Record Breaking Birth Weight in Twins - In Britain

An average baby has at birth around 3.2 kg (7 pounds, 1 ounce). The heaviest baby ever was born in the US in 1879: 23 pounds, 12 ounces (10.7 kg), but he died 11 hours after being born, as too much or too little above/below the average value decreases fitness. The heaviest baby also to survive was born in 1955 in Italy: 22 pounds, 8 ounces (10.15 kg) at

birth. In September this year a woman from southern Russia gave birth to a 17-pound, 1 ounce (7.7 kg) girl. But in the case of the twins there is another story: twins deplete severely the mother's organism, so you can imagine that they rarely reach the average weight for a newborn.Now the British Beth Ryder, 35, of Mount Pleasant, Rawtenstall, Lancashire, has just given born to a pair of twins weighing 19lb (8.55 kg). The boy, Theo, weighs 10lb9oz (4.8 kg) while the girl, Millie, has "just" 8lb 3oz (3.7 kg), being the heaviest mixed sex twins ever born in UK and the pair was born at Burnley General Hospital in Lancashire last week. The previous holders of the title were Thomas and Grace Houghton-Burnett, weighing 10lb1oz (4.5 kg) and 8lb2oz (3.6 kg), born in 2002. Ryder has another four children and all had over 9lb (4.05 kg) at birth. Ruder, a student nurse, had herself 11lb13oz (5.4 kg) at birth and her sister Claire 12lb2oz (5.5 kg). "Large babies run in the family so I knew that they were going to be pretty big. But none of us expected them to be quite so large." she said. Such a pregnancy was a real burden for Ryder. "I was absolutely enormous in the weeks running up to the birth and it was so uncomfortable," she said. Her other children weighed at birth as follows: Emma (17) 9lb9oz (4.1 kg), Leah (8) 10lb11oz (4.8 kg), Lauren (5) 9lb11oz (4.1 kg) and Callum (3) at 12lb1oz (5.4 kg). But, as scientists explained before, weight at birth is not correlated with weight of the adult individual: Ryder's children are average sized.

Canadian iPhone Leak Turns Out To Be Bust - Or just a publicity stunt...

After the recent contest announcement by Molson Coors Brewing Co. Canadian iPhone enthusiasts were happy, but the company has now backed down and is claiming that the iPhone references were just a mistake.

Molson Dry beer was meant to be giving away iPhones as part of their marketing contest. The company specified that iPhones will only be available as of January 2008 on the wireless network of Rogers Communications Inc, and that while the devices themselves were free, winners will have to pay for the cell phone service themselves. This is all the unofficial confirmation that many need and eager buyers rejoiced, but the company is now backing down and changing its statement.Molson Coors Brewing Co. is no longer offering iPhones as a prize, claiming that it was just a mistake. Furthermore, the company now claims to have no idea whatsoever if and when the iPhone will be launched in Canada. The story is that they only wanted to give their customers a general idea of when the prizes would be available. To make things even more credible, spokeswoman Marie-Hélène Lagacé also corrected an earlier statement that Molson was on the Rogers waiting list for the iPhone, by confirming that there is no such list in existence.The entire thing sounds all too much like school children being caught fibbing, but it could also very well be that Molson Coors Brewing Co. let the cat out of the bag too soon, something that is known to make Steve Jobs very unhappy. Obviously this backtracking is not going to put the cat back in the bag, nor is it likely to make Jobs a happy camper, but they have to at least try.Of course, it might not be completely out of the question for this to have been nothing more than a publicity stunt intended to give the company a free ride on the iPhone train.

Don't Upgrade Your Vista Computer! You Might Become a Windows Pirate! - The weird story of a Windows Vista activation process

We all know that having a genuine version of Windows Vista comes with support from Microsoft, updates and lots of other goodies but sometimes, all you need to become a software pirate is a simple Vista error. At least, this is what happened to James Bannan who described on the APC Magazine website a pretty weird situation which almost blocked his computer. It all started when James

changed his graphics card on the computer equipped with Vista. "There were some new DirectX 10-based titles out and I couldn’t get the benefit on my old DirectX 9 card. The swap-over went well and I went on my merry gaming way," he wrote on the APC Magazine page.After a few days, Windows Vista woke up and asked James to activate the operating system or else the computer would enter the Reduced Functionality Mode which allows the users to browse the web for only 30 minutes. The interesting fact is that he already activated Vista before the hardware upgrade so now he had to re-activate it using the same key."I was able to reactivate easily enough, although as the product key was already in use (by me!) I couldn’t reactivate automatically, but had to speak to a Microsoft customer service representative. I got the code easily enough, but it didn’t explain why Vista had deactivated, so I got in touch with Microsoft about the problem," he noted.After installing several utilities provided by the Redmond-based company, James finally discovered that the deactivation was triggered by the video card change bundled with disk controller modification. "The only problem? I had never changed my disk controller at any point. Apparently because I had upgraded the Intel Matrix Storage Manager application, this was reported as a major hardware change event."This is a serious matter especially for the beginners because they might find this re-activation process pretty difficult since you have to use the same key you entered before while Vista sustains the code 'is in use'. However, you can also contact a Microsoft customer service representative which may help you with your problem. May the activation be with you!

Leaked Info On 32GB Sansa View!!!

