument,” Dr. Rosen said. “I think it’s a good thing, because I’ve been on these advisory committees for years, and we get a big crowd in Washington, but the doctors never see the results.”

HTC has had a pretty mixed history of late. Its handset portfolio has ranged from terrible to world beating, and everything in between. I’m probably not the only one who thinks that since the days of the Desire and Nexus 1 (made in conjunction with Google) it’s been mostly downhill. Handsets by the Taiwanese company took on virtually indistinguishable form factors, in various sizes.

Sensation XL Whopper with Cheese anyone? When the company announced that it would be focussing on fewer handsets and making sure they were quality ones, no one was more excited than me. Especially when the One series was officially unveiled back in February. “Finally, they get it!”

If you own an HTC EVO, or if you saw my first and second posts on how I get as much wire-free performance from my EVO as possible, you know what a power hungry beast the device is. Huge display, 4G radio, GPS… HTC’s killer gadget is more than a pocket computer.

But all that potential power means you’ve got to keep the juice flowing, and the best way to do this is with an extended battery, preferably in conjunction with a software solution like Juice Defender. That second bit isn’t required but can save your butt in an emergency, like being locked out of your car in the middle of nowhere.

The 1,800mAh battery from Mugen Power is actually a bit thinner than the battery that ships with HTC’s EVO, and therefore does not require a replacement battery cover. For those of you looking for just a little extra juice to get you through those last few hours of the day, this battery is a great option.

A 20% increase in milliampere hours may make the difference in your habit of turning off 4G when not using it or neglecting your tunes on the train in order to extend your gadget day. This one is $44.95, and can offer you a couple of extra hours, depending on usage habits.

The One X was unveiled as the champion flagship model, and quite rightly too, it boasts an impressive spec sheet. The first thing you’ll notice is the 4.7-inches of Super LCD awesomeness, packed with 312 pixels in every inch and a resolution of 720 x 1280.

The IPS panel means that you can see almost everything on screen from an angle as near as makes no difference to 180 degrees. And the slightly curved edges of the glass blend in really well with the curvature of the phone’s bezel. The handsets user interface and new version of Sense really takes advantage of the high pixel density with its slim typeface and well designed icons.

When comparing the performance of a 3,200mAh battery to a 3,500mAh battery in a phone, the difference is negligible. We’re talking about two days of what I would consider average use with either one. For those that get into life-extending tweaks and conserving software, it’s two full days of heavy use. With one of these in my pocket, I charge when I’m using turn-by-turn navigation and well, whenever I feel like it, really. So in my mind, the primary issues are bulk and durability.

Camera specs read well. The 8MP (3264 x 2448) camera has an impressive shutter speed, taking still images almost instantly. It can also record video at full 1080p HD resolution as well as taking photos at the same time, thanks to its dual-shutter technology.

Images are sharp, have a surprising depth of field and a vast array of customizable settings including Macro, white balance, filters, and tons more. There’s almost nothing you can’t make some changes to while snapping away. Colors may be a little washed out at times, but again, you can edit your images to improve saturation if needs be.

The difference between the Seidio and Mugen battery covers is pretty obvious: one is smooth and round and bulky, one is jagged and odd and…chunky. Personal taste counts for a lot here so I’m not going to say one is better than the other. I’ll just show you the pictures. Both result in roughly the same thickness at the fattest point, the Mugen back being just a bit thicker and more difficult to snap into place. Both have a soft touch exterior.

Dr. Dre’s beats audio is a world famous brand, thanks to the ever popular headphones, but I fail to see any benefit of the logo on the back of HTC’s One X. The loudspeaker itself performs as well as you could expect. It’s loud enough that you won’t miss any calls, without becoming tinny or flat. One big issue I’ve had with the Galaxy Nexus is that I’m constantly missing calls due to the low volume level of the loudspeaker. No such issues with HTC’s newest phone.

One issue that always bugs me about smartphones is that they seem to forget that they are still phones. No one pays attention to call quality anymore. Seemingly placing the cheapest earpiece available inside the phone. Thankfully, HTC’s paid attention this time. Calls are clear, and there’s very little distortion. Same can be said if you use a headset.

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18May/12Off

The problem is that most parents are not even aware when it happens

The problem is that most parents are not even aware when it happens, yet studies show the battery begins to cause severe damage within just two hours of ingestion. “It’s really a tight timeline, because a lot of these cases aren’t witnessed,” Dr. Litovitz said. “Children present with symptoms that are nonspecific, the parent doesn’t know the battery was ingested — that makes it difficult for the doctor to diagnose.”

Dr. Litovitz said the problem needed to be addressed by manufacturers of electronic products, who should secure the battery compartments in all devices, not just toys. When children ingest batteries, it’s usually not because they found one loose in the home. In 60 percent of the cases involving children under age 6, the child has removed the battery from the electronic device.

