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PARIS — It is a question that millions of parents want answered: will the wildly popular online survival battle game Fortnite soon lose its grip on the attention of their school-age children?

Much of the video game industry is also wondering whether the Fortnite balloon has popped, or is simply leaking air, after the first disappointing revenue data since the game’s release last year, with experts saying its publisher Epic Games needs to put these doubts to rest if it is to succeed in its expansion plans.

Fortnite’s popularity took off last year after the release of a free “battle royale” version that lets up to 100 players vie to be the last character standing on ever-shrinking terrain. Dropped onto the battlefield with nothing, players have to scrounge for weapons as the fight for survival begins.

Although the game is free, Epic Games had been successful in getting players to pay for goodies, which is its main revenue stream.

As of July the game had brought in more than a $1 billion in revenue.

But that data also gave analysts cause for concern that the Fortnite juggernaut may have tripped: revenue edged only 2 per cent higher in July from the previous month.

It was a lacklustre response to the recently launched paid “battle pass” that offered players new equipment and outfits for avatars, raising questions about how much longer Epic Games can keep players shelling out money for what are essentially cosmetic changes to the game.

“Epic Games has made a lot of mistakes which could knock them from their peak, players could get tired if the game doesn’t evolve and there is too much cosmetic” change, said Frederic Gau, president of Gozulting consulting firm. 

Epic Games has also bet on eSports to reinforce the popularity of Fortnite, investing nearly $100 million in such video game competitions.

“One hundred million dollars of cash prizes seems a lot but prizes for each competition are not that” large, said Andrew Kitson, head of telecoms, media and technology industry research at Fitch Solutions.

China ally

Enabling the popularity of Fortnite is the fact it is available on different game consoles plus smartphones. For smartphones, it first launched for iPhone, then a few weeks later on Android, the operating system used on 85 per cent of smartphones and particularly dominant in Asia.

“Android can provoke two different effects,” said Laurent Michaud at IDATE Digiworld, a think tank and consultancy specialising in the Internet, telecommunications and media sectors.

“It can boost other platforms or create its own proper segment, because often it is different players who play,” he said.

China also offers enormous potential for growth, both in terms of smartphone players and as well as eSports, with the Chinese giant Tencent having already pre-registered 10 million players.

“Smartphones represent now 50 per cent of global video game revenue and China represents half of that market,” said Michaud. “Today the Chinese play mostly on smartphones.”

Tencent, which is a big publisher of smartphone games as well as being behind the WeChat messenger, holds 40 per cent of Epic Games.

Having Tencent behind it is a major advantage for penetrating the Chinese market.

“A success in China will show whether Fortnite will continue growing as a game for the general public,” said Gau.

“It could also help enormously in it developing in eSports. It could either cause it to explode or steal its momentum elsewhere — it’s a bet.” 

But analysts say Epic Games has yet to address its major fault — that Fortnite does not have sufficient variety compared to its principal online rivals, in particular eSport stars Dota2 and League of Legends which regularly reinvent themselves.

Kitson at Fitch Solutions said he thinks Fortnite is a one dimensional game, as were some older games that were still able to build a player community.

“Fortnite is not a commercial failure but not a long term shot,” he told AFP. “But Epic Games can learn a lot from it to make a better one next time.”

But even if Epic Games rushes out a new version of Fortnite — the battle royale version was its second — the consultant Gau sees another problem: “for many it is their a second game”.

He said analysts will be looking closely if the sales of FIFA football and Call of Duty first-person shooter franchises hold up as well as in previous years, because “that wouldn’t be a good sign for Fortnite as players are returning to their favourite game”.

Despite growing implementation and acceptance of biometrical identification methods like fingerprints, palm prints, iris scan, voice recognition and face recognition, passwords are still widely used. At this point in time, their usage actually still outweighs that of all biometrics combined.

There is little doubt that the day will come when biometrics will take over personal identification for good and passwords will become a thing of the past. We are not there yet; the password concept is not giving up easily. Why are not biometrics completely taking over this rather outdated, flawed thing?

All new high-end smartphones that feature biometrical identification for unlocking still sport a password system, just in case the first system fails! This says it all. No method is perfect. Biometrical sensors sometime fail to detect the pattern they are supposed to read, and we, as human beings, are all prone to forgetting that password at the most crucial moment.

The list of the strengths and weaknesses of each system is long, and a comprehensive comparison of all biometrics and passwords would be the subject of a technical article in a specialised high-tech magazine. Passwords, however, present two major, undeniable advantages: people have been using them for ages, long before the digital era, and they do not require any additional technical equipment. In a password’s validation process there are no physical sensors or sophisticated software that could fail – a perfect case of “simple is beautiful”.

