Sports technology

Vital statistics

During a Formula 1 race a driver experiences wrenching forces of more than 4.5G. 

His heart rate may exceed 180 beats per minute and his blood pressure could rise by half. 

With soaring temperatures inside the cramped cockpit he will also dehydrate, typically losing 2-3 litres of water during the race. 

Yet the driver must concentrate well enough to achieve lap times that might vary by just a tenth of a second. 

This is tough, on both mind and body. 

Hence it is not just the performance of the car itself which an array of sensors keeps an eye on, wirelessly transmitting data about the engine, suspension and so on to the pit crews. 

The drivers’ own vital signs are constantly monitored, too. 

Now such F1 technology is being used to monitor the physical condition of athletes in other sports, including cycling, rugby and football.

Car-racing telemetry began to migrate to other sports a few years ago, but mostly to monitor equipment and measure how it is being used. 

In sailing, for instance, F1 kit is fitted in craft ranging from dinghies to giant ocean-racing yachts. 

These marine systems keep an eye on things such as rudder movements, yaw angles, wind speed and the strain the sails are taking. 

The data can be logged, combined with video or wirelessly relayed to coaches. 

It is then used to review performance during or after a training session. 

But if the rules permit, it can also be displayed in real time on the craft to help sailing crews adjust their tactics during a competition itself.

Now nifty technology is increasingly being used to monitor the physical performance of participants as well. 

.
A variety of different gadgets have been available for some time to record specific vital signs and performance. 
.
These range from simple pulse monitors, which can be strapped to an athlete’s arm to measure their heart rate, to elaborate systems where players carry smart tags that use a series of sensors placed around a sports field to track positions to within a few centimetres and determine, say, how fast they run.
.
But the idea that McLaren Applied Technologies, a division of the British-based F1 team and supercar manufacturer, has come up with is to combine many of these individual sensors into a wearable “smart shirt” that would collect and combine a host of readings from the wearer. 

This information would be wirelessly transmitted as encrypted data (you don't want rival coaches eavesdropping) to a display device, such as a tablet computer. 
.
The display looks similar to a car’s dashboard, says Geoff McGrath, managing director of McLaren Applied Technologies. 
.
But instead of coloured graphics showing speed, engine revolutions, braking forces and such like, it displays an athlete’s vital signs, such as heart rate, blood-oxygen level, respiration and temperature. 
.
The company is already working on the system with Britain’s Olympic cycling team, the England rugby team (so the shirts need to be tough) and an unamed Premier League football club
.
Making sense of the data rapidly and displaying it in a form which can be easily understood is the key to making the shirt work, adds Mr McGrath. 
.
The information it provides allows a coach closely to monitor the stamina of an athlete, determine his level of fatigue more accurately and help work out where he might be wasting energy. 
.
Such information can also help to avoid injuries.
.
Instead of being wired up to individual devices, by strapping or sticking on sensors, these are incorporated into the materials the garment is made from. 
.
To measure the heart rate, for instance, the shirt contains a pair of non-sticky sensors that can produce a simplified electrocardiogram. 
.
Breathing rate is detected by examining the relative movement of the chest, although the sound of breathing can be monitored as well.
.
Measuring skin temperature with a thermometer contained in the shirt is relatively straightforward, but McLaren is also trying to measure core body temperature, which is trickier. 
.
Core body temperature is an important indicator of the onset of heat exhaustion, which can be fatal. 
.
The traditional way to measure a person’s core body temperature is to insert a thermometer into the rectum—impractical on the sports field. 
.
Another way it can be done is for the subject to swallow a “thermometer pill”, a small capsule that contains a temperature sensor and a transmitter to relay the reading to an external receiver as it passes through the digestive tract.

But this technique cannot always be used. In motor racing, for instance, if a driver is taken to hospital after a crash the metal in the capsule would prevent the use of an MRI scanner, which is essentially a powerful magnet. 
.
So McLaren has come up with other methods. 
.
It will not go into detail, other than to say that it infers core body temperature from other readings. 
.
This provides a decent guide, but the company is already developing a more accurate technique which would take core body temperatures with the shirt. 
.
As for how this works, the company’s lips are as tightly sealed as they are about the engineering of this season’s grand prix cars.