And there’s the worry that even if you identify a problem, there may not be good help available. When poverty and lack of access are combined with parental depression, not surprisingly, the risks are that much greater.

The implication, she continues, is that exercise may need to be aerobic if it’s going to substantially affect the brain. “You probably need to increase blood flow, which mostly occurs during endurance training,” she says. Also, in animal studies, AMPK production has been found to increase principally after running. Of course, “it’s very hard for us to study weight lifting in mice,” Dr. van Praag says, so it’s possible that other types of exercise might improve AMPK production and cognition too, she says.

“It’s a very new thing that they submit a paper to The New England Journal that presents all sides of the argument,” Dr. Rosen said. “I think it’s a good thing, because I’ve been on these advisory committees for years, and we get a big crowd in Washington, but the doctors never see the results.”

HTC has had a pretty mixed history of late. Its handset portfolio has ranged from terrible to world beating, and everything in between. I’m probably not the only one who thinks that since the days of the Desire and Nexus 1 (made in conjunction with Google) it’s been mostly downhill. Handsets by the Taiwanese company took on virtually indistinguishable form factors, in various sizes.

Sensation XL Whopper with Cheese anyone? When the company announced that it would be focussing on fewer handsets and making sure they were quality ones, no one was more excited than me. Especially when the One series was officially unveiled back in February. “Finally, they get it!”

If you own an HTC EVO, or if you saw my first and second posts on how I get as much wire-free performance from my EVO as possible, you know what a power hungry beast the device is. Huge display, 4G radio, GPS… HTC’s killer gadget is more than a pocket computer.

But all that potential power means you’ve got to keep the juice flowing, and the best way to do this is with an extended battery, preferably in conjunction with a software solution like Juice Defender. That second bit isn’t required but can save your butt in an emergency, like being locked out of your car in the middle of nowhere.

The 1,800mAh battery from Mugen Power is actually a bit thinner than the battery that ships with HTC’s EVO, and therefore does not require a replacement battery cover. For those of you looking for just a little extra juice to get you through those last few hours of the day, this battery is a great option.

A 20% increase in milliampere hours may make the difference in your habit of turning off 4G when not using it or neglecting your tunes on the train in order to extend your gadget day. This one is $44.95, and can offer you a couple of extra hours, depending on usage habits.

The One X was unveiled as the champion flagship model, and quite rightly too, it boasts an impressive spec sheet. The first thing you’ll notice is the 4.7-inches of Super LCD awesomeness, packed with 312 pixels in every inch and a resolution of 720 x 1280.

The IPS panel means that you can see almost everything on screen from an angle as near as makes no difference to 180 degrees. And the slightly curved edges of the glass blend in really well with the curvature of the phone’s bezel. The handsets user interface and new version of Sense really takes advantage of the high pixel density with its slim typeface and well designed icons.

When comparing the performance of a 3,200mAh battery to a 3,500mAh battery in a phone, the difference is negligible. We’re talking about two days of what I would consider average use with either one. For those that get into life-extending tweaks and conserving software, it’s two full days of heavy use. With one of these in my pocket, I charge when I’m using turn-by-turn navigation and well, whenever I feel like it, really. So in my mind, the primary issues are bulk and durability.

Camera specs read well. The 8MP (3264 x 2448) camera has an impressive shutter speed, taking still images almost instantly. It can also record video at full 1080p HD resolution as well as taking photos at the same time, thanks to its dual-shutter technology.

Images are sharp, have a surprising depth of field and a vast array of customizable settings including Macro, white balance, filters, and tons more. There’s almost nothing you can’t make some changes to while snapping away. Colors may be a little washed out at times, but again, you can edit your images to improve saturation if needs be.

The difference between the Seidio and Mugen battery covers is pretty obvious: one is smooth and round and bulky, one is jagged and odd and…chunky. Personal taste counts for a lot here so I’m not going to say one is better than the other. I’ll just show you the pictures. Both result in roughly the same thickness at the fattest point, the Mugen back being just a bit thicker and more difficult to snap into place. Both have a soft touch exterior.

Dr. Dre’s beats audio is a world famous brand, thanks to the ever popular headphones, but I fail to see any benefit of the logo on the back of HTC’s One X. The loudspeaker itself performs as well as you could expect. It’s loud enough that you won’t miss any calls, without becoming tinny or flat. One big issue I’ve had with the Galaxy Nexus is that I’m constantly missing calls due to the low volume level of the loudspeaker. No such issues with HTC’s newest phone.

One issue that always bugs me about smartphones is that they seem to forget that they are still phones. No one pays attention to call quality anymore. Seemingly placing the cheapest earpiece available inside the phone. Thankfully, HTC’s paid attention this time. Calls are clear, and there’s very little distortion. Same can be said if you use a headset.

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