American Woman Helping Poor Women Named Hero of The Year

An American woman, Robin Lim, who has helped thousands of poor Indonesian women have a healthy pregnancy and birth, was named the 2011 CNN Hero of the Year on Sunday night.

Through her Yayasan Bumi Sehat health clinics, "Mother Robin," or "Ibu Robin" as she is called by the locals, offers free prenatal care, birthing services and medical aid in Indonesia, where many families cannot afford care.

"Every baby's first breath on Earth could be one of peace and love. Every mother should be healthy and strong. Every birth could be safe and loving. But our world is not there yet," Lim said during "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute," which took place at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and recognized Lim and the other top 10 CNN Heroes of 2011.

Many women in the developing world do not have access to contraception or maternal care. According to the United Nations Population Fund, three out of five women giving birth in South Asia do so without a skilled birth attendant on hand.

You are what you eat

And eating a heavy mid-day meal will often make you feel lethargic for the rest of the afternoon. "Consider what you're eating at lunch. If you're having that post-pasta slump at 2 p.m., and need java or cookies to pep back up, maybe you should try a salad or something a bit lighter so you won't lag," suggests Hohlbaum.

The key is keeping your blood sugar levels steady throughout the day, according to Kari Kooi, RD, corporate wellness dietician at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, who recommends three light meals and two snacks at regular intervals. "Heavy meals can make you feel sluggish because they require more energy to digest," Kooi says. "[A quality lunch] will consist of a fiber-rich carbohydrate, like water-rich veggies, and a lean protein, like chicken or fish," she says.

And what does Kooi suggest you avoid? "A highly processed meal, like some of the frozen meals in the grocery store, will not give you the sustainable energy you need. The less processed the better when it comes to keeping your energy levels up." When you hit that midday slump, Kooi suggests going for proteins like mixed nuts and fruit instead of the usual energy-zapping pretzels, cookies or candy, which cause your blood sugar levels to spike and then drop and may even make you hungrier, according to Kooi.

Stop killing trees with e-book

Tablet computers and electronic readers promise to eventually close the book on the ink-and-paper era as they transform the way people browse magazines, check news or lose themselves in novels. “It is only a matter of time before we stop killing trees and all publications become digital,” Creative Strategies president and principal analyst Tim Bajarin told AFP.

Online retail giant Amazon made electronic readers mainstream with Kindle devices and Apple ignited insatiable demand for tablets ideal for devouring online content ranging from films to magazines and books. The combined momentum of e-readers and tablets will push annual revenue from digital books to $9.7 billion by the year 2016, more than tripling the $3.2 billion tally expected this year, according to a Juniper Research report.

Readers are showing increased loyalty to digital books, according to the US Book Industry Study Group (BISG). Nearly half of print book buyers who also got digital works said they would skip getting an ink-and-paper release by a favorite author if an electronic version could be had within three months, a BISG survey showed.

Things your pet shouldn't eat

Listed under, from most (1) to least (4) dangerous, are common foods and drinks that make pets sick.

1. Chocolate
Why: Stimulates the nervous system and the heart. Poisonous to: All species, but dogs are most likely to eat dangerous quantities. Possible effects of poisoning: Vomiting, increased thirst, restlessness, agitation, increased or irregular heartbeat, increased body temperature, tremors, seizures.

2. Grapes, Raisins
Why: Damage the kidneys. Poisonous to: Dogs, cats. Possible effects of poisoning: Increased thirst, increased urination, lethargy, vomiting.

3. Garlic, Onions
Why: Damage red blood cells, causing anemia. Poisonous to: Cats, dogs. Possible effects of poisoning: Vomiting, red-colored urine, weakness, anemia.

4. Xylitol (Found in sugarless gum.)
Why: Causes increased insulin secretion, resulting in lower blood sugar levels. Poisonous to: Dogs. Possible effects of poisoning: Vomiting, lethargy, lack of coordination, seizures, jaundice, diarrhea.

Norman Kamaru: Lip-synching Indonesia cop fired amid YouTube fame

First, Indonesian police were angry about a young cop's YouTube lip-synching antics. Then, they championed him for softening the image of an unloved force. Now, after he put stardom over police duty, Norman Kamaru has been fired. "Who does he think he is?" a clearly frustrated police spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Lisma Dunggio, said Wednesday from his hometown. "What made him famous was his uniform."

But the 26-year-old Kamaru told reporters he wanted to give singing a real shot. And he wasn't afraid of failure. The video of Kamaru trying to lift the spirits of a heartbroken colleague by shimmying and lip-synching to the Bollywood hit "Chaiyya Chaiyya" went viral in April. Initially, the top brass was furious. But that changed when the public rallied to support the charismatic young officer. Suddenly, Kamaru was being flown from his dusty police outpost of Gorontalo to the capital, flanked by high-ranking officers who smiled broadly as squealing girls begged for his autograph.

