5 Strange Things You Do at Night (and How to Know When They’ve Become a Problem)
5 Strange Things You Do at Night (and How to Know When They’ve Become a Problem).
Sleep
phenomena like snoring may be annoying — but other nighttime
occurrences are just plain bizarre (and sometimes even a little scary).
“We
had a woman who tried to perform her own breast-reduction surgery” in
her sleep, W. Christopher Winter, MD, medical director of
Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine, tells Yahoo Health.
Collectively called parasomnias, these strange sleep behaviors — which
include walking, talking, and even having sex — often occur when part of
the brain awakens during deep sleep but the region responsible for
consciousness is still snoozing, Winter says. “Once the brain is
awakened in deep sleep, all bets are off. Are you going to get up and
eat? Engage in sex? Are you going to speak? Are you going to throw the
baby out the window?”
Parasomnias,
especially those occurring during deep sleep, tend to be hereditary,
explains Shelby Harris, PsyD, director of the Sleep-Wake Disorders
Center at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y. However, if you
suddenly develop a bizarre nighttime habit and have no prior (or family)
history of it, “then you want to start looking at medical [issues] that
might be causing it, as well as stress and psychiatric disorders,” she
tells Yahoo Health.
Here’s a look at five strange sleep behaviors — and when they may require some medical intervention.
Sleepwalking
The
classic image of a sleepwalker involves zombie-like wandering, arms
outstretched, in your nightgown down a darkened hallway. But
sleepwalking can actually entail much more than midnight strolls:
Sleepwalkers may get behind the wheel, urinate in their closet, or even
engage in violent behavior. “People have tried to jump out windows,”
says Milena Pavlova, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard
and medical director of the Faulkner Sleep Center.
Also
called somnambulism, sleepwalking is more common in children than
adults — the prevalence is as high as 17 percent in kids, but just 4
percent in adults, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
There’s often a genetic component to sleepwalking, says Winter — in
fact, a new study found that 62 percent of children with two
sleepwalking parents developed the parasomnia,
versus just 25 percent of kids without a family history of
sleepwalking. However, sleep deprivation, changes in schedule,
consumption of alcohol and other sedatives, hyperthyroidism, migraines,
and certain meds may also be to blame. In a 2012 study in the journal Neurology,
nocturnal wandering was associated with obstructive sleep apnea, use of
OTC sleeping pills, depression (as well as use of SSRI
antidepressants), and alcohol abuse.
When to see a doctor: Taking
an occasional conked-out walk probably isn’t a problem. However, if
you’re regularly roaming, you may need to adjust your surroundings to
ensure your safety — install an alarm system that will sound if you head
outside, put up gates, or set your mattress on the floor. If you’re
still injuring yourself or leaving the house after making changes to
your environment, “then you need to get evaluated,” says Harris.
Sleep-talking
“Well
let’s see, I have a dodo, and a rock, and a phoenix… Oh dear! A
pterodactyl, yes, the unicorn, the griffin, dear, oh yes, well, a
mermaid doesn’t count, she’s out in the pool!”
These
are the ramblings of Dion McGregor, the most prolific sleep-talker
researchers have ever recorded. (“It’s like being famous for wetting
your bed,” he once quipped.) Although his somniloquies were often
lengthy — 100 words or more — sleep-talking can vary in content, length,
and intensity from person to person, says Pavlova. However, “it’s
usually gibberish — not a huge narrative,” notes Harris.
Sleep talking is the most common of all parasomnias, according to a 2012 Indian study,
and it’s generally considered benign. “It can be annoying for a bed
partner, but it’s not hazardous,” Pavlova says. However, Winter notes
one potential downside: “If you talk all night long, then there’s a good
chance you’re not getting the best sleep.” Anything that fragments
sleep — traveling across time zones, alcohol, late-day caffeine, stress,
certain medications — can predispose you toward the behavior.
When to see a doctor:
If you’re spilling your secrets in your sleep, you may want to seek
help. “It’s usually cause for concern when it’s creating embarrassment
for the person,” says Harris. “If people are saying things that are
detrimental, then we treat it.”
Recurring nightmares.
A
run-of-the-mill bad dream probably won’t stir you awake, but a true
nightmare is terrifying enough to rouse you. “Nightmares typically
happen in the last third of the night, when you have REM sleep,” says
Harris. “So it’s not the deep stage of sleep. It’s in the more active
brain stage of sleep, when you’re having emotional processing, memory
processing, things like that.”
