舊歌重温: The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia

Vicki Lawrence

Watch video at You Tube (3:40 minutes) . . . .

The Unexpected Problem With EVs: They ‘Tire’ Quickly

Emily Dreibelbis wrote . . . . . . . . .

Some electric vehicle owners are finding themselves in the market for new tires sooner than they would be with a gas-powered vehicle.

EVs burn through tires 30% faster than combustible engine cars thanks to hefty weights and speedy acceleration, according to Bridgestone, which this week unveiled a new tire developed specifically for electric vehicles. Dubbed the Turanza EV, it starts at $289, depending on tire size. It’s now available at Bridgestone retailers in the US and Canada and at sites like TireRack.com(Opens in a new window).

“The Turanza EV is the answer to the most common question my team gets: What tires do you recommend for an EV?” a Bridgestone rep said at this weekend’s Electrify Expo in Long Beach, California. “People love their EVs but not the tires, so we see an opportunity to deliver a product that can fulfill needs for those consumers.”

The company projects 30% of new vehicles will be electric by the end of the decade.

Bridgestone’s new Enliten technology aims to solve the wear-and-tear problem. Tires also affect range, so Bridgestone developed a new polymer, called PeakLife, that reduces rolling resistance. A QuietTrack tread design also tackles road noise; the Turanza EV takes inspiration from the company’s touring tire line, which aims to keep road noise at a minimum.

“A 2017-19 Tesla has been around long enough to see the wear show,” says Josh Bulrice of Bridgestone marketing. “People are…looking for their next option based on what they’ve learned during their ownership. Treadwear is a constant conversation.”

Increased tire wear can also contribute to air quality issues. In Oslo, Norway, where electric vehicles make two-thirds of registered vehicles but a higher proportion of traffic, the “air has unhealthy levels of microscopic particles generated partly by the abrasion of tires and asphalt,” The New York Times reports(Opens in a new window).

In developing the Turanza, Bridgestone tested it on the most popular EVs: The full Tesla lineup (the Model 3, S, X, and Y), as well as the Ford Mustang Mach-E. It now offers five sizes for these vehicles, with 13 additional sizes launching in early 2024, says Bridgestone.

The new tire contains 50% renewable and recycled materials. The manufacturing process also uses a “synthetic rubber associated with recycled plastic, helping keep more used plastics out of landfills and the environment,” Bridgestone says.

Continental(Opens in a new window) also developed an EV-specific tire, which it calls the EcoContact 6. And Michelin(Opens in a new window) recommends specific tires for EVs. All three companies—Bridgestone, Continental, and Michelin—cite the importance of reducing wear, minimizing road noise, and protecting range.

Source : PC Magazine

Charts: More Than 3,700 Hong Kong Civil Servants Resigned in 2021/22

Source : HK01

Singapore’s High Costs Won’t Dethrone the Money Center — Yet

Daniel Moss wrote . . . . . . . . .

Singapore’s post-COVID-19 bull run has brought more than its fair share of grousing.

The city-state basks in its status as Asia’s destination of choice, a beneficiary of disillusion with magnets such as Hong Kong. That’s come with a big caveat: High costs that push workers to consider packing for the suburbs — of another country. Happily for Singapore, one very proximate would-be competitor needs to work a lot harder to be a serious rival.

Johor, the southern state of peninsular Malaysia, is often depicted as an arm of the island’s economy. Singapore was briefly part of Malaysia before becoming a republic in 1965. People flow across the border each day by the hundreds of thousands. Cars, trucks and motorcycles line up at rush hour. Food, goods, water and power cross the Johor Strait, which is less than half a mile at its narrowest point. With the cost of putting a roof over your head becoming prohibitive for some in Singapore, Johor is getting a fresh look. It’s not only right next door, it’s cheap. Enhancing the attraction is the decline of the Malaysian ringgit, which has skidded against the Singapore dollar.

But embracing the ex-spouse has its pitfalls. Johor is struggling with public services. The commute can be long, thanks to chronic congestion at peak times. While easily available in Singapore, domestic help is harder to come by and, with more employers cracking the whip on return-to-office, logging into Zoom too often from your spacious abode in Malaysia might not be such a great career move.

I lived in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, a few hours drive north of Johor Bahru, the state’s biggest city, in the 1990s. I have been back a number of times after moving from the U.S. to Singapore in 2019. However, I hadn’t spent much time in JB since Singapore rents skyrocketed. I was intrigued by the idea that the global financial center was, perhaps, on the verge of pricing itself out of the market just when it became the flavor of the moment. Anecdotes constantly arise in conversations among foreign professionals about someone who knows a person who fled north, despite their robust salary or the deep pockets of their multinational employer.