As a new, unexpected asset to the force — widely considered one of the country's most corrupt institutions — Kamaru started appearing regularly on TV talk shows in full uniform. As it turned out, he had a voice. With a $100,000 record deal in his pocket, Kamaru told his bosses he wanted out. They said no. And he stopped coming to work. Saud Usman Nasution, spokesman for the national police, said Kamaru was dishonorably discharged on last Tuesday.

NASA Astronomers Discover Habitable Blue Planet

Astronomers have discovered the first habitable blue planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a star similar to the Sun. NASA’s Kepler Mission has been finding new worlds at an incredible rate over the past year but this is the first discovery of what could be a habitable super-earth as it appears to be large, rocky planet with a surface temperature of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit, similar to spring day on Earth.

A team of researchers, including Carnegie Institute's Alan Boss, made the discovery which will be published in The Astrophysical Journal. The discovery team, led by William Borucki of the NASA Ames Research Center, used photometric data from the NASA Kepler space telescope, which monitors the brightness of 155,000 stars.

This discovery is the first detection of a possibly habitable world in orbit around a Sun-like star.
The host star lies about 600 light-years away from us toward the constellations of Lyra and Cygnus. The star, a G5 star, has a mass and a radius only slightly smaller than that of our Sun. As a result, the host star is about 25 per cent less luminous than the Sun.

Monster Black Holes Found, Biggest Yet!

"They are monstrous," Berkeley astrophysicist Chung-Pei Ma told reporters. "We did not expect to find such massive black holes because they are more massive than indicated by their galaxy properties. They're kind of extraordinary." The previous black hole record-holder is as large as 6 billion suns.

In research released by the journal Nature, the scientists suggest these black holes may be the leftovers of quasars that crammed the early universe. They are similar in mass to young quasars, they said, and have been well hidden until now. The scientists used ground-based telescopes as well as the Hubble Space Telescope and Texas supercomputers, observing stars near the black holes and measuring the stellar velocities to uncover these vast, invisible regions.

Black holes are objects so dense that nothing, not even light, can escape. Some are formed by the collapse of a super-size star. It's uncertain how these two newly discovered whoppers originated, said Nicholas McConnell, a Berkeley graduate student who is the study's lead author. To be so massive now means they must have grown considerably since their formation, he said.

The world's Most Spectacular Sea-caves

Many 'sea caves' are famous among the watersports community - largely because you have to strap on a pair of flippers and an air tank to explore sights such as Belize's Great Blue Hole.

But the relentless action of the waves over millennia has carved out some spectacular caves that you don't even need a snorkel to explore such as Fingal's Cave in Scotland - just a sturdy pair of boots.

Fingal's Cave, on the uninhabited island of Staffa in Scotland, showcases unique, unspoiled geography - and was reputed to be home to a giant who built a causeway between Scotland and Ireland.

Cyclops Shark is Real

The fisherman who discovered the Cyclops shark is reportedly hanging on to the preserved remains, news outlets reported. But scientists have recently examined and X-rayed the fish, authenticating the catch. According to Seth Romans, a spokesman for Pisces Fleet, Galvan Magana and his colleagues will publish a scientific paper about the find within the next several weeks.

The Cyclops shark is an exception. While rare, "cyclopia" is a real developmental anomaly in which only one eye develops. Human fetuses are sometimes affected, as in a 1982 case in Israel reported in 1985 in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. In that case, a baby girl was born seven weeks early with no nose and only one eye in the center of her face. The infant, who lived only 30 minutes after birth, also had severe brain abnormalities.

In 2006, a kitten born with one eye and no nose (a rare condition called holoprosencephaly), created a stir online as news organizations and bloggers tried to determine if the bizarre photos of the animal were real. A veterinarian confirmed the kitten's condition; "Cy," as the cat was known, lived only a day. The remains were sold to the creationist Lost World Museum.

How to get your cat sleep at night in the house

Here are some tips to get your cat sleeps at the same time you sleep. Change meal time. "Feed the cat before you go to bed vs. before you leave in the morning," Dr. Buffington suggests. Because we are all more likely to sleep after a meal (think about the postprandial pause after we push back from the Thanksgiving table!) feeding just before your bedtime will make your cat more likely to snooze, too.

