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- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: excuses
No more excuses: Just 2 minutes of intense exercise every day could extend lifespan
SYDNEY, Australia — Plenty of people cite lack of time to justify their non-existent exercise routine, but a new study out of Australia could effectively end that excuse. Scientists at the University of Sydney report that two minute “bursts” of vigorous physical activity totaling a meager 15 minutes per week are associated with a lower risk of death.
That’s right, finding as little as two minutes per day for a quick workout may extend your life!
“The results indicate that accumulating vigorous activity in short bouts across the week can help us live longer,” says study author Dr. Matthew N. Ahmadi of the University of Sydney, Australia, in a media release. “Given that lack of time is the most commonly reported barrier to regular physical activity, accruing small amounts sporadically during the day may be a particularly attractive option for busy people.”
Additionally, a second segment of the research shows that for a given amount of physical activity, increasing the intensity of the exercise is associated with a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease. “Our study shows that it’s not just the amount of activity, but also the intensity, that is important for cardiovascular health,” adds study co-author Dr. Paddy C. Dempsey of the University of Leicester and University of Cambridge in the U.K., and the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne.
Both of these projects featured adults between ages 40 and 69 years old. Subjects wore an activity tracker on their wrist for seven consecutive days. This served as an objective way to measure their activity levels, particularly sporadic activity of different intensities during the day.
Connecting exercise intensity to lifespan and overall health
The first study included 71,893 adults without cardiovascular disease or cancer. The median participant age was 62.5 years old, and just over half (56%) were female. Study authors measured weekly levels of vigorous activity and the frequency of exercise bouts lasting two minutes or less. This was a long-term study; subjects were tracked for an average of 6.9 years.
Then, associations between volume and frequency of vigorous activity with death (all-cause, heart disease and cancer) and incidence of heart disease and cancer after excluding events occurring in the first year were analyzed by researchers. Sure enough, as both the volume and frequency of vigorous activity increased, risk of all five considered adverse outcomes declined.
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Health benefits were noted even with small amounts of exercise. For instance, subjects who didn’t exercise vigorously at all had a four percent risk of dying within five years. That risk was cut in half (2%) with less than 10 minutes of weekly vigorous activity. Death risk fell to one percent with 60 minutes or more.
When compared to two minutes of intense exercise per week, 15 minutes of vigorous exercise was associated with an 18 percent lower death risk and a 15 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Meanwhile, 12 minutes was linked to a 17 percent lower risk of cancer.
Generally, the more exercise the better. For example, roughly 53 minutes of physical activity on a weekly basis was associated with a 36% lower risk of death from any cause.
What about frequency of workouts?
Short bouts (up to two minutes) of vigorous activity four times daily on average were associated with a 27 percent lower risk of death. However, health benefits were also noted at even lower exercise frequencies; 10 short bouts weekly were associated with 16 percent and 17 percent lower odds of cardiovascular disease and cancer, respectively.
The second study encompassed 88,412 adult subjects, all free of heart disease. Participants’ average age was 62 years old and 58% were female. Both higher amounts and greater intensity were again linked to lower rates of incident heart disease. Increasing exercise intensity also fostered greater declines in cardiovascular disease for the same volume of exercise. So, for instance, the rate of cardiovascular disease was 14 percent lower when moderate-to-vigorous activity accounted for 20 percent instead of 10 percent of activity – which would be the equivalent of turning a 14-minute leisurely stroll into a seven minute brisk walk.
“Our results suggest that increasing the total volume of physical activity is not the only way to reduce the likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease. Raising the intensity was also particularly important, while increasing both was optimal. This indicates that boosting the intensity of activities you already do is good for heart health. For example, picking up the pace on your daily walk to the bus stop or completing household chores more quickly,” Dr. Dempsey concludes.
Both studies are published in the European Heart Journal.
No more excuses: NASA in line to get funding needed for Artemis plan
Enlarge / NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft are at the launch site in Florida, ready for a wet dress rehearsal in early April.