In a world heavily relying on technology, the extreme simplicity of the password concept gives comfort to all those who are not particularly technically-minded, which is still the case of a large number of users.

Apart from the understood and annoying fact that you have to remember them, the main weakness of passwords is the poor security element that is often associated with them, and it comes from the way people use them, despite repeated recommendations from the IT community.

Since the advent of personal computing in the early 1980s, consumers have been given simple, basic rules, first about how to create a password, and second about how to be careful storing it, not disclosing it, and not saving on a computer or device that many other people use.

At the risk of over repeating it or perhaps even irritating those who do not need to be reminded: do not make passwords that are shorter than eight or ten characters. Combine capitals, small letters, numbers and special signs. Before anything else, the golden rule is not to use any known pattern, number, name or series that makes any sense or that follows a logic of some kind.

People who do not obey that golden rule unconsciously want to create a password that they can remember. But this is precisely the point, it is not supposed to be easily remembered. It is meant to be “weird”, totally meaningless and complex. Like for example “hG6TwMQ#8 per centm$”. Most if not all people are aware of that golden rule but about 10 to 15 per cent of the population still does not apply it. Otherwise how to explain that email boxes are still hacked every day?

My Samsung’s Galaxy phone has fingerprint and face recognition for unlocking it. The first method works fine most of the time, though not all the time. The second works, well…. from time to time. In all cases, however, and although I mainly use the fingerprint method to unlock it, the handset’s Android operating system requests the entry of a password about once or twice a week — totally rejecting and bypassing the fingerprint and face recognition methods. This is not a flaw and not an error I would be making, this is just how the concept is built. It still counts on passwords every now and then, as an extra precaution.

There are several applications where eye iris scan has been adopted for many years now for unequivocal and perfectly safe personal identification. These include security control at airports and border points in general, and at a few banks (at ATM and counter). Iris scan is infinitely superior and safer than any other method. Experience shows, however, that choosing biometrics instead of passwords is being decided on a case-by-case basis —until further news or development.

As much as children need limits on their smartphone use and screen time on other devices, parents need “off-hours” time, too, according to a new resource published in JAMA Paediatrics. 

Children learn smartphone habits from their parents, so it’s important to make time to unplug and “single-task”, prioritise quality time with children, and resist the urge to document everything, the authors write. 

“With mobile devices, parents have a personalised, interactive computer containing all of their work, social, informational and entertainment lives in their pockets,” said Jenny Radesky of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who co-wrote the one-page primer for parents. 

Radesky, a developmental behavioural paediatrician, has found in her own research that parents who are absorbed with and distracted by their mobile devices tend to have less parent-child interaction, more conflict with kids and encounter more difficult child behaviours over time. 

“When I started this line of research, there were a bunch of studies showing that parents who watch more TV have kids who watch more TV,” she told Reuters Health in a phone interview. “And when the TV is left on in the background, parents and children talk to each other less and play less richly.” 

Available for free, the new patient page offers practical tips about media use. Although mobile technology has made many tasks easier, research shows parents have more demands than ever before. 

“As a working mom, I know how difficult it is to handle my kids when I’m thinking about a complicated problem at work, stressed about world news or feeling like I’m not being responsive to the work or social demands my device contains,” Radesky said. 

Radesky and co-author Megan Moreno of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison first recommend that parents step back and think about their relationship with their phone. Instead of using it as a stress reliever, take deep breaths and go for a walk. Instead of withdrawing into a phone to avoid difficult family interactions, purposefully engage with others and potentially confront issues. Instead of losing track of time, be aware of attention hogs and notice how much time has passed when checking e-mail or social media. 

“Multitasking makes us less effective and efficient at anything we try to do concurrently,” Radesky said. “Parenting is no different.” 

They also recommend that parents think about what aspects of their smartphone stress them out the most, such as checking e-mail or the news, and saving those for a time when family members are not around. 

In addition, parents should prioritise mealtimes, bedtimes and specific downtimes for family members to unplug and single-task together. Since children copy their parents’ behaviours, it is also wise to avoid actions that kids should not learn, such as checking the phone while driving, posting unkind content or ignoring other people while using the phone. 

“Parental screen time can reduce face-to-face interaction that is vital to children’s emotional and intellectual development,” said Jennifer Shu of Children’s Medical Group in Atlanta, who is also medical editor of the American Academy of Paediatrics consumer information website, HealthyChildren.org. 

“Parental screen time can also take away from adequate supervision and lead to safety issues,” said Shu, who was not involved in the JAMA Paediatrics primer. 

