Bank ATM's Converted to Steal IDs of Bank Customers

A team of organized criminals are installing equipment on legitimate bank ATM's in at least 2 regions to steal both the ATM card number and the PIN. The team sits nearby in a car receiving the information transmitted wirelessly over weekends and evenings from equipment they install on the front of the ATM (see photos below).

If you see an attachment like this, do not use the ATM and report it immediately to the bank using the phone on the front of the ATM. The equipment used to capture your ATM card number and PIN are cleverly disguised to look like normal ATM equipment. A "skimmer" is mounted to the front of the normal ATM card slot that reads the ATM card number and transmits it to the criminals sitting in a nearby car.

At the same time, a wireless camera is disguised to look like a leaflet holder and is mounted in a position to view ATM PIN entries.

The thieves copy the cards and use the PIN numbers to withdraw thousands from many accounts in a very short time directly from the bank ATM.

Equipment being installed on front of existing bank card slot.

The equipment as it appears installed over the normal ATM bank slot.

The PIN reading camera being installed on the ATM is housed in an innocent looking leaflet enclosure.

The camera shown installed and ready to capture PIN's by looking down on the keypad as you enter your PIN.

New Rape Tactic .... Careful...

My friend sent this article to me… Not sure if this is really true... Ermm… just be extra careful.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE PLEASE !!!!!!!

She was just discharged from the hospital........

Today after office hours, I heard from my sister-in-law that there is a new way to rape women. It happened to one of our good friends.

The girl left the office after working hours and saw a little child crying on the road. Feeling pity for the child, she went and ask what happened. The child said, "I am lost. Can you take me home please?"

Then the child gave her a slip and tell the girl where the address is. And the girl, being an average kind person, didn't suspect anything and took the child there. And there when it arrived the "child's home", she pressed the door bell, yet she was shocked as it the bell was wired with high voltage, and fainted.

The next day when she woke up, she found herself in an empty house up in the hills, naked. She has never even get to see the face of the attacker...

That's why nowadays crimes are targeted on kind people

Next time if the same situation occurs, never bring the child to the intended place. If the child insist, then bring the child to the police station.

Chocolate may reveal your bedroom secrets

Turin - Your choice of chocolate can reveal much about your personality, including your preferences in bed, psychologists argue.

According to Murray Langham, a New Zealand psychotherapist and author of the book Chocolate Therapy: Dare To Discover Your Inner Self, the choice of a chocolate's shape and filling, as well as how its wrapping is disposed of, reveals much about people's personality traits and moods.

Milk chocolate lovers, for example, tend to be innocent people who like to live in the past. Fans of dark chocolate, on the other hand, are materialistic, problem solvers who are excited by the future. White chocolate aficionados have an innate sense of fairness and believe they have the power of the universe at their command.

Langham says he had his idea after noticing that many of his patients enjoyed a close relationship with chocolate.

"I started asking my clients what sort of chocolates they like to eat," he once told the British daily The Express, "and I began to notice that people chose similar confectionery according to their personality".

Langham says he found that by observing his patients' chocolate habits he could discover more about their personalities than by just asking the patients straightforward questions about themselves, as psychologists tend to do in regular therapy.

Langham, who says his best-selling book has attracted widespread interest among American psychotherapists, says the choice of filling and shape also reveals much about one's personality and state of mind.

Oval-shaped lovers, for instance, are social and sensual. Those who prefer a coffee filling are open-minded, but also impatient, anxious and immature.

A perhaps more controversial aspect of "chocolate therapy" also holds that the way a chocolate's wrapper is disposed of brings out people's attitudes about sex.

Those who crinkle the wrapping before throwing it away tend to have too many thoughts on their mind and are unable to concentrate in bed. People who roll it into a ball, on the other hand, are having a boring sex life.

The implications of "chocolate therapy" are being discussed at "CioccolaTo", a trade fair taking place in the Italian capital of chocolate, Turin, until March 14. - Sapa-dpa

Dark chocolate may fight off heart attacks

By LEE BOWMAN,
Scripps Howard News Service

BOSTON (February 17, 2002 9:04 a.m. EST) - There's more evidence that cocoa rich in cholesterol-battling antioxidants helps ward off some of the factors associated with heart attacks and stroke, scientists lecturing here Friday during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science said.

The antioxidants in chocolate are called flavonoids, potent plant compounds also found in tea, red wine and some fruits and vegetables. Studies show that flavonoids slow the processing of "bad" LDL cholesterol into material that clogs the arteries, and at the same time make blood platelets less likely to clump and cause clots.