Only the beginning

The recent marches around the world to protest government and bank corruption were just the beginning of something that must grow over time.
.
How it will manifest and express itself is not easy to see today.
.
That it will do so is inevitable.
.
People whose lives have been ruined by governments, special interest groups and bankers.
.
As one such, Nicla Crippa, 49, said: We can’t carry on any more with public debt that wasn’t created by us but by thieving governments, corrupt banks and speculators who don’t give a damn about us.
.
They caused this international crisis and are still profiting from it.

.
They should pay for it.
.
The protest along with those of the so called Arab Spring are indications of a wider part of humanity waking to demand justice.
.
Venting anger over years of economic and financial crisis since a global credit boom went bust in 2007.
.
Tens of thousands, nicknamed “the indignant”, marched in major cities across Europe.
.
As protests that began in New York linked up with long-running demonstrations against unpopular government cost-cutting and failed financial policies in Europe.
.
Notice how certain items get news time and others are ignored.
.
Notice how few politicians ''get it''
.
Notice how politicians are still talking about growth.
.
About fixing the economy.
.
About bailing out the banks.
.
Are they on a different planet?
.
The world economic model is broken.
.
The model of positive interest and endless growth is over.
.
But because of the special interest groups and the bankers this scenario will play and play.
.
Governments continuing to lie.
.
Bankers continuing to grasp.
.
The longer they ignore the increasing anger of people around the world the harder the violence to come.
.
When and how we cannot see today however come it must.
.
Why must it come?
.
When I have nothing to lose.
.
When I have no hope.
.
When I have no food or clean water.
.
When I see those who have so much.
.
This lights a fuse.
.
The fuse was lit last year.

Nothing to say

      Palestinian farmer Mussa Samamreh, right, inspects the broken branches of his olive trees
      near the village of Shuweike, which local residents say were destroyed by Israeli settlers.         Photograph: Abed al-Hashlamoun/EPA

.
Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza deprives the Palestinian economy of almost £4.4bn a year.
.
This is equivalent to about 85% of the nominal gross domestic product of Palestine, according to a report published in Ramallah
.
As well as its detrimental effect on the Palestinian economy, the "occupation enterprise" allows the state of Israel and commercial firms to profit from Palestinian natural resources and tourist potential, the report said.
.
No matter what the Palestinian people achieve by our own efforts, the occupation prevents us achieving our potential as a free people in our own country, said Hasan Abu Libdeh, economy minister in the Palestinian Authority, introducing the report on Thursday.
.
It should be clear to the international community that one reason for Israel's refusal to act in good faith as a partner for peace is the profits it makes as an occupying power.

Without the occupation, the Palestinian economy would be almost twice as large as it is and would be able to reduce its dependence on donor funding from the international community, according to the report.

.
Compiled jointly by the economy ministry and the independent think tank Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem.
.
The report was the first attempt to quantify the annual cost of the occupation to the Palestinian economy.
.
The total cost which we have been able to measure was $6.897bn in 2010.
.
A staggering 84.9% of the total estimated Palestinian GDP.
.
The majority of these costs do not have any relationship with security concerns.
.
But, rather, come from the heavy restrictions imposed on the Palestinians in the access to their own natural resources.
.
Many of which are exploited by Israel itself.
.
Including water, minerals, salts, stones and land.
.
The report broke down the $6.9bn figure into components, .
.
Including the blockade on Gaza ($1.9bn).
.
Water restrictions ($1.9bn).
.
Natural resource restrictions ($1.8bn).
.
Import and export limits ($288m).
.
Restrictions on movement ($184m).
.
And tourism to the Dead Sea ($143m).

