lxx11

comfortable walking shoesWhy is it that some people are thin and others prone to obesity? Hundreds of books have been written to explain this dilemma. Someblame the underactive thyroid. Others cite genetics. But Dr. JamesLevine, an endocrinologist and professor of nutrition at the MayoClinic in Rochester, Minn., has a "NEAT theory" supported by "magicunderwear" to explain the difference. In Nutrition Action Health Letter he reports a unique experiment.He gathered together a combination of thin people and obese couchpotatoes who never went to the gym. He then gave both groups anextra 1,000 calories a day above their usual caloric intake foreight weeks to see what would happen. They were also fitted with underwear equipped to monitor everymovement and posture change. It was impossible to roll over in bedor scratch an ear without this magic underwear picking it up. Andit showed that obese people moved two-and-a-half hours less perday. This meant they burned 350 fewer calories every day. You don'tneed to be an Einstein to conclude that these calories, stored asfat, were the problem. So what is NEAT? Levine says it stands for "non-exercise activitythermogenesis," a fancy name, but the message is that you have tokeep moving, either shopping until you drop, tapping your toes orbeing a little twitchy. Levine doesn't like to use the word "walking" to explain thedifference. He says for most people this means putting on joggingshoes. He prefers the term "ambulation" to stress that just amblingaround in a variety of ways burns more calories for most peoplethan jogging. So how much of our daily energy expenditure comes through NEAT?First, remember we can't change our basal metabolic rate thataccounts for 60% of our daily energy. We use this amount of energyjust to keep our organs functioning. Then we use another 10% ofcalories to absorb, digest and store food. This leaves 30% forNEAT. Levine says NEAT is like disposable income which you can spend orsave. It's wise to save money for a rainy day. But here's onesituation where it's better to spend, spend, spend. Staying in bedall day saving NEAT means you're storing it as fat. So is it off to the gym to rid yourself of excess NEAT? It helps,but Levine says, "Most people don't like going to the gym and don'tgo even if they do like it." Moreover, it takes 15 minutes to get to the gym, 10 minutes tochange and 30 minutes on the bike to burn 100 calories. Doing thisthree times a week burns only 300 calories, just 42 calories a day. Levine suggests the best approach is to get out of your cushy,comfortable chair. He practises what he preaches by integratingwalking into his work. He answers telephone calls while walking onhis treadmill and responds to e-mails this way. He also talks withpeople while exercising on a $50 stepping device. You may haveguessed by this time that he has no chairs in his office. He standsto work. The Mayo Clinic shares Levine's enthusiasm for encouraging peopleto be more mobile. Its staff now employs "Movologists" to train people to increasetheir physical activity, to use walk and talk meetings to expendNEAT. And they're designing offices, schools and furniture toencourage mobility and reverse a lethal static trend. Remember, it's taken millions of years to evolve the human body,but only the last 100 years to develop the lethal rust of obesity,diabetes and other degenerative diseases by using modern technologyand devices that keep us immobile. I know NEAT could reverse this trend. I've recently returned fromKenya where I visited rural villages. All the school children werethin, largely because they were walking miles to school every day.And they did not return home to watch TV, sit on riding lawn mowersor stand on escalators. So, Dr. Levine, I like your "NEAT" idea. I recently wrote about InterceptCS, a non-prescription device thatprevents cold sores (Herpes Simplex), and many readers can't findit. InterceptCS is sold only at Shoppers Drug Mart. Have all the news delivered to your door 7 days a week. Next story: Low-fat mountain

Extract OilU.S. GULF OF MEXICO - Eight miles north of the maritime border with Mexico, in waters a mile and a half deep, Shell Oil Co. is constructing the most ambitious offshore oil platform ever attempted in the Gulf of Mexico. As tall as the Eiffel Tower, the floating production facility will be anchored to the ocean floor by moorings spanning an area the size of downtown Houston. Slated to begin operating late next year, this leviathan known as Perdido (or Lost) will cost billions and be capable of pumping 100,000 barrels of crude a day. But Perdido's most notable achievement might be to compel Mexico to loosen its 70-year government monopoly on the petroleum sector, thanks to a phenomenon Mexicans have dubbed the "drinking