Chatting last week with some of JB’s leading realtors, I came away with an appreciation for the wrinkles in the current crush or fantasy. Yes, property transactions by volume and value hit a record high last year in Malaysia and its southern state. But it’s driven more by Malaysians than by expats looking to make their Singapore packages stretch.

The common thread, for sure, is the tie to Singapore. “If anything happens in the Singapore economy, we are very effected,” Sr Vadeveloo Suppiah, a former chairman of the Johor chapter of the Malaysian Institute of Estate Agents, told me. There are Malaysians working in Singapore and seeking to trim overheads, or who are flush and can afford to stay on the island, but want to buy a home across the strait. There are Singaporean citizens who want to move to JB to save cash. Expats employed in Singapore, but without bulging relocation deals that cover rent and school fees, are an emerging group. Most of Vadeveloo’s clients are Malaysians working in the city-state. It’s not all about expats like me — for now at least.

As confident as agents are, the real test of JB’s appeal and whether Singapore’s star is dimming, if even slightly, will come in a few years. That’s when a light-rail system joining downtown JB with the island’s northern transport hub of Woodlands, and from there to the hyperefficient underground train system, is scheduled to begin. Days before I visited, Singapore announced that construction on its side of the Rapid Transit System was halfway complete. “It’s going to be a game changer,” Vadeveloo declared.

For a long time, there was just a single crossing. The Causeway, erected by British colonial authorities, marks its centenary in September. In an effort to ease bottlenecks, a second road link was opened in 1998 after years of delays owing to disagreements about precise location, size and scope. While clearly not being able to live without each other, the two nations don’t always see eye to eye.

Among areas often mentioned as good deals is Puteri Harbour, around 30 minutes drive southwest of central JB. Along the highway, billboards protrude from the hillside promoting international schools such as Marlborough College and Raffles American School. Strolling around the waterfront retail area that abuts hotels and high-rise apartments one recent afternoon, I could see what fans were getting at. I also recognized this place, like many in Malaysia, had a generous amount of hype to go with its substance. Plenty of shopfronts were chained up with dusty signs plastered to walls advising they were closed for COVID-19. On the promenade, security guards and janitors outnumbered others by about six to one.

Later, at a bar called Rock Bottom, financial planner Adrian Paul is happy with his choice to relocate. A 37-year-old Malaysian with Singapore permanent residency, he and his Singaporean wife started considering leaving the city-state with their daughter when rents began the giddy ascent soon after COVID-19 curbs were eased. The rent on their three-bedroom condo was climbing to 7,000-8000 Singaporean dollars ($5,185-$5,925) per month. For 8,000 Malaysian ringgit ($1,777) a month, the family now lives in a five-bedroom house with a yard, pool and space for several cars in the nearby Leisure Farm neighborhood. “Here we can save and have a better quality of life,” Paul said. “This place is much busier on weekends.”

But this isn’t simply transplanting an existence from Singapore. Internet connections aren’t so great, Paul found. There are problems with trash collection, and taxis and ride-hailing services can sometimes take more than an hour to arrive. Paul is careful not to schedule meetings in downtown Singapore before, say, midmorning, and he has flexibility that enables him to work from home a couple of times a week. He recounts the experiences of a neighbor working for an investment bank in the financial district. If she leaves at 6 p.m., she may not get home until after 8 p.m. “It’s great as long as you don’t have office hours.”

Singapore has taken steps to cool its property market, whose astronomical values the government attributes largely to delays in construction during the pandemic. Last month, in an effort to take some heat out of the industry, stamp duty for second-home buyers was increased and raised dramatically for foreigners purchasing private property. Singaporeans buying their first home are exempt. The state plays a huge role in housing; most citizens reside in apartments bought from the Housing & Development Board and politicians are acutely sensitive to perceptions of affordability. Days after the new measures, the likely next premier, Lawrence Wong, pledged to keep valuations manageable. “In Singapore, the Prime Minister has to be a real estate agent,” Wong told a May Day rally.

An aging society heavily urbanized and with a languishing birth rate requires immigration, and Singapore embraces it more than many advanced nations. Its economy will always be inextricably linked with Malaysia, especially Johor. The latter wants the money from investors coming in. The city-state needs fresh food, vegetables, technicians, barmen, caterers, bus drivers and postal workers. Singapore needs to watch it doesn’t become uncompetitive. For Johor, there are the challenges unleashed by geographic fortune: Demand from Singapore residents is making food, education and shelter more expensive for locals whose paychecks are in ringgit. The JB area is itself sucking in talent from across Malaysia.