When parents use smartphones for social support, shared enjoyment with their children or to accomplish tasks faster so they can return to family time, they report seeing smartphones as a positive force in their lives, Radesky and Moreno write. In one study, the authors note, parents said when they were forced to “unplug” for a few days because of a broken phone or power outage, they enjoyed how clear their head was, how they could focus on single-tasking, and how much easier it was to communicate with their young children.

The patient page also recommends resisting the urge to photograph, document and post everything. Parents should be in the moment with their kids and let go, which will demonstrate an appropriate type of tech-life balance.

“Parents should model good behaviour whenever possible,” Shu said. “Use common sense and be a good role model for your kids.”

My problem is that the moment my head touches the pillow, I fall asleep. Instantly, that is. There is no tossing, turning, adjusting the duvet or counting of sheep. Also, I do not need to burn scented candles, listen to hypnotic music or make sure that there is no sliver of light entering from under the blackout curtains. None of it is of any consequence because like I said, the moment my head rests on a pillow, I crash out. 

So, why is that a problem you ask? Well, for the sleeper, that is me in this particular case, it is a blessing, but for all the non-sleepers I have been unlucky enough to be associated with, it is the biggest cause of envy that can be inflicted upon them. The reason for this is because most of the people I know, which includes my family members, friends and acquaintances, cannot go to sleep as easily as I do. They try very hard, there is absolutely no doubt about that, but somehow their share of “forty winks” evades them, night after night.

I had no idea it was so difficult for folks to fall asleep and assumed that if anyone was lying in bed for nine hours, they must be sleeping for that length of time. I was very surprised to learn that a lot of them actually slept for a fraction of that period, spending the rest of the span waiting for slumber.

Last month, one couple, who were poor sleepers, came to visit me and I discovered brand new methods of sleep enhancement. Coffee or tea after six in the evening was avoided because these were stimulants that apparently interfered with the nervous system and kept them awake. Ditto for alcoholic drinks and spicy food. The air conditioner in the bedroom had to be neither too hot nor too cold and each person had brought along their own set of feather pillows that they unpacked from their suitcases. Cashmere socks and eye masks were individually carried also and in the evening, the minute the clock struck ten, they decided to turn in. To interfere with their bedtime was sacrilegious and I was requested to walk softly outside their room so that my footsteps would not disturb them. 

They worked very hard in the city, they told me. They needed to correct their sleep deprivation and recharge their batteries, they said. They would wake up on their own the next morning, they insisted. I must not worry about their sleep cycle, they assured me. 

I related the story of one Seth Roberts, who worked in a sleep clinic since he suffered from terrible insomnia. He discovered that the days he was out and about, meeting people, teaching class, and so on, he slept very well but when he was home alone on the computer, he slept badly. He attributed this to our biology and the fact that when we lived in tribes there was a lot of social interaction, which induced good sleep.

They heard me out politely before wishing me a firm goodnight.

“Good morning,” I called out the next day.

“Did you sleep well?” I asked. 

“Nah,” they muttered.

“Tossed and turned,” the woman said.

“Counted sheep,” the man stated.

“You had coffee after dinner,” the woman observed.

“Did you wait too?” the man questioned.

“For slumber?” the woman added.

“Nope!” I answered.

“In my case,” I confided.

“Slumber waits for me,” I laughed.

Negative childhood experiences in physical education (PE) classes may have long-term effects on adult physical activity, a large study suggests. 

Researchers conducted an online survey of more than 1,000 adults, aged 18 to 45, across 46 states about their best and worst memories of their PE experiences, as well as their attitude about physical activity now. The 392 male and 636 female respondents were recruited by an internet service for monetary compensation. 

“Memories of enjoyment of PE... were the most substantial correlates of present-day attitudes and intentions for physical activity,” the investigators report in the Translational Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. 

For example, they found, rarely being chosen first for team sports in gym class was “strongly related to the amount of time spent sitting on weekdays and on the weekend” in adulthood. 

Thirty-four per cent of respondents reported feeling embarrassed by their childhood PE experience.

The next most frequent “worst memory” theme was lack of enjoyment in PE activities, reported by 18 per cent. 

People’s best memories of PE class included receiving positive recognition from peers or teachers regarding their performance. 

“The most surprising thing about our research was the vividness of [memories and the] emotional impact. This tells us these were transformative experiences,” senior author Panteleimon Ekkekakis of Iowa State University in Ames told Reuters Health by phone. 

People’s gym class memories “had some degree of influence on their self-perception and... the degree of their sedentariness,” said Ekkekakis. 

However, he stressed, the association was only “modest at best”.

