Shift workers are slightly more at risk of having a heart attack or stroke than day workers, research suggests. An analysis of studies involving more than 2m workers in the British Medical Journal said shift work can disrupt the body clock and have an adverse effect on lifestyle. It has previously been linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure and diabetes. Limiting night shifts would help workers cope, experts said. The team of researchers from Canada and Norway analysed 34 studies. In total, there were 17,359 coronary events of some kind, including cardiac arrests, 6,598 heart attacks and 1,854 strokes caused by lack of blood to the brain. These events were more common in shift workers than in other people. More»

Ford’s Focus ST performance car doesn’t need a second chance. It was very impressive in my first meeting, ahead of its debut in U.S. dealers’ showrooms in mid-September. The hatchback Focus should prove a major challenger to the Volkswagen GTI VLKAY +3.92% DE:VOW +3.78% , Honda Civic Si HMC +0.96% JP:7267 -0.88% . Under the hood is a reworked 2-liter, 252-horsepower, 16-valve turbocharged four, with 270 lb-ft of torque — available at any sane speed with just a flick of your right ankle — connected to a six-speed manual transmission. Ford claims peak torque comes between 2,000 and 4,500 rpm and that coincides with my feeling during a drive. More»

Abu Dhabi-backed Virgin Galactic, the space tourism arm of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, said 529 would-be astronauts have put down deposits to travel into space. The firm, which is part owned by the UAE's Aabar Investments, said it was expanding to include a satellite-launching service that would use a low-cost rocket system to propel payloads into orbit. Speaking at the Farnborough International Air Show, Branson said Virgin Galactic wants to “revolutionise the way we get to space”. More than 500 people have put their names down for the US$200,000 trip, which will last for around two hours and travel 60 miles high. Virgin said it expects to fly 600 people in the first two years of service. More»

Consumers in the Middle East are not interested in healthy fast food alternatives, the founder of US pizza chain Papa John’s told Arabian Business. The Kentucky-based firm, which operates 84 outlets in the GCC, expects to grow its regional business by 15-25 percent over the next two years, said John Schnatter, who is also CEO. “People say they want [a health-conscious pizza], but then they do not eat it. They always go back to the original product,” he said. Schnatter said that the chain has investigated healthier alternatives in terms of ingredients. “We have the ability to do a whole wheat crust. We have looked at the cheese and [other ingredients], so we are experimenting with it and we have tested it,” he added. More»

Giving up smoking may lead to an average weight gain of about 5 kilograms (11 pounds) after 12 months, according to a review of 62 past studies. That’s higher than the 2.9 kilograms in weight gain often cited in smoking cessation advice leaflets, researchers at Universite Paris-Sud and the University of Birmingham in England said in the review published yesterday in the British Medical Journal. The finding was similar for both people who used nicotine replacement therapy and those who didn’t, they said. Nicotine, the addictive substance in cigarettes, quells appetite by latching onto certain brain receptors that crank up the activity of a system of neurons influencing food desire, according to a recent Yale University study. While most quitters in the reviewed studies gained weight, as many as 21 percent shed pounds and 14 percent gained more than 10 kilograms, indicating a wide variety of outcomes, the authors said. More»

A new study suggests that drinking coffee can lower the risk of developing basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. “Our data indicate that the more caffeinated coffee you consume, the lower your risk of developing basal cell carcinoma,” said Doctor Jiali Han, associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the US.  “I would not recommend increasing your coffee intake based on these data alone,” he added.  “However, our results add basal cell carcinoma to a list of conditions for which risk is decreased with increasing coffee consumption. This list includes conditions with serious negative health consequences such as type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease.” More»

Canadian researchers have found that people who were subjected to physical punishment as kids are more likely to experience depression, anxiety and disorders later in life. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, estimated that between two and seven percent of mental disorders in adults might be traced back in their childhood punishments, including pushing, grabbing, shoving, hitting and slapping. The study did not include severe forms of abuse.  "People believe that as long as you don't cross that line into child maltreatment, and the physical punishment is controlled and doesn't cross the line into abuse, it won't have any negative long-term consequences for the child," said study author Tracie Afifi of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.  "The way we see it is along a continuum of having no violence to severe violence," Afifi added. More»

Jean Alesi was last seen on this very site sporting an F.P Journe Centigraphe Sport, a magnificent timepiece capable of splitting seconds to one hundredths in a mesmerizing display of activity.  It was a very fine pairing indeed.  But this is not that watch, this one was created in honor of Jean’s first time competing in the Indy 500 race.  Never mind the fact that his Judd-powered Lotus Dallara had an early exit at the event, the car looked superb in black/gold JPS-esque colours with its distinctive Journe branding and Alesi, always a feisty little fighter on the track will, no doubt be back. François-Paul Journe is a watchmaker whose accomplishments belie his relatively youthful age.  He is a Master of complications – his first unique timepiece, a ‘remontoir’ constant-force  tourbillon pocket watch was based on the work some three centuries earlier of the legendary Abraham-Louis Breguet.  In 1984 he commenced work on a resonance timepiece – a work so complicated that it’s very mechanical concept had remained something of a black science in the centuries since the phenomenon was discovered and reported by the sixteenth century Dutch physicist Christiana Huygens, since then he has sought not just to recreate, but to refine some of the traditional watchmaking grande complications. More»

The original Chapter Two with its tonneau case was heralded as the most legible triple date timepiece available.  Now in a new rounded case it offers supreme clarity, with a clean and tidy dial and its day and month roller indications tucked in neatly top and bottom.  The Chapter Two was and is a groundbreaking timepiece.  The roller indications allow full reading of both the day of the week and the month and they along with the big date on the dial are designed to change instantaneously.  This, of course requires an incredible amount of power – energy which is stored up throughout the day and therein lies the complexity of this unique watch which contains a specific movement created for this purpose.  CEO and founder of Maîtres du Temps, Steven Holtzman chooses the best of what the industry has to offer to create his timepieces, and among the Master Watchmakers responsible for the Chapter Two are Daniel Roth and Peter Speake-Marin. More»

Zenith is back.  It’s been a great year or two for the brand’s design department which has taken them back to their traditional values and classical styling.  If you like the WatchPress.com then you’ll know that we like them.  After a superb collection of Pilot watches, here comes something for girly wrists – a new collection of Zenith Star Open models. If you’ve admired the Star Open collection in the past, perhaps you’ve appreciated it’s compendium of curves – rounded case, feminine pushers and curly, swirly graduating numerals.  I featured one as a Valentine’s Day special, the Queen of Love Star Open – surely the most romantic chronograph available.  The new pieces see a departure from the circular case to an equally voluptuous cushion-shaped caase, and with a nod to classical-ism some elongated Roman numerals – an instant make-over which creates a more formal and elegant variation. More»