Occasional
nightmares are normal — up to 85 percent of adults report having had at
least one in the last year. But recurring nightmares may indicate
psychological trauma: For example, if you were the victim of a mugging,
you may find yourself reliving it in your sleep. Alternatively, they can
be a sign of a breathing problem, like sleep apnea. When you start to
dream, and your body becomes paralyzed, the muscles that hold open your
airway may stop doing their job, explains Winter. “So the airway
collapses during the dream, and your brain takes that feeling of
suffocation and incorporates it into the theme of the dream.”
When to see a doctor: Frequent
nighttime freak-outs that leave you feeling distressed may warrant a
visit to the doctor: “It’s sort of like a migraine — once in a while
isn’t a problem,” says Winter. “But if you’re having more than two or
three a week, that would be cause for concern.”
Sexsomnia
What might sound like an excuse for poking your partner for a middle-of-the-night romp is actually a very real phenomenon: In a 2010 Canadian study
of sleep-clinic patients, 11 percent of men and 4 percent of women
reported sexsomnia. “The way you would know it’s sexsomnia, as opposed
to, shall we say, ‘bad’ behavior: The type of sexual behavior requested
is not consistent with what the couple normally does,” says Pavlova. In one case study,
for example, one man’s girlfriend said he was a “different person”
during their midnight encounters — describing him as being gentler and
more focused on her pleasure than normal.
Researchers
say sexsomnia may occur when you’re having a sex dream — or because
you’ve been feeling a little sexually frustrated lately, says Winter.
“If a person is hungry, they’re going to eat,” he says. “If it’s been a
while since they’d had sex, they may want to do that. I think sexsomnia
is often feeding on underlying issues.” In the Canadian study, sexsomnia
was associated with the use of illicit drugs and alcohol.
When to see a doctor: If
your partner is fine with sleepy sex, then sexsomnia may be more funny
than freaky. However, “a lot of times, the partner is out of it, too, so
it’s not necessarily consensual,” says Winter. That’s when sexsomnia
becomes problematic and should be addressed by a doctor.
Sleep-eating
If
you’re leaving your bed to chow down while fast asleep, it’s not as if
you’re simply preparing breakfast a few hours early: One of the
hallmarks of sleep-related eating disorder, as it’s officially known, is
eating strange things. “A lot of times people consume odd combinations
of food or even inedible or toxic substances,” says Harris. “I’ve had
patients eating coffee grounds or Ajax in the middle of the night.”
Although you won’t remember scarfing a cigarette sandwich, the state of
your kitchen will likely reveal your midnight binge-fest: “People are
very messy when they’re sleep-eating,” Harris says.
In
some cases, sleep-eating is simply a variation of sleepwalking. “A lot
of sleepwalking behaviors tend to be things that you do routinely,”
eating included, says Harris. However, it can also commonly be caused by
sleep meds, like Ambien and Lunesta.
When to see a doctor:
If you find that you have no appetite in the a.m., yet you’re gaining
weight, sleep-eating may be to blame. Since your health is at stake if
you pack on the pounds, you should seek help (not to mention that you
may be eating inedible, or even dangerous, substances without realizing
it).
This Is How Eating Organic Affects The Pesticide Levels in Our Bodies
This Is How Eating Organic Affects The Pesticide Levels in Our Bodies
There’s
a growing interest in eating organic, especially among parents
concerned for the health of their family. But you might be wondering if,
compared a diet of conventional foods, choosing organic packs anything
more than negligible benefits.
New research
from Sweden’s Coop and the Swedish Environmental Research Institute put
the effects of eating organic to the test. For the study, the
scientists recruited a family that closely resembles those found in many
modern households, consisting of two adult parents, and three kids ages
12, 10 and 3.
The
family started by eating a conventional diet for one week, followed by a
fully organic diet for the next two weeks. During the testing period,
each family member provided morning urine samples to be analyzed for 12
known pesticides or metabolites — you can watch the details in the
video, above.
The
family’s exposure to pesticides drastically dropped when they switched
from conventional to organic eating. “A change in diet from conventional
food to organic food made an average decrease in human exposure to the
investigated pesticides by a factor of 9.5,” lead researcher Jörgen
Magnér tells Yahoo Health. “The largest decrease was observed for the
children.”
Even
he and his colleagues were surprised “that the pesticides left the body
rapidly after the participants change to an organic food diet,”
according to Magnér. “If you are the least worried about what these
chemicals can do to your health, you can control it through your choices
of food.”