The occupation imposes a myriad of restrictions on the Palestinian economy.
.
It prevents Palestinians from accessing much of their land and from exploiting most of their natural resources.
.
It isolates Palestinians from global markets, and fragments their territory into small, badly connected 'cantons', the report said.
.
The blockade of Gaza placed severe restrictions on imports and exports.
.
On which the economy was highly dependent.
.
Electricity and water production was unable to meet demand from industry and agriculture owing to damaged infrastructure and a shortage of parts and materials.
.
Shelling had destroyed physical assets and infrastructure
.
Restrictions on the import to both the West Bank and Gaza of goods deemed as "dual use"
.
Such as chemicals and fertilisers.
.
Which Israel says could be used in the manufacture of weapons, had severely affected manufacturing and agriculture.
.
Limits on movement for both goods and labour within the West Bank through roadblocks, checkpoints and diversionswere a critical economic constraint.
.
The report compared the distance of direct routes between West Bank towns and cities and the routes Palestinians are required to take.
.
For example, the distance between the city of Nablus in the north of the West Bank and al-Jiftlik in the Jordan Valley was 36 miles (58km) by the most direct route.
.
But the route Palestinians were forced to take was 107 miles (173km), adding significantly to the time and cost of each journey.
.
Restrictions on Palestinian access to the Dead Sea meant a loss in income from the extraction of minerals and salts, and from tourism, from which Israel benefited economically.
.
Dead Sea beauty and skin care products, manufactured and marketed by Israeli companies, were worth $150m (£96m) a year, the report said.
.
Israeli businesses also profited from mining and quarrying in the West Bank.
.
West Bank water resources were diverted to Israeli settlements, industry and agriculture.
.
Israel took 10 times as much water from the three West Bank aquifers as the Palestinians, the report said.
.
Around 2.5m trees, including olive groves, had been uprooted since 1967 for settlements, infrastructure and the separation barrier.
.
The report estimated the average annual production of a mature olive tree at 70kg, worth around $1.1 per kilogram.
.
Palestinian farmers had lost land or could no longer access it.
.
Six hundred and twenty thousand settlers [in the West Bank and East Jerusalem] cultivate 64,000 dunams of land.
.
Four million Palestinians in the West Bank only cultivate 100,000 dunams," said Abu Libdeh.
.
One dunam is around 1,000 square metres.
.
As we prepare for statehood we want to build a sustainable and viable Palestine which is economically feasible, environmentally sound and socially legitimate.
.
With Israeli restrictions on access, mobility and resource availability, a viable Palestine is impossible.
.
To make Palestine sustainable, the occupation has to end.
.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian leadership said on Thursday there were "encouraging elements" in the statement issued by the Middle East Quartet last week in an attempt to get the parties to return to talks.
.
We call on Israel to announce its commitment to the principles and points of reference [the statement] identifies," said senior official Yasser Abed Rabbo, speaking after a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee.
.
We consider the Quartet's reference to the obligations of the Palestinian and Israeli sides under the Road Map and the call to avoid provocative acts as a clear call for a definitive halt to settlement activity in all its forms, which is an encouraging sign.
.
The Israeli cabinet met on Tuesday to consider the statement but was unable to agree on a response.

An example of life for Palestinian companies
.
Pal Karm Company for Cosmetics, located in Nablus, sells cosmetics and skin care products in the local market and exports to Israel.
.
Glycerin is an essential raw material for the company.
.
Israel has banned the entry of glycerin into the Palestinian Territory since mid-2007.
.
Ever since then, the company has been unable to sell skin care products in the Israeli market because the Israeli health authorities require glycerin to be part of such products.
.
The company estimates its losses at 30% of its sales in the Israeli market for this product
.
Harriet Sherwood

The march of control

The regime of control tightens inexorably in our schools.

Many of which now have video cameras.
.
Police patrols.
.
Chain-link fences.
.
Random unannounced locker searches.
.
Metal detectors.
.
Drug-sniffing dogs.
.
Networks of informants.
.
Undercover police posing as students.
.
And a comprehensive system of passes so that there is a record of each student's authorized whereabouts at all times.

.

What a perfect preparation for life in a prison or a totalitarian society!

.

The result is much what we should expect from any series of technological fixes.
.
More control has made the situation far more explosive and not any safer.
.
Justifying yet more control.

.

It parallels the results of the technological program, more research, more technology.
.
Always the next invention or innovation will solve all our problems.
.
Just a few more millions.
.
Just some more controls and yet more removal of freedoms.
.
Life is not actually any more secure, leisurely, or comfortable.
.
And the entire edifice teeters on the brink of catastrophe.
.
Totalitarianism is the inevitable destination of a society based on the technological program of achieving complete control over reality.
.
As a practical matter, the engineering, managerial mindset naturally applies its methods.
.
The methods of the factory—to governance as well as to manufacturing, promoting the complete inventorying, tracking, numbering, and classification of the population.

