Features

TOKYO — Emoji have exploded from 176 original designs to around 1,800 and counting, as the little symbols conquer the world.

Here are a few things to know about hieroglyphics for the smartphone age.

Sweet emotion 

There’s something for everyone and every mood. Laugh, cry, shrug those shoulders, or give that forehead a good palm slap... digitally, of course. Rough day at the office? There’s a head massage emoji too.

Diversity 

There are now five different skin colour emoji, along with the traditional yellow. There’s a gay family emoji and a Mother Christmas. A hijab-wearing Muslim woman is in the works. Religious images included a mosque and rosary. But images of deities are out — they contravene rules set by Unicode, an international consortium that oversees the format.

Emoji vs. Emoticon

There are a lot more emoji — the name combines Japanese words for picture and character — than emoticons because they also show people, places and things along with feelings. Emoticons are alphanumeric characters that usually just express an emotion or mood, such as :-) to suggest a happy smile.

So happy I cried

The “face with tears of joy” emoji was chosen by Oxford Dictionary as the word of the year in 2015. It’s also the most-used emoji worldwide, according to the emojitracker website. The heart symbol is the second-most popular while a smiling pile of faeces is also a big hit.

Food fun

The French love croissant emoji, it’s all about rice dish paella for the Spanish, while the Aussies like to say it with booze. Shigetaka Kurita, who created the first emoji back in the late 90s, says he is still waiting for a grilled eel symbol — his favourite dish, and one loved by millions of Japanese.

Crazy Canucks

Canadians love the poo emoji, and ones about violence and money, according to a 2015 report by British tech firm SwiftKey. It found that while the French love the heart, Russians love all romantic emoji, and Arabic speakers go for plants and flowery stuff.

There are the glittering topics and then there are the more down-to-earth but oh-so-useful ones.

The casual conversation about IT that two people may engage in, often after hours, will usually revolve around topics such as fibre optic Internet connection, artificial intelligence, virtualisation of servers, drones for smartphones and ransomware viral attacks. This is the glittering, the impressive, the trendy and the flashy. It is not necessarily what you have to deal with on a typical day.

There are more mundane — sometimes dull — topics in the realm of IT and it is often more rewarding and more useful to tackle them than to keep thinking of and talking about the more sophisticated, elusive ones.

It is astonishing to notice how much users tend to stay at the surface of most tools and applications, rarely pushing their knowledge of any given product beyond say 60 per cent in the best case and 20 per cent in the worst. And yet, the applications we are given to use today are nothing less than fantastic, provided one makes a little effort and spends a little time learning, going deeper into the hidden functionalities that are at reach.

Microsoft’s Office Suite alone remains largely underused. How many users know that you can search by colour in an Excel sheet, or by font or style (italics, etc…) in a Word document? Or that that you can select a vertical portion of a text (just keep the Alt key depressed before moving the mouse to select), or simply ask Word to speak the typed text out loud, making proofreading and translation tasks much easier.

The text-to-speech functionality has been dramatically improved since MS-Office version 2010. The speech now is smooth, flowing, sounding natural, and its speed can easily be controlled for maximum convenience. Excel also has built-in text-to-speech capability and that can be activated by column or by row; an ideal tool for checking long lists of numbers against a printout for instance.

Many complain that after having thousands of e-mail messages stored in MS-Outlook, both incoming and outgoing, the place tends to be messy. This is simply because the available rules for automatic filing and sorting are almost never applied — or are never learnt in the first place.

The same goes for MS-Access, the advanced database that is available if the pro version of MS-Office. When Excel is just not enough to process long lists, Access constitutes the dream solution. Whereas developing full-scale programmes under Access remains the work of professionals, the casual user can perfectly use the built-in wizard to create simple yet extremely useful databases. When you think that the concept of database is behind the overwhelming number of applications today, the importance of Access becomes obvious, and not using it at all is simply wrong.

Underusing available software tools is a phenomenon that extends to smartphones apps, though perhaps it is not as dramatic as underusing MS Office Suite programmes. We still tend to be happy making a rather shallow use of all these little applications on our smartphone. Even the famous WhatsApp, that virtually every person on earth uses every day, has nice little settings that are ignored by the majority of consumers.

