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BBC NEWS | Health | ‘Game’ to get people walking again

As Andy Long walks through the unfamiliar city streets his eyes are on the grey buildings ahead of him and the sky above.

He knows the road ahead is smooth so has no need to look at his feet.

Andy sets his own pace and, for a brief time, he is able to forget that he usually needs a stick to aid his walking following a stroke six years ago.

Using clever computer wizardry, researcher Wendy Powell at Portsmouth University has been able to create a special treadmill that enables people like Andy to walk better and faster.

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Full Story At BBC NEWS |

Nasa will study whether the space shuttle can operate beyond its planned retirement in 2010, reports say.

The agency will look at what might be required to delay the retirement of its fleet until the shuttle’s replacement - Ares-Orion - begins flying in 2015.

The exercise is aimed at answering questions it expects on the matter from Congress and the incoming president.

News of the study comes from a leaked internal email obtained by a Florida-based newspaper.

Nasa chief Michael Griffin, who is reported to have ordered the study, had previously opposed extending the shuttle

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Full Story At CNN News Story - WCVB Boston

BOSTON — In seven years, all taxis in the city of Boston will be hybrid vehicles, Mayor Thomas Menino said Friday.

As the city’s cabs reach their mandatory replacement age of six years, owners will be required to replace them with hybrids. Menino anticipates that within two years, 50 percent of the cabs will be hybrid vehicles.

“Requiring taxi cabs to go hybrid is an essential step in not only improving air quality, but also improving the quality of our taxi fleet,” Menino said.

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Full Story At CNN.com

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — A mother was convicted Friday of killing her month-old daughter by burning her in a microwave oven, with jurors rejecting a defense attorney’s claims there was evidence that someone else was responsible.
China Arnold is convicted of killing her baby by burning her in the microwave.

China Arnold is convicted of killing her baby by burning her in the microwave.

China Arnold, 28, showed no reaction when the jury’s verdict was announced and then lowered her head, looking down at the defense table.

Relatives in the courtroom cried and covered their faces with their hands.

She was found guilty of aggravated murder and faces the death penalty when sentenced.

Arnold was accused of killing daughter Paris Talley in 2005. A judge declared a mistrial in February, and the retrial began August 18.

Jury deliberations started Thursday following closing arguments.

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Full Story At Bloomberg.com

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc plan to finish shutting oil and gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and Enbridge Energy Partners LP will close pipelines as Hurricane Gustav gains strength and moves toward the region.

Shell and BP aimed to complete the shutdown of the equivalent of 800,000 barrels a day of oil production today. Enbridge said it will halt Gulf gas shipments effective 9 a.m. local time. Oil producers have shut at least 6.6 percent of output in the Gulf of Mexico, according to U.S. government figures at midday yesterday. Shell plans to halt 510,000 barrels a day and BP said it will stop about 290,000 barrels.

Fields in the Gulf produce 1.3 million barrels a day of oil, about a quarter of U.S. production, and 7.4 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas, 14 percent of the total, government data show. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 closed 95 percent of regional offshore output and, along with Hurricane Rita, idled about 19 percent of U.S. refining capacity.

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Full Story At Bloomberg.com

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) — The lawyer for billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian was found guilty of hiring Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano to wiretap the telephone of Kerkorian’s ex-wife during a 2002 dispute over child support.

A federal jury in Los Angeles today found Terry Christensen guilty of conspiracy to wiretap and wiretapping Lisa Bonder Kerkorian’s phone. He faces as much as five years in prison on each count. U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer scheduled sentencing for Nov. 17.

Prosecutors accused Christensen, 67, of paying Pellicano $100,000 to wiretap calls between Bonder Kerkorian and her lawyers after she sued for $323,000 a month in child support for her daughter. Pellicano earlier this year was convicted of running a criminal enterprise that bribed police officers and wiretapped the phones of Hollywood actors and producers to gain information for his clients in lawsuits.

“We will be appealing and we’ll fight this all the way,” Christensen’s defense lawyer Patricia Glaser said after the verdict.

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Full Story At ZDNet.com

Almost one-third of the 25 top-selling laptops at Amazon.com are sold with Linux. (Shown is their top-selling Linux laptop, an Asus EEEpc 900 unit.)

When I last reported on my search for such a laptop, we learned that this is not something you just go into a store and ask for, unless you like blank stares from clerks.

But a correspondent linked me to an Amazon page showing a number of Linux-based laptop configurations, mostly from MSI and Asus. So I asked their nice PR lady about it.

Her response was to send me a list, compiled based on sales data, of the 25 most popular laptop configurations currently on sale at the site. Eight of them ship with Linux.

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Full story At msnbc.com

CHICAGO - Once relegated to the dank corners of the basement, freezers are being embraced again by shoppers who are stashing bulk-sized purchases of meats, fruits and vegetables there as they work to combat rising food prices.

Across the country, shoppers bought more than 1.1 million freezers during the first six months of the year — up more than 7 percent from the same period last year, according to research firm NPD Group.

That rings up to nearly $400 million in freezer sales — a staggering figure compared to the rest of the home appliance sector, where industry data shows shipments are down nearly 8 percent.

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