Make time for playtime. "Providing play opportunities will help 'wear the cat out' before bed," Dr. Buffington says. If a long day at work leaves you too exhausted to play with Kitty, get a toy that your pet can play with on his own, like the Fling-ama-String, one of my Dr. Becker's Best from the Global Pet Expo. Set it up at the other end of the house and hit the sack!

Widen your cat's world. "I'd suggest they enrich the environment so they're not the only source of the cat's stimulation and activity," Dr. Buffington says. "Add feeding puzzles, window perches with bird feeders outside, cat videos, etc." This keeps your cat busy all day and makes him more likely to sleep all night.

World's First Sex School Opens in Austria

Do you want to have a better life with your loved one? Ylva-Maria Thompson has opened the world's first international sex school to teach its students how to be better lovers. The Austrian International Sex School in Vienna offers 'hands on' lessons in seduction for £1,400 a term.

The 'headmistress' says anyone over the age of 16 can enrol at 'the world's first college of applied sexuality'. Students live in a mixed sex dormitory block where they're expected to practise their homework.

And at the end of the course, they are awarded a qualification. The new school head said: 'Our core education is not theoretical, but very practical. The emphasis is on how to be a better lover.

Train Better Tips: Train Faster

Everyone can start tapping into their genetic potential for muscle and strength with one simple change to your weightlifting routine:

Start working out faster.

That's right: All those times you skipped the gym because you only had 20 or 30 minutes, turns out you could have gotten an ideal workout if you were dedicated to using every single second.

"Lifting or moving quicker will, in general, fire more fast-twitch muscle fibers," says Portland-based trainer Christopher Bathke, "Lifting more explosively is a crucial method if you want to improve in power and or strength."

Are You A Positive Person?

Some studies have shown that an upbeat attitude about aging adds years. But long-term studies conducted at the Stanford Longevity Center show that emotions, more than attitudes, may be the biologic mechanism at work, says Laura Carstensen, the center's director.

"What's the mechanism at work here? Feeling upbeat about your life means you experience less stress, which in turn affects cortisol levels, which can affect health," she says. Stanford researchers periodically assess 19 different emotions in subjects randomly polled over 1 week at 5-year intervals. Having more positive emotions than negative ones is associated with living longer.

Carstensen is a firm believer that while "slow agers" clearly exist, there's more to their stories than lucky genes. "There's mounting evidence that genes play a role in longevity, but genes play a role in almost everything," she says. "They don't express themselves in vacuums -- there are very complex interactions between genes and lifestyle." So all that advice on how to live to 100? Can't hurt to heed it.

Start Your Day Off on the Right Foot

According to a recent study at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University, if an employee is in a bad mood when they arrive at work-whether because of familial problems or a stressful commute-it can decrease their productivity by as much as 10% that day.

So unless you come in to the office every day in a great mood (and who does?), start your day with 5 to 10 minutes of time dedicated to decompressing. "Create a ritual. Maybe it's meeting in the coffee break room or going around the office to greet everyone. It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you foster a sense of connection [with your coworkers]," Says Holhbaum.

"Swinging by to say 'hi' to your colleagues when you walk in gives you a sense of focus. When you feel you're part of a bigger effort, you feel more connected to why you're there and that can make all the difference in the world." Re-focusing your mind at the beginning of the day will also create a sense of calm, helping you to disregard outside stressors and zero in on your daily tasks.

"If we're actually able to start the day centered, then we'll have a longer tolerance period before we get off track," Holhbaum says.

The Only 2 Financial Rules You Need Live By

There's a lot of great advice out there to saving money. But if it overwhelms you, start with just these two simple rules and you'll be on your way to financial independence.

1. Pay Yourself First: The Best Kind of Cliché

"Pay yourself first" is a very common piece of financial advice. It's simple enough to follow, but that doesn't make it easy.

If you can save $200 per month at a 6-percent interest rate, you'll have more than $200,000 in 30 years. At the very least, you'll have a great savings fund at the ready for whatever life may bring. But how can you come up with that cash when you barely have any money left between paychecks?

The answer is to take that money off the top. And yes, it'll sting a bit at first.

2. Practice Mindful Spending

Having some leeway in your paycheck isn't a given, but I think many people have more wiggle room than they realize.

This is what I mean when I say that I think $10 is a lot of money. When I decide to buy something, it's a decision, not an impulse buy. I want to spend my money on things that really have value for me, not just things that are convenient or appealing at the moment. So while I can buy something nice once in a while — without guilt — I have a hard time going out for lunch or buying (you guessed it) a latte.

Less expensive purchases are an easy mental hurdle to get over because they're so small it seems that they could hardly amount to anything. The truth is, these seemingly insignificant purchases can easily amount to, or exceed, that $200 you may be aiming to save.