People spend several years of their life worrying about all sorts of things, which could lead to harmful health effects, a British health group said. According to a survey conducted by Benenden Health, a British health organization, adults spend five years of their life on average worrying about day-to-day issues. Adults’ concerns usually involve weight problems, finances and job security. Being overweight, getting old, having a lack of savings and staying fit were the top four worries on the li

Smokers’ craving for cigarettes is directly linked to brain’s self-control circuitry, a study showed Monday.A research team studied the relationship between the changes in brain activities and the level of craving for a cigarette after participants watched a neutral video and a video of people smoking. Before the experiment, some respondents were told that smoking would be allowed after watching the video, while others were told to wait 4 hours to smoke after the experiment was over. Scanning th

People with narcissistic, Machiavellian, and psychopathic personalities are the most successful in office environments, a psychologist and author Oliver James suggests.In his new book “Office Politics,” James identified three types of dysfunctional workers in modern workplaces: psychopaths, Machiavellian, and narcissist. According to James, the people most likely to thrive in office are ‘triadic’ people, who are a combination of all three.He alleged that the triadic people’s self-centeredness, s

Korean coffee shops are trying to attract more customers with membership services and free coupons amid intensifying competition. The three biggest coffee chains in Korea -- Starbucks Coffee Korea, Caffebene, and the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Korea -- are at the forefront of such marketing campaigns to lock customers into their programs.Starbucks promotes its membership card and purchase-based free coupons to retain its customers over the long term. It has what it calls Green and Gold level service

A Florida cigar dealer said he sold a nearly 19-foot long Gran Habano #5 El Gigante cigar for $185,000.Juan Panesso, who runs CigarsDirect.com in Westchase, said he located the El Gigante for an unidentified buyer who was seeking a number of rare varieties of cigar for his private collection and he was able to get the buyer a discount from the usual $200,000 price tag for an El Gigante, The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune reported Monday.Panesso said the cigar, which he had shipped out of the country to th

The fifth installment of a book series consisting of Western and Asian classics was released on Friday, at a low price to make the texts accessible to the less fortunate. Published by nonprofit corporation Olje, the “Olje Classics” series’ newly released books are: Sigmund Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams” (Die Traumdeutung); Unified Silla (688-935) philosopher and poet Choe Chi-won’s “Gyewon Pilgyeongjip” (Poems and Prose from Choe Chi-won); and “Myung Shim Bo Gam,” a book of selected phra

‘In Your Town’ reaches out to underserved regions

HALLENDALE BEACH, Florida (AP) ― Cerro, a 3-year-old colt partly owned by 18-time Olympic champion swimmer Michael Phelps, won the $54,500 third race at Gulfstream Park on Saturday. Phelps and his former coach, Bob Bowman, share an ownership interest in the Ireland-bred colt, which runs in the colors of Team Valor International. Cerro is trained by Graham Motion, who oversaw 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom for Team Valor. Cerro ran 1 1/8 miles (1,800 meters) in 1:50.29, winning by 2 1/

The upcoming Special Olympics World Winter Games in Pyeongchang, a South Korean alpine town, will be a homecoming of sorts for two American athletes.Henry Meece, who will take part in snowboarding, and Tae Hemsath, who will compete in snowshoeing, are both South Korean adoptees representing their adopted home from Jan. 29-Feb. 5 at the sporting competition for athletes with intellectual disabilities.This is the first trip to South Korea for both since they left the country years ago. Meece, 23,

An increasing number of women in Britain are injecting fat into their bodies to change how they look, a British cosmetic surgeon group said.According to data published by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, the number of women who had undergone fat transfer procedures in the U.K. came to 2,641 in 2012, marking a 13 percent increase from the year before.BAAPS president Rajiv Grover said that people wanting to receive procedures have risen by double digits, despite the country’s

The majority of the people in the world live longer, but spend more years in poor health compared to 20 years ago, U.S. researchers say.Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and colleagues found life expectancy increased in 19 of 21 regions around the world but people are spending their later years living in relatively poor health. Comparing healthy life expectancy for 187 countries in 1990 and 2010, the researchers were

Korean cosmetics brand MISSHA’s “purple bottle” (Night Repair Science Activator Ampoule), a type of nutritional face oil product, sold 1 million bottles in January. As a reinvention of Estee Lauder’s “brown bottle,” it has been well received by Korean women. Estee Lauder’s brown bottle (Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Recovery Complex) has been a popular facial oil product across the world for several decades.  When MISSHA launched its purple bottle in January 2012, the Korean company was cri

Almost half of international air tickets sold here in 2012 were bought by women in their 20s and 30s, according to figures from a travel agency. According to online travel agency Interpark Tour’s analysis of outbound flight ticket sales last year, female customers accounted for 54.4 percent. Women in their 20s took 23.2 percent followed by those in their 30s 22.6 percent. On the other hand, overseas trips were bought more often by men in their 30s than those in their 20s. Thirty-somethings marke

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) ― Ashton Kutcher says playing Steve Jobs on screen “was honestly one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever tried to do in my life.”The 34-year-old actor helped premiere the biopic “jOBS” Friday, which was the closing-night film at the Sundance Film Festival.Kutcher plays the Apple Inc. founder from the company’s humble origins in the 1970s until the launch of the first iPod in 2001. A digital entrepreneur himself, Kutcher said he considers Jobs a personal hero.“He’s a guy

Swedish composer Ida finds path in Korea