For all its allure, Johor isn’t close to replicating Singapore, even if more people are prepared to at least contemplate a shift. It’s not as simple as build and they will come. The dynamic reminds me of perennial complaints about the U.S. dollar’s premier standing. The search for an alternative to the greenback, some magical currency that has all its advantages and no drawbacks of its own, keeps coming up short.

Singapore’s moment in the sun isn’t over. The boom in JB doesn’t do normal business hours. The towering sign on the approach to the border checkpoint that proclaims its love for Johor is firmly planted on Malaysian soil.

Source : Japan Times

Compounds in Chocolate, Berries Might Help Boost Memory As You Age

Cara Murez wrote . . . . . . . . .

You’ll likely lose some of your memory and thinking abilities as you age, but nutrients called flavanols might help thwart that decline, a new study suggests.

Not getting enough flavanols — natural compounds found in fruits, vegetables and even chocolate — could be driving that age-related memory loss, researchers say.

This research is the pinnacle of 15 years of work showing that flavanols seem to benefit the dentate gyrus, an area within the brain’s hippocampus that is critical to memory.

“This is the first time we can conclude that flavanols are acting as a nutrient for the aging brain,” said Dr. Scott Small, a professor of neurology and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. “We show in this study, because we had biomarkers of flavanols, that if you’re relatively deficient in your flavanols, that seems to be driving your age-related memory decline.”

This study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Mars Edge, a subsidiary of the candy company.

It’s possible that just as babies need certain nutrients for their developing brains, the aging brain also requires specific nutrients for optimal health, Small said.

Now that people live longer, scientists are looking into a series of recommendations of nutrients that are beneficial for the aging body and brain, he noted.

“I’d like to believe that this is one of the first studies that is beginning to establish that dietary recommendation,” Small said.

Besides berries and dark chocolate, other flavanol-containing foods include apples — particularly the peels — grapes, citrus fruits, cocoa and green tea. Good vegetable sources of flavanols are onions, hot peppers, kale, broccoli, rutabagas and spinach, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“I believe that you could consume enough flavanols to prevent yourself from being deficient,” Small said.

However, he urged people not to focus on getting this nutrient through chocolate. “There’s no way you can eat enough chocolate to have this benefit. In fact, if you tried, you would die first,” Small said.

Prior research in mice found that a particular substance in flavanols called epicatechin enhanced the growth of neurons and blood vessels, improving memory.

In humans, a small study linked the dentate gyrus to cognitive, or mental, aging. A larger trial found that flavanols improved memory, having the greatest impact on people who had a poor-quality diet to start.

To study this further, researchers randomly assigned 3,500 healthy older adults to receive either a placebo or a daily flavanol supplement in pill form. The supplements contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80 mg of epicatechins (an amount that’s recommended you get from food).

Participants answered questions about their diet, and then did web-based activities to assess short-term memory that involved the hippocampus, repeating them after years one, two and three.

More than one-third of participants also supplied urine samples, so that researchers could measure a biomarker for dietary flavanol levels.

No one was severely flavanol-deficient, although those with mild deficiency benefited from flavanol supplements, researchers said.

Researchers also found that memory scores improved just slightly for the entire group taking the supplements, possibly because most already had flavanol-rich diets.

Yet those who reported having a poor diet and who had lower baseline levels of flavanols had memory scores improve by an average of about 11% compared to those on the placebo at the end of the first year. Their memory improved 16% from baseline.

They sustained the one-year improvement for at least two more years.

However, flavanols only improved memory governed by the hippocampus and not other areas of the brain, the researchers noted.

Emma Laing is director of dietetics at the University of Georgia and a national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She said flavanols are one of several sub-classifications of flavonoids, naturally occurring bioactive compounds linked to human health.

“Consuming foods high in flavanols has been shown in research studies to benefit health and reduce the risk for chronic diseases involving the brain, heart and other organs,” said Laing, who was not involved in this study.

These nutrients give foods like peaches and apples their bright colors, Laing said.

She noted that the role of flavanols on neurological health is an exciting, ongoing area of research with a lot left to learn.

“Intentionally adding flavanol-rich foods to your eating pattern is a relatively simple lifestyle change that you could make to support your health. Many foods naturally contain these compounds, so aiming to add one or more servings of flavanol-rich foods per week would be a realistic place to start,” Laing said.

Lang also recommended eating nutrient-dense foods, getting enough sleep, exercising, staying well-hydrated and avoiding alcohol as ways to reduce the risk of chronic disease and improve overall health.

Because of the study’s design, Small said it can’t definitively conclude that low dietary intake of flavanols alone causes poor memory, only that there’s an association.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: HealthDay