Indian Doctors Warn of Link Between Excessive Exercise ... - Hair loss

A report in the Deccan Herald has warned men and women of the unexpected consequences of excessive exercise on their hair. Although a reasonable level of fitness is essential to ensure general health and wellbeing, when exercise is taken to extremes it can result in a number of conditions ? including hair loss.

According to Dr Manoj, a hair loss expert interviewed by the Deccan Herald, excessive exercise has the potential to disrupt the normal hair growth cycle, forcing hair follicles to enter their normal ?resting? phase early. Human hair goes through a continuous cycle where up to fifteen per cent of a person?s hair follicles are resting at any moment in time. The hair attached to these follicles then falls out, although it later regrows normally.

Telogen and training

?Too much exercise results in early entry of hair into the telogen phase. When the body is subjected to extreme stress, an unusually high number of hairs prematurely enter a phase of rest, called the telogen phase. These hairs [then] begin to fall, causing a heavy hair fall,? said Dr Manoj.

Manoj is suggesting that the stress caused by excessive exercise is a significant contributory factor in the condition known as Telogen Effluvium. This suggestion echoes the research and experience of many other hair loss experts, who have also found a link between stress and hair loss caused by Telogen Effluvium.

How much is too much?

When it comes to exercise, the divide between enough and too much is very difficult to define, and will be different for each individual. However, there are a few indications which will help you identify whether over-exercising might be the cause of your hair loss:

• Your weight loss slows down
• You are always chronically tired
• Your sleep patterns are disturbed

If you are experiencing one or more of these symptoms, you could be exercising excessively.

Treating Telogen Effluvium

Fortunately hair loss caused by Telogen Effluvium tends to repair itself naturally over time. However, it is always essential that a full and proper diagnosis is obtained from a qualified hair loss expert, who can confirm the cause of the condition and suggest an appropriate course of action if necessary.

Here at The Belgravia Centre our hair loss experts see hundreds of different hair loss cases every year, giving us a great deal of experience administering hair loss treatments. Our bespoke plans can involve medications such as Minoxidil and Propecia, unique hair growth boosters and general lifestyle advice, designed to give our patient?s the very best chance of regrowing their hair naturally.

Why not check out our extensive database of patient hair loss?success stories to see what can be achieved? You can call us on 0800 077 6666 or contact us online to arrange a free, no-obligation consultation with one of our hair loss experts. If you can?t make it into the clinic, we can still help ? our online diagnostic form allows us to assess your condition remotely and deliver a personalised hair loss treatment programme to your door.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2012 at 11:48 am and is filed under General Hair Loss, Hair Loss, Hair Loss News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.belgraviacentre.com/blog/indian-doctors-warn-of-link-between-excessive-exercise-and-hair-loss/

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Climate scientists put predictions to the test

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Climate-prediction models show skills in forecasting climate trends over time spans of greater than 30 years and at the geographical scale of continents, but they deteriorate when applied to shorter time frames and smaller geographical regions, a new study has found.

Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, the study is one of the first to systematically address a longstanding, fundamental question asked not only by climate scientists and weather forecasters, but the public as well: How good are Earth system models at predicting the surface air temperature trend at different geographical and time scales?

Xubin Zeng, a professor in the University of Arizona department of atmospheric sciences who leads a research group evaluating and developing climate models, said the goal of the study was to bridge the communities of climate scientists and weather forecasters, who sometimes disagree with respect to climate change.

According to Zeng, who directs the UA Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorology Center, the weather forecasting community has demonstrated skill and progress in predicting the weather up to about two weeks into the future, whereas the track record has remained less clear in the climate science community tasked with identifying long-term trends for the global climate.

"Without such a track record, how can the community trust the climate projections we make for the future?" said Zeng, who serves on the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Academies and the Executive Committee of the American Meteorological Society. "Our results show that actually both sides' arguments are valid to a certain degree."

"Climate scientists are correct because we do show that on the continental scale, and for time scales of three decades or more, climate models indeed show predictive skills. But when it comes to predicting the climate for a certain area over the next 10 or 20 years, our models can't do it."