The glitter may be nice, but the practical aspect of technology is what living everyday with computers, smartphones and the Internet, is about.

Too much television time has long been linked to childhood obesity, but a US study suggests that the connection holds true for smaller screens too, such as computers, gaming consoles, tablets and smartphones. 

With TV, a minimum five-hour-a-day habit increased the odds of obesity by 78 per cent compared with teens who did not have TV time, the study found. Such heavy use of other screens was tied to a 43 per cent greater risk of obesity, researchers report in the Journal of Paediatrics. 

“The landscape has changed so quickly with regards to how much we all use mobile screen devices and computers,” said lead study author Dr Erica Kenney, a public health researcher at Harvard University in Boston. 

“We have known for years now that spending too much time watching television contributes to a higher risk of developing obesity among kids, mostly because watching too much TV can lead to an unhealthy diet,” Kenney added by e-mail. “We see similar associations between other screen device use and diet, physical activity, and obesity risk as we’ve seen in the past for TV.”

To assess how screens large and small influence the risk of obesity, researchers looked at nationally representative survey data collected in 2013 and 2015 on 24,800 adolescents in grades 9 to 12. 

Nearly 17 per cent of youth said they watched no TV on weekdays, while 7.8 per cent said they watched five hours or more daily. 

Nearly one in five teens in the study spent at least five hours a day using smaller screens during the week. 

The survey also asked how many sugary drinks teens consumed and inquired about teens’ height and weight. 

More than 25 per cent of boys and about 20 per cent of girls reported consuming at least one soda or other sugar-sweetened beverage a day. 

Approximately two-thirds of boys and three-quarters of girls said they did not get daily exercise. 

Overall, 14 per cent of the teens in the study were obese. 

After adjusting for age, sex, race and ethnicity and other time with tiny screens, TV viewing was associated with significantly higher odds of consuming one or more sugary drinks and an increased risk of obesity.

More time with other screens was independently linked to higher odds of insufficient sleep, drinking more sugary beverages and inactivity. 

The study cannot prove that television or time on smaller screens causes obesity, however. 

It is also possible that excessive screen time was caused by obesity, inactivity or fatigue rather than these things being caused by too much time with TVs, smartphones or tablets, the authors note. 

Some previous research has found TV causes obesity and that kids who cut back on television can improve their weight, said Dr David Hill, a researcher at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and chair of the American Academy of Paediatrics Council on Communications and Media. 

The role of other screens has been less clear, with at least one study suggesting only passive TV watching affects obesity risk, Hill, who was not involved in the current study, said by email. 

“This study helps us understand that the link between obesity and media use may extend to other types of screens,” Hill said. 

This connection may be at least in part due to ads teens see for unhealthy foods, Hill added. Decreased sleep is also tied to obesity, and too much screen time is known to interfere with the amount and quality of sleep teens get. 

“We encourage parents to work with kids to examine what they need to accomplish in a day to be successful: how much sleep should they get, when should they eat, how much time do they need for homework, exercise, and family activities,” Hill said. “Screen media time should then fit in around those activities or complement them rather than displacing them.”

I have read the Bible more frequently after coming to Jordan, than I ever did before in my life. The religious history that this region possesses is fascinating and closer to Christmas every year, I find myself rediscovering the mysteries of the Biblical land.

The ancient churches in Madaba — including the one with the oldest map of the world in mosaic (with 157 captions of all major sites from Lebanon to Egypt), Mount Nebo — from where Moses saw the Promised Land, (which he would never enter because he died and was buried in Moab), Umm Qais overlooking the Sea of Galilee — where Jesus performed a miracle when he encountered a demented man and cast the bad spirits out of him into a herd of pigs, Lot’s Cave — where he and his daughters apparently lived following the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah ( after his wife was turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying God’s will) and finally, Bethany beyond the Jordan — where John the Baptist baptised Jesus of Nazareth.

