From the study abstract: "After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b=–0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.020, 0.001; P=.04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b=0.016; 95% CI=0.000, 0.033; P=.05). No significant associations were observed between consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and telomere length."

More: http://ajph.aphapublications.o...

You understand that there's a difference between the RCMP and the Canadian Forces, right?

The Canadian Rangers' mandate is to provide a military presence and sovereignty patrols in sparsely settled and extremely remote (Northern) regions of the country. The force is made up of reservists, and they're issued a unique uniform -- CADPAT pants, bright red Ranger sweatshirt and baseball cap. The whole idea is to take a group of Northerners and leverage their wilderness and arctic skills. It's a much smarter and more cost-effective approach than attempting to train and equip a group of 18 year-old city kids for the tundra.

No, but the lifetime risk of dying in a transportation accident in the United States is about 1:80. That means about 3,750,000 people. By the time the Ebola is contained, we might see dozens or hundreds of deaths.

In the USA, about 630 people die every week in motor vehicle accidents. An additional 2,250,000 are injured. Nonetheless, the 24 hour news channels are going batshit because a couple of people have contracted a horrible disease.

Perhaps the smart thing to do is turn off the TV and step away from news sites. Oh, and remember to wear your seatbelt.

Seriously? The LED backlight in your computer screen is based on Nakamura's work. Same for your phone, TV and iPad. The blue GaN LED was essential for the creation of "white" LEDs, which are actually blue LEDs coated with phosphor to approximate white light. Same goes for the LED bulbs that are currently replacing billions of incandescent lights around the world in homes, street lights, and outdoor displays.

People keep overlooking the fact that the development of high brightness GaN blue LEDs resulted in the technology becoming a practical replacement for white incandescent bulbs and enabled LED backlighting in billions of display panels. Coat a clear blue LED with yellow phosphor and, voila, a bright white light source that burns a fraction of the energy.

So, yeah, the red LED was a tremendously useful device, but it pales in comparison to the dramatic shift that is underway thanks to the development of affordable white LEDs.

If your company is large enough, have a quick chat with your legal department. A 3 year support contract that isn't providing you with any value is something that's worth addressing. A brief letter from your legal counsel ought to result in an interesting response (whether or not it results in action is another thing entirely).

The Atlas V rocket that Boeing will use to launch the CST-100 has launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Science Laboratory. It's not just about LEO and maintaining the ISS, although that is a short-term goal. SpaceX also has their sights set on more ambitious goals, but sadly they are restricted by NASA's budget and goals -- there simply are no commercially viable space missions beyond satellite launches right now.

Car makers are prohibited from selling directly to the public because they could potentially undercut their own dealers. In Tesla's case, there are no dealers to undercut. That said, the solution would be to set up a small company owned showroom in Iowa that acts as the seller of record for all online and in-person sales within the state.

"Paying down the deficit" doesn't mean what you think it means. A budget deficit = spending more revenue than you take in during the year. Its the equivalent of adding another $200 billion to your $17.6 trillion credit card balance every year. Of course, unlike the average consumer, the government has the power to raise their own credit limit and print money to pay the monthly interest payment.

The trouble is that Disney will argue that the proposed Deadmau5 trademark is in their line of business - videos and the music industry. At the end of the day, you have to acknowledge that there is considerable similarity between the Mickey's silhouette and the Deadmau5 head. Whether the similarities are close enough to cause confusion in the marketplace is at the heart of this complaint. There is another factor at play, too. If it can be shown that then trade dress is genericized -- that is, consumers don't automatically relate the mouse silhouette to Mickey, it may be possible to invalidate Disney trademarks. The result would be a free-for-all that would allow companies to offer their own bigeared mouse characters in the US. (The DMCA takedown complaint is a different animal that's not directly related to the trademark challenge, unless Disney is planning to claim that they couldn't see the difference and believed that Mickey and the stage outfit of an EDM producer).

Yes, there is a significant difference between geostationary and geosynchronous orbits.

Mental illness isn't something that manifests itself consistently from birth to death. It is quite possible to live an utterly normal or remarkable life until the onset of disease. In the case of schizophrenia, it usually rears its ugly head some time between the ages of 16 and 30.

While it is quite possible that this is an instance of police overreaction, it might also be that there are a serious mental health issue that cannot be shared with the general public because of personal privacy laws.

Hang on. Everyone is jumping to the conclusion that a perfectly normal teacher just happened to be grabbed and taken for an "emergency medical evaluation" because he had innocently written a book. It is also quite possible that he is actually suffering from mental illness -- schizophrenia often manifests itself in early adulthood, for example -- and that his books were originally written as a coping mechanism for the early stages of illness. Remember, approximately 1% of the population will suffer from schizotypal symptoms at some point in their lives.

The most likely explanation is that the teacher's behavior had grown erratic and he had shown signs of mental disorder that caused grave concern in his co-workers and friends.

The summary includes a link to the submitter's blog, with a shortened link -- tinyURL.com/XKCDAuthor -- that expands to an Amazon link with his affiliate code embedded. While I am a huge fan of XKCD, I am not a huge fan of masked links that earn up to 8% for completely unrelated bloggers. Perhaps the summary should be edited to include a direct link to the Amazon product page?