Coffee 'could prevent eye tremor'

Drinking coffee protects against an eyelid spasm that can lead to blindness, a study suggests.

Italian researchers looked at the coffee drinking and smoking habits of 166 people with blepharospasm. Sufferers have uncontrollable twitching of the eyelid which, in extreme cases, stops them being able to see.
One or two cups of coffee a day seemed to reduce the risk of the condition, the team reported in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

Blepharospasm is a form of dystonia - a neurological movement disorder involving involuntary and sustained muscle contractions. It usually affects people aged between 50 and 70 and someone with blepharospasm may be unable to prevent their eyes from clamping shut, so that, at times, they are effectively "blind". The first symptoms may include eye irritation and discomfort, sensitivity to light and increased blinking.

Professor Giovanni Defazio and colleagues from the Department of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences University of Bari in Italy said a previous study had suggested smoking had a protective effect on the condition.

They compared smoking and drinking habits in patients with the condition with patients with hemifacial spasm (a similar muscle spasm that usually begins in the eyelid muscles but then spreads to involve other muscles of the face) and people who were relatives of patients.

Doubts raised

In the current study there was no significant association found with smoking but those who drank coffee were less likely to develop the condition.

The effect was proportional to the amount of coffee drank and the age of onset of the spasm was also found to be later in patient who drank more coffee - 1.7 years for each additional cup per day. Professor Defazio said: "Our findings raise doubt about the association of smoking and blepharospasm but strongly suggest coffee as a protective factor.
"The most obvious candidate for the protective effect is caffeine, but the low frequency of decaffeinated coffee intake in Italy prevented us from examining the effects of caffeine on blepharospasm."

He suggested that caffeine may block receptors in the brain that are associated with the tremor and explained a similar mechanism had been proposed for the protective effects of caffeine in Parkinson's disease.
Professor David Wong, spokesperson for the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, said the condition was fairly rare.

"Sometimes the condition is so bad that the patients spend most of the time with their eyes closed - they are effectively then visually impaired.
"Eye doctors treat patients mainly these days with Botulinum toxin."
Professor Kailash Bhatia, professor of clinical neurology at the UCL Institute of Neurology in London said although the condition seemed to be rare it could be under reported.

"This is an interesting finding, if you knew exactly how this worked it would help to develop treatments or preventive measures.
"It's something to look at in more detail."

Dr Tom Warner, medical adviser to the Dystonia Society, said a much larger study was needed to confirm the findings.

"Whilst the data is fascinating and offers new areas of research, it should not be accepted as a proven association and certainly does not mean we should be addressing our coffee intake."

Wii outselling PS3 'six to one'

Nintendo's Wii console outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 in Japan last month by six to one, says research.
Nintendo sold 270,974 Wii consoles last month while Sony sold 41,628 PS3s, according to Enterbrain, a Japanese publisher that tracks console sales.

Nintendo has sold about 2.76m Wii consoles in Japan since the launch last December, while Sony has sold 970,270 PS3s since it debuted last November.

About 17,616 Xbox 360 consoles were sold in June.

Start Craft
Star Craft Site

One of the most played and influencial computer games ever, Starcraft2 is getting ready to be launched.

On May 19th, at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational event in Seoul, Korea, we announced in front of a stadium of thousands that StarCraft II is under development, and revealed a first-ever look at the new real-time strategy title. The original StarCraft is known for its epic galactic battles between three distinct, formidable races - the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg - as well as its gripping single-player storyline told with the aid of Blizzard's signature cinematic sequences. StarCraft II follows in that tradition, as demonstrated at the Worldwide invitational with a live gameplay presentation and an exciting new cinematic teaser for the upcoming game.

We're eager to share the new face of StarCraft with you (it's now running in a custom 3D engine that includes realistic physics and allows for massive armies and massive units on-screen simultaneously). said a spokes person for Blizzard Entertainment.Check out the StarCraft II Official Website to view the gameplay trailer revealed at the Worldwide Invitational, the StarCraft II cinematic teaser, and much more!
Click on the logo above to go directly to their web site.

Click on the logo above to go directly to their web site.

Halo 3, the third game in the best-selling Xbox game franchise

Halo, is a highly anticipated first-person shooter video game under development by Bungie Studios for the Xbox 360 and is expected to "set a new high water mark" for next-generation games.[3] An official announcement on the developers' website states that Halo 3 will end the current story arc of the Halo trilogy. A public beta test of the multi-player component of the game began on May 16, 2007[4] and ended on June 10, 2007. The final version of the game is due to be released on September 25, 2007[1] in the United States, and on September 26 in Europe.

The Travelling Wilburys Set

A compilation of songs by ad-hoc supergroup The Travelling Wilburys went straight to the top of the British album chart in a good week for ageing rockers, according to the Official UK Charts Company.

The Wilburys, founded in the 1980s, was made up of some of the most famous names from pop music - George Harrison of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty of the Heartbreakers and Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra.

The chart topping Collection is a re-release of their two albums which had not been available to music fans for a decade.

Two unreleased songs recorded by Super group Traveling Wilburys are to go on sale next week along with unseen video footage.

The tracks — Maxine and Like a Ship — were recorded in 1990 but never included on an album.

The video footage shows band members George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan recording their first album – Traveling Wilburys Volume 1 in 1988.

Mostly filmed by Harrison, the video shows the band’s beginnings, the album being recorded in America and the mixing process that took place in the UK.

The video will be released along with the new tracks, which have occassionally appeared as boot legs over the years, as part of a collectible Traveling Wilbury’s package going on sale next week.

The package will combine the albums Traveling Wilburys Volume 1 and Traveling Wilburys Volume 3, the previously unreleased tracks, five video clips and the documentary DVD.

Made up of some of the most successful musicians of all time, the Traveling Wilburys formed by chance.

Harrison needed a B-side to accompany a European single release from his album Cloud Nine. While in Los Angeles, he approached Lynne for help with it.

Lynne was working with Roy Orbison on the upcoming Mystery Girl album and got him involved.

In another twist, Harrison’s guitar was at Tom Petty’s house and Petty offered to join in.

When the group showed up to record, Dylan offered to lend a hand completing the half-finished song Harrison had written.

Harrison has famously been quoted as saying: “And so everybody was there and I thought, I’m not gonna just sing it myself, I’ve got Roy Orbison standing there. I’m gonna write a bit for Roy to sing. And then, as it progressed, then I started doing the vocals and I just thought I might as well push it a bit and get Tom and Bob to sing the bridge.”

The final result was a song called “Handle With Care” and Harrison thought the collaboration's result too good to make a B-side. “I liked the song and the way that it turned out with all these people on it so much that I just carried it around in my pocket for ages thinking, Well what can I do with this thing? And the only thing to do I could think of was do another nine. Make an album.”

Orbison died suddenly in December 1988, soon after the first album was released, but the remaining band members regrouped in 1990 and made a second album, giving it the curious title Traveling Wilburys Volume 3.

Harrison died in 2001.

Memory Almost Full - Paul McCartney

His latest album is getting great reviews around the world which after all this time is kind of nice. Paul has had mixed reviews for much of his recent albums and those of us who grew up on the Beatles came to the conclusion that Paul really needed John or something to get past those "Silly Love Songs". With Memory Almost Full you find yourself saying.. "Sounds like the Beatles". Paul collaborated with Ringo on Vertical Man, and while they were mixing the album, Ringo said to Paul with a little disappointment, “hum, it sounds like The Beatles” and Paul answered, “hey man, you’re a Beatle!” This would have to be Paul's best album since "Band on The Run" and yes it is a Beatlesque and after all he was the guy that invented the sound.