This event altered the spiritual status of the waters of River Jordan because it marked a seminal moment in the life of Christ that sanctified the river’s water. It became an important pilgrimage site for all Christians from fourth century onwards. The Jordan River, from which the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan derives its name, is mentioned frequently in the Bible, about 180 times in the Old Testament and around 15 times in the New Testament. From its beginning in the northern heights of Mount Hermon to its termination at the Dead Sea (the lowest point on Earth), its elevation drops tremendously — to nearly 725 metres. It is on the banks of this river, on March 20, 2000, that Pope John Paul II held an outdoor mass with 25,000 worshippers.

Today, the river has been reduced to a shallow version of its former self and its waters are muddy and turgid. But the pilgrims, who submerge themselves into it repeatedly, are consumed by religious fervour. It forms a boundary between the neighbouring countries of Jordan and Israel, and at some spots, identical tour parties do exactly similar things, at the same time. You can even hear the people on the other side talking, and can join in the conversation if you feel like.

When I related all this to my Punjabi Christian friend Jasmine in Delhi, she was spellbound for sometime. And then she took a deep breath, clapped her hands and said “Hai!” Let me explain that Jasmine used this exclamation frequently — at the beginning of her sentences to denote decisiveness and in the middle, to emphasise a point. She never uttered it at the end of a sentence but sometimes, when she was rendered speechless; she just expressed it aloud, as a wishful monosyllable. 

Her biggest dream was to dunk in the Jordan River as part of a traditional Epiphany baptism ceremony, at the very spot where Jesus got baptised. 

“Hai listen, when can I go there?” she asked me. 

“Come anytime you want,” I said. 

“Hai! Can I take a dip in the river water?” she questioned?

“Of course! Don’t drink it,” I cautioned. 

“Why but why?” she queried. 

“Because it’s probably polluted,” I answered. 

“It is holy water, Hai! It will purify me,” she insisted. 

“Come to Jordan for Christmas,” I said. 

There was a pause as she searched for the right reply. 

“Just do it,” I persisted. 

“Hai!” she exclaimed wistfully

LOS ANGELES — “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” soared to the top of the weekend box office as expected, scoring the second-best December opening ever with $155 million, final industry data showed Monday.

After the biggest Thursday night debut of the year, the intergalactic adventure blasted past industry expectations for a $130 million weekend.

“Rogue One” opened at No. 1 in all markets globally. It brought in $290 million globally, and has yet to open in the vast Chinese market. 

“We’re in uncharted territory for December,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box office tracker comScore. “It’s going to be really hard for any movie to catch up to this movie. ... This is only the second time a movie has opened this big in December.”

The record-setter was “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the space saga’s seventh instalment, which debuted to $247.9 million in the US and Canada last December, but still ranked the new film as 12th among all-time openings and third-best this year, according to Forbes.

Like “The Force Awakens” did in 2015, “Rogue One” could top the box office for the rest of the year, Dergarabedian said.

Set before the events of the original 1977 “Star Wars”, it stars Felicity Jones and Diego Luna as leaders of a rebel faction that steals plans for its imperial enemy’s master weapon, the Death Star.

“Rogue One” knocked the No. 1 movie for the past three weeks, Disney’s “Moana”, to a distant second with $12.7 million, followed by “Office Christmas Party” with $8.6 million.

The weekend’s other new wide release, the critically panned Will Smith drama “Collateral Beauty”, opened in fourth place with $7.1 million.

“This is one of the most intense marketplaces for movies I’ve ever seen,” Dergarabedian said. “You have a ‘Star Wars’ movie out there looming like the Death Star over everything, and a really great crop of Oscar contenders that keeps expanding.”

Denzel Washington’s “Fences” opened in limited release this weekend and expands on Christmas Day. “Manchester by the Sea”, ‘’La La Land” and “Arrival”, which all earned awards nominations recently, remain in the box office top 10.

Moviegoers who see “Rogue One” will also get a peek at next year’s anticipated blockbusters: Trailers for the new “Guardians of the Galaxy”, ‘’Spider-Man” and “Fast & Furious” films play before the feature.

“Rogue One” is the “perfect lead-in for 2017, which looks absolutely massive”, Dergarabedian said.

“The movie lived up to expectations,” he added.

Based on the success of these latest two films, the next episode, due out in 12 months has the potential to “claim the title as the biggest movie of all time”, he added.