NASA
President Joe Biden on Monday released his budget request for the coming fiscal year, and NASA is a big winner. The administration is asking Congress to fund $25.9 billion for the space agency in 2023, an increase of nearly $2 billion over the $24 billion the agency received for fiscal year 2022.
The budget request for NASA includes a healthy increase for the Artemis Program, which seeks to carry out a series of human landings on the Moon later this decade. Notably, funding for a “Human Landing System” would increase from $1.2 billion for the current fiscal year to $1.5 billion, allowing for a second provider to begin work. Additionally, funding for lunar spacesuits would increase from $100 million to $276 million. NASA would also receive substantial funding—$48 million—to begin developing human exploration campaigns for the Moon and beyond.
All of this new funding in the proposed budget comes in addition to the billions that NASA has been spending annually to develop the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. Overall funding for Artemis, therefore, would increase from $6.8 billion in fiscal year 2022 to $7.5 billion in the coming fiscal year, which begins October 1, 2022.
This means that, for the first time, the agency could have all of the money it needs for major programs to carry out the Artemis Moon landings. “This budget puts us on the right course,” NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana said during a telephone call with reporters on Monday afternoon.
Money should come
There is reason to think NASA will get most of the money requested by President Biden. Last year, to a large extent, the Democratic-led Congress supported the president’s budget priorities for NASA. The agency’s administrator, former US Sen. Bill Nelson, has demonstrated his skill in working with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. So if NASA can get all of the funding it has asked for, is it reasonable to ask for results in return?
The agency’s current schedule for the first three Artemis missions calls for the launch of Artemis 1, an uncrewed lunar flyby, this summer; Artemis 2, a crewed lunar flyby, in 2024; and Artemis 3, the landing of two astronauts on the Moon, in 2025.
Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, was asked about Congress and whether NASA could commit to landing humans on the Moon by 2025 if the agency received the full budget request this year and in follow-on years.
“I can tell you that every day we are working to get Artemis 1 off, Artemis 2 in 2024, and Artemis 3 in 2025,” Free responded. “I’m not sure what commitment looks like to you, but I can tell you that a lot of people come to work every day that are working to get to 2025.”
Other parts of the budget
Beyond the Artemis Program, the budget request would fund NASA’s science programs to higher levels than ever before, due in large part to cost overruns for the Europa Clipper mission. The cost of the mission, which will make dozens of flybys of the intriguing Jovian moon from whence its name derives, has increased by $703 million to about $5 billion. To accommodate the cost overruns, several other missions would be delayed, including NEO Surveyor, a mission to detect near-Earth asteroids.
The budget request also seeks more than a doubling of funding for a program to develop “commercial” space stations for when the International Space Station is retired. NASA is working with four different contractors on various proposals to have these private space stations either ready to go or in orbit by the late 2020s. To fund this effort, called “Commercial LEO development,” the budget request seeks an increase from $103 million in 2022 to $224 million.
“NASA’s strong budget sends a message to our customers and investors about the agency’s intentions and confidence in our vision, and [the budget] further supports US competitive leadership in the commercial sector,” said Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom, which is one of the companies working with NASA.
Funding for these commercial station options seems likely, given the current tensions between the US and its major partner on the International Space Station, Russia.
Dr. Fauci Just Shut Down Anti-Vaxxer Excuses in Interview
COVID cases are finally trending downward, slowly, but that’s no reason to stop being careful, warned the experts at today’s COVID briefing. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the President and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also appeared on The Interview With Hugh Hewitt to discuss the pandemic. Read on for 7 life-saving pieces of advice—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don’t miss these Sure Signs You’ve Already Had COVID.