straw effect." Mexicans fear that companies drilling in U.S. waters close to the border will suck Mexican crude into their wells. Actor Daniel Day-Lewis' fictional oilman in ThereWill Be Blood compared the concept to siphoning a rival's milkshake. "When they take petroleum from the American side, our petroleum is going to migrate," Francisco Labastida Ochoa, head of the Mexican Senate's Energy Committee, told the newspaper Milenio recently. Oil isn't a simple commodity in Mexico. It's a symbol of national sovereignty. Rancor over foreigners profiting from its hydrocarbons - namely America's Standard Oil - led Mexico to nationalize its industry in 1938. The state-owned oil company Pemex is forbidden by law from partnering with outsiders to exploit a drop of Mexican crude. But for a growing chorus of Mexicans, sharing a milkshake is preferable to watching your neighbor drink it up. Mexico has no viable deep-water drilling program to match U.S. efforts near the maritime border. And it lacks an iron-clad legal means to defend its patrimony. Some Mexicans are urging their government to partner with the U.S. to co-develop border fields or risk losing those deposits. Mexican Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel has spoken repeatedly of her desire to negotiate such a pact. Cross-border fields are a hot topic in Mexico's Congress. Lawmakers are embroiled in heated debate on how to strengthen Pemex, which provides 40 percent of Mexico's tax revenue but whose slumping output is alarming the nation. Proposed legislation still would ban partnerships. But consensus is growing to permit some exception in the gulf region as oil companies move closer to Mexican territory. The U.S. has issued drilling rights on dozens of parcels less than 10 miles from Mexican waters. Shell, BP, Chevron and Exxon Mobil, plus independents including Houston's Bois d'Arc Energy, have secured acreage adjacent to the boundary. It's unclear whether big shared deposits even exist in the Gulf of Mexico. Historically, the region's deep-water finds have been isolated pockets of petroleum, not mega-fields. Officials at the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that regulates U.S. offshore production, said they had no knowledge that any gulf reservoirs now under development crossed the international divide. Shell, which is developing its Perdido platform with Chevron and BP, said the deposits they were targeting were confined to U.S. territory. Mexicans are skeptical. A recent editorial cartoon showed a greedy Uncle Sam sucking from a straw plunged deep into the gulf. But Pemex hasn't done the seismic and drilling work needed to determine if there is crude on its side. All the more reason, it is argued, for Mexico to collaborate with the United States to find out what lies near the 470-nautical-mile gulf border and end the speculation. A spokesman for Minerals Management Service said his agency had worked with Mexico before on boundary issues and was open to discussing cross-border fields. "It's the neighborly thing to do," said Dave Cooke, deputy regional supervisor for resource evaluation for the agency in New Orleans. Oil and gas fields straddle many international borders. Countries typically strike what's known as a "unitization agreement" to share the costs to extract the deposits and split the proceeds based on how much lies in each nation. Britain has partnered with the Netherlands and Norway in the crowded North Sea. Australia and East Timor have a unitization agreement. So do Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. But the U.S. and Mexico have long skirted the topic, given their prickly history over oil. Until recently, such an agreement wasn't necessary. Both nations had plenty of shallow-water reserves to keep them occupied. Low oil prices didn't justify the exorbitant costs of deep-water drilling, where a single well can cost $100 million or more. But exploding crude prices and advances in seismic technology have oil companies pushing into the farthest reaches of the U.S. gulf. Private operators snapped up a record $3.7 billion worth of leases at Mineral Management Services' March auction, virtually all of them in deep water. Since 1992, oil companies have drilled more than 2,100 wells at depths greater than 1,000 feet in the U.S. gulf. Pemex has drilled seven deep-water wells since 2004. None is producing petroleum and probably won't for years. Therein lies the nation's predicament. Mexico is the world's sixth-largest crude producer, but production is in its fourth straight year of decline. Mexico could become a net oil importer within a decade if it doesn't find new reserves fast. Cantarell, a shallow-water gulf field in southern Mexico, is drying up. Marla Dickerson writes for the Los Angeles Times.