To test how accurately various computer-based climate prediction models can turn data into predictions, Zeng's group used the "hindcast" approach.

"Ideally, you would use the models to make predictions now, and then come back in say, 40 years and see how the predictions compare to the actual climate at that time," said Zeng. "But obviously we can't wait that long. Policymakers need information to make decisions now, which in turn will affect the climate 40 years from now."

Zeng's group evaluated seven computer simulation models used to compile the reports that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, issues every six years. The researchers fed them historical climate records and compared their results to the actual climate change observed between then and now.

"We wanted to know at what scales are the climate models the IPCC uses reliable," said Koichi Sakaguchi, a doctoral student in Zeng's group who led the study. "These models considered the interactions between the Earth's surface and atmosphere in both hemispheres, across all continents and oceans and how they are coupled."

Zeng said the study should help the community establish a track record whose accuracy in predicting future climate trends can be assessed as more comprehensive climate data become available.

"Our goal was to provide climate modeling centers across the world with a baseline they can use every year as they go forward," Zeng added. "It is important to keep in mind that we talk about climate hindcast starting from 1880. Today, we have much more observational data. If you start your prediction from today for the next 30 years, you might have a higher prediction skill, even though that hasn't been proven yet."

The skill of a climate model depends on three criteria at a minimum, Zeng explained. The model has to use reliable data, its prediction must be better than a prediction based on chance, and its prediction must be closer to reality than a prediction that only considers the internal climate variability of the Earth system and ignores processes such as variations in solar activity, volcanic eruptions, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and land-use change, for example urbanization and deforestation.

"If a model doesn't meet those three criteria, it can still predict something but it cannot claim to have skill," Zeng said.

According to Zeng, global temperatures have increased in the past century by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit or 0.8 degrees Celsius on average. Barring any efforts to curb global warming from greenhouse gas emissions, the temperatures could further increase by about 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) or more by the end of the 21st century based on these climate models.

"The scientific community is pushing policymakers to avoid the increase of temperatures by more than 2 degrees Celsius because we feel that once this threshold is crossed, global warming could be damaging to many regions," he said.

Zeng said that climate models represent the current understanding of the factors influencing climate, and then translate those factors into computer code and integrate their interactions into the future.

"The models include most of the things we know," he explained, "such as wind, solar radiation, turbulence mixing in the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation and aerosols, which are tiny particles suspended in the air, surface moisture and ocean currents."

Zeng described how the group did the analysis: "With any given model, we evaluated climate predictions from 1900 into the future ? 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years. Then we did the same starting in 1901, then 1902 and so forth, and applied statistics to the results."

Climate models divide the Earth into grid boxes whose size determines its spatial resolution. According to Zeng, state of the art is about one degree, equaling about 60 miles (100 kilometers).

"There has to be a simplification because if you look outside the window, you realize you don't typically have a cloud cover that measures 60 miles by 60 miles. The models cannot reflect that kind of resolution. That's why we have all those uncertainties in climate prediction."

"Our analysis confirmed what we expected from last IPCC report in 2007," said Sakaguchi. "Those climate models are believed to be of good skill on large scales, for example predicting temperature trends over several decades, and we confirmed that by showing that the models work well for time spans longer than 30 years and across geographical scales spanning 30 degrees or more."

The scientists pointed out that although the IPCC issues a new report every six years, they didn't see much change with regard to the prediction skill of the different models.

"The IPCC process is driven by international agreements and politics," Zeng said. "But in science, we are not expected to make major progress in just six years. We have made a lot of progress in understanding certain processes, for example airborne dust and other small particles emitted from surface, either through human activity or through natural sources into the air. But climate and the Earth system still are extremely complex. Better understanding doesn't necessarily translate into better skill in a short time."

"Once you go into details, you realize that for some decades, models are doing a much better job than for some other decades. That is because our models are only as good as our understanding of the natural processes, and there is a lot we don't understand."