“We’re not saying the experiences are deterministic and that one negative experience is going to determine a person’s physical activity level for the rest of their life,” he said. 

Christopher Hersl, vice president of programmes and professional development at the Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE America), who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health by phone, “Our number one goal is to turn out children that are healthy, happy and productive. If our instructional practices are causing any of these things not to happen then we need to reconsider our practices.” 

Carolyn Buenaflor, associate director of Cedars Sinai Healthy Habits, a community benefit programme that partners with school districts within Los Angeles to provide nutrition education and physical activity programmes, told Reuters Health by phone that children today might not have the same PE experiences as their parents did. 

Buenaflor said many of the elimination games children and adolescents used to play in gym class have been replaced with non-elimination games. PE classes also play more group games than sports games where one student at a time shone or did not. 

“Getting in front of the class and kicking the ball is not the best thing to foster enjoyment and physical exercise,” said Buenaflor, who was not involved in the research, 

People’s recollections of past experiences may not be accurate, the authors acknowledge. And this kind of study cannot prove that early experiences affected later attitudes. 

Still, they point out, “if improvements in PE experiences could inspire even small increases in [physical activity], millions could derive additional health benefits”. 

It seems clear, they conclude, “that decades-old arguments concerning the focus on sport in PE programmes and… fitness testing should be revisited. [With further research] it may be possible to transform PE into a professional field that closely adheres to the [evidence and]... that welcomes psychological best practices for the benefit of children and public health”.

On the day that one becomes an octogenarian, nature bestows a mathematical birthday gift: a gradual reprieve from the relentlessly increasing likelihood that he or she will die in the coming year.

That gift may come as small comfort against the growing creakiness of joints and the still-mounting probability that the end is nigh. But an analysis of close to 4,000 very long-lived Italians suggests that the rise in the risk of imminent death continues to slow until the age of 105. After that, researchers estimate, the chance of making it to see another birthday holds steady at roughly 50-50.

Perhaps it is “nothing to blow a trumpet about”, said University of California, Berkeley demographer Kenneth Wachter. But at least the mortality rate levels off, the data suggest.

Wachter and colleagues from universities in Italy and Germany published their findings in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

For humankind in general, these findings hint at an intriguing, if largely theoretical, prospect: that the maximum possible human lifespan — essentially, the species’ design limit — has not yet been reached. It may even be extended by means as yet undiscovered.

If the “oldest old” tell us how long we could live, then many centenarians could, in principle, get even older. And maybe older still with the right elixir.

“This data suggest our genetic heritage is permissive,” Wachter said. “Our bodies are not put together so that at some point, everything goes wrong.”

Indeed, he said, there is reason to believe that some humans could beat the current longevity record of 122, which was set in 1997 by Jeanne Louise Calment of France.

The new research contributes to a debate that has preoccupied poets and philosophers for as long as they have set pen to paper. For instance, the historian Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, maintained a running tally of long-lived persons and pondered the significance of their longevity.

Scientists have been in the fray since at least 1825. That’s when the British mathematician and actuary Benjamin Gompertz published the first models of human mortality and asked when, and whether, we must die.

In the new study, the international team of demographers and statisticians took advantage of the proliferation of people who live well past their 100th birthday. By calculating and analysing the death rates of 3,836 well-documented cases of Italians who lived to 105 or beyond and combining them with existing data on mortality rates, the researchers created a model that reveals the statistical likelihood of death in every year of the human lifespan from 65 to 105.

Established demographic data show that after 65, people grow more likely to die with every passing year. And the math is unforgiving: Each year after 65, the probability of death rises at a pace that is double what it was the previous year.

But when the researchers added the 3,836 long-lived Italians to the earlier data, they saw that this doubling held up only until the average human’s 80th birthday. After that, the rate of increase began to slow.

For the lucky humans who made it all the way out to 105, that annual increase in the probability of death seemed to stop. 

The authors also showed that the annual mortality rate in those aged over 105 declined slightly with each successive birth year, such that those born more recently tended to live longer.

This pattern “strongly suggests that longevity is continuing to increase over time and that a limit, if any, has not been reached”, wrote the team, which included demographer James W. Vaupel of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany.

“Our results contribute to a recently rekindled debate about the existence of a fixed maximum life span for humans,” they added. In any event, it raises “doubt that any limit is as yet in view”.

To University of Illinois epidemiologist S. Jay Olshansky, the evidence for the counter-argument — that there is a strict limit to the maximum human lifespan and we have reached it already — is right there in the new Italian data.

“The conclusion that they’ve come to, which is that there is no upper limit to life, is unreasonable,” said Olshansky, who was not involved in the new research.