Hewitt asked Fauci about basketball player Kyrie Irving, who has expressed vaccine skepticism. “I think you have to put it into perspective of what is going on in the country with regard to COVID-19,” said Dr. Fauci, adding we are now “inching close to 700,000 deaths with a vaccine that unequivocally from a scientific and public health standpoint has been shown to be highly effective and safe. And although I do respect people’s individual rights to make their decisions, there is also a part of it that I refer to as a societal responsibility. And although there are individual choices that people can make when you’re dealing with a deadly pandemic, you’ve got to also understand your responsibility to the society within which you live. So I wouldn’t want to be pointing a finger at this young man, but I would hope to be able to get him to understand that by allowing the virus to infect you, even though as an individual, you say, I’ll take my own chances. I don’t care. I’m young, I’m healthy. The likelihood that I’m going to get a serious disease is low, which is true. You can’t deny that. But what happens is that when you do get infected, it’s very likely that you might pass that infection on to someone who would suffer very terribly from that virus. So you don’t want to be a vehicle for the propagation of an outbreak that unequivocally has devastated society.”
“One point that I think is important to make, as I think that the people who are unvaccinated when they see the curves starting to come down, that is not a reason to remain on vaccinated, because if you want to ensure that we get down to a very low level and that we don’t research again, we still got to get a very large proportion of those 70 million people who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not been vaccinated, we’ve got to get them vaccinated,” said Dr. Fauci at the briefing. “So it’s good news that we’re starting to see a turning around of the curve and coming down that is not an excuse to walk away from the issue of needing to get vaccinated.”
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What should one say to vaccine skeptics? “You tell them that it’s untrue,” said Dr. Fauci. “I mean, the fact is these are people they’re not stupid people, and yet they are somehow or other been convinced of things that are just not factual. You look at the data, the data are overwhelming that these are highly effective and safe. And if you look at the track record of vaccines in general, what they’ve done for society and the benefit risk ratio overwhelmingly weighs in favor of the benefit. And it’s just factual. I mean, sometimes it’s an inexplicable that people can look at data and just say it doesn’t exist. I mean, it does.”
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The FDA and CDC recommended Pfizer boosters for those who gor Pfizer six months ago who are over 65, at high risk or are frontline workers. Fauci feels every Pfizer person should get one. “The recommendation had a strong dichotomy. It seems like they were saying it is okay, as long as you don’t wind up in the hospital and die,” he said. “So if the vaccine efficacy wanes for infection, mild and moderate disease, that’s okay. You don’t really need a boost to now, as long as the vaccine efficacy for hospitalization prevention doesn’t wane. I don’t feel that way. I feel we need to protect not only from getting people in the hospital, that’s very, very important, but we don’t want people to get sick because if you get COVID, yes, you could get asymptomatic and you could get mild disease. However, you can also get pretty sick and not necessarily have to go to the hospital.”
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“We didn’t know things early on,” admitted Dr. Fauci to Hewitt. “I always get asked the question. It’s a very common question. What would you have done back then? If you knew what you know, now the question answers itself. If I knew, then what I know now, the circumstances would have been different. So if this were a completely static situation, you and people change their mind and change their recommendations and things. You say, my goodness, they’re flip-flopping what’s going on, but it’s been an evolving situation from day one. We had no idea that a virus that could actually kill so many people would be completely asymptomatic in about 50 to 60% of people. And that many of the infections, almost half were transmitted by people who had no symptoms. That’s where the mask situation got all muddled. You know that, I mean, I’m telling you something, you know, and I can understand when people are looking for definitive answers in an evolving situation, it doesn’t work that way.”
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Hewitt asked Fauci is his time was up as an effective spokesperson, given the anti-Fauci feelings among some. No, said Fauci, “There are an awful lot of people who do listen, who do the right thing from a public health standpoint,” he said. “So because there are a lot of people who have ideas about conspiracies and changing minds, and flip-flopping, that’s not a reason to step down and not at all. When I was involved 40 years ago with HIV and the activist community were looking at me as a representative of the face of the federal government. And we’re trying to get things done. And it looked like we were at odds in the sense of… essentially being hostile to each other, which we weren’t… I brought them into the dialogue, into the discussion and the world and the community were much better off with that. So the idea that people right now are not listening to what I’m saying, what I’m saying is the truth.”
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Follow the public health fundamentals and help end this pandemic, no matter where you live—get vaccinated ASAP; if you live in an area with low vaccination rates, wear an N95 face mask, don’t travel, social distance, avoid large crowds, don’t go indoors with people you’re not sheltering with (especially in bars), practice good hand hygiene, and to protect your life and the lives of others, don’t visit any of these 35 Places You’re Most Likely to Catch COVID.