The way any given family eats is a personal decision. But according to Lisa Moskovitz, RD, founder of New York Nutrition Group, there are at least some known benefits to eating organic:
Fewer Pesticides
Unlike
conventional farmers, organic farmers avoid synthetic pesticides to
protect their crops, opting for natural mechanisms to ward off
crop-destroying molds, insects and diseases. “These include insect
traps, predator insects, natural selection, and beneficial
microorganisms,” Moskovitz tells Yahoo Health. “While organic crops can
still carry pesticide residue, it is well under government safety
thresholds.”
Environmentally-Friendly
Beyond
that, organic farming is also part of the “go green” movement. “It
helps promote the environment by protecting soil quality, water supply,
and reduces pollution,” Moskovitz says.
GMO-Free
If
you’ve been following all the GMO buzz lately, and are now a bit
worried about genetically-modified ingredients, eating organic can
eliminate the fear. “The USDA completely bans the use of genetic
engineering or genetically-modified organisms when it comes to organic
foods,” says Moskovitz. “This means, from the seeds that are planted to
the ingredients listed in an ‘organic’ food product, there can be no
trace of GMOs anywhere.”
Restricted Food Additives
Nutritional
trends are turning away from anything artificial, and eating organic is
the essence of that move. Moskovitz notes “the use of preservatives,
artificial sweeteners, colorings, flavoring agents, and MSG are not
allowed” to be used in organic food products.
There
are some misconceptions about organic eating that everyone seems to get
wrong, says Moskovitz. The most common one is that organic foods are
more nutritious,” she explains. “Very little, if any, evidence supports
this theory. For example, an organic carrot is very similar in
nutritional value to a conventionally grown carrot.”
Moskovitz
also says that people commonly believe consuming trace chemicals or
GMOs can lead to a real health decline – but that’s not a proven fact.
“Pesticides and GMOs are not nearly as harmful or dangerous as many
people like to believe,” says Moskovitz.
Ultimately,
if you want to reduce pesticide exposure and eliminate GMOs from your
diet, eating organic is a plenty a good idea; as this Swedish research
shows, it can rapidly reduce chemicals in the body. Magnér also says
organic foods may help those exposed to pesticides in large quantities,
like farmers, cut back on unneeded after-hours intake.
But
do we overvalue eating organic? Not necessarily, says Moskovitz. “This
statement is true when referring to nutritional value, but it is still
better for the environment – which is important.”
All in all, this new research is simply more to consider.
'King of the Blues' Blues Legend B.B. King Dead at Age 89
LAS
VEGAS (AP) — B.B. King, whose scorching guitar licks and heartfelt
vocals made him the idol of generations of musicians and fans while
earning him the nickname King of the Blues, died late Thursday at home
in Las Vegas. He as 89.
His
attorney, Brent Bryson, told The Associated Press that King died
peacefully in his sleep at 9:40 p.m. PDT. He said ffuneral arrangements
were underway.
Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg confirmed the death.
King’s
eldest surviving daughter Shirley King of the Chicago area said she was
upset that she didn’t have a chance to see her father before he died.
Although
he had continued to perform well into his 80s, the 15-time Grammy
winner suffered from diabetes and had been in declining health during
the past year. He collapsed during a concert in Chicago last October,
later blaming dehydration and exhaustion. He had been in hospice care at
his Las Vegas home.
For
most of a career spanning nearly 70 years, Riley B. King was not only
the undisputed king of the blues but a mentor to scores of guitarists,
who included Eric Clapton, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix, John
Mayall and Keith Richards. He recorded more than 50 albums and toured
the world well into his 80s, often performing 250 or more concerts a
year.
King
played a Gibson guitar he affectionately called Lucille with a style
that included beautifully crafted single-string runs punctuated by loud
chords, subtle vibratos and bent notes.
The
result could bring chills to an audience, no more so than when King
used it to full effect on his signature song, “The Thrill is Gone.” He
would make his guitar shout and cry in anguish as he told the tale of
forsaken love, then end with a guttural shouting of the final lines:
“Now that it’s all over, all I can do is wish you well.”
His
style was unusual. King didn’t like to sing and play at the same time,
so he developed a call-and-response between him and Lucille.
“Sometimes
I just think that there are more things to be said, to make the
audience understand what I’m trying to do more,” King told The
Associated Press in 2006. “When I’m singing, I don’t want you to just
hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the
songs have pretty good storytelling.”