By the time people reach these extreme ages, at least half disappear every year. And since there are so few of them to begin with, this harsh reality “tells us the real story”, he said.

“If 100 people survive to age 110 out of billions — which is exactly what has happened — what difference does it make if it’s 50 or 60 that die before their next birthday?” he said. It is just not persuasive to use such a small difference, drawn from such a tiny population of humans, to conclude anything about the longevity of humans in general. Statistically speaking, he said, “the tail of the survival distribution does not wag the dog.”

This should be abundantly clear to anyone who has ever been around senior citizens, he noted. “Human bodies are not intended for long-term use, and when we do manage to get them to operate past a century, plenty of age-related diseases accumulate,” Olshansky said.

Geneticist Jan Vijg of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York believes he has seen the limit of the human lifespan, and said it ceased its upward trajectory in the 1990s with the death of Calment. (The Frenchwoman ascribed her longevity to the fact that she didn’t worry much and had a diet rich in olive oil, port wine and chocolate, which she consumed at a rate of more than 1 kilogramme a week.)

For a study published in 2016 in the journal Nature, Vijg and his colleagues calculated that if scientists could cobble together 10,000 people who had reached the age of 110 — a big if — only one of them would be expected to live beyond 125.

Vijg, who was not involved in the new study, praised the authors’ ability to generate a new and well-documented database of very long-lived individuals. But “their data does not substantiate the claim” that the maximum limit to human lifespan goes out much further than it has already, he said.

“There is a ceiling. At the end of the day there is a ceiling,” says Vijg.

Vijg says he is “amazed” at the vigour of the scientific debate around an issue that is so distant from the reality of ordinary mortals. The outer limit of the human lifespan is an “intriguing scientific debate”, he said. But improving the average lifespan of all humans — by extending gains in nutrition, creating new medicines and addressing the causes of infectious diseases — is a better way to spend one’s energy, he adds.

“There is lots of opportunity here, no doubt,” Vijg said. “We can improve quality of life more and maybe give more people more life.”

What do the new numbers tell us about life and death at the outer limits of the human lifespan?

Think of aging as if it is a treadmill: You’re power-walking along in your early 60s, and around the time of your 65th birthday, the pace at which the treads move under your feet starts to pick up.

With each passing year, the speed grows. In fact, the rate of this change doubles every year.

Fail to keep up and you die.

Around the time of your 80th birthday, the rate of this increase begins to slow. You’re still more likely to die with each passing year than you were the year before, but your treadmill isn’t speeding up quite as much.

And by the time you reach the age of 105 — surprise! — the yearly quickening ceases altogether.

Now imagine yourself in a gym filled with treadmills, each occupied by people of different ages. The 105-year-olds are running faster than everyone who is younger. And they are falling off their treadmills — dying — at a much higher rate than are the 70-year-olds. Indeed, only about half of them make it to 106.

But if they do, they get a little break: Their treadmills are still the fastest in the gym, but at least they’re not getting any faster.

In a state of veritable design and technology renaissance in recent years, Volvo has always been one of most trusted and respected of car brands. Known for its rugged reliability, utilitarian practicality, innovative technology and obsessive attitude to safety, Volvo has only recently started to cultivate an emphasis on design and desirability.

Launched in 2016 as the second of a new generation of automobiles, the Volvo S90 is the Swedish brand’s flagship saloon, and is a complete mid-size premium car that finally has the sort of design and luxury necessary to take the segment’s German heavy hitters head on.

Presence and posture

Driven on Jordanian roads in most luxurious trim available for regular wheelbase models and the most powerful non-hybrid engine, the Volvo S90 T6 AWD Inscription delivers a relaxed, effortless big car driving experience. Long, wide and with flowingly rakish roofline, the S90 sits on the road with a classic rear-drive saloon’s posture and long bonnet, despite its front-drive derived four-wheel-drive architecture.

Oozing refinement from outside and within, the S90 Inscription’s badge, design and attitude is that of a classy and tastefully assertive luxury cruiser without the overtly aggressive aesthetic and obnoxious snobbery of some, and not the forgettable anonymity of others.

With flowing lines and long, wide and road-hugging stance, the S90’s fascia is dominated by a wide, upright and chrome-ringed grille with hungry shark-like convex vertical slats and big, bold Volvo insignia above a short overhang. Flanking its charismatic grille, are slim, strongly browed headlights with distinctive ‘Thor’s Hammer” LED signature to underline its Scandinavian provenance. 

With longer rear overhang, the S90’s width is accentuated by boomerang style rear headlights framing the rear fascia. Among few cars to look more sophisticated in white, the driven model also featured huge 20-inch alloy wheels to complement its near 5-metre length.