Produced by Lucasfilm and directed by Gareth Edwards, “Rogue One” stars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna and Forest Whitaker. The first stand-alone chapter in the Star Wars epic — it is set shortly before the events of the original 1977 film — it tells the story of Rebel Alliance fighters trying to steal plans for the Empire’s feared Death Star. 

Purveyor of America’s consistently best-selling model line, Ford took somewhat of a calculated — and ultimately successful — gamble with the introduction of the lighter aluminium bodied F150 pickup, using more sophisticated but down-sized engines. Deeply traditional, heavyweight and highly profitable, the full-size pick-up truck segment is one where actual and perceived ruggedness, ability, high displacement and brute power counts for much, and is not one where rationalisation was not historically deemed a priority in the industry. 

However, soon after the 2008 financial crisis, Ford took the first step towards modernising the full-size pick-up segment with the introduction of its thoroughly contemporary 3.5-litre twin-turbocharged direct injection V6 EcoBoost engine in the previous generation F150 in 2011. Proving the market appetite for a rationalised and more sophisticated truck in a segment where such vehicles are popularly used for work and private use, the latest F150 was a veritable revolution when it arrived in 2015 with lightweight body and even smaller engine options.

Tough and sophisticated

Utilising rugged military-grade aluminium in body construction and consequently weighing in at 317kg less than its predecessor — depending on model — the 13th F150 iteration is most advanced in its class. Benefits from its lighter weight, it is quicker, brakes better, more agile, comfortable fuel efficient and capable as a workhorse. Offered in configurations, the driven Super Crew double cab version with regular cargo bed and luxurious second-to-top King Ranch spec is ideally suited for work, play and daily use.

Utilising more high strength steel in frame construction for improved safety and durability, the new F150 is as rugged as its jutting Tonka-truck looks would suggest. Potent in aesthetic with upright chrome grille, semi-split LED headlights, and huge 275/55R20 tyres, its subtle details, however, including low waistline for improved visibility and reduced distance between wheel-arch apex and bonnet for better aesthetic flow. Evolutionary in appearance and functional in implementation, the F150 features improved aerodynamics airflow and reduced turbulence.

Downsized but abundant

Powered by a more garden-variety version of the same basic but sophisticated and gutsy engine powering Ford’s just-launched GT supercar, the F150’s 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 EcoBoost engine is more fuel efficient and cleaner. However, driven over rugged but quick dirt road and desert conditions, the EcoBoost felt even more potent and muscular than the ostensible and more traditional range-topping 5-litre naturally aspirated Coyote V8 engine, and especially in mid-range, where it delivers an indefatigably gushing and hugely responsive wave of torque. 

Quick-spooling and responsive off the line like very few other turbocharged engines, the F150’s EcoBoost displays almost no perceptible turbo-lag. And with a generous and abundant mid-range sweet spot ideal for a heavy 2.2-tonne truck, it unleashes 90 per cent torque throughout a 1700-5000rpm band for effortlessly brisk flexibility, on-the-move acceleration, off-roading, steep inclines, towing and cargo carrying. Billed by Ford as more powerful in GCC specification for Middle East markets, the driven 2016 F150 3.5 EcoBoost develops 385BHP at 5,250rpm and 464lb/ft at 2,750rpm, allowing for a 0-100km/h time estimated at around 6 seconds.

Rugged and refined

Driven in semi-desert off-road conditions in Jordan, the F150 3.5 EcoBoost charged through the rough, choppy and low-traction terrain unimpeded, accumulating highway speeds with disdainful easy while remaining as settled and stable as can be as it soaked up the lumpy ground beneath. Easily capable of pushing up to an estimate 170km/h governed speed limit, it is quickest and most efficient in rear-drive mode but develops most traction and grip for off road and towing with four-wheel drive engaged. Auto mode, however, sends power frontwards only when necessary.

Lighter and more refined, agile and composed than the large pick-up competition, the F150 feels slightly smaller and more manoeuvrable. Riding on double wishbone front and heavy duty live axle and leaf spring rear suspension, but with lighter V6 engine in front, the F150 turns into corners tidily for its class and feels balanced throughout. Wetter steering feel, much reduced axle hop, brake dive and acceleration squat also make, the F150 truly standout for daily use refinement and dynamic ability, while much better vertical control keeps the F150 settled on rebound and over bumps.

