Old skiers getting healthier
"A Colorado ski resort is scaling back ski passes for aging skiers because they are getting healthier," reports Associated Press. "Purgatory at Durango Mountain says people in their 60s and 70s are living longer, healthier lives and are more active later in life. According to the Durango Herald, the resort has cancelled a silver pass for ages 62 to 69 and a golden pass for those 70 and older. Now there is only one pass for those 65 and older. It costs $400 [U.S.]
65-year-old climber succeeds
"She just did it," says The Salt Lake City Tribune, noting "Carol Masheter's astonishing feat of climbing the tallest mountain on each continent in four years." The 65-year-old "managed to fulfill her goal while working full-time with only three weeks of vacation a year." Last year, the newspaper reported: "Shortly after Carol Masheter turned 50, the footholds of her life began to crumble. Over a period of about 18 months, her sister became ill. Masheter lost her job as a university professor. Her mother died. She discovered the man she had been in a relationship with for more than six years was seeing someone else. … So she escaped by fleeing far above the ground, taking up an unlikely hobby for a woman afraid of heights who suffered from depression and anxiety: climbing. It was a hobby that, eventually, at the age of 61 in 2008, took her to the peak of the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest."
Larry gets a makeover
"The rosy-cheeked, white-haired man smiling out at you from the Quaker Oatmeal box is getting a haircut, losing some weight and dropping about five years from his age," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Known among insiders as 'Larry,' the venerable Quaker man on the logo is getting a makeover as part of a wider effort by owner PepsiCo Inc. to reinvigorate the brand globally. It hopes to keep the 134-year-old brand 'fresh and innovative,' says Justin Lambeth, Quaker's chief marketing officer. Consumers associate the logo and brand with heritage, trust and quality, says Patrick Rowell, director of strategy for Hornall Anderson, Quaker's brand-design firm. And today, people associate oatmeal with 'energy and healthy choices,' he says."
How billionaires sleep tight?
"Americans fearing a rise in crime during the economic downturn are buying state-of-the-art gun safes hidden in their beds," says Orange News U.K. "The BedBunker weighs a whopping 1,300 pounds [590 kilograms]empty and features locks used in government high-security buildings like the Pentagon. Worried homeowners can now store 35 rifles and 70 handguns underneath them while they sleep. Product inventor and designer John Adrian, from Heracles Research Corp., said a number of billionaires have begun buying his product."
Humans as team players
"Our hyper-social spirit is both a great blessing and a terrible curse," says Smithsonian magazine. "Experiments have shown that it is shockingly easy to elicit a sense of solidarity among a group of strangers. Just tell them they'll be working together as a team, and they immediately start working together as a team, all the while attributing to each other a host of positive qualities like trustworthiness and competence. … Yet we are equally prepared to do battle against those who fall outside the fraternal frame. In experiments where psychologists divided people into groups of arbitrarily assigned traits … the groups started sniping at each other and expressing strong prejudices toward their 'opponents.' "
Thought du jour
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-44), French writer and aviator