Lionel Messi: Paris Saint-Germain now has ‘no excuses’ in quest for Champions League domination
But can this squad deliver Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), who bought PSG in 2011, the Champions League — the trophy the owners crave the most, but has so far eluded them?
The signings of highly-rated goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, Messi’s long-time adversary Sergio Ramos, Georginio Wijnaldum and Achraf Hakimi — added to an already stacked squad that includes Neymar and Kylian Mbappé — mean PSG will unquestionably be the overwhelming favorite to lift this season’s Champions League.
“QSI bought PSG in 2011 because they wanted increased exposure for the country ahead of an eventual World Cup,” Christian Nourry, founder of Get French Football News, told CNN Sport.
“That World Cup is now coming, it’s only next year, but what’s happened over the course of this decade is that we’ve seen Al Thani, the owner, fall in love with this club, really taking a lot of interest in this,” added Nourry, referring to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
“[It’s] far more than a pet project for him and he’s seen this opportunity to create potentially the greatest attacking troika we’ve seen in modern football in Mbappé, Neymar and Messi, but also there are no excuses now.”
At PSG, Messi will work under coach Mauricio Pochettino, a former player of the Parisian club and a fellow Argentine.
“Mauricio Pochettino must win absolutely everything, that includes the Champions League, and he must do so in style, because in style has been something that Paris Saint-Germain have really struggled to do, with a largely counterattacking style of play over the course of the last two or three seasons,” added Nourry.
No pressure, then, Mauricio.
READ: Lionel Messi tells CNN he believes PSG is the best place for him to win UCL again
READ: 20 moments that defined Barcelona maestro Lionel Messi
PSG ‘ideal’ for Messi
But it’s a sentiment that Messi appears to agree with.
In an interview with CNN after his arrival in Paris, the Argentine said he believes PSG is the “ideal” place for him to finally win another Champions League title.
Despite Messi’s consistently superlative individual performances over the years, the one blemish on his record in recent seasons has been his inability to again lead Barcelona to European football’s most coveted prize — although it is widely argued that the Catalan club’s ineptitude in building a suitable squad around him was the root cause of this.
That, however, will not be the case at PSG, a club now stacked with an eye-watering amount of talent and a visceral desire to win a first Champions League in its history.
“For me on a personal level, I would love to win another Champions League, like I’ve said in previous years, and I think I’ve come to the ideal place that’s ready for that,” Messi told CNN.
“We have the same goals. It’s got impressive players, one of the best squads in the world and, hopefully, we can achieve that goal which Paris wants so much, I want so much and hopefully we can enjoy it with the people of Paris too.”
PSG’s new front three of Messi, Neymar and Mbappé is unquestionably the most talented attack in world football and will give opposition defenders and managers nightmares trying to conjure up ways to stop them.
“It’s all just going to be about how many goals and assists is he [Messi] getting compared to Kylian Mbappé and Neymar,” Nourry says. “Who is going to be taking the majority of that responsibility on? I can’t wait to find out.”
Off the pitch, though, questions have already been asked about PSG’s finances and how the club has been able to get around the Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations.
“We’re always attentive to Financial Fair Play. It’s the first thing we check with the commercial, financial and legal people before signing someone,” PSG chairman and CEO Nasser Al-Khelaifi told reporters on Wednesday when Messi was officially unveiled.
When rumors of Messi’s arrival began circulating, it was suggested that PSG would have to offload Mbappé — reportedly to Real Madrid — in order to balance the books. The French club, however, has been adamant that is far from the case.
“The message is clear from Paris Saint-Germain around Kylian Mbappé: the two situations are not linked,” Nourry says. “Mbappé has 12 months left on his contract. In fact, Paris Saint-Germain are confident this signing will encourage him more to sign a new extension.
“The argument that we hear a lot in the capital of France at the moment is: why would you go this summer or next to Real Madrid to play alongside Karim Benzema and Vinícius Júnior, when you could spend the next three seasons alongside Neymar and Lionel Messi for your development. I think that’s a pretty strong argument.”