Responsive, capable and consistent

Powered exclusively by a range of turbocharged 2-litre 4-cylinder engines tuned and equipped for different outputs, the most powerful pure combustion engine S90 T6 model gains a supercharger and 65BHP on the next most powerful T5 model.

Developing 315BHP at 5,700rpm 295lb/ft torque over a wide and accessible 2,200-5,400rpm band, the T6 — with the aid of standard four-wheel-drive — also shaves a full second off the T5’s 0-100km/h times, and is able to accelerate through the benchmark in 5.8-seconds and onto a 250km/h top speed. Meanwhile, 7.3 litres/100km fuel efficiency is frugal for so powerful a luxury saloon of 1,892kg.

However, more important than headline specifications is how the T6 drives in both outright performance and modest real world consumption when driven gently. Noticeably quicker launching than the T5 model and plenty of competitors, the T6’s four-wheel-drive traction allows it to put power to ground more effectively.

Meanwhile, its mechanically-driven supercharger provides the sort of instant lag-free response from idling engine speed that even the better turbochargers can’t. Delivering power in a consistent, and abundant sweep from standstill to redline, one can feel a further underlying surge just past 2,000rpm as the T6’s turbocharger chimes in at full boost.

Grip and versatility

Responsive from standstill, muscularly flexible in mid-range and eager to redline, the T6 also benefits from a smooth and quick shifting 8-speed automatic gearbox for efficiency and driving versatility. Sending power mainly to the front wheels under normal conditions, the T6’s four-wheel-drive system allocates more power rearwards for improved road-holding on slippery surfaces and in wet weather. 

On the same twisting, winding test drive route as the S90 T5 front-wheel-drive version, as available in Jordan, the S90 T6 AWD proved more capable and better able to carry speed through corners on the less than ideal, smooth, low traction tarmac.

With good grip on the tarmac, the T6 AWD, however, didn’t have to rely on gentler driving to avoid slight rear drifts that would have been caught and controlled quickly by its vigilant electronic stability controls. Instead, the T6 favoured a similar driving style one would adopt with a traditional Audi or Subaru four-wheel-drive platform. 

By turning in somewhat early, decisively and tight to the inside of a corner to point it in the desired cornering line, and then coming back on throttle early, the T6 sends power rearwards and digs in to find plenty of traction and grip as it then powers out onto a straight.

Stylish, smooth and smart

Through corners, its steering is well-weighted, quick and precise, with a slightly meatier feel in Dynamic drive mode. Turn-in is tidy and eager for so large a front-derived car, while body roll is well contained. Riding on sophisticated double wishbone front and integral axle rear suspension, the S90 rides comfortably over most of Amman’s imperfect tarmac and textures, even with stylish low profile 255/35R20. 

However, one felt that these tyres could be firmer than ideal on some particularly sudden potholes and that the S90 would ride yet better with base Inscription specification 18-inch wheels with taller tyre sidewalls for improved suppleness.

Stable and highly refined at speed, the S90 T6 is a natural long distance express with a smooth, comfortable and reassuring ride. Quiet and relaxing inside, the S90’s cabin has a hunkered down driving position and high stylish leather dashboard. Ambiance is however airy and classy with dark upper trim contrasted with light open pore wood and tan seats as tested.

Seating is meanwhile supportive and comfortable, and further helps keep one feeling relaxed and civil even through the worst of traffic jams. An object lesson in cabin design, ambiance and material, the S90 Inscription oozes class and elegance.

Kitted with an exhaustive list of convenience, luxury and safety features, the S90 Inscription includes adaptive cruise control, City Safety auto braking and a host of other advance driver-assistance systems.

Of particular interest during test drive were the S90’s user-friendly infotainment screen and its blind spot warning system, which was invaluable in dense and unruly Amman traffic. Meanwhile, its 360° parking camera allowed one to manoeuvre and park in spaces otherwise improbably small for so large a car.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, turbocharged, transverse 4-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82 x 93.2mm

Compression ratio: 10.3:1

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, direct injection, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Ratios: 1st 5.25:1; 2nd 3.029:1; 3rd 1.95:1; 4th 1.457:1; 5th 1.221:1; 6th 1.0:1; 7th 0.809:1; 8th 0.673:1

Reverse/final drive ratios: 4.015:1/3.2:1

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 315 (320) [235] @5700rpm

Specific power: 160.2BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 166.75BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 295 (400) @2200-5400rpm

Specific torque: 203.15Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 211.4Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 5.8-seconds

Top speed: 250km/h

Fuel consumption, combined: 7.3 litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 169g/km

