Hasta La Gadget!

It’s no secret that working out amid nature — from a city park to a country trail — improves the experience for many. In fact, studies show that those who exercise out of doors boost the mental health benefit of their workout by 50 percent.

But another study, released earlier this year and making news this month suggests that one reason nature puts us so at ease is simply because of its color: green.

Researchers from the University of Essex in England designed a study to investigate how color affects the mood of those mid-workout. In it, 14 college-age men rode stationary bikes for three five-minute periods while watching a video clip of nature scenes. Each video had a color filter that rendered the image green, then black and white, then red for one of the three five-minute periods. Between each segment, the subjects answered questions about their mood.

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Biological changes are an important part of the teen-sleep picture, but they don’t tell the whole story. Combined with these biological shifts are environmental and lifestyle factors that also can interfere with teens’ sleep.
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We at Healthy Living have long known that the ‘healthy’ items on fast food menus can be anything but. And now, a new study has confirmed that observation: although menus grew between 1996 and 2010 to include 53 percent more items, the average number of calories in each item hasn’t changed significantly.

The major growth area on menus during this 14-year period has been toward “healthy” salads, yogurt parfaits and other lighter-seeming fare. Unfortunately, these items aren’t rendered less caloric merely by the addition of iceberg lettuce or apple slices.

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Separate accidents at two West Virginia coal operations Friday left one worker dead, two others injured and a fourth worker missing, company and state mine safety officials said.

An electrician was killed when he became caught between a scoop and a continuous mining machine around 1:30 a.m. at the Pocahontas Mine A White Buck Portal near Rupert in Greenbrier County, said Leslie Fitzwater of the state Office of Miners’ Health Safety and Training.

The mine is owned by White Buck Coal Co., a subsidiary of Virginia-based Alpha Natural Resources. Alpha identified the victim as Steven O’Dell, 27, of Mount Nebo, an employee of its Alex Energy subsidiary. It’s the sixth mining fatality in West Virginia this year.

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Sometime early next month, ASUS will be launching a docking station for the Nexus 7. The device is the first of its kind, and is priced at 3,480 Yen, which is about $40USD. The pictures show the Nexus 7 being docked in landscape mode, with an audio port and micro USB port on the back of the unit.

The Nexus 7 docking station features a 3.5mm audio port on the back. Says the website, “It is necessary to connect the USB AC adapter [when using audio output] to power the docking station at all times.” The Nexus has to be running Android 4.2 in order to use the dock. The unit measures in at 219mm x 65mm x 30mm, and weighs about 280 grams.

This is the only Nexus 7 docking station available with an audio output feature. It appears to have been available for preorder at some point, with the product page stating both “Now accepting reservations” and “Reservation has ended.” There’s no definite date for when it will be released, with the website merely stating “Will be released in early December 2012.” Of course, that could be as early as next week, so you might be able to nab one before Christmas.

The Nexus 7 runs Android Jelly Bean, and brings with it a host of hardware that makes the price-to-power ratio excellent. Inside you’ll find an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor. The display is a cool 7-inches offering 1280 x 800 resolution. It has all the trimmings, including a gyroscope and accelerometer. You can check out our full review of the tablet here.

[via ASUS]

ASUS Nexus 7 docking station to arrive in December is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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