French football rules allow clubs to operate with a wage bill that is almost 100% of its annual income, a far cry from the strict Spanish rules that ultimately forced Messi’s departure from Barcelona.
UEFA, European football’s governing body, has also relaxed its FFP regulations since the Covid-19 outbreak, allowing clubs to operate with annual losses of more than $35 million as long as they can prove these were due to the pandemic.
“Having said that, Paris Saint-Germain have promised to make €180 million ($211M) worth of player sales this summer to the French football financial watchdog, the DNCG,” Nourry explains.
“They’ve only done about €8 million of that, so it’s going to be a very busy four weeks if they are to fulfill that and because the transfer market has moved very, very slowly for the majority of clubs, I think that’s going to be tricky.
“But Paris Saint-Germain are looking to sell — or being open to sell — 12-14 players, those include lesser stars like Mauro Icardi and Pablo Sarabia, but [there is] no intention to sell a key player this summer in Paris.”
Boost for French football?
Perhaps the only people licking their lips at Messi’s arrival as much as PSG fans are those in charge of France’s top division, Ligue 1, and Amazon.
“The arrival of Lionel Messi will increase the attractiveness and visibility of our championship on all continents,” said Ligue 1 President Vincent Labrune in a statement on Wednesday.
“This unique event is the result of the strategy of the Paris Saint-Germain management, which has enabled the Parisian club to become one of the biggest franchises in world sport in 10 years.
“On behalf of French professional football, I want to thank PSG Chairman and CEO Nasser Al-Khelaïfi for making this dream possible,” added Lebrune, who ended his statement with three words: “Messi is magic!”
Nourry calls the signing a “huge surprise” for French football, but it is certainly a welcome one given the financial struggles the league has faced over the past 18 months.
Ligue 1 not only had to deal with the implications of being the only one of Europe’s top five leagues not able to finish the 2019/20 season due to Covid, but also with the collapse of broadcast partner Mediapro, which had been paying almost $1 billion per year for broadcast rights.
Amazon has since come in to pick up the majority of broadcasting rights, around eight matches per week, in a deal reported by the Financial Times to be worth $323 million per season, with French broadcaster Canal+ paying $390 million per season for two matches per week.
“[It’s] a great opportunity taken by Paris Saint-Germain and will hopefully result in lots of exposure for Ligue 1,” Nourry says. “Because we’re about 50% down on the TV rights deal this year compared to last year, with the collapse of Mediapro.
“So there’s lots of excitement in France, but it’s probably not going to stop about seven or eight clubs in the division this season from being unable to pay back loans they took out during Covid-19.”
However, Kieran Maguire, author of “The Price of Football,” believes that while PSG will certainly receive a financial boost from Messi’s signing, that won’t necessarily be the case for Ligue 1.
Maguire says the increased lack of competitiveness at the top of the league, created by PSG’s financial outlay this summer, will cause broadcaster interest to “wane quite quickly” and remains unconvinced Messi’s signing will “create a long queue” of suitors desperate to pay for TV rights.
“PSG will benefit because we already saw last night — 150,000 shirts sold within seven minutes was the claim — so they will benefit from being able to generate more money on match days,” he told CNN. “Even if they don’t put up the price of regular tickets, the commercial department will effectively be able to name their own price for hospitality packages.
“If you want to go in this box — if you’re a big firm of lawyers or accountants or you’re an investment banker and you want to entertain a client — we’ve got Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar leading the line. How much are you willing to pay for that? So I think they’ll be able to to increase their revenues.”
Given Messi’s considerable talents and PSG now boasting arguably the greatest attacking trio in history, Maguire says it also seems likely that the club will earn more prize money for reaching the latter stages of the Champions League.
“So I think there’s lots of benefits for the club,” he explains. “But for French football as a whole, yes, there will be an initial media interest and a curiosity value attached to his recruitment, [but] whether that will convert into significant increases in the value of a broadcast deal … I’m not so certain.”