"What we're finding, though, is that all flavenoids are not created equal. There are some foods that are richer in them, and seem to be more biologically active, and cocoa is right up there," said Carl Keen, chairman of the nutrition department at the University of California-Davis.

Keen compared the reactions of platelets to a flavanol-rich cocoa drink and a blood-thinning, 81-milligram dose of aspirin, and found similar reactions in a group of 20- to 40-year-olds.

"What we don't know is just what the dose-effect of this might be over a longer period of time," Keen said. "We have some research that shows eating foods high in flavanols is good for the arteries, but we don't yet know what the minimum amount is you can consume to have the effect you want, or what happens if you consume at these levels for weeks or months."

Another chocolate researcher, Dr. Norman Hollenberg of Brigham and Women's Hospital here, reported findings that flavanols may be associated with controlling another chemical that regulates the arteries, nitric oxide.

The compound is critical for healthy blood flow and pressure, Hollenberg said. "If our research results continue to support a link between consumption of flavanol-rich cocoa and nitric oxide

synthesis, there could be significant implications for public health." Both Keen and Hollenberg used a special experimental cocoa supplied by the Mars candy company that is not yet available to the public.

Dark chocolate, which is typically a bit more expensive and not quite as sweet, is richest in flavonoids because of the way it's processed. Milk chocolate, which also has added butterfat, contains fewer flavonoids, while cocoa powder and chocolate syrups are currently processed with a method that removes most of the flavonoids.

As far as the fat in dark chocolate goes, it's mostly a saturated vegetable fat that behaves in an artery-friendly way, like olive and canola oils. Hollenberg began studying the effects of cocoa as part of a high blood pressure study on members of the Kuna tribe of Panama. He noted that members of the tribe who lived on the isolated islands almost never developed hypertension as they aged, while those who moved to urban Panama City did develop age-related high blood pressure. His team learned that in their homelands, the Kuna consume large amounts of cocoa.

And it was observed that the island-dwelling Kuna had significantly higher levels of nitrite-nitrate in their blood, which helps keep pressure down.

Back in Boston, people in a study group have nitric oxide numbers pretty much like those seen in the urban-dwelling Kuna. Hollenberg's team tried having them consume either high-flavanol or low-flavanol cocoa, and saw a significant response in the nitric oxide flow over a short time.

Now the scientists are preparing for a more specific study of the active ingredient of the compounds to conclusively determine if regulating nitric oxide with flavanols has a positive impact.

Keen noted that while early studies of flavanols showed they were beneficial, "it's only been in the last few years that we've been able to isolate some of the active components of flavanols and do the biochemistry that's needed to understand the mechanisms.

"Of course, it's still possible that flavanols are greater than the sum of their parts, and that they work well in the blood precisely because they are together," Keen said.

Antioxidants - Ahhhh! Better Than Red Wine Or Green Tea, Cocoa Froths With Cancer-preventing Compounds, Cornell Food Scientists Say

ITHACA, N.Y. -- There is a new reason to enjoy hot cocoa on a cold winter's night in front of a cozy fire. Consider it a health drink.

Beyond the froth, cocoa teems with antioxidants that prevent cancer, Cornell University food scientists say. Comparing the chemical anti-cancer activity in beverages known to contain antioxidants, they have found that cocoa has nearly twice the antioxidants of red wine and up to three times those found in green tea.

Their finding will be published Dec. 3 in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry , a peer-reviewed publication.

Scientists have long known that cocoa contains antioxidants, but no one knew just how plentiful they were compared with those in red wine and green tea.

The Cornell researchers, led by Chang Y. (Cy) Lee, chairman of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the university's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., say the reason that cocoa leads the other drinks is its high content of compounds called phenolic phytochemicals, or flavonoids, indicating the presence of known antioxidants that can stave off cancer, heart disease and other ailments. They discovered 611 milligrams of the phenolic compound gallic acid equivalents (GAE) and 564 milligrams of the flavonoid epicatechin equivalents (ECE) in a single serving of cocoa. Examining a glass of red wine, the researchers found 340 milligrams of GAE and 163 milligrams of ECE. In a cup of green tea, they found 165 milligrams of GAE and 47 milligrams of ECE.

"If I had made a prediction before conducting the tests, I would have picked green tea as having the most antioxidant activity," said Lee. "When we compared one serving of each beverage, the cocoa turned out to be the highest in antioxidant activity, and that was surprising to me."Phenolic compounds protect plants against insects and pathogens, and they remain active even after food processing. A decade ago "food scientists did not know that phenolics had an important role in human health," says Lee.