A
preacher uncle taught him to play, and he honed his technique in abject
poverty in the Mississippi Delta, the birthplace of the blues.
“I’ve
always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn’t have to be sung
by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did,” he said in the 1988
book “Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music.”
“People all over the world have problems,” he said. “And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.”
Fellow
travelers who took King up on that theory included Clapton, the
British-born blues-rocker who collaborated with him on “Riding With the
King,” a best-seller that won a Grammy in 2000 for best traditional
blues album.
Still,
the Delta’s influence was undeniable. King began picking cotton on
tenant farms around Indianola, Mississippi, before he was a teenager,
being paid as little as 35 cents for every 100 pounds, and was still
working off sharecropping debts after he got out of the Army during
World War Two.
“He
goes back far enough to remember the sound of field hollers and the
cornerstone blues figures, like Charley Patton and Robert Johnson,” ZZ
Top guitarist Billy Gibbons once told Rolling Stone magazine.
King
got his start in radio with a gospel quartet in Mississippi, but soon
moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where a job as a disc jockey at WDIA gave
him access to a wide range of recordings. He studied the great blues and
jazz guitarists, including Django Reinhardt and T-Bone Walker, and
played live music a few minutes each day as the “Beale Street Blues
Boy,” later shortened to B.B.
Through
his broadcasts and live performances, he quickly built up a following
in the black community, and recorded his first R&B hit, “Three
O'Clock Blues,” in 1951.
He
began to break through to white audiences, particularly young rock
fans, in the 1960s with albums like “Live at the Regal,” which would
later be declared a historic sound recording worthy of preservation by
the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.
He
further expanded his audience with a 1968 appearance at the Newport
Folk Festival and when he opened shows for the Rolling Stones in 1969.
King
was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984, the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and received the Songwriters Hall of Fame
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990. He received the Presidential Medal
of Freedom from President George W. Bush, gave a guitar to Pope John
Paul II and had President Barack Obama sing along to his “Sweet Home
Chicago.”
Other
Grammys included best male rhythm ‘n’ blues performance in 1971 for
“The Thrill Is Gone,” best ethnic or traditional recording in 1982 for
“There Must Be a Better World Somewhere” and best traditional blues
recording or album several times. His final Grammy came in 2009 for best
blues album for “One Kind Favor.”
Through it all, King modestly insisted he was simply maintaining a tradition.
“I’m just one who carried the baton because it was started long before me,” he told the AP in 2008.
Born
Riley B. King on Sept. 16, 1925, on a tenant farm near Itta Bena,
Mississippi, King was raised by his grandmother after his parents
separated and his mother died. He worked as a sharecropper for five
years in Kilmichael, an even smaller town, until his father found him
and took him back to Indianola.
“I
was a regular hand when I was 7. I picked cotton. I drove tractors.
Children grew up not thinking that this is what they must do. We thought
this was the thing to do to help your family,” he said.
When
the weather was bad and he couldn’t work in the cotton fields, he
walked 10 miles to a one-room school before dropping out in the 10th
grade.
After
he broke through as a musician, it appeared King might never stop
performing. When he wasn’t recording, he toured the world relentlessly,
playing 342 one-nighters in 1956. In 1989, he spent 300 days on the
road. After he turned 80, he vowed he would cut back, and he did,
somewhat, to about 100 shows a year.
He had 15 biological and adopted children. Family members say 11 survive.
Bully's Powerful Apology to Student He Tormented — 20 Years Later
Bully's Powerful Apology to Student He Tormented — 20 Years Later...
ChadMichael Morrisette got an apology recently from one of his junior high bullies. (Photo: ChadMichael Morrisette)
A
man who was bullied in junior high received an unexpected apology – 20
years after the fact – when one of his tormentors recently reached out
via Facebook to make amends.
ChadMichael
Morrisette, a 34-year-old brand consultant and visual designer in West
Hollywood, grew up in small-town Alaska. “The entire football team
bullied me,” he tells Yahoo Parenting. “It wasn’t one guy, it was six or
seven guys who would follow me in the hallways, harassing me, insulting
me, threatening my life.”
Morrisette
left home when he was 15, and says life got better quickly after that,
and he hasn’t reflected much on his bullied childhood since. That is,
not until May 5, when he woke up to a surprise message on Facebook.
