Fight Diabetes with Mangos

A new study that was presented at the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress suggests that mangos can help prevent diabetes and high cholesterol. Extracted from the the story it says...

"Dr Sarah Roberts-Thomson of the university's school of pharmacy, who is supervising the work, says early results suggest some compounds in mangoes work by activating or inhibiting groups of receptors known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, or PPARs.

"We don't know yet how the whole thing's going to play out but we know some of the individual components activate these receptors or even inhibit them," she says.

"That could end up with positive nutritional health benefits for diabetes and high cholesterol."

PPARs are also increasingly being linked to colon and breast cancer, and the study will investigate whether compounds in mangoes can also kill cancerous cells. "

For the full article, click here.

Party Excuse Generator

During this time of year it's common to get together with those you don't normally see. Sometimes, there's a reason you don't normally see some of those people. For the occassions where you wish you had an excuse, visit the Holiday Excuse Generator. The excuse generator asks a few simple questions such as how bad do you want to avoid the get together? Or how do you feel about the host. When it's all said and done, it writes a simple letter, maybe not the most gentle of letters on how you can break the bad news.

The Truth About Turkey Day

This week, we posted an aritcle on the truth about Puritans. The good folks at The Chicago Tribune did a little exposing too, revealing that the original Thanksgiving menu back in 1621 probably didn't even include turkey! That's right, back at the original Thanksgiving day table, it was more likely that they were eating duck, geese and/or shellfish. There was also no pumpkin pie, white potatoes and cranberries. Many of you are probably wondering if they had the cream of mushroom and green bean casserole? Probably not. For the real scoop, check out the article here. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone, we'll be taking the day off.

Flying Turkeys

It turns out that more people plan on flying on Thanksgiving than last year. According to this article from USA Today, 66% of the turkey-day traffic will be flying, compared to 63% last year. One reason it may be up is because it's cheaper to fly on Thanksgiving than the day before. According to travel consultants Sabre Airline Solutions, travelers will save an average of $36 by flying Thursday instead of Wednesday; making the average ticket $141. When all is said and done, experts predict that this will be the busiest air travel day ever on Thanksgiving. Maybe you should consume some tryptophan before you arrive at the airport.

Also, don't miss James Park's article on traveling over holidays.

Thanksgiving Dinner Costs $38.10

The American Farm Bureau Federation has been calculating the price of Thanksgiving for 21 years. This year, they say the comma-inducing feast will run $38.10 for a table of 10. That's a $1.32 price increase from last year. Data is collected from a shopping list that includes: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a relish tray of carrots and celery, pumpkin pie with whipped cream and beverages of coffee and milk. This article from the Voice of Agriculture breaks down the price of each item and also gives a chart of meal price over the years.

Silicone Is Back

It's been 14 years since the FDA had banned silicone breast implants and today they've officially lifted that ban. One interesting thing, however is that silicone breast implants are okayed for women 22 years old and up, but they say they most likely won't last a lifetime and women will need a second surgery later in life. This article from The Mercury News in San Jose says, "Last year, 291,000 women had their breasts surgically enlarged in the United States, a 37 percent increase since 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons." It also states that 39,000 women has their implants removed.

Merry X-Mas Uncle Sam

The IRS is sitting on $92 million in tax refund checks that they couldn't deliver last year. The average refund waiting to be claimed is $963. Not a bad chunk of change, eh. The checks went unclaimed because the IRS doesn't know where to send them. Residents had moved without notifying the IRS or the Postal Service. The IRS says:

"Taxpayers can use the "Where's My Refund?" feature on the home page of the IRS.gov Web site to learn the status of their refunds. To use it, a taxpayer must enter a Social Security number, filing status (such as single or married filing jointly) and the refund amount shown on the taxpayer's 2005 tax return. When the information is submitted, "Where's My Refund?" will display the status of a refund and, in some cases, provide instructions on how to resolve potential account issues.

Taxpayers can access a telephone version of "Where's My Refund?" by calling 1-800-829-1954."

We've supplied the link here.

Shocker! Work Stress Affects Marriage

It's not really a surprise that work stress can affect your marriage and that's why we were happy to find this article. It offers a few tips and advice to take into consideration. Among them: "What is more important? Married life or work life? New work /job can be found, but getting another person to marry will be difficult. What about after retirement? Who will be with us- our spouse or our company? We never think about these issues. For us the stress at that moment is the center of our life. Our mind is occupied with that stress. Therefore when we reach home, we are ready to speak harshly, blame family members, showing irritation and express our frustration in many other ways."

To check out the full article click here.

Mile High Control

Remember that Mile High article we wrote a few weeks back? Well, when we said you know the terrorists have won when you can't do the ditty in thin air, we didn't mean that people should threaten the flight attendant so they can get a little nook nook. A California couple got busted while they were waiting on a plane in Phoenix during a layover. The flight attendant requested that they keep their passion on the DL, but the male partner replied, "I'm going to give you one warning to get out of my face." Not a smart move. The couple is now facing federal charges. Remember, bathroom, discreetness and obey the flight attendant, otherwise you may have a new "partner" behind bars! The full article from CNN is here

Read Books By E-mail

Okay, so we may be literature junkies, but other people like to read books too--honest. This will be the last book-related blog for at least another, um, 48 hours. DailyLit is a website that will e-mail sections of books to your e-mail at a frequency you set, making it nice and easy for you to keep up your reading while not having to lug those tomes around. Since it's sent to your e-mail, that means you can read it on your Crackberry, Treo or other portable e-mail device. Pretty neat. Currently, all the books offered are public domain, sorry Potter fans. But at least you can catch up on your classics! A link to their website is here.