.

Its technologies as well lend themselves to control.
.
Witness the Orwellian possibilities of biometrics and continuous automated surveillance in the computer age.
.
Pull the plug on the electricity supply and what have you got?
.
Zilch.
.
Because most surveillance systems need electricity.
.
As does everything else in our ever more interdependent world.
.
So the only offset to Orwellian nightmare is the unexpected.
.
Always has been always will.
.
We are over due for some corrections.
.
We are ready for the entrance of the perfect storms.
.
How else can modern man escape the paranoid march of ever more controls?

Little people

Little people caught by the pace and challenges of change.
.
In some countries they are called poor, in some under priveliged and in others the underclass. 
.
No matter the name, the problems are the same.
.
Recent events have created changes and situations they cannot avoid.
.
Situations not of their own making.
.
Situations created by generations of greedy, selfish leaders.
.
Generations of poor decisions.
.
Leaders intent on preserving their own power and privileges.
.
Was a time when politicians and diplomats had time to practice their skills before assuming high office.
.
Some even pretended to care
.
No more
.
Politics today is seen as a full time profession
.
Little need for experience of the real world, in they dive into their chosen world.
.
Quickly they learn the arts of lying, prevarication, compromise, arse licking and the rest.
.
Only times have changed now because everything has speeded up.
.
The internet and instant global communications have forced these people to comment and react quicker
.
Quicker and quicker as our experience of time continues to compress.
.
Our experience of time going faster and faster.
.
Creating exposure where the lies and denials have to come faster and faster.
.
Hastily formed commissions promising to look into the latest scandal or f***k up.
.
Even these are now being exposed for what they are.
.
Time is forcing the pace.
.
Little people the world over being hurt.

They have always been hurt.
.
They are always there.
.
Nowhere to run or hide.
.
Just having to take whatever is foisted on them.
.
Plenty is written about their plight

And yet generation after generation more slide into poverty.
.
Many more now in every country owing to the current economic situation.
.
How can this be when many are so rich today with assets way beyond their means to spend or use?
.
One may not like communism or socialism however their ideals are fine most would agree.
.
Just human greed always seems to get in the way.
.
Time to get real and admit that consumption based economics are not the way to go.
.
The disparities between rich and poor are a scandal.
.
And yet we still will not engage in discussion about a fairer way to use our resources.
.
No matter the perfect storm approaches.
.
A storm that the rich no more than the little people will be able to avoid.
.
Maybe, just maybe, this will focus minds.
.
That we are all one.
.
Interdependent on each other.
.
If the little people suffer then you will too.
.
This has not been understood.
.
The rich for some reason seeming to believe that this is nothing to do with them.

Wrong!
.
Where there is suffering anywhere on this planet and you have the where with all to do something about it and choose not to then you take your negative karma.
.
The little people you look down on, are you from a previous life, paying their karma.
.
Just as you must in the next.
.
Time to wake up.
.
We are all in this mess together.

How did it?

