The year is 2012 and a new battleground has opened up, the social media savvy are busy gobbling up all the free storage space they can find. Are you being left behind or have you cottoned on to the race to have your data with you 24/7 anywhere and everywhere on every device? I'm just beginning to understand what the power of the Cloud can do!

In 2011 I attended a Black Star Webinar by William Buist and learnt begrudgingly that I would have to download Drop Box file storage software, if I wanted to access the Webinar material at a later date. Having had a none too pleasant experience with Drop Box I was not at all impressed. Now that I've just acquired a 16GB iPad I know how valuable all 5GB of that Drop Box space is.

Season's greetings to you all, with Christmas over and the new year on the horizon flu season will shortly be in full swing. It is no longer a secret that the excesses of the festive season leave the majority of people exhausted stressed, drained and running on empty. It doesn't matter whether it is one Christmas dinner too many,one chocolate too many, too many late nights or a visit from the Outlaws (In-Laws). It is typically a time of excess. When it is all over your immune system breathes a sigh of relief only to be hit by the latest bug going! If you are a frequent flier and have to hit the road soon after, it can be especially challenging. By understanding what goes on in your body you can be better prepared and avoid flu season altogether and start the year stronger.

By Boxing day you and I will have come 360 degrees, take the rest of the year off ! I'm informed that before the advent of Christianity the last week of the year was for giving thanks and celebrating the year gone by.

Are you older and wiser? Will you reflect positively on the year or lament the passage of time. If marking a chronological year hasn't brought much to celebrate I'd like to cheer you up with the latest news from the frontier of Anti Ageing research.
In all truthfulness the science is now pointing to a curious distinction. Ageing is not really the correct way to describe the process properly. The correct description is INFLAMM-AGEING = INFLAMMATION + AGEING.

The 3 things you need to do to stop Inflamm-ageing are -

Make sure you get your Omega 3 fatty acid requirements met on a daily basis.

Depending on which airline(s) you fly with the answer to the question can be quite different or desirable. Social Media is all the rage right now. As we transition from using Social Media as a novel way of informing the world of what we ate for lunch there are some really interesting trends which look set to change the way we fly. Some good some not so good. It is the case of the good the bad and the very ugly.

The Good

I hate to say I told you so, but scientists have now confirmed the dangers of wi-fi enabled devices on laps. The preliminary research is published in the Journal Fertility & Sterility. I first wrote about this danger back in May 2011 in this article.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see this if you accept that there is no safe dose of radiation below which the risk of malignancy is nil. The effects of low dose ionizing radiation are fully covered in the archives of the National Academy of Sciences. The experiment exposes samples of male sperm to a wi-fi enabled  laptop computer for 4 hours and measures sperm motility against controls. As well as the sperm having motility issues they showed DNA fragmentation. The report stops short of warning readers of the dangers of wi-fi and continues to claim that wi-fi use is safe. The challenges of society engulfed in constant exposure to Electrosmog are once again exposed in this finding. Surfer beware, exposure to ionizing radiation is a part of 21st century life and it is here to stay. What is unforgivable is that the public is not being given all the facts to enable them to protect themselves adequately. I am not advocating abandoning technology altogether that would be ludicrous, I am saying we need to look at protecting our health and the health of our young ones  and frail ones who have less developed/challenged immune system. If you consider that autoimmune disease is on the rise (1)  you can see how any contributing factors like Dirty Technology must be kept in check. Autoimmune disease on the rise – American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association

JunkMonkey – Creative Commons Licence No 1 Traveller has recently opened sleeping pods you can rent by the hour at London Heathrow Airport  Terminal 3. Although it is a  great way to cater for those on extended transit stops, it would seem that the value of sleep is often lost on  travellers  and busy people UNTIL they can’t get to sleep. In today’s  fast paced world sleep is often seen as superfluous to requirements.  Sleep habits are poor and the results can be quite disastrous. Basic sleep hygiene is often neglected or ignored, or worse we think we can cheat the system and get away with it.  A study involving competitive students studying for term papers and exams showed how we tend to build up “sleep debt” which reduces performance. So while you may have heard it all before it is worth repeating – good sleep hygiene is worth the effort and should be part of everyone’s bed time habit.

• Sleep in a dark well ventilated room.
• Reserve your bedroom for sleeping!
• Have as little distraction as possible  – TV and radio belong in other parts of the house.

TIP As a frequent flier a pair of noise cancelling headphones should always be part of you luggage on and off the plane. NICE TO KNOW Did you know that sleep is the only time nerve energy is replenished.

I recently updated my iPhone 3GS operating system to iOS 5 and noticed a brand new app called Newsstand - is it a tell tale sign of newspapers of the future?

Then I tried to recall the last time I bought a newspaper and realized that Google Reader had become my default newspaper replete with my eclectic tastes in news from around the world and other topics.

I also came across a site/portal that allows you to publish your own documents, magazines and books to the web ISSUU - another reflection of how times have changed and the information highway is really a 2 way street !

My questions are as follows

Have you made similar changes in the way you get news for personal consumption? What other portals, sites do you rely on?

Would you say you get a more truthful picture of events now you are exposed to more diverse sources of information?

The European Union's ban on Backscatter ionizing radiation x-ray machines is good news for every flier, even though many people believe them to be safe. In a press release the EU backs its decision by highlighting concerns over health and privacy rights. Europe finds itself in an enviable position compared to the United States where the machines are still in use often without the option of an enhanced pat down.

The controversy surrounding these machines is not as easy and straight forward as it seems. Even with the wide coverage of this controversy most people don't understand the health issue properly.

I decided to blog on this subject before Daniel Priestley's I disagree with your blog post, but I think it makes my point that conversation in the simplest sense is a lost art.

I was driving from Eastbourne to St Leonards on Sea (Hastings) along the A259 when I spotted a hitch hiker. I have never picked up a hitch hiker in my life and I don't know why I did this time, but I did. The chap I picked up was one of those guys who collects cars up and down the UK from garages and delivers them to owners or other garages nationwide. The total journey time was only about 20 minutes but throughout there were no inconvenient silences or seemingly contrived discussions.

Interviews with Steve Jobs official biographer, Walter Isaacson reveal Jobs original response to the news that he had pancreatic cancer. Jobs sought to use a macrobiotic diet and a spiritualist to cure himself. Operating on the cancer was delayed as Jobs used these methods and the cancer spread eventually leading to his death.

Steve Kroft the 60 minutes interviewer asks Isaacson "How could such a smart man do such a stupid thing?"

Are complementary therapies really such a dumb thing because one man's choice?
Do you think macrobiotics has any merits as a diet?
In the face of life threatening illnesses where would you put your faith, complementary therapies or orthodox medical procedures?