Thailand RiceAccording to the rice experts, the long-term price prospects forthe world's most popular grain are looking pretty good. "Even if you become a saint, you cannot predict rice prices," goesan old Chinese proverb. Even so, the rice gurus of Thailand - the world's largest riceexporter for the past four decades - may be in a better positionthan most to predict the future. "I personally believe we are now in a sellers' market," said VichaiSriprasert, honorary president of the Thai Rice ExportersAssociation and CEO of Riceland International, the seventh-largestrice exporter in the country. "The rice market has been a buyers' market for the perhaps 40-50years, since the Green Revolution when new technologies introducedin the mid-1960s made it possible for farmers to produce more riceand grow rice two to three times a year," Vichai said, addressing aseminar on the world food crisis hosted by the Konrad AdenauerOrganisation in Bangkok. Thailand has been the world's top rice exporter since themid-1960s, after the world's former leader, Burma, fell undermilitary rule in 1962 and its exports fell into a steep and steadydecline. In 2007, Thailand's rice exports hit a historic high of 9.55million tonnes, earning the country $3.6 billion. During the first four months of 2008 rice exports had alreadyreached 4.07 million tonnes, earning the kingdom $1.91 billion, ahike of 73 per cent over the same period last year. Rice prices have more than doubled this year, driven up by severalshort- and long-term factors that have created a highly volatilemarket. However, one thing noticeably missing in the price equation hasbeen any shortfall in rice production, which has been relativelysteady throughout 2007 and 2008 and certainly enough to meet demandin Asia, where 90 per cent of the rice market resides. "The wheat market was the one that had a shortfall and the culpritwas Australia, that has suffered several years of drought," saidAmmar Siamwalla, Acting President of the Thailand ResearchDevelopment Institute. It is now accepted that this year's rice crisis started in India,which slapped a ban on its rice exports in early 2008 to guaranteedomestic food stability in case the country of 1.1 billion peoplesuffered a wheat shortage due to uncertain imports from Australia. The Indian ban prompted Vietnam to announce its own export ban inApril, which helped jack the world rice price up to $1,100 a tonnein June, compared with $340 a tonne in November. Both India and Vietnam, the two largest rice exporters afterThailand, have now lifted their export bans and prices are startingto edge down on the world market. "I think the price of nearly $1,000 a tonne will not besustainable," predicted Ammar, one of Thailand's top rice experts. "Assuming no adverse natural events in producing areas, rice priceswill probably slide back to reestablish a relationship with othercereal prices, in particular with the maize price," Ammarpredicted. One such adverse natural event was last month's Cyclone Nargis inBurma, which is expected to cause a 3-million-ton shortfall in thecountry's rice crop this year, the impact of which has yet to befelt on the global rice market. Maize prices have experienced a slow but steady increase, almostdoubling over the past four years, and are likely to continue to doso, driven up by growing demand of food and bio-fuels, Ammar said. Although rice is not a likely candidate for producing bio-fuels inthe future, the possibility of more land going towards bio-fuelcrops, such as maize and palm oil, and away from rice, is one ofthe long-term factors that is expected to keep rice prices high inthe future. Another obvious factor is oil prices. "Fertiliser and transportation all require oil, so when oil goes upthe price of rice also goes up," Vichai said. During the last oil crisis of 1973-74, rice prices reached ahistorical peak of $2,700 a tonne, Vichai recalled. "Besides the oil crisis, the second thing affecting price istechnology," he said "Our technology is out of date and we have notinvested in in the rice industry, in irrigation and research anddevelopment, especially Thailand." Without investments in new technology, it is unlikely that riceproduction will be able to keep up with world demand whichincreases by an estimated 80 million new rice consumers each year. So far the Thai government, however, has shown more interest itbolstering rice prices for farmers and lowering them for consumersrather that tackling long-term solutions for the rice industry. "The government is interested in only two things: getting campaignfunds and the popular vote from the farmers," Vichai said.