Enlarge pictureI am pretty sure some of you have been waiting for the new Sansa View for quite a while. The manufacturing company has shown the first Sansa View prototype at CES in January. But, since then, the View started resembling more and more the

popular e200 series. Too bad it's just not its time, as the market is already overcrowded with all sorts of cool flashPMP with higher capacities, large screen displays and a lot better video capabilities.However, as SanDisk is a big name in the industry, it comes natural to support a number of codecs for a wide range of file formats, such as AAC, H.264 and AVI. Besides that, it can also deal with some other rather common formats, such as MPEG-4, WMV, WAV, non-DRM, WMA and TXT for the audio books reading feature. Extra specs are said to be the integrated FM tuner with 20 presets, as well as the built-in microphone for the audio support. As for its internal memory capacity, the media player was enhanced with various sizes of 8GB and 16GB. To make sure it makes a stand on the PMP market, they have also given it a 32GB brain. And if that proves to be insufficient, there is a built-in microSDHC card slot. The battery life was rated to last up to 4 hours of music media content and 8 hours of video content.

Xbox 360 Explodes Fueled by the Halo Effect - In terms of sales

The release of what Microsoft referred to as a global entertainment phenomenon has managed to explode sales of its Xbox 360 consoles. The combined market performances of Halo 3 and Nintendo's Wii console have contributed to a 75% jump in sales of video gaming hardware and software in the U.S. According to market research firm NPD, gaming related sales passed the $1.3 billion milestone in September, increasing from $779 million the previous month. NPD indicated

that Microsoft's claims revealing Halo 3's impact as a new standard of interactive entertainment were justified, as the title pushed in excess of 3.3 million copies in its first month. In this context, the following nine games combined, in the top 10 selling titles, account for a little over half of Halo 3's sales. The latest version of the Halo franchise was a catalyst for the sales of Xbox 360. Piggyback riding on the immense success of Halo 3, Microsoft sold approximately 528,000 consoles. The fact of the matter is that the third installment of Microsoft's Halo flagship franchise – Halo 3, put Xbox 360 well ahead of Nintendo's Wii. But Wii, even without a Halo of its own, still managed to sell 501,000 consoles in the U.S. just in September. This means that overall, Nintendo pushed over four million consoles, with Microsoft not far behind at almost 3.5 million and with Sony's PlayStation 3 at just over 1.7 million. In this regard, the truly remarkable results are those of Wii, launched in November 2006, almost concomitantly with the PS3, while Xbox 360 has been available since 2005. PS2 delivered a poor performance in comparison with its rivals selling only 119,000 items in September. Still, Microsoft's official position is that it's not all about Halo 3. In fact, it would be dangerous for Microsoft's Xbox 360 to become associated with a single game, when the content available for the console is much richer. But this does not deny the fact that Xbox 360 is currently ridding the Halo 3 wave to perfection...

Having Sex Before Giving Birth Does Not Trigger Labor! - Just an urban myth

having sex late in pregnancy could trigger labor. But this was found to be just a myth by a team led by Dr Peng Chiong Tan of the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "This study is not the final word on the subject. Further research in this area is needed - particularly in a less 'pressure cooker' situation than where labor induction was already scheduled for shortly ahead. It is possible that regular sex a little earlier on, say from 36-37 weeks onward, might have a different effect.", wrote Tan for Reuters Health. "There are good biological explanations for the widespread belief that having sex can bring on labor," wrote the authors. Amongst the semen's ingredients there’s the hormone prostaglandin, which is released in huge amounts by the woman’s body as it triggers labor. Also, orgasm can induce uterine contractions. Still, there is no scientific proof that sexual intercourse close to the end of pregnancy starts the labor.The team assigned 210 pregnant women randomly into two groups: one in which they were advised to have sex as much as possible 4.7 days before their scheduled induction, while in the control group women were advised not to have sex. 60 % of the 108 women advised to have sex did so, while from the other group just 40 %. 56 % of the women who had sex experienced labor on their own, compared to 52 % of the subjects who didn't have sex, thus practically the same numbers. "We speculate that women very close to spontaneous labor felt changes coming on that might reduce their libido, like pains and vaginal discharge," Tan told Reuters Health. "If correct, this would mean that those women who had sex were the least likely to go into spontaneous labor soon, so they would do less well in terms of spontaneous labor as an outcome in the next few days. We did not have direct data to answer this question satisfactorily, however.""Based on the findings of our study, women scheduled for induction of labor at term should not be given advice to have sex for the purpose of promoting labor onset", the authors also mentioned.

Want an unlocked iPhone? Just go to France. Orange France to sell carrier-unlocked iPhones

Well, well, well. Look what we have here. Carrier-unlocked iPhones, once thought to be an impossibility (given Steve Jobs’ stance on the iPhone’s business model), will be hitting France this holiday shopping season (November 29). Those same wireless regulations that sparked speculation about the iPhone possibly being barred from French soil will require that Apple and Orange offer legit, carrier-unlocked iPhones alongside the locked-to-Orange iPhones.
Word has it that the carrier-unlocked iPhones will be sold for a steep ?999, whereas the locked version will be commanding a much more palatable ?399 (about $580) including VAT. Apple obviously wants to make it as difficult as possible to get your hands on a legitimately unlocked iPhone, and what better way than to make it ridiculously overpriced? Still, if you want an unlocked iPhone that will assuredly survive future iPhone firmware updates without voiding warranty or bricking, then you’ll have to make a quick trip to France. And by quick trip, we mean a trans-Atlantic flight.
[Via: IHT]