Michael Brunke, a graduate student in Zeng's group who focused on ocean-atmosphere interactions, co-authored the study, which is titled "The Hindcast Skill of the CMIP Ensembles for the Surface Air Temperature Trend."

###

University of Arizona: http://uanews.org

Thanks to University of Arizona for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/123678/Climate_scientists_put_predictions_to_the_test

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Poles help people of Belarus, recalling own past

CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS INFORMATION AND ADDS DETAIL - In this photo taken Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012, Igor Kuley, a democracy activist from Belarus who was granted asylum and the opportunity to study in Poland after he was imprisoned briefly in 2006, talks to The Associated Press in Warsaw, Poland. Kuley is the step-son of Alexander Milinkevich, a regime opponent who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2006. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS INFORMATION AND ADDS DETAIL - In this photo taken Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012, Igor Kuley, a democracy activist from Belarus who was granted asylum and the opportunity to study in Poland after he was imprisoned briefly in 2006, talks to The Associated Press in Warsaw, Poland. Kuley is the step-son of Alexander Milinkevich, a regime opponent who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2006. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Belsat TV journalist Volha Starastsina working on a uncensored news program for Belarus at the TV station's studio in Warsaw, Poland on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 as the station is focusing on the upcoming parliamentary elections in Belarus, expected to be a rubber stamp procedure. Last month Starastsina had to flush her TV memory card down a police toilet in Vitebsk, Belarus, to get rid of evidence of her work, when police detained her briefly as she was interviewing people in the street about the elections that will be held on Sunday.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

In this photo taken Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, Agnieszka Romaszewska, the founder and director of state-funded Belsat Television that broadcasts independent information to Belarus in Belarusian language, talks to The Associated Press about the station's mission in Warsaw, Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) ? Volha Starastsina saw no choice but to flush her work down the police station toilet.

That was the only place the Belarusian journalist could hide TV footage after being detained for interviewing people on upcoming elections in the repressive state.

Her risky independent journalism is part of a Polish-funded effort to get uncensored news to Belarusians, one of several projects Poland supports in a drive to encourage democratic change in its troubled eastern neighbor.

Poland has many reasons for wanting Belarus to embrace democracy, but it largely comes down to this: When Poland looks east, it sees its own past. The censorship, secret police spying and harassment of political opponents under authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko remind Poles of what Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement endured in the 1980s. Today's Polish government is led by many former Solidarity activists, and they want to give Belarusians the same kind of Western help that proved crucial in toppling their former Soviet-backed regime.

"It's emotional. It's a Polish thing to be anti-regime," said Tomasz Pisula, a Pole who heads Freedom and Democracy Foundation, a Warsaw-based group working for democratic change in Belarus.

Other countries are also engaged in the cause, including the United States and Sweden. But perhaps nowhere is there as much support, both at the grassroots and government level, for the Belarusian democracy movement as in Poland.

The solidarity also stems from a cultural kinship and frequent contacts shared by the two Slavic peoples. A complex history of shifting borders in Eastern Europe has left a sizeable ethnic Polish minority in Belarus today that faces harassment, to the great concern of Poland.

More broadly, Poland wants to see the entire region on its eastern border evolve into a space of stable and prosperous democracies, and has been trying for years to push for democratic change in Ukraine and Georgia. That would have implications on issues ranging from fighting the flow of illegal drugs to boosting trade. And while Polish leaders don't like to state it publicly, they would also like to see a weakening of Moscow's influence in the region, with memories of past Russian domination still vivid.

The Polish efforts for Belarus are many.

The government funds a TV station, Belsat, and a radio station, Radio Racja, which broadcast independent news from Poland into Belarus, giving people an alternative to pro-regime state media. It has opened its universities to hundreds of Belarusians who lost their right to study at home for political reasons. It funds several projects aimed at blunting the effects of repression, including Pisula's, which helps political prisoners and keeps records on the perpetrators of repression ? judges, police and others ? should a day of reckoning come.

Starastsina, the Belarusian TV journalist who flushed her memory card down the toilet, works for Belsat. Last month, she and a cameraman were stopped by secret security, still known as the KGB, as they were reporting in the eastern Belarusian city of Vitebsk. In such cases Belsat reporters usually try to throw their memory cards under a tree or a bush, where they can be retrieved later.