The
note was from Louie Amundson, whom Morrisette says he doesn’t
specifically remember. “But that’s because there were so many bullies it
was hard to name them all,” he says. Morrisette says it took a couple
of days for him to process the true meaning of the message. “It unlocked
something in me I didn’t realize I’d been holding onto. I cried a
little bit. It was so moving.”
Amundson
tells Yahoo Parenting he never expected anyone else to see his message
to Morrisette, but felt it was his duty to apologize. “You can’t change
your past, but you do still own it,” he says. “I can’t take back the
names I called him, and the threats I made toward him, but I can
apologize. It doesn’t excuse my behavior as a child in any way, but as
an adult it’s the best I can do to try to make it up to him.
The
apology was inspired by a conversation with his daughter, who is on
student council, Amundson says. “They were working on a skit about
bullying, so she was asking several different questions about why kids
bully, what to do if you’re bullied — then she asked if I was ever
bullied, and I said yes,” he says. “She then asked if I had ever bullied
anyone else, and I had to think about it for a minute and that’s the
first time I had thought about it in 20-plus years, so I answered
honestly and said yes.”
Morrisette
says he was especially touched that the apology was inspired by
Amundson’s conversation with his daughter. “There was something magical
happening between dad and daughter, that she brought the apology out,”
he said. “And that he was honest with her that, yes, he bullied – good
for him. I’m quite proud of him.”
Amundson
says that receiving Morrisette’s forgiveness was quite emotional for
him. “[I felt] humbled and ashamed and relieved all at once,” he says.
“I owed him that apology, he did not owe me his forgiveness. The fact
that he was able to forgive me showed that I may have been the bigger
kid, but he is the bigger man. I really didn’t expect him to respond at
all, and figured if he did it would be telling me where to stick the
apology, kind of like ‘too little too late.’”
Morrisette
says he hopes his exchange with his former tormentor will inspire both
bullies and those who have been bullied. “For the ones that are bullied
and are young, it does get better,” he says. “It’s hard to see that now.
And it doesn’t get better in a year or two, necessarily, but 20 years
later you’ll look back and realize, it is better.”
And
for those who’ve been guilty of picking on others: “You can ask for
forgiveness,” he says. “It takes courage to ask for forgiveness, and
even if you don’t get it, the fact that you asked redeems you. I
encourage more people to ask for forgiveness. Own up to what you did. A
simple ‘I’m sorry’ can change everything.”
If nothing else, Morrisette says, remember one thing: “It’s never too late.”
How a drink for babies became the adult hangover cure of choice
How a drink for babies became the adult hangover cure of choice.
Pedialyte, that perennially popular oral electrolyte for ailing kids, has a new target consumer in mind.
Adult usage of the brand, owned by Similac formula parent Abbott Laboratories (ABT),
has grown by almost 60% since 2012. Adults now make up more than
one-third of Pedialyte’s sales, up from a historical average of 10% to
15%, Heather Mason, an executive vice president at Abbott, said in an
interview. The Pedialyte brand doesn’t disclose its actual sales, but
Nielsen tracking shows retail sales growing 22% between 2012 and last
year to $102 million.
The
company, citing Nielsen, said that it has a 58.2% share of the $167
million U.S. oral-electrolyte market and that most of its rivals are
retailers’ private-label brands.
While
Pedialyte has been used in the past by serious athletes and some
college students with hangovers, Mason said the dramatic growth in
recent years has been spurred by social media.
“There’s
an underground movement in social media to drive word of mouth,”
including from celebrities Pharrell Williams, Mason told MarketWatch.
“We saw increased use by adults. We have high electrolyte and lower
sugar content than common [hydration] beverages. That combination caused
us to say, ‘We need to be part of this.’ ”
Williams told US Magazine that he drinks Pedialyte almost every day. And Miley Cyrus was reportedly spotted posing with a bottle of Pedialyte.
The
trend is expected to translate to higher sales. While Pedialyte sales
have typically grown by percentages “in the mid single digits” annually,
Abbott Labs expects sales to jump by a double-digit percentage this
year, driven by adult usage.
It’s an
opportunity “any time you can both expand your market and get beyond
seasonal products,” Mason said, noting that the Pedialyte brand is
traditionally tied to the flu and cold season.
The move also will put Pedialyte in direct competition against more traditional adult hydration choices such as PepsiCo Inc.’s (PEP) Gatorade.
