Whether it’s a backlash of too much fast food, lack of variety or just a growing awareness of health issues, more and more Americans are beginning to become aware that a change of diet is in order. Of course, change happens slowly and this dietary change won’t happen overnight, but then we didn’t get where we are overnight either. A look back at the history of the United States since World War II shows a correlation between the rise in consumption of food prepared outside the home and the issue of weight gain.

For a family who doesn’t grow any pecans of their own, the Roby family of Brownwood Texas really loves pecans. Rodney, the family patriarch was in attendance at a recent meeting of the Texas Pecan Board. Rodney serves on the Early Texas Chamber of Commerce who was hosting the meeting, and during the lunch break was taking with several of the board members and said, “My family just loves pecans, we eat them all the time.”

In late April of this year, European astronomers announced the discovery of the first potentially habitable Earth-like planet outside our solar system where conditions are such that oceans, and thus life, may be possible. Of the more than 200 planets detected orbiting nearby stars since 1995, the new discovery, dubbed Gliese 581c, is rocky like Earth and the first small planet detected at the right distance from its star to harbor oceans. Of course, water is what scientists at NASA have long believed to be absolutely necessary in their search for life elsewhere. Why? The answer is because water is essential for life here on Earth.

If you were to say that Dr. Leo Lombardini was a nutty professor, then you would be partially right, although he probably wouldn’t be offended. If you really wanted folks to know the whole picture then you would have to say that Leo is Assistant Professor of Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University in College Station Texas, and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of Fruit and Nut production.

“Our product is so good it sells itself!” That line has been used at more multi-level marketing meetings than could be calculated. Now there is no doubt that many of the products you see distributed by multi-level marketing companies are quite good. Many of these companies have been around for years and some folks make quite a good living selling these products. But when it comes to really selling a LOT of product, who sells the most, multi-level marketers or big corporations who spend lots of money on advertising?

It is hard to believe that the Internet hasn’t always been with us. But think back if you will to when the Internet really exploded onto the scene…if you can’t remember exactly, it was the mid-nineties. Fifteen years ago, outside of major universities and research institutions, most people had not even heard the word Internet, much less been on it. But that all changed when the Internet transformed from a text based system to one that incorporated graphics and pictures in a user-friendly environment. Much of that credit goes to Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web. Web pages have evolved to included streaming audio and video which in turn pushed the speed of data transfer to the point where it is common these days to have a high speed Internet connection which is used for everything from email to downloading movies.