Generous space and equipment

Forgiving over rough surfaces despite 20-inch alloy wheels, the F150 is built heavy duty work. Driven with FX4 off-road package, it features high and low gear permanent four-wheel drive modes, can carry 934kg in its 1,495-litre volume cargo bed and tow up to 5,307kg, depending on axle ratio options. For off-road driving it has 238mm ground clearance, 25.5° approach, 21° break-over and 26° departure angles. Driven through a smooth 6-speed automatic gearbox, 2017 models will, however, have more advanced 10-speed transmission. 

Enormously spacious in every direction inside and with wide swing angle doors and optional automatic running boards for easy access, the Super Crew configuration, as driven, features a highly adjustable and commanding driving position, but side bolstering could be firmer. Cabin design, layout and quality is much improved over its predecessor with plenty of soft textures and padded surfaces to be found, while controls are chunky and user-friendly and include multi-function steering wheel. 

Ergonomic, comfortable and thoroughly well-appointed, the F150 is available with intuitive Sync infotainment system with Bluetooth streaming and voice command, while its instrument panel even features steering angle, gradient, side slope and active four-wheel drive power distribution information display. Standard and optional safety features are extensive and include 360° around view monitor, three inflatable 3-point rear seatbelts, childseat latches, adaptive cruise control and blindspot, lane-keeping, rear cross-path and towing driver-assistance systems.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3.5-litre, all-aluminium, twin-turbo, in-line
V6 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 92.5 x 86.7mm

Compression ratio: 10:1

Valve-train: 24-valve, DOHC, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 6-speed automatic, four-wheel drive, low ratio transfer case

Gear ratios: 1st 4.17:1; 2nd 2.34:1; 3rd 1.52:1; 4th 1.14:1; 5th 0.86:1; 6th 0.69:1; R 3.4:1

Axle ratio options: 3.15:1, 3.31:1, 3.55:1, 3.73:1

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 385 (390) [287] @ 5,250rpm

Specific power: 110.1BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 173.5BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 464 (629) @ 2,750rpm

Specific torque: 179.9Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 283.5Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: approximately 6 seconds (estimate)

Top speed: 170km/h (electronically governed, est.)

Minimum fuel requirement: 91RON

Length: 5,890mm

Width: 2,029mm

Height: 1,960mm

Wheelbase: 3,683mm

Track: 1,717mm 

Overhang, F/R; 959/1,247mm

Ground clearance: 238mm

Approach/break-over/departure angles: 25.5°/21°/26°

Seating: 5

Headroom, F/R: 1,036/1,026mm

Legroom, F/R: 1,115/1,107mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1,694/1,673mm

Cargo bed height, length, width: 543, 1,705, 1,285-1,656mm 

Load floor height: 907mm

Cargo volume: 1495 litres

Fuel capacity: 87 litres

Kerb weight: 2218kg

Payload: 934kg (as tested)

Gross Vehicle Weight Rating: 3175kg (as tested)

Towing maximum: 4,808-5,307kg (4x4, depending on axle ratio)

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning circle: 15.57 metres

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbones, coil springs/live axle, leaf springs

Brakes, F/R: Disc, 34 x 350mm/drum, 22 x 335mm

Brake callipers, F/R: Twin/single

Tyres: 275/55R20

BANGKOK — A rainbow-headed snake, a tiny frog and a lizard with dragon-like horns are among more than 150 new species confirmed by scientists last year in the ecologically diverse but threatened Mekong region, researchers said on Monday.

Winding its way from the Tibetan plateau through the mountains and jungles of Southeast Asia, the Mekong River helps sustain one of the most diverse regions on the planet.

Each year scientists announce new species, after an often lengthy identification process, highlighting how much more there is to learn about the region. 

But there are fears many species may die out before even being discovered in an area of the world that is rapidly developing, where rule of law is notoriously shaky and wildlife smuggling rampant.

“The Greater Mekong region is a magnet for the world’s conservation scientists because of the incredible diversity of species that continue to be discovered here,” Jimmy Borah, from WWF’s Greater Mekong team said.

