Facebook?s ?Life-Saving Tool?: Organ Donor Status for Timeline

After promises of a 'life-saving tool' announcement, Facebook today revealed a new feature that makes it possible to add organ donor status to a user's Facebook Timeline.

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Dow, S&P 500 slip as Spain enters recession

NEW YORK (AP) ? News that Spain had entered another recession renewed worries about the fragility of Europe's finances Monday and nudged stocks lower. The market ended its first losing month this year.

Disappointing economic reports and weak corporate earnings also weighed on stocks. The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 5.45 points to close at 1,397.91. For April, it was down 0.8 percent, its first month in the red since November.

The Spanish government said that the country's economy shrank in the first three months of the year, the second straight quarter of contraction.

The worry is that Spain's economy could be too big to rescue. It's twice as big as the combined economies of Greece, Portugal and Ireland, the three countries that have received bailout loans.

In the U.S., a drop in an index of Midwestern manufacturing and a slowdown in consumer spending last month added to worries that the economy is losing steam.

The Institute for Supply Management said its Chicago business barometer fell in April to the lowest level in more than two years. After weak readings for the New York and Philadelphia regions, the market reaction to the Chicago report could have been much worse, said Clark Yingst, chief market analyst at the brokerage Joseph Gunnar.

"It's very bad news in my opinion," Yingst said. "I'd have thought the market would come under more pressure than it has."

Weaker earnings reports from health insurer Humana and the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext, also hurt stock indexes.

The Dow Jones industrial average edged down 14.68 points to close at 13,213.63, but narrowly avoided its first monthly loss since September. The Dow finished April up less than two points.

The Nasdaq composite fell 22.84 points to 3,046.36. It posted a monthly loss of 1.5 percent.

Growing concerns about Spain knocked European markets lower on Monday. Spain's main stock index, the IBEX 35, sank 1.9 percent. France's CAC-40 lost 1.6 percent.

The dollar and U.S. Treasury prices edged up as investors parked money in low-risk assets.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Spain's government debt to just three notches above junk Friday. On Monday S&P lowered its rating for 11 Spanish banks, which are loaded with bad debt from a collapsed housing market.

Among stocks making big moves:

? Barnes & Noble jumped 52 percent after Microsoft announced that it would invest $300 million to help Barnes & Noble compete with Amazon.com. The companies will create a subsidiary for Barnes & Noble's e-book and college textbook businesses. Microsoft also plans an application for Nook, Barnes & Noble's e-reader, on its Windows 8 tablets, which come out this fall. Microsoft's stock was flat.

? Health insurer Humana fell 8 percent to after reporting a large drop in first-quarter profit as the company paid more in claims. The results fell short of Wall Street's expectations.

? NYSE Euronext, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, lost 5 percent after reporting that its income plunged in the first three months of the year. Revenue from its trading business was weak, and the company abandoned a merger with the European exchange operator Deutsche Boerse.

? Sunoco jumped 20 percent, the most of any stock in the S&P 500. The fuel-refining company agreed to be bought by Energy Transfer Partners, an operator of natural gas pipelines, for $5.3 billion.

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Two-Drug Therapy Helped Kids With Type 2 Diabetes

SUNDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- Children with type 2 diabetes may achieve better blood sugar control with a combination of two drugs, metformin and Avandia, than with metformin alone, a new study suggests.

However, Avandia (rosiglitazone) was recently linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, so it may not be the best drug for these young patients, experts say.

"Many kids with type 2 have a rapidly progressive disease requiring early onset of insulin therapy, and current approaches to oral therapy may be inadequate," said lead researcher Dr. Philip Zeitler, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Zeitler noted that the choice of Avandia as a companion medication was made in 2002, before the cardiac problems with the drug were known.

"Given the problems with rosiglitazone, we are not recommending it at this time," he said. "However, no problems with rosiglitazone have been noted in [the study participants] to date, though the cohort size is too small for a thorough safety analysis."

The report was published online April 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine, to coincide with a planned presentation of the finding at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Boston. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases funded the research.

For the study, almost 700 obese children, aged 10 to 17, with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to metformin alone, metformin plus Avandia or metformin along with intensive lifestyle changes in diet and exercise.

Over the course of 46 months, the researchers found that metformin alone did not adequately control blood sugar levels in 51.7 percent of patients. Among those who received metformin and lifestyle changes, 46.6 percent did not have their blood sugar controlled.

However, among those taking metformin and Avandia, blood sugar levels were not well-controlled in only 38.6 percent of patients, the researchers found.

In addition, blood sugar control was harder to achieve in black and Hispanic children, they added.

"Metformin is probably not as effective as we've assumed, and additional treatment approaches are urgently needed in this population of adolescents with a steadily progressive form of diabetes," Zeitler said.

In terms of lifestyle changes, Zeitler isn't sure why they didn't work better. Part of the reason may be tied to children's reluctance to adopt new diet and exercise habits, he said.

Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the clinical diabetes center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, said that "type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents is a calamity, because we don't have any good medications."

Type 2 diabetes in children is particularly aggressive and can lead to heart and liver problems at a very young age, he said.

"It is not surprising that combination is better than mono-therapy," Zonszein said. "We want to be aggressive in treating type 2 diabetes in children, but we have to balance the risk and benefits of these drugs. But, we really don't have good data and good medications to treat children."

