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North Korea vowed to step up its nuclear arms program in an angry response to the use of its flag during a live-fire exercise Friday by the South Korean and U.S. militaries.

Runners, you no longer have to convince your reluctant partner to put on sneaks and hit the streets with you, thanks to my new favorite drone: the Joggobot, a companion robot for runners. Using a built-in camera, the autonomous drone hones in on sensors in a custom shirt and exhorts you to keep up with it. “People might feel chased if the Joggobot was behind them,” says researcher Eberhard Grather in a video. So instead your little drone friend flies in front of you. Floyd Mueller and Grather, researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, tricked out...

In a new study of U.S. preteen and teen girls, daily exercise was strongly linked to weight and obesity in white girls but not black girls. Although it's still important to promote physical activity in all young people, according to the researchers that may not be enough to prevent black girls -- who have a higher rate of obesity to begin with -- from gaining weight.

Extreme exercise such as marathons may permanently damage the heart and trigger rhythm abnormalities, warn researchers. They say the safe ‘upper limit’ for heart health is a maximum of an hour a day - after which there is little benefit to the individual. A review of research evidence by US physicians says intensive training schedules and extreme endurance competitions can cause long-term harm to people’s hearts.

According to reports, the U.S. and Russian military will be engaging in an anti-terrorism exercise that will involve Russian paratroopers using U.S. weapons to “take and hold” the main facilities of the CIA and Denver International Airport in Colorado and the National Security Agency in Utah. (Related: Learn about the hypothetical ‘war games’ the U.S. and China have been playing) The European Union Times has more on the report announcing this exercise from the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation: Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Alexander Kucherenko publically announced this 24-21 May “anti-terror drill” this Friday past noting that this...

The value of mental-training games may be speculative, as Dan Hurley writes in his article on the quest to make ourselves smarter, but there is another, easy-to-achieve, scientifically proven way to make yourself smarter. Go for a walk or a swim. For more than a decade, neuroscientists and physiologists have been gathering evidence of the beneficial relationship between exercise and brainpower. But the newest findings make it clear that this isn't just a relationship; it is the relationship. Using sophisticated technologies to examine the workings of individual neurons - and the makeup of brain matter itself - scientists in just...

The representative for a district with higher-than-average rates of obesity-related conditions will return from recess a week from Monday to reintroduce her Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise (LIFE) Act. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) will say on the House floor, according to prepared remarks, that her bill is intended to tackle a health problem “that cannot be remedied through the health care system alone.” The LIFE Act would give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention $25 million “for a coordinated national effort to reverse increasingly sedentary lifestyles and diets that are high in fat and sugar.” That...

I used to run a lot...in my younger years. In the mid 90s I was running 20-25 miles every sunday afternoon, and around 10 miles the other days of the week. It all ended in '96 when I developed knee problems and iliotibial band friction syndrome, snapping hip syndrome, and chronic tendonitis of the iliotibial band, and also serious problems with the muscle attached to the iliotibial band...and a few other things like ganglion cysts in my feet and meniscus issues with the knees, and some other stuff. I went to doctors. I took pills, took supplements, did strengthening excercizes,...

Researcher Debby Herbenick. BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Findings from a first-of-its-kind study by Indiana University researchers confirm anecdotal evidence that exercise -- absent sex or fantasies -- can lead to female orgasm. While the findings are new, reports of this phenomenon, sometimes called "coregasm" because of its association with exercises for core abdominal muscles, have circulated in the media for years, said Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in IU's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. In addition to being a researcher, Herbenick is a widely read advice columnist and book author. "The most common...

Here are some links to "vintage" exercise / workout songs to incorporate into your brand new New Year's resolution exercise routine. (With an appreciative nod to FReeper "Winstons Julia" for the original idea.)   Feel free to add your own "more classic" / "further aged" exercise workout song suggestions and links to the list. I have to go run an errand right now, but I will check back later to see if there is more than just this "1" post on this thread (if I can remember to do that).   :-) Bits and Pieces Hippy Hippy Shake Twist and Shout Funky Broadway...