Lee and his colleagues used two chemical tests that measured how well the cocoa compounds scavenge for free radicals -- agents that cause cancer, heart disease and other diseases.

In the paper, the researchers discuss eating chocolate bars instead of drinking cocoa. "Although a bar of chocolate exhibits strong antioxidant activity, the health benefits are still controversial because of the saturated fats present," the researchers write. They explain that cocoa has about one-third of a gram of fat per one-cup serving, compared with eight grams of fat in a standard-size 40-gram chocolate bar.

Faced with the confusing prospect of drinking red wine or green tea or cocoa, Lee suggests enjoying all three in different parts of the day. "Personally, I would drink hot cocoa in the morning, green tea in the afternoon and a glass of red wine in the evening. That's a good combination," he says.

The research paper is titled "Cocoa Has More Phenolic Phytochemicals and a Higher Antioxidant Capacity than Teas and Red Wine." Lee's collaborators are his former graduate student, Ki Won Lee; Hyong Joo Lee, a professor at Seoul National University, South Korea; and Young Jun Kim, a post-doctoral researcher at Cornell. The research was funded in part by the BioGreen 21 Program, Rural Development Administration, Republic of South Korea

Where does chocolate come from?

The chocolate that we eat or use in desserts is the product of a long and delicate process that starts with the cacao tree. This marvelous tree grows in humid, tropical regions, between 10ƒ north and 10ƒ south of the equator. This zone, which can be enlarged in places to 20ƒ, is called "the cacao belt." The ideal altitude for a good plantation is between 400 and 600 meters (1300 and 1970 feet).

The cacao tree, also called the cacao palm and the chocolate tree, is very fragile and highly dependent on the ambient heat and humidity. It often grows in the shade provided by other trees, such as the banana, which are taller and more robust. The fruit of the cacao tree, called a pod, presents a rather startling appearance, as it grows right on the tree trunk. A pod weighs between 200 and 800 grams (7 to 27 ounces) and takes 5 to 6 months to arrive at maturity.

There are three families of cacao trees, each with highly characteristic beans :

THE CRIOLLO

The criollo is of exceptional quality, highly aromatic, and almost without bitterness. It is used by luxury chocolate makers. Relatively rare (this family is actually disappearing) and very expensive, we use these to make Grand Cru chocolates with unique flavor. Criollo cocoa beans are grown, for the most part, in South America.

THE FORASTERO

The forastero is originally from the Upper Amazon and is to cocoa what robusta is to coffee. It has a very pronounced, full-bodied flavor. Today this ordinary cocoa bean is grown mainly in Africa. It accounts for 85% of the world's production.

THE TRINITARIO

The trinitario is the result of a hybridization between the other two families and is named for the island of Trinidad. It combines the delicate savor of the criollo and the force of the forastero.

Although two thirds of the world's cocoa bean production comes from Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, etc.), producing countries are present throughout the "cacao belt" and include Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, the Caribbean islands, Jamaica, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Just as the geography is different, so too are the beans grown in all these various countries. Each has a personality, a certain something not present in the others. Therein lies the secret and the savoir faire of VALRHONA. We travel the world, seeking out the finest, and with it, we create truly Grand Chocolat.

Cocoa beans can be harvested all year long. In many countries, however, there are two production peaks: November to January and May to July. Harvesting is a delicate operation, as the cacao tree is too fragile for the picker to climb it. Instead, he uses a long pole equipped with a sharp blade. The maturity of a cocoa pod is measured by its color change, from green to yellow or from red to orange, and by the hollow sound it makes when struck. Once picked, the fruit is split with a machete, an operation requiring much hand labor. Each pod can contain up to 40 beans, which are surrounded by a white pulp called mucilage.

Foot Reflexology

Hey guys, The Organs of your body have their sensory touches at the bottom of your foot, if you massage these points you will find relief from aches and pains as you can see the organs are on right and left foot, the heart is on the left foot.

This time, it put organs on the feet as they are. Typically they are shown as points and arrows to show which organ it connects to.

It is indeed correct since the nerves connected to these organs terminate here.

This is covered in great details in Acupressure studies or textbooks.

Our body is created so well that when we walk we will always be pressing these pressure points and thus keeping these organs activated at all times.

So, keep walking wor... =p

"C" Shape Backbone

Aiyo... Please be careful wor.. For those who often cross their legs when sitting down for a long period of time, please take note! 3 unhealthy things will happen to them >.< >