October 12, 2015

No Image

Entertainment October 12, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: Jared Leto's Disguise at Comic-Con, Mattel Hoverboard Commercial and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Fake Commercial of the Day:

As part of the continued celebration of the Back to the Future trilogy this month, Universal has produced an “official” fake commercial for Mattel Hoverboards:

[embedded content]

Fan Build of the Day:

Speaking of Back to the Future, the DIY Prop Shop shows us how to make our own Flux Capacitor out of stuff from around the house:

[embedded content]

Casting Rendering of the Day:

Speaking of actors in costumes, here’s the latest superhero movie rendering from BossLogic showing what Bryan Cranston would look like in his desired role of X-Men villain Mr. Sinister:

Cosplay of the Day:

Speaking of actors in costume, Jared Leto and Mark Ruffalo both separately went undercover at New York Comic Con this past weekend. Leto wore a baboon mask and took a photo with a guy dressed up as Leto’s version of The Joker from Suicide Squad, while Ruffalo also wore a disguise in order to enjoy the event with his son.

He had no idea. 🙂 #NYCC2015 pic.twitter.com/zFWsrTbSGv

— JARED LETO (@JaredLeto) October 11, 2015

Fan Poster of the Day:

Speaking of Suicide Squad, here’s a fan-made poster for the movie by MessyPandas based on the famous art for Escape From New York:

Vintage Image of the Day:

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure stars Paul Reubens and Diane Salinger reunited as the Penguin’s parents in 1992’s Batman Returns. Reubens, best known as Pee-wee Herman, has been cast in the same role for the TV series Gotham.

Abridged Movie Franchise of the Day:

If you’re interested in watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull but haven’t ever seen the other three movies in the series, here’s a video recapping Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in just 90 seconds.

[embedded content]

Movie Mash-Up of the Day:

Speaking of the Indiana Jones series, with The Peanuts Movie hitting theaters soon, check out Chris Thornley’s drawing of Charlie Brown as Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark below, and see more based on the rest of the trilogy (no Crystal Skull love) at Live for Films.

Halloween Decorations of the Day:

Here are pumpkins made into cool displays based on Star Wars, Frozen, Minions and Raiders of the Lost Ark, taken by yours truly at Stone Mountain Park in Georgia this past weekend:

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of Troll 2, a movie considered one of the worst ever made, to the point that it has become a cult favorite and the focus of a documentary called Best Worst Movie. Watch the original trailer for the “sequel” below.

[embedded content]

Send tips or follow us via Twitter:

and

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Sports October 12, 2015

Giants' Daniel Fells Could Lose His Foot Due To MRSA Infection

New York Giants' Daniel Fells makes a catch during a practice at NFL football training camp in August. Fells is currently suffering from a serious MRSA infection; it is unclear if he will return to football.

New York Giants’ Daniel Fells makes a catch during a practice at NFL football training camp in August. Fells is currently suffering from a serious MRSA infection; it is unclear if he will return to football. Seth Wenig/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Seth Wenig/AP

On Sunday night, the New York Giants celebrated a thrilling 30-27 win over the San Francisco 49ers.

But one player wasn’t there to join in the jubilation.

Tight end Daniel Fells was in an hospital intensive care unit, suffering from a MRSA infection so severe it may require the amputation of his foot. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a type of staph infection that is resistant to many antibiotics, and the pressing fear is that the infection may travel to his bone and infiltrate his bloodstream.

Fells’ health problems arose when the 32-year-old suffered injuries to his toe and ankle and was given a cortisone shot for the pain. After a week of foot and ankle pain, his wife took him to the hospital on Oct. 2 with a 104 degree fever, according to NFL.com.

“This is a serious situation that has been taken seriously from the beginning. We’re all fighting for Daniel,” Giants spokesman Pat Hanlon said, per NFL.com. Giants General Manager Jerry Reese and head coach Tom Coughlin have reportedly visited Fells in the hospital, and in his post game press conference Sunday night, Coughlin said the team “dedicated [the] game to Daniel Fells and his family.”

Last week, it was widely reported that the Giants scrubbed their locker rooms and meeting areas “under the supervision of infectious disease specialists” in order to prevent the highly contagious infection from spreading.

MRSA is not a new affliction for athletes; for years both professional and college athletes have been contracting the infection, which thrives in warm, unsanitary environments like locker rooms. According to a 2007 ESPN report, “MRSA is mostly spread by direct physical contact, but can also be spread by teammates sharing razors, soap, or towels.”

“Many athletes get the infection after surgery, including Grant Hill of the Magic and the Patriots’ Junior Seau. When athletes get MRSA infections which don’t involve surgery, these are called “community-acquired.” These infections have struck at all athletic levels — from high schools to the pros — and in virtually every sport. But most reported cases have been in wrestling, and particularly football, because athletes often sustain open wounds and there’s frequent skin-to-skin contact.

“‘Football is a sport where people tend to get a lot of breaks in the skin from abrasions they sustain when they go down,’ says Jeff Hageman, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‘And we know that with staph and with MRSA, it requires breaks in the skin to actually cause disease.’

“Several prominent NBA players have also suffered staph infections, including Paul Pierce of the Celtics and the Cavaliers’ Drew Gooden.”

While Fells’ condition remains serious, he was upbeat in an Instagram post before Sunday night’s game, writing, “My heart is with my brothers tonight. Get that W G-men. I love every one of you #thiswillnotdefeatme.”