But there was no vegetation in the square where they were detained, and Starastsina still had the incriminating evidence when taken to the police station.

"I felt helpless," Starastsina told The Associated Press from her newsroom in Warsaw. "They could accuse me of anything and put me under arrest."

The Sunday nationwide elections are bound to elect what is essentially a rubber-stamp parliament, with most power in Lukashenko's hands. Belsat was using its campaign footage to help expose the nation's sham democracy.

Belsat works by engaging dozens of reporters who risk arrest and harassment to gather news. They file it over the Internet to Warsaw from improvised newsrooms in clandestine apartments across Belarus. From Warsaw the news gets broadcast from a studio belonging to Polish state TV back into Belarus by satellite. Another act of defiance is the station's use of the Belarusian language rather than Russian. That is part of a conscious attempt to revive a language and cultural heritage weakened by decades of domination of Russian, which remains the language of choice of most state media.

Poland also has helped a number of Belarusian-run human rights organizations and media sites to set up their activities in Poland, granting political asylum to their activists and helping them financially. Altogether, the various projects have made Warsaw a key center for Belarusian dissidents and intellectuals in exile.

Officially, Poland's aim is not to topple Lukashenko, but to give Belarusians uncensored information and the support they would need should they ever choose to rise up themselves against the regime.

"We look at Belarus realistically. We understand that change won't happen from one day to the next because change, first of all, must take place in the consciousness of Belarusians," said Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz, Poland's undersecretary of state for Eastern affairs. "Our role is to support that attitude and to have a role in shaping it."

Many of the Polish projects pushing democracy in Belarus are led by former members of Solidarity or their children. Belsat's founder and director, Agnieszka Romaszewska, comes from a family that was prominent in Solidarity. She launched Belsat in 2007, hoping to give Belarusians the kind of independent news that Radio Free Europe provided to her parents.

She said she is often asked why five years of Belsat broadcasts still haven't brought about Lukashenko's fall, and she always answers ? that is not the station's job.

"Lukashenko needs to be toppled by his own nation, if it wants to do it," she said. She argued that all Belsat can do is offer an independent perspective missing in the state media, including news but also documentaries about Belarusian history and culture.

"State television opens with Lukashenko and closes with Lukashenko. Twenty minutes of the news is that he went there, visited this man, was at a factory, gave advice to swine breeders on how to best breed pigs," Romaszewska said. "I don't think that many people in the West are able to picture that."

Belarusian activists in Warsaw voice gratitude for the help. Many say that if they were to return to Belarus they would be imprisoned, so being able to live and work freely in Poland allows them to keep up the struggle for democratic change back home.

"There are people in Poland who remember their history and who have a kind of spiritual mission for promoting freedom. We are absolutely grateful to such people," said democracy activist Aliaksandr Atroshchankau. "But I want Europe to understand the Belarusian case isn't just Poland's responsibility."

Some Belarusians, satisfied with the economic security the state provides, are critical of Poland's efforts to promote democracy.

Dmitry Kuleshov, a 76-year-old pensioner, said he has watched Belsat a few times at the home of a neighbor with a satellite dish, and considers it "propaganda."

"Belsat makes fools of Belarusian people, stirs up hatred," he said.

Others have gone out and bought satellite dishes just to get its programming. One is Alla Bandarchik, a 43-year-old entrepreneur who says Belsat's programing has been an "eye-opener."

"Five state channels are engaged in propaganda," she said, "and only Belsat shows a true picture."

___

Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Minsk and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed to this report.

___

Vanessa Gera can be reached at http//www.twitter.com/VanessaGera

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-09-20-Poland-Reforming%20Belarus/id-a9e1a31f8bbd4408b0c9d6ad55ed8251

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Computer And Technology: New Wireless Technology Shows ...

An increasing number of businesses, municipalities, and individuals are seeing the benefits of wireless Internet access. It's really no wonder that this type of technology is growing increasingly popular