Fuel capacity: 60-litres

Length: 4,963mm

Wheelbase: 2,941mm

Track, F/R: 1,623/1,624mm

Overhangs, F/R: 873/1,149mm

Ground clearance: 152mm

Luggage volume: 500-litres

Unladen weight: 1,892kg

Steering: Speed sensitive electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning Circle: 11.4-metres

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbones/integral axle

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs, 345mm 320mm

Braking distance, 100-0km/h: 35-metres

Tyres: 255/35R20 (optional)

Price, on the road: JD66,000 (as driven)

By the Royal Health Awareness Society

While it may be easier to pass a United Nations resolution than to pass spinach onto a child’s dinner plate, this and other food-related conflicts are worth the negotiations that take place during mealtime.

In Jordan, parents and healthcare providers have their work cut out for them. Almost a third of Jordanian school-aged children suffer from iron deficiencies and almost a quarter suffer from stunted growth. Stunted growth is only one of many effects that result from iron deficiency. Iron deficiency can also cause a child to have a lower immunity to diseases, to experience constant fatigue or a feeling of tiredness and may even result in worsened academic performance at school. Iron deficiency has dire consequences on a child’s health due to the fact that it has a central role in the production of healthy red blood cells. Red blood cells are the body’s oxygen carrier and transporter and are essentially the reason why cells are alive. 

While paleness is commonly known to be the hallmark of iron deficiency anaemia, there are many other symptoms, including headaches, repeated infections and heart palpitations. If the condition is not resolved, a child may suffer from irreversibly impaired learning and social abilities.

Iron deficiency anaemia can be prevented in children by supplying iron through a healthy diet. Consider if you’re providing your child with iron rich food items, such as: 

• Red meat

• Chicken

• Eggs

• Lentils

• Chickpeas

• Spinach

Adding vitamin C to plant-based iron sources helps enhance the absorption of iron in the body. You can add lemon or orange juice along with the meal, or add minced meat to spinach or serve tomatoes along with eggs.

The role of parents in preparing meals, providing continuous guidance and inspiration and being armed with accurate and updated information can make the world of difference between a happy and healthy child and a malnourished one.

Doctors recommend infants be tested for iron deficiency between the ages of 9 — 12 months because the earlier you know about it and treat it, the less the effect on stunting the growth of your child.

The train of dreams

The Royal Health Awareness Society aims to spread awareness among parents about the dangers of anaemia in children and how to prevent it. 

Sessions are conducted in community clinics, where parents learn about safeguarding their children’s health. For Sumayya, it is being anaemic herself that prompted her to join the sessions: “I wanted to learn how to help myself and help prevent my children from getting it.” Sumayya’s family always drank tea with their meals, but now she knows that drinking tea or coffee can stop her body from absorbing iron. 

Another surprising tip that Sajeda picked up is that “you can get more iron from spinach by squeezing lemon on it”. 

Not only does “don’t have too much calcium” not make sense, but I question this fact about eggs and calcium. 

“The RHAS nutritionist told us about something called the train of dreams,” points out Ilham. “It’s what we dream for our children and how their health can make or break our dreams for them.” 

This really got Ilham thinking about how the little things she does every day, like providing her children with healthy meals, affects their future. 

Participating parents took a pledge together to feed their families healthy food. 

“I got very emotional,” Ilham reveals. “I just want to go home and make them one of the healthy meals I learned about!”

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

Smartphone apps that remind heart patients to take their pills could help them stick to prescribed regimens, an Australian study suggests. 

Heart patients often take up to four medications a day, three times a day, and that can be overwhelming, said Karla Santo. 

“Our results are really encouraging, especially because the apps that we used were already freely available in the app stores and were already being used by millions of people,” Santo told Reuters Health by e-mail. 

As reported in the journal Heart, Santo and colleagues at the University of Sydney in New South Wales randomly divided 150 volunteers with coronary heart disease into three groups. One group used a basic medication reminder app, a second used an advanced app with customisable features, and a third group was not given an app. 

Before the study, none of the participants had used apps to remind them to take their pills. 

The apps were chosen for the experiment based on an earlier study by the same researchers in which they ranked medication reminder apps available in Australia for iOS and Android devices. 

The top-scoring free basic app was My Heart, My Life (from the Heart Foundation of Australia), and the top-scoring free advanced app was Medisafe, which is available in the US and the UK. 

Three months later, patients in each group took a questionnaire designed to assess medication adherence. Scores showed that app-users stuck more closely to their pill regimens than patients who weren’t using a reminder app. 

The average difference between app-users and non-users was small, however — only 0.47 points on an 8-point scale. That may have been because participants generally had medium or high medication adherence to start with, the researchers suggest. 