“They are racing against time to ensure that these newly discovered species are protected.”

The Greater Mekong region — which includes southwestern China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar — is under intense pressure from dam and road building as well as a thriving illegal wildlife trade, much of it centred around the lawless Golden Triangle area where the latter three meet.

“Many collectors are willing to pay thousands of dollars or more for the rarest, most unique and most endangered species,” Borah said.

In total, scientists described 163 new species in 2015 including nine amphibians, three mammals, 11 fish, 14 reptiles and 126 plants.

Among the most eye-catching are parafimbrios lao, a snake found in the limestone karsts of northern Laos whose scales reflect rainbow-like colours around its head.

On the Thai tourist island of Phuket, which has seen huge development in recent decades, scientists found a lizard (acanthosaura phuketensis) with a fearsome-looking ridge of horns down its head and back.

And in the country’s northern Chiang Rai province researchers found a newt (tylototriton anguliceps) with dazzling red and black markings that they likened to a Klingon’s head from the Star Trek franchise.

In Cambodia and Vietnam, a new frog species that could fit on a finger tip was also discovered. 

At 3cm long, leptolalax isos, can fit on a finger tip. It was first spotted in 2006 but peer-reviewed confirmation that it was indeed a new species took nearly a decade.

Between 1997 and 2015 there have been 2,409 new species described in the Greater Mekong, the equivalent of two new discoveries a week.

Preschoolers whose natural preference is for going to bed and waking up on the late side are more likely than their early-bird peers to have sleep problems, a recent study suggests.

Adults and teens with a late chronotype tend to stay up later and wake up later and to have more sleep problems than others, the researchers write in the journal Sleep Medicine on December 3.

“Sleep problems can start in early childhood and often persist across development. They have been associated with negative behavioural, cognitive, and emotional health consequences,” senior author Birit Broekman, a researcher with the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, said in an e-mail. 

For adults and teens, sleep problems may arise if they need to wake up and go to school or work before their bodies are ready, Broekman noted, but little is known about how chronotype can contribute to sleep problems in very young children who have yet to be exposed to the formal education system and fixed school start times.

The new study shows that even by preschool age, children with evening chronotypes may be having sleep problems, Broekman said. 

The researchers studied families in Singapore, focusing on 244 children who were all around four and a half years old. The mothers completed questionnaires that allowed researchers to categorise the kids as morning, intermediate or evening chronotypes.

In addition, the mothers reported kids’ sleep problems, including resisting bedtime, taking a long time to fall asleep, sleep anxiety, night waking, sleep walking, sleep disordered breathing and other issues.

Researchers also used monitors to track sleep and wake times for 117 kids over four days, to validate the sleep diaries kept by their mothers. 

Based on the chronotype profile questions, 25 children were judged to be morning types, 151 were intermediate types and 64 were evening types. 

Average weekday bedtime for morning types was about 10pm and wake up time about 7:30am. Intermediate types tended to go to bed at about 10:45pm and wake up around 7:40am. Evening types usually fell asleep around 11pm and woke up just after 8:30am. 

After adjusting for ethnicity and other family factors, researchers found that children with evening chronotypes had more sleep problems than children with either morning or intermediate types. 

“This suggests that chronotype could be a contributing factor to sleep disturbances in early childhood,” Broekman said. “This could potentially have a negative impact on daytime behaviour and cognitive development, as remains to be tested.”

Chronotype is a very important concept that gets overlooked because most people may not be familiar with it, said Dr Judith Owens, director of the Centre for Paediatric Sleep Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital, who was not involved in the study. 

“It has become more prominent in thinking about adolescent sleep because we know that many adolescents are evening chronotypes when they have a strong drive to fall asleep and wake up relatively later,” Owens said.

While teens are often night owls, Owens said the usual thinking is that young children are more likely to be “‘morning larks” who go to bed earlier and are the first ones to wake up.

The researchers found a lot more evening chronotypes in these children than previous studies have identified, Owens noted, and suggests that cultural influences could be important in that respect, as the study authors mention.

The most likely issue would be that evening-type children may not be able to fall asleep at the bedtimes set by their parents, which could result in bedtime resistance and struggle at the beginning of the night, she said.

