These floors are made for walkin’: the Multitoe floor keeps track of footsteps, which can help scientists and doctors learn more about health and perhaps even human habits and aging.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela, who is 94 and has been in hospital since Saturday for tests, has suffered a recurrence of a lung infection but is responding to treatment, the government said on Tuesday.
The revered anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace laureate is spending his fourth day in hospital in the capital, Pretoria.
Known affectionately by his clan name “Madiba”, Mandela remains a hero to many of South Africa’s 52 million people and two brief stretches in hospital in the past two years made front page news.
FLASH: American writer Gore Vidal is dead at the age of 86, the LA Times reports.
A German court’s ban on circumcising baby boys has provoked a rare show of unity between Jews, Muslims and Christians who see it as a threat to religious freedom, while doctors warn it could increase health risks by forcing the practice underground.
European rabbis meeting in Berlin on Thursday promised to defy the ruling by a court in the city of Cologne last month. They plan further talks with Muslim and Christian leaders in Stuttgart next week to see how they can fight the ban together.
“We urge the Jewish community in Germany and circumcisers to continue to perform circumcisions and not to wait for a change in the law,” said Pinchas Goldschmidt, Swiss-born chief rabbi of Moscow and organizer of the three-day meeting.
READ ON: German circumcision ban unites religions, worries doctors
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is set to unveil funding a sum in the hundreds of millions of dollars for a campaign to improve access to contraception in the developing world.
The exact amount will be announced at a summit of world leaders and aid organizations in London on Wednesday, but in an interview with Reuters, Melinda Gates said the commitment would be “on a par” with the foundation’s other big programs, like that against malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis.
In January, the foundation pledged a further $750 million for that fight on top of $650 million contributed since the fund was set up 10 years ago.
An Afghan man with mental health problems shields his face from the camera as he is chained to a wall of a room at the Mia Ali Baba shrine, in line with a traditional belief that spending 40 days chained in isolation at the shrine can cure the illness, in Jalalabad July 9, 2012.
Afghanistan is struggling to fight the mental health problems that afflict some of the population after decades of violence, according to Abdul Rasool, an official from the health department of Jalalabad province. REUTERS/Parwiz
When McDonald’s execs first struck up their lucrative business partnership with the Coca-Cola Company in 1955, they were thinking small—literally. At the time, the only size of the beverage available for purchase was a measly 7-ounce cup. But by 1994, America’s classic burger joint was offering a fountain drink size six times bigger. And then it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
Woah.
A new Reuters/Ipsos online poll of 1,143 adults from May 7 to 10 captures some of the prejudicial attitudes. Asked to identify the main cause of the epidemic, 61 percent chose “personal choices about eating and exercising”; 19 percent chose the actions of food manufacturers and the fast-food industry. The poll is accurate to within 3.6 percentage points. Because of the methods used to collect the data, accuracy is measured using a statistical measure called a credibility interval.
Reflecting the belief that the obese have only themselves to blame, 49 percent of respondents favored allowing insurers to charge obese people more for health insurance.
Poll respondents also showed broad support for efforts that target the food industry: 56 percent wanted to limit advertising of unhealthy food or taxing sugared soda, 77 percent were in favor of calorie counts at restaurants and sport arenas. But an all-out ban on fast-food restaurants? America loves its Big Macs: Only 21 percent said yes.
READ MORE: America’s hatred of fat hurts obesity fight
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives defied a White House veto threat on Friday and voted to take money from President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul to pay for an extension of low-interest federal student loans.
Democrats and Republicans have until July to find an election-year compromise. That’s when the rate is set to double on Stafford loans to 6.8 percent for more 7 million students, who represent an important voting bloc.
On a mostly party-line vote of 215-195, the House sent the measure to the Senate where Obama’s Democrats are certain to reject it.
Like Obama, Senate Democrats want to renew the low interest rate for students, but favor covering the $6 billion cost for one year by ending a tax break for the rich.
READ MORE: Republicans insert healthcare into student loan fight
DEVELOPING: Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett says he has been diagnosed with Stage 1 prostate cancer. More on this story soon at Reuters.com.