My heart is with my brothers tonight. Get that W G-men. I love every one of you #thiswillnotdefeatme

A photo posted by Daniel Fells (@danielfells85) on Oct 11, 2015 at 4:09pm PDT

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Business October 12, 2015

Behind The Rise In Hotel Rates — And How It's Benefitting Airbnb

3:12

Download

The cost of a hotel room is up — a lot. Recently, prices have leapt nationwide at triple the rate of inflation. Even some business travelers are turning to peer-to-peer rentals to escape the prices.

Transcript

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

The cost of a hotel room is going up a lot. In big cities like Boston, Seattle and San Francisco, a regular room is nearly 40 percent more expensive than it was in 2011. From member station WSHU, Charles Lane explains why the economic downturn made room prices go up.

CHARLES LANE, BYLINE: This is another headache you can blame on the recession.

ALAN WEISSMAN: It was as if someone turned a valve off on the money.

LANE: Alan Weissman is a hotel developer, and he says you need money to build hotels. And back during the recession…

WEISSMAN: Literally, overnight, the credit market dried up. This is where you’ll come in. This will be the front door here.

LANE: Weissman is showing off his latest, a five-story Hilton in Westchester just north of New York City. Framers have the walls studded out, and Weissman hopes to get windows in before winter so they can have rooms ready by summer. And travelers will be glad to have them.

WEISSMAN: I think there was an absolute stop in new construction, so there’s kind of a back log.

LANE: The recession-induced lag in construction lasted until 2012. Once money started flowing again, developers raced to catch up. But it takes time to build a hotel. Today, some 132,000 hotel rooms are being built. Until they’re done, there simply aren’t enough beds to go around. And right now, demand is huge from business travelers. Coleen Clark is managing editor of Jet Setter, an online magazine and hotel booking site.

COLEEN CLARK: The economy’s good. People are traveling more. Gas prices have gone down, so it’s even cheaper to get around now. So people are on the road more.

LANE: It’s a double whammy – short supply and high demand with business travelers. But then there’s this third whammy – vacationers. Clark says social media is rewiring what people value in life.

CLARK: These amazing vacation shots of – people are taking all the time might be the one vacation they take every year. But when you look at a feed, you’re seeing these pictures every day. And so I think a lot of times, vacation’s just top of mind now.

LANE: The bottom line is sticker shock. In some cities, run of the mill hotel rooms are renting for $400 to $500 a night.

CLARK: And as demand has gone up, prices have gone up as well.

LANE: That can be tough on business travelers whose budgets are sometimes capped by company per diem policies.

MARC MCCABE: We say that business trips are the trips you have to take, not necessarily the ones that you want to take.

LANE: Marc McCabe runs the business travel division for Airbnb, the home-sharing website. When hotel rates first started going up, McCabe says travel managers for large companies reached out to him for ways to cut costs. Airbnb will soon add more features aimed at more comfortable business travel.

MCCABE: Airbnb has the opportunity, I think, to make business travelers feel a little bit more at home and to give a traveler who’s on, you know – in the same location for two or three weeks that extra space to cook some food, to wash their own clothes.

LANE: McCabe says the hotel shortage and the recession catapulted Airbnb to where they are now. The company plans to sell stock and says they’re worth $24 billion. Still, even McCabe says traditional hotels won’t be replaced. He sees peer-to-peer rentals more like a safety valve for when sporting events or conventions bring to town more heads than beds. For NPR News, I’m Charles Lane.

Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

No Image

Health October 12, 2015

A Metronome Can Help Set The CPR Beat

Metronome GIF
2:25

Download

Credit: Meredith Rizzo/NPR

The heart beats rhythmically, and so does a metronome.

So it makes sense that a metronome, typically used by musicians to help keep a steady beat, could help medical professionals restart a heart.

“What we know for sure,” says pediatric cardiologist Dianne Atkins, a spokeswoman with the American Heart Association, is that “high-quality CPR improves survival.” So anything that improves CPR could save lives.

For CPR to be effective, the rescuer kneels at the side of the person in distress, presses one hand on top of the other in the center of the person’s chest and pushes down about 2 inches to force blood through the body before releasing and then compressing again.

The optimal rate for compression is 100 to 120 per minute, which is “fairly fast” says Atkins, and hard to maintain without something to guide you. “When chest compression is too slow or too fast, it decreases the effectiveness of CPR,” she says.

That’s where the metronome comes in. It offers a consistent guide. With every click, you do a chest compression and the metronome helps you keep the beat. Previously researchers have tried using music, including the songs “Disco Science” and “Achy Breaky Heart” to set the beat.

Now we’re not talking about everyone carrying around a metronome just in case CPR is needed. Most studies of metronomes have involved medical professionals doing CPR on adults. The most recent study in the journal Pediatrics looked at using metronomes to guide CPR for children.

More than 150 medical providers performed two rounds of chest compression on pediatric manikins, one with the metronome and one without. It turned out the metronome increased CPR effectiveness by 22 percent.

Surprisingly, this simple tool isn’t typically found in emergency medical kits with EMS teams or in hospitals. Atkins hopes the findings of the research will change that. In the meantime, she says there are several apps that can be easily downloaded on your mobile phone. Set it to 100 beats per minute, or quarter notes, since the app is typically designed for musicians.

It’s not a bad idea, says Atkins, for all of us, medical professional or not, to download a metronome app and get trained in CPR just in case.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.