Mason
said the company doesn’t plan to change the product makeup of Pedialyte
and has no plans to change its name to target adult consumers. The
company, however, is introducing larger powdered-stick packs for adults,
and adding adult-friendly flavors including strawberry lemonade and
orange. In March, it unveiled a “See the Lyte” campaign to promote the
brand to adults as part of a plan to double marketing spending this
year, mostly on social media and via other online venues.
This
year it also will appear in 144 music festivals and sport events in
cities from New York to Atlanta to give away free samples.
Mason
said Abbott doesn’t plan to sell the brand beyond its traditional food,
drugstore and mass-merchant retail customers but said there could be
opportunities to feature the brand in different parts of a given store.
Charles
Minnick, a 28-year-old financial analyst from St. Louis, said that he
and his twenty-something friends swear by Pedialyte to treat their
hangovers and keep it on hand for that purpose. “Nothing is better,” he
said.
At a bachelor party
years ago in Dallas, he said, a friend of the groom “turned us all on to
it, and we exported the knowledge back to our respective hometowns.”
Branding
experts said that while it makes sense for Pedialyte to expand the
definition of its target market, Abbott will have to think seriously
about either changing the brand name or formally indicating that the
product is intended for adult use.
“Any
strategy that you develop to be able to expand the user base is a good
one,” Robert Passikoff, founder and president of consulting firm Brand
Keys, told MarketWatch. “The question is, ‘Can they do it?’ Pedialyte is
known for electrolyte absorption for children. Now you have to try to
sell to adults. It’s like going out and having a headache and someone
asks, ‘Would you like children’s Tylenol?’ Abbott isn’t going to be the
only one doing this. Adults are going to feel they need a product of
their own. The name becomes a barrier.”
Nick Fradiani was one of American Idol’s
darker horses this year. He was the oldest finalist (at age 29), in a
season obsessed with youth almost to the point of festishization. He was
a band frontman that struggled to gain confidence as a solo performer.
He was even a veteran of an America’s Got Talent act, folk-rock trio Beach Avenue, that got cut before that series’ live shows.
But
in recent weeks, this dark horse started racing to the finish line, as
he finally heeded judge Jennifer Lopez’s advice to “own his hotness.”
She even squealingly told Nick he was “peaking at the right time.” And
apparently, J.Lo was right. This Wednesday, Nick peaked, all right —
when he won Idol Season 14 over fellow soft-rocker and former frontrunner Clark Beckham.
But now the real race, for the real prize, begins. And it could be a rough road ahead.
First
of all, this series’ past two winners have not fared so well. (Season
12’s Candice Glover barely received any promotion; Season 13’s Caleb
Johnson, who has already parted ways with Interscope Records, had to pay for his own promotion, financing his own video and tour.) Additionally, a stigma now surrounds Idol, following this week’s ill-timed cancelation announcement.
However,
Nick seems ready to put in the work, Big Machine Label Group honcho
Scott Borchetta seems to have a plan in place, and Nick brings to the
table the sort of life experience, and professional experience, that
other, younger Idol contestants have lacked. He also has the sort
of total-package marketability that made Season 5’s rocker everyman
Chris Daughtry a superstar. And Beach Avenue had an interesting,
Celtic-tinged sound, which came out in Nick’s strong Andy Grammer cover
last week. So, there’s hope. For now, I wish Nick the best of luck.
Anyway,
I’d been worried that this would be the Most. Boring. Finale. Ever. But
it wasn’t! It was actually action-packed and relatively filler-free.
Memorable moments included a fiery opening performance by Nick, Clark,
and Fall Out Boy; the top six girls having some good times with Nile
Rodgers and the top six boys living la vida loca with Ricky Martin;
Adanna Duru doing some very sexy “Yoga” moves with the always awesome
Janelle Monae; cool kid Joey Cook adding her quirky-girl power to
Echosmith’s lineup; Rayvon Owen and Jamie Foxx teaming up for an
unexpectedly gorgeous duet; Quentin Alexander and Vance Joy ripping
through “Riptide”; consummate performer Qassim Middleton having some
“Fun” with Chris Brown and Pitbull; and, most of all, the totally robbed
Jax leaving a piece of her heart on the stage during a dynamite Janis
Joplin duet with former judge (and new Scott Borchetta/Big Machine
signing) Steven Tyler.