Owens advises parents to be flexible if possible, allowing preschool kids to go to bed a little later and sleep on their preferred schedule.

And avoid screen exposure at night, Owens added. “That means television screens, computer screens, laptops, iPhones, iPads, e-readers. Anything that emits blue light is going to suppress melatonin release and delay that fall-asleep time even more.”

NEW YORK — Facebook is taking new measures to curb the spread of fake news on its huge and influential social network. It will focus on the "worst of the worst" offenders and partner with outside fact-checkers and news organisations to sort honest news reports from made-up stories that play to people's passions and preconceived notions.

The social network will make it easier for users to report fake news when they see it, which they will be able to do in two steps, not three. If enough people report a story as fake, Facebook will pass it to third-party fact-checking organisations that are part of the non-profit Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network.

Five fact-checking and news organisations are working with Facebook on this: ABC News, The Associated Press, FactCheck.org, Politifact and Snopes. Facebook says this group is likely to expand.

Stories that flunk the fact check will not be removed from Facebook. But they will be publicly flagged as "disputed", which will force them to appear lower down in people's news feed. Users can click on a link to learn why that is. And if people decide they want to share the story with friends anyway, they can — but they will get another warning.

Why fake news matters

"We do believe that we have an obligation to combat the spread of fake news," said John Hegeman, vice president of product management on news feed, in an interview. But he added that Facebook also takes its role to provide people an open platform seriously, and that it is not the company's place to decide what is true or false.

Fake news stories touch on a broad range of subjects, from unproven cancer cures to celebrity hoaxes and backyard Bigfoot sightings. But fake political stories have drawn outsized attention because of the possibility that they influenced public perceptions and could have swayed the US presidential election.

There have been dangerous real-world consequences. A fake story about a child sex ring at a Washington, DC, pizza joint prompted a man to fire an assault rifle inside the restaurant.

By partnering with respected outside organisations and flagging, rather than removing, fake stories, Facebook is sidestepping some of the biggest concerns experts had raised about it exercising its considerable power in this area. For instance, some worried that Facebook might act as a censor — and not a skillful one, either, being an engineer-led company with little experience making complex media ethics decisions.

"They definitely don't have the expertise," said Robyn Caplan, researcher at Data & Society, a nonprofit research institute funded in part by Microsoft and the National Science Foundation. In an interview before Facebook's announcement, she urged the company to "engage media professionals and organisations that are working on these issues".

Facebook and fake news

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that fake news constitutes less than 1 per cent of what's on Facebook, but critics say that's wildly misleading. For a site with nearly 2 billion users tapping out posts by the millisecond, even 1 per cent is a huge number, especially since the total includes everything that's posted on Facebook — photos, videos and daily updates, in addition to news articles.

In a study released Thursday, the Pew Research Center found that nearly a quarter of Americans say they have shared a made-up news story, either knowingly or unknowingly. Forty-five per cent said that the government, politicians and elected officials bear responsibility for preventing made-up stories from gaining attention. Forty-two per cent put this responsibility on social networking sites and search engines, and a similar percentage on the public itself.

Fake news stories can be quicker to go viral than news stories from traditional sources. That's because they were created for sharing — they are clickable, often inflammatory and pander to emotional responses. Mike Caufield, director of blended and networked learning at Washington State University Vancouver, tracked whether real or fake news is more likely to be shared on Facebook.

He compared a made-up story from a fake outlet with articles in local newspapers. The fake story, headlined "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide" from the nonexistent Denver Guardian, was shared 1,000 times more than material from the real newspapers.

"To put this in perspective, if you combined the top stories from the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and LA Times, they still had only 5% the viewership of an article from a fake news," he wrote in a blog post .

Facebook is emphasising that it's only going after the most egregious fake news creators and sites, the "the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain", wrote Adam Mosseri , vice president of product for Facebook's news feed, in a blog post Thursday.

Follow the money

The social network's first public step towards fixing the fake-news problem since the election was a statement barring fake-news sites from using its lucrative ad network. But it was not much more than rhetorical. Facebook's policies already blocked sites that spread misleading information from its ad network, an automated system that places ads on sites across the Internet.