Do you remember last year when suddenly people died from what were thought to be poisoned vegetables. . There was a big scare, the Germans accused the Spanish . The Spanish were furious as it was not them . Then they found the cause . Then it went quiet . Then there was silence . One question, the only question disappeared . How e.coli could have magically become resistant to eight different classes of antibiotic drugs and then suddenly appeared in the food supply. . This particular e.coli variation is a member of the O104 strain, and O104 strains are almost never (normally) resistant to antibiotics.  . In order for them to acquire this resistance, they must be repeatedly exposed to antibiotics in order to provide the "mutation pressure" that nudges them toward complete drug immunity. . So if you're curious about the origins of such a strain, you can essentially reverse engineer the genetic code of the e.coli and determine fairly accurately which antibiotics it was exposed to during its development.  . This step has now been done (see below), and when you look at the genetic decoding of this O104 strain now threatening food consumers across the EU, a fascinating picture emerges of how it must have come into existence. . The genetic code reveals the history . When scientists at Germany's Robert Koch Institute decoded the genetic makeup of the O104 strain, they found it to be resistant to all the following classes and combinations of antibiotics: . • penicillins • tetracycline • nalidixic acid • trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazol • cephalosporins • amoxicillin / clavulanic acid • piperacillin-sulbactam • piperacillin-tazobactam . In addition, this O104 strain posses an ability to produce special enzymes that give it what might be called "bacteria superpowers" known technically as ESBLs: . "Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamases (ESBLs) are enzymes that can be produced by bacteria making them resistant to cephalosporins e.g. cefuroxime, cefotaxime and ceftazidime - which are the most widely used antibiotics in many hospitals," explains the Health Protection Agency in the UK  . On top of that, this O104 strain possesses two genes -- TEM-1 and CTX-M-15 -- that have been making doctors shudder since the 1990s, . And why do they make doctors shudder?  . Because they're so deadly that many people infected with such bacteria experience critical organ failure and simply die. . Bioengineering a deadly superbug . So how, exactly, does a bacterial strain come into existence that's resistant to over a dozen antibiotics in eight different drug classes and features two deadly gene mutations plus ESBL enzyme capabilities? . There's really only one way this happens (and only one way) -- you have to expose this strain of e.coli to all eight classes of antibiotics drugs.  . Usually this isn't done at the same time, of course:  . You first expose it to penicillin and find the surviving colonies which are resistant to penicillin.  . You then take those surviving colonies and expose them to tetracycline.  . The surviving colonies are now resistant to both penicillin and tetracycline.  . You then expose them to a sulfa drug and collect the surviving colonies from that, and so on.  . It is a process of genetic selection done in a laboratory with a desired outcome.  . This is essentially how some bioweapons are engineered by the U.S. Army in its laboratory facility in Ft. Detrick, Maryland. . Although the actual process is more complicated than this, the upshot is that creating a strain of e.coli that's resistant to eight classes of antibiotics requires repeated, sustained expose to those antibiotics.  . It is virtually impossible to imagine how this could happen all by itself in the natural world.  . For example, if this bacteria originated in the food (as we've been told), then where did it acquire all this antibiotic resistance given the fact that antibiotics are not used in vegetables? . When considering the genetic evidence that now confronts us, it is difficult to imagine how this could happen "in the wild."  . While resistance to a single antibiotic is common, the creation of a strain of e.coli that's resistant to eight different classes of antibiotics -- in combination -- simply defies the laws of genetic permutation and combination in the wild.  . Simply put, this superbug e.coli strain could not have been created in the wild.  . And that leaves only one explanation for where it really came from: the lab. . Engineered and then released into the wild . The evidence now points to this deadly strain of e.coli being engineered and then either being released into the food supply or somehow escaping from a lab and entering the food supply inadvertently.  . If you disagree with that conclusion -- and you're certainly welcome to -- then you are forced to conclude that this octobiotic superbug (immune to eight classes of antibiotics) developed randomly on its own.  . And that conclusion is far scarier than the "bioengineered" explanation because it means octobiotic superbugs can simply appear anywhere at any time without cause.  . That would be quite an exotic theory indeed. . My conclusion actually makes more sense:  . This strain of e.coli was almost certainly engineered and then released into the food supply for a specific purpose. . What would that purpose be?  . It's obvious, I hope. . It's all problem, reaction, solution at work here.  . First cause a problem (a deadly strain of e.coli in the food supply).  . Then wait for the public reaction (huge outcry as the population is terrorized by e.coli).  . In response to that, enact your desired solution (total control over the global food supply and the outlawing of raw sprouts, raw milk and raw vegetables). . That's what this is all about, of course.  . The FDA relied on the same phenomenon in the USA when pushing for its recent "Food Safety Modernization Act" which essentially outlaws small family organic farms unless they follow the dictates of FDA regulators.  . The FDA was able to crush farm freedom in America by piggybacking on the widespread fear that followed e.coli outbreaks in the U.S. food supply.  . When people are afraid, remember, it's not difficult to get them to agree to almost any level of regulatory tyranny.  . And making people afraid of their food is a simple matter... a few government press releases emailed to the mainstream media news affiliates is all it takes.

.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html#ixzz1XoQ5oUam