Someone mentioned this movie earlier today in another thread. I watched it on Amazon streaming video this afternoon(also avaialble on Netflix) and it was excellent! Its motivating me to lose some weight and there are stunning facts that literally made my wife get up and grab a hunk of peperoni from the fridge and eat it! She hasn't eaten pepperoni or bacon in over two years because she worries about cholesterol. This is essentially a response to the Super Size me movie. It debunks the the twisted information in that movie as well as the whole government anti-obesity movement. The...

To give you a sense of what you’re up against if you attempt to make it through P90X2, the sequel to the phenomenally popular P90X fitness program, here’s a sample exercise: the four medicine ball push-up. Yes, that means having a ball under each hand and foot. “It’s like doing push-ups during an earthquake,” says Tony Horton, the 53-year-old former stand-up comedian who created the original program eight years ago. That 90-day, 12-DVD regimen has sold 3.5 million copies, spawned an astounding number of before and after photos, persuaded politicians from both sides of the aisle to sweat it out...

America’s children are experiencing a “crisis of inactivity,” first lady Michelle Obama said Wednesday. “We may well be raising the most sedentary generation of kids in the history of this country,” Mrs. Obama said at an event in Washington to promote more healthful lifestyles for youth. “Kids today reportedly spend an average of seven and a half hours a day watching TV, playing with cellphones, computer games, video games.” The first lady has made it her cause to combat childhood obesity by promoting more healthful diets and encouraging groceries with fresh produce to move into underserved communities. But she said...

China now rehearses capture of Tibet passes A year after conducting its first live military exercise in Tibet, China has for the first time rehearsed capture of mountain passes at heights beyond 5,000 metres with the help of armoured vehicles and airborne troops. The Chinese Defence Ministry makes this claim in a short official report that describes the exercise as the “first joint actual-troop drill of the PLA air and ground troops under information-based conditions in frigid area with a high altitude”. The joint drill involved the Chinese Air Force, ground troops, armoured columns and a range of support entities....

Older women who got more exercise and less television time were the least likely to be diagnosed with depression, according to a U.S. study of thousands of women -- with physical activity having the biggest impact. According to findings published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers found that women who reported exercising the most in recent years were about 20 percent less likely to get depression than those who rarely exercised. On the other hand, the more hours they spent watching TV each week, the more their risk of depression crept up. "Higher levels of physical activity were associated...

“Debate prep in Spartanburg, SC !!”

Operation Mountain Guardian is a terrorism-based, full-scale emergency exercise scheduled to take place in numerous locations in the Denver metro area on Friday, September 23, 2011. The exercise will involve first responders from 81 different agencies**, will be conducted at ten separate locations and will include loud noises, simulated weapons, smoke, emergency vehicles and other equipment that will be audible and visible throughout the day. The purpose of this advisory is to provide information that can be disseminated to the public ahead of time to avoid confusion or concern on exercise day, as well as to invite media coverage of...

Scientists found that small amounts of dark chocolate may improve health in a similar way to exercise. The researchers focused on the mitochondria, the tiny powerhouses in cells that generate energy, and discovered that a plant compound found in chocolate, called epicatechin, appeared to stimulate the same muscle response as vigorous activity. ''Aerobic exercise, such as running or cycling, is known to increase the number of mitochondria in muscle cells. Our study has found that epicatechin seems to bring about the same response - particularly in the heart and skeletal muscles.''

Taking regular exercise, drinking only in moderation and watching what you eat makes no difference to one's chances of reaching 100, research has found. Those who are lucky enough to qualify for a telegram from the Queen have simply been dealt a good genetic hand at birth, the study indicates. Academics studied almost 500 people between 95 and 109 and compared them with over 3,000 others born during the same period. They found those who lived extremely long lives ate just as badly, drank and smoked just as much, took just as little exercise and were just as likely to...

As strange as it sounds, a new research study published in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), suggests that the "healthy" ingredient in red wine, resveratrol, may prevent the negative effects that spaceflight and sedentary lifestyles have on people. The report describes experiments in rats that simulated the weightlessness of spaceflight, during which the group fed resveratrol did not develop insulin resistance or a loss of bone mineral density, as did those who were not fed resveratrol. This study also suggests that resveratrol may be able to prevent the deleterious consequences of sedentary behaviors in humans.