Another expert, Dr. Spyros Mezitis, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, added that "we need a whole new set of studies to see how to treat type 2 diabetes in children."

Dr. David B. Allen, from the department of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, said that "calories consumed in excess of expended is leading to an epidemic of early-life type 2 diabetes, the burden of which is falling disproportionately on disadvantaged youth."

This latest study shows that, once children develop the condition, it is very difficult to prevent deterioration in spite of intensive lifestyle changes or medications, he said.

More information

For more on diabetes, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Important Things to Consider When Creating ... - Rss Feed Converter

Apr 30

No matter how long you have been marketing your business online you have probable learned how important quality copywriting can be. You have to learn how to create a good sales copy if you want your business to be as successful as possible. Any act of selling you may be interesting in partaking in will require a measure of copy writing. You have a much greater chance of successfully promoting your product or servicce if you learn how to creat a high quality sales copy. However, different people have different experiences trying to come up with copy where it is easy for some and almost impossible for others. But doing copywriting can involve quite a bit more than simply writing. It also stresses the importance of understanding the whims of your target audience so that you can properly paint the picture of your product for them. In order for your sales copy to be successful, you need to think about all of the factors. Copywriting is more or less your sales pitch, but it is far more difficult than face-to-face sales because of the impersonal and disconnected nature of communicating with people electronically. Everything needs to be considered, because your customers are going to question buying products from someone who cannot spell or who uses improper grammar. It is important to write like you are talking to your audience. This article will examine some of the pitfalls that you must navigate in order to successfully attain the conversion ratio you desire. So, you can avoid this simple mistakes if you take the example of this new system called Guru Siphon Formula and you will see the right way to make a copy write.

One problem is the sales page design; copywriters may pay little attention to how it looks. This is an error which is liable to depress your rates of conversion. Giving the reader a bad impression of your copy can be the result of using a template that appears unprofessional; high quality sales copy can still convert poorly by being displayed with a poor quality template. Some copywriters mistakenly believe that the only thing that matters is the copy. Every aspect of your presentation is important because the reader?s judgement is based on the whole presentation. The visuals draw customers in and then you have an opportunity to get them to read your copy. No one will even want to read any of your information if your sales page looks like no time was spent on it, or it was done unprofessionally. All of the time and effort you put into your copy will be wasted if this happens.

Appearance is just as important to your audience as the words you say. If you create an attractive, professional looking page then more people are likely to gain interest in your page and therfore your copy. If someone else is designing your page, you must ensure that they design a professional looking page that presents you in a positive light. Remember that you could learn a right copy write for your products, see more detail in my Guru Siphon Formula other blog post.

Never write copy unless you know what the product is about.

If you do not have any knowledge of a product of service then this will be apparent to your audience. This will make your audience lose trust in what you have written. No matter what type of article you are writing it is important to do the research. But when it comes to copywriting, you need to have good information about the product you?re writing about, or else you might end up giving away false facts.

Finally, try to remember that sales copy will ultimately dictate the number of sales that you receive and how much your online presence is able to expand. And don?t forget to split test good copy to find what combination works best for you.

Other Resources
Important Things to Consider When Creating Your Own Copy
Copywriting Mistakes That Could Ruin Your Copy
When Copywriting, Avoid These Big Mistakes
Copywriting Mistakes Can Easily Be Avoided By Following These Steps

Author: Vince Garrett

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Foursquare adds NFC to its BlackBerry app, hopes you'll touch base

Hot on the heels of a recent update for its Twitter app, BlackBerry users can now grab a refreshed version of everyone's favorite check-in network. While there's no news of the beleaguered phone manufacturer offering up free Butterfingers (yet), the geographical social app has cranked up the app's load speeds and also transplants its notifications to your BlackBerry inbox. It's all looking to be a pretty tasty NFC carrot to dangle in front of BlackBerry World attendees later this week in Orlando. If you're Florida-bound (and even if you're not), you can grab the update from from the source below.

Foursquare adds NFC to its BlackBerry app, hopes you'll touch base originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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South Korea opens up cellphone sales, networks wary of the 'free market'

South Korea's Communications Commission is wresting control of the domestic cellphone market away from operators. From May 1st, it is opening the handset business open to any vendor, who will sell phones unlocked so consumers can decide their choice of network. The plan is aimed at lowering prices by introducing competition between the retailers -- although some voices in the industry have expressed concerns that the operators will withdraw discounted offers in retaliation. Naturally, the KCC is determined to ensure a better deal for consumers, and is already strong-arming wayward networks into ensuring that doesn't happen.

South Korea opens up cellphone sales, networks wary of the 'free market' originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Disillusionment of an Entrepreneur

When I became an entrepreneur at the age of twenty-three, I began in earnest, as do all entrepreneurs, chasing a dream. My dream was clear. I would build a consumer technology company that reached ten million people and sell the company for millions of dollars, before the age of thirty. Then, as the dream went, I would retire to an oceanfront house on a warm Pacific beach and learn how to surf. I recently had the fortune of celebrating a year in which I saw that lofty goal fulfilled. My company?s iPhone apps had over ten million downloads, and a competitor paid a large sum of money to acquire what we had built, just a week before my thirtieth birthday. Dream had become reality.

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