“Low-adherence” — meaning people largely did not comply with their schedule — was more common without apps (29 per cent, versus 19 per cent among app users). 

App users did not seem to get extra benefit from advanced features, such as the ability to snooze reminders, track doses, provide adherence statistics and alert a friend or family member to missed doses. 

Heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death globally, according to the World Health Organization, and researchers note about 40 per cent of cardiovascular patients worldwide do not abide by their medication schedule. 

“The best way to keep track of medications is to use the tool you have within reach, and more often than ever, that involves an app,” said Karandeep Singh, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the study. 

Singh, who researches mobile health apps, called the study design “encouraging”. He said a lack of rigorous research has slowed the uptake of apps into guidelines and clinical practice. 

Indeed, Santo’s team writes, while there are thousands of health apps available, there is minimal evidence of their effectiveness in improving health or medication adherence. Regarding the current study, they admit their data only reflects a three-month period and longer-term follow up is needed. 

Still, Santo thinks more patients could benefit from reminder apps. 

“I think these apps would be useful for any patient that is required to take long-term medications such as patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, respiratory disease and HIV/AIDS,” she said. 

“We could recommend to physicians to start a conversation with their patients about how well they are taking their medications and probably suggest the use of a medication reminder app,” she added. 

TAMPA — Researchers have found a new way that global warming is bad for the planet: more hungry bugs. 

Rising temperatures will stimulate insects’ appetites — and make some prone to reproducing more quickly — spelling danger for key staples like wheat, corn and rice which feed billions of people, researchers said on Thursday.

And since these three crops account for 42 per cent of the calories people eat worldwide, any uptick in scarcity could give rise to food insecurity and conflict, particularly in poorer parts of the globe.

“When it gets warmer, pest metabolism increases,” said Scott Merrill, a researcher at the University of Vermont and co-author of the study in the journal Science.

“And when pest metabolism increases, insect pests eat more food, which is not good for crops.”

Prior studies have already warned of climate change’s harmful effects on food staples, whether by making water scarce for irrigation or sapping nutritious content from cereal grains.

The latest study adds to that body of research by focusing on the boosted appetites of pests like aphids and borers.

To find out just how bad it could get, researchers ran simulations to track temperature-driven changes in metabolism and growth rates for 38 insect species from different latitudes. 

Results varied by region, with cooler zones more likely to see a boost in voracious pests, and tropical areas expected to see some relief.

Overall, “global yield losses of these grains are projected to increase by 10 to 25 per cent per degree of global mean surface warming,” said the report.

“In France or the northern United States, most of those insects will have a faster population growth if the temperature warms up a bit,” lead author Curtis Deutsch told AFP.

“In Brazil or Vietnam or a very warm place, then it might be the opposite,” said Deutsch, a researcher at the University of Washington.

France stands to lose about 9.4 per cent of its maize to pests in a world that is 2ºC warmer, compared to about 6.6 per cent of yield losses today due to pests.

In Europe, currently the most productive wheat producing region in the world, annual pest-induced yield losses could reach 16 million tonnes.

Eleven European countries are predicted to see 75 per cent or higher losses in wheat from pests, compared to current pest damage.

In the United States, the world’s largest maize producer, insect-induced maize losses could rise 40 per cent under current climate warming trajectories, meaning 20 fewer tonnes of maize per year.

China, home to one-third of the world’s rice production, could see losses of 27 million tonnes annually.

The study did not account for any anticipated increase in pesticide use, or other methods of stemming the expected crop loss.

‘Insane’ aphid population

Consider the case of a particularly dangerous pest, the Russian wheat aphid.

Though tiny, these bugs are a major threat in North America, where they are considered an invasive species after first being detected in the 1980s.

Merrill said no aphid males have been found in Canada or the United States. The females, it seems, are reproducing clonally, essentially “giving birth to live clones of themselves,” he told AFP.

“These insects are born alive. They are born pregnant. Not only that, their granddaughters are developing inside them when they are born. It is crazy,” he added.

“They can reproduce under ideal temperatures very quickly,” on the order of eight daughters a day.

“You can imagine how quickly a very small population, even one aphid, can just explode over a whole field season. One or two aphids could turn into a trillion under ideal conditions. It is insane how quickly these populations could grow.”

Until now, most research on crop effects from global warming has focused on the plants themselves.

But researchers hope their findings will spark a hunt for more local solutions, like selecting heat and pest resistant crops and rotating plantings rather than simply dumping more pesticides into the environment.

“We have to start thinking about how are we going to short-circuit some of those things before they actually happen,” Merrill said.