Lowlights
included Tyanna Jones joining the Jacksons (an idea that seemed good on
paper, but she unfortunately and embarrassingly outsang all of them)
and New Kids on the Block performing with actual kid Daniel Seavey, who
didn’t exactly have the right stuff. But even all that was still
entertaining, in a bizarre way.
So, will Idol’s next finale, its very last, be even more exciting? And will Nick even be part
of that finale, or will he be unfairly cast aside like so many of his
recent predecessors… like Caleb Johnson, who was supposed to hand the
results envelope to Ryan Seacrest on Wednesday, according to a show
source, but ended up just awkwardly hanging out onstage instead, with no
introduction?
Well, Season 15 will be here before you know it, so watch this space. Parker out.
Amtrak Crash: Site of Train Derailment Isn't New to Railway Tragedy
Amtrak Crash: Site of Train Derailment Isn't New to Railway Tragedy..
The site of Tuesday’s Amtrak train derailment isn’t new to railway tragedy.
On Sept. 6, 1943, a Pennsylvania
Railroad train crashed at Frankford Junction in northeast Philadelphia,
killing 79 people and injuring 117 others.
The 541 passengers on board the Congressional Limited train that day had been traveling for Labor Day weekend. Service members were on board.
As the train traveled between
Washington, D.C., and New York City, an overhead journal box overheated,
causing one of the wheel axles to fail. Smoke and flames could be seen
underneath the seventh car, but before workers could stop the train, the
car jumped the tracks, resulting in death and devastation.
“The coach, hurtled into a steel
pole supporting overhead power lines, was cut in two vertically as
though by a giant axe,” The Associated Press wrote. “The coach behind
jammed accordion-like against it. Six other cars behind them were thrown
from the rails, but all the dead and most of the injured were in the
seventh and eighth cars.”
Workers spent days clearing the
wreckage, using acetylene torches to cut open the wrecked cars, trying
to rescue as many people as possible.
Witnesses watched in horror as the victims were pulled from the wreckage.
“I never heard such crying and
screaming before,” air raid warden Norman Ebinger said at the time. “We
heard the crash and rushed up with our first aid equipment. There were
at least 50 people strewn all over the tracks, many of them with their
arms and legs broken.
“The panic was terrible. The screams of the injured and dying cut right through me.”
More than 70 years later and the area was again the focus of sadness and shock, a train derailed and passengers in harm's way.
The hunt for
missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has uncovered a previously
uncharted shipwreck deep underwater, leading officials to say Wednesday
that if the plane is in their search zone they will find it.
The
Australian-led team is scouring the southern Indian Ocean seabed in hope
of finding the final resting place of MH370, which vanished on March 8,
2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
No wreckage from the flight, which was carrying 239 people, has ever been found in one of aviation's greatest mysteries.
In
a search update, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said it spotted
"multiple small bright reflections" on the otherwise featureless seabed
which warranted closer inspection.
Data
from a high-resolution sonar scan using an autonomous underwater
vehicle revealed spots worth probing, mostly about the size of a cricket
ball but some larger, at 3,900 metres (12,795 feet) down.
While
the objects appeared to be of man-made origin, they failed to have all
the characteristics of a typical aircraft debris field so authorities
sent in an underwater camera which discovered the shipwreck.
The search zone for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 currently covers 60,000 square kilome …
"It's a fascinating find," said Peter Foley, director of the operational search for MH370. "But it's not what were looking for."
Images
clearly showed an anchor, along with other objects the searchers said
were man-made as well as what are thought to be lumps of coal.
"Obviously,
we're disappointed that it wasn't the aircraft, but we were always
realistic about the likelihood," added Foley in a statement.
"And
this event has really demonstrated that the systems, people and the
equipment involved in the search are working well. It's shown that if
there's a debris field in the search area, we'll find it."
- Expanded search underway -
A radar on an Indonesian National Search and Rescue boat shows details during a 2014 search in the A …
The search for the
aircraft has been a complex undertaking, with Australia concentrating on
a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean far off its west coast,
originally focusing on a 60,000 square kilometres (23,166 square miles)
zone.
But with more than 75
percent searched without success so far, the hunt has now been expanded
into a 120,000 square kilometre area as announced by Malaysia, Australia
and China in April. Most of those on board MH370 were Chinese.
The
Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), managing information on the
search, said it was widening now to take advantage of the weather ahead
of expected worsening conditions during the southern hemisphere winter.
The
search zone has been determined by analysing data from satellite
signals which indicate the plane went down in the Indian Ocean after
mysteriously diverting.
"Expert advice is that the highest
probability of locating the aircraft is within the
120,000-square-kilometre search area," JACC said.
"Beyond that, it is not possible to refine the search area to one of greater likelihood."
Several
vessels are taking part in the hunt, although the onset of poor weather
has seen the autonomous underwater vehicle withdrawn following the
sonar scan.
"The deteriorating weather has brought sea conditions
which are beyond the safe launch and recovery limitations of the
autonomous underwater vehicle," the centre said, but added that it would
remain available at short notice if needed.
JACC
said the shipwreck was found after high-resolution data revealed a
large number of sonar contacts lying very close to the seabed.
"The
majority of the contacts were comparatively small -- around the size of
a cricket ball -- interspersed with a few larger items, the biggest
being box shaped and approximately six metres in its longest dimension,"
it said.
Poor weather
conditions then prevented searchers from sending down an underwater
camera for several days, before it ultimately revealed the wreck, with
the imagery provided to marine archaeologists for possible
identification.
Toyota, Nissan recall 6.5 mn cars over exploding airbag fears
Toyota, Nissan recall 6.5 mn cars over exploding airbag fears.
Japanese auto giants
Toyota and Nissan on Wednesday said they were recalling 6.5 million
vehicles globally in the latest chapter of an exploding airbag crisis
linked to several deaths.
The world's
biggest automaker said its recall of five million vehicles affected 35
models globally produced between 2003 and 2007, while Nissan said it was
calling back 1.56 million vehicles also due to faulty airbags made by
embattled supplier Takata.
"This
will affect many of our markets, including Japan, Europe and North
America," a Nissan spokesman told AFP, adding that the explosion risk
was among a range of problems seen in the defective airbags.
"There might be many factors. (But) we have seen risks that the metal casing for inflators can malfunction."
Nissan's recall affects a range of models produced between 2004 and 2008.
Both firms said there were no reports of deaths or injuries linked to their latest recall.
An employee sews an airbag at Takata's crash-testing facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan, in 2010 …
The announcement comes
after some 20 million vehicles produced by automakers also including
General Motors and Honda were recalled because of the risk that their
Takata-made airbags could improperly inflate and rupture, potentially
firing deadly shrapnel at the occupants.
At
least five deaths have been linked to the defect, with one in the
United States initially investigated as a murder due to her grisly
injuries.
Despite the ongoing problem, Nissan's results appeared to be relatively unaffected.
Just
after the recall announcement, it said fiscal-year net profit soared a
better-than-expected 17.6 percent to 457.6 billion yen ($4.2 billion),
with the firm crediting a weak yen and new model rollouts.
Nissan projected an even stronger 485.0 billion yen profit this business year, including ongoing recall costs.
Nissan Motors Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn speaks during the company's financial results press …
Last week, Toyota said its annual net profit rose to a record
$18.1 billion. However, Honda's annual profit turned down 8.9 percent to
$4.4 billion -- it is Takata's biggest air bag customer and accounts
for a bulk of the recalls.
- Ongoing investigations -
Toyota
said the latest recall affects 1.35 million vehicles sold in Japan,
637,000 in the United States and 1.26 million in Europe.
"We have been conducting various ongoing investigations regarding Takata-produced airbag inflators," the firm said in an email.
"Among
the parts collected from the Japanese market, certain types of airbag
inflators were found to have a potential for moisture intrusion over
time. As a result, they could be susceptible to abnormal deployment in a
crash."
Air Force Lt. Stephanie Erdman, whose eye was injured by airbag shrapnel from her 2002 Honda Civic, …
Takata has said the defect surfaces mainly in humid, hotter
regions and resisted US authorities' call for a national recall of cars
with its airbags.
The firm had an open disagreement with the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which accused Takata of
not helping with its investigation into the defects.
Tokyo-based
Takata, one of the world's biggest air-bag companies, is a key supplier
to major automakers with dozens of plants and offices in 20 countries,
including the United States, China and Mexico.
Facing
lawsuits and regulatory probes, Takata recently acknowledged that the
crisis has taken a toll on its earnings, but added that it expects to
eke out a small profit this year.
Despite
the global crisis, Takata's top executives have largely stayed out of
the public eye and remain tightlipped about the situation.
The
announcements were made shortly before Tokyo markets closed. Toyota
shares fell 1.06 percent to 8,196.0 yen while Nissan lost 0.95 percent
to close at 1,246.5 yen