Now, Facebook says it has also eliminated the ability for spammers to masquerade as real news organisations by spoofing domains. And it says it is weighing a crackdown on publishers of fake news as well.

Depriving scammers of money could be effective.

"Google and Facebook are the single two biggest engines for monetisation," said Susan Bidel, a senior analyst at Forrester Research focusing on digital publishers. "I don't think you are ever going to completely eradicate it. But it could get down to a manageable level."

Facebook will not allow publishers to promote any story flagged as disputed. If this works, users should not see fake news stories in Facebook advertisements.

Robots vs falsehood

Facebook's main approach to problems has been to tackle them with studying its vast troves of user data, with algorithms that can be more effective at things than humans, and to favour engineers over editors. Data rules all else at the Menlo Park, California, company.

Beyond the human fact-checkers, Facebook is also using its algorithms to de-emphasise fake news stories. For example, if people are significantly less likely to share an article after they have read it, it's a "really good sign that the article was misleading or not informative in some way", Hegeman said — sort of like when you try a cereal sample at the grocery store, then decide not to buy it.

Fake news stories will not disappear from Facebook, not the way child porn and spam and various illegal stuff does. That is not Facebook's goal.

"We believe providing more context can help people decide for themselves what to trust and what to share," Mosseri wrote.

Most Americans do not grasp that the chemicals produced by burning a cigarette are more harmful than the manufacturer’s additives that cigarette also contains, and many mistakenly believe filters can protect them from breathing toxic fumes, a recent study suggests. 

“We already knew that many people, especially smokers, think smoking might be dangerous for other people but not for themselves,” said lead study author Dr Noel Brewer, a public health researcher at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. 

“All cigarettes create smoke that has toxic and deadly chemicals,” Dr Brewer added by e-mail. “Additives don’t change tobacco smoke and make it dangerous — tobacco is inherently dangerous.”

To see how the general public perceives the harms associated with smoking, researchers examined data from three surveys done online and by phone that included a total of more than 9,000 adults and 1,000 teens. 

Among other things, respondents were asked if they had ever heard of 24 different chemicals found in tobacco smoke; how harmful they considered them to be; and how much the presence of a particular substance would prompt them to quit smoking. 

Among adults, 61 per cent surveyed by phone and 72 per cent quizzed online mistakenly thought most of the toxins in cigarettes came from chemicals added by manufacturers to enhance the flavour or performance of the products, the study found. 

Just 31 per cent of adults contacted by phone and 24 per cent surveyed online correctly believed harmful toxins in smoke come from the act of burning a cigarette or even tobacco alone, researchers report December 6 in Tobacco Control. 

Smokers were more likely to have the facts wrong than non-smokers. 

Teens were evenly split on the perceived source of harmful substances, with 43 per cent opting for additives and 46 per cent for the burning of the cigarette itself. For adolescents, there was not much difference in their perceptions based on whether or not they actually smoked themselves. 

Up to about one in three adults and roughly one in four teens also wrongly believed that filters successfully trap harmful chemicals from cigarette smoke. Once again, this belief tended to be more common among the smokers.

Nearly all of the survey participants had heard of nicotine, and many of them were familiar with carbon monoxide. A small proportion also said they were aware of toxins in cigarette smoke such as ammonia, arsenic and formaldehyde. 

But people were not consistently aware of nitrosamines, among the most deadly chemicals produced in cigarette smoke, across the three surveys.

Respondents were more likely to say that chemicals they had heard of, and ones that started with letters rather than numbers would tempt them to quit. But this enthusiasm was more common among non-smokers than it was among smokers, and those with higher levels of literacy and numeracy.

Meanwhile, chemicals ending in “ine” were less likely to discourage smoking among smokers and non-smokers, possibly because they sound similar to nicotine, the researchers note. 

At least some confusion is probably due to cigarette advertising and packaging, especially cigarettes promoted as “additive-free” or “natural”, the authors conclude. Descriptions like this may lull smokers into a false sense of security when they choose products that do not appear to have added chemicals, researchers note. 

“All of these statements are likely true, all are misleading because they suggest cigarettes are safe in some way, and all distract smokers from the fact that smoke from all cigarettes is deadly,” Brewer said.