Paris – Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen has been kicked out of the race by his own Rabobank team, the Dutch outfit has revealed.
The Danish rider had seemingly overcome controversy over missing four dope tests in the past 18 months.
He won Wednesday’s stage and looked to clinch overall victory.
However the team has learnt that Rasmussen lied to them over where he was and what he was doing during the month of June.
“He broke team rules,” said Jacob Bergsma, the team spokesman.
Rasmussen had won two stages during the Tour but his presence at the race was questioned by several officials and race organisers.
His departure leaves young Spaniard Alberto Contador in the lead with Australian Cadel Evans in second.
Anti-doping expert Michele Verokken told Sky News: “The future of the Tour de France is in jeopardy”.
Italian Cristiano Moreni exited on Wednesday after failing a drugs test and Khazakstan’s Alexandre Vinokourov was thrown out on Tuesday after testing positive for blood doping.
Boston (EON) – A new study has shown that obese friends can actually increase your risk of being obese or overweight in any capacity.
The study was published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine and shows that obesity can spread almost like a virus or bacteria can spread from one person to another. A person who is obese can likely get his friends and siblings to be obese as well due to eating habits.
James Fowler of the University of California San Diego stated that “We were stunned to find that friends who live hundreds of miles away have just as much impact as friends who are next door.”
The fact that friends may share ideas about what type of weight is healthy could cause this.
They found tha when a person becomes obese, the chances of a friend becoming obese increase by 57% with siblings at 40% and their spouses at 37%.
Toronto – Obesity can spread from one person to another like the flu or a fad, researchers report today in a first-of-its-kind study that helps explain – and could help fight – one of the nation’s biggest public health problems.
And how did they reach this conclusion?
The researchers found that when one spouse became obese, the other was 37 percent more likely to do so in the next two to four years, compared to other couples. If a man became obese, his brother’s risk rose by 40 percent.
The risk rose even more sharply among friends – between 57 and 171 percent, depending on whether they considered each other mutual friends. Moreover, friends affected friends’ risk even when they lived far apart, the researchers found.
And why did they reach this conclusion?
“It’s almost a cliche to speak of the obesity epidemic as being an epidemic. But we wanted to see if it really did spread from person to person like a fashion or a germ,” said Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School, who led the study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. “And the answer is, ‘Yes, it does.’ We are finding evidence for a kind of social contagion.”
Watch out. They’ll be quarantining fat people next. Or banning them from friendships:
“What spreads is an idea. As people around you gain weight, your attitudes about what constitutes an acceptable body size changes, and you might follow suit and emulate that body size,” Christakis said.
Adds the New York Times:
It may also mean that the way to avoid becoming fat is to avoid having fat friends.
That is not the message they mean to convey, say the study investigators, Dr. Christakis and his colleague, James H. Fowler, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego.
You do not want to lose a friend who becomes obese, Dr. Christakis said. Friends are good for your overall health, he explained. So why not make friends with a thin person, he suggested, and let the thin person’s behavior influence you and your obese friend?
Speaking of spreading ideas, expect the idea that fat people are pariahs to spread, too:
Other researchers used words like “brilliant” and “groundbreaking” to describe the work and said it is likely to lead to a flurry of new research.
“This is one of the most exciting studies in medical sociology that I’ve seen in decades,” said Richard Suzman, director of the behavioral and social research program at the National Institute on Aging, which funded the study. “I think these results are going to shift the way we think about some of these supposedly non-communicable diseases.”
Boston (EON) – Nintendo has made a bold move and raised its profit forecast by more than 40% for the year after huge sales from both the Nintendo Wii and DS.
Nintendo revealed some very impressive increases in pre-tax profits of 131,449m yen for the three onths to the end of June. This is up from 32,670m yen one year ago at the same time.
Net sales more than doubled as well in the same period to 340,439m yen up from 130,919m yen in 2006.
This shows just how much momentum Nintendo has behind them at this point as they continue to bury their rival Sony and the PlayStation 3.
The pre-tax profits for the year to end March 2008 are expected to coem in at 410,000m yen up 41.1% on its previous forecast of 290,000m yen.
Houston (EON) – Microsoft has announced that they are making big moves with online advertising striking deals with Digg.com and video-game publisher Electronic Arts and their EA Sports brand.
The Digg deal will allow Microsoft to be the exclusive provider of advertising in the form of display and context on the very popular site. Microsoft had a similar deal with Facebook last year.
Kevin Rose of Digg stated that “This move gives us an advertising partner with a larger organization and a more scalable technology platform to keep pace with Digg’s growth.”
Microsoft is going to replace Google to an extent on Digg but no financial terms were disclosed. Microsoft also announced a lot of in-game advertising to put ads in five upcoming EA Sports games Madden NFL 08, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, and others on the Xbox 360. These ads can be updated and changed over the internet as well.
Boston (EON) – Microsoft has made the move to announce a price drop of the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player dropping the unit down from $199 to $179 in the United States to better compete with Blu-ray.
It would be an understatement to say that Blu-ray is just winning the next-generation media war as they have been killing the HD-DVD format thanks to full support from the PlayStation 3 as well as movie studios.
Anyone who buys the HD-DVD player in August or September will also receive five free HD-DVD movies which makes it a bit sweeter of a deal. If you consider that 5 HD-DVD movies would cost you about $30 a piece anyways you are only spending about $20 for the actual HD-DVD unit as they try to catch up to Blu-ray and avoid extinction of the format.
This deal only applies to the United States as Europe is actually big fans of the HD-DVD format.
New York (EON) – New York City taxi and limousine drivers are threatening to strike over new GPS systems to be installed.
The New York Taxi and Limousine commission wants each of the city’s 13,000 taxis to install GPS systems as well as touch-screen panels placed n the back seat of the cabs. The new technology will also allow people to pay by credit card and map a route as they are riding through the city.
The New York Taxi Workers Alliance which represents about 8,000 drivers stated that they may strike over the new gear. The driver’s worry that the new GPS route-mapping will make passengers backseat drivrs and will also allow cab owners to spy on drivers.
The commission stated that another bonus is that it will allow for GPS tracking to find lost of stolen property.
Kabul (EON) – The Taliban have stated that even though one of the South Korean hostages has been killed, 22 of them remain alive and well.
This came after the end of a final ultimatum given by the Taliban. With all of these deadlines continuing to pass though you have to wonder when time is actually going to run out for negotiations for the hostages.
The rebels who took the hostages are pushing for Kabul to release Taliban prisoners in exchange for freed hostages. They also want Seoul to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. Many in South Korea are pushing for them to pull troops out but so far they have not budged.
The forces of South Korea are already scheduled to be home by the end of the year.
The foreign minister through all of this, Massimo D’Alema, wants the US military effort in Afghanistan to end altogether.
There is no telling at this point how it will end but with the hostages still alive anything is possible.
Washington (EON) – A presidential commission on Wednesday concluded and stated very publicly that they believe that an overhaul of the health care system is needed for disabled veterans.
The commission stated that not only does the health care need an overhaul but new “quality of life” payments need to be made to make up for their life-inhibiting injuries which they sustained during battle defending the country.
The commission wants better diagnosis for the veterans as well as more treatment for brain injuries and post-traumatic stress syndrome. The post-traumatic stress syndrome is something they want guaranteed for all returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The panel which is headed by Kansas Republican Bob Dole as well as former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala stated “We don’t recommend merely patching the system, as has been done in the past.”
Tripoli (EON) – Libya signed a deal with France to be compensated for them releasing the six medics who were convicted of injecting children with HIV.
France and Libya signed agreements on Wednesday which revolve around compensation for such things as civilian nuclear power, defense, health care, counterterrorism, and others.
The six medics which were freed by Libya included 5 nurses and 1 doctor. They had been held in jail for more han eight years already for giving 400 Libyan children HIV. They were sentenced to death twice but were commuted the final time.
The European Union signed an aid package for Libya which would giev them increased trade ties. They will also contribute with funds for families of the infected children.
The US is also likely going to aid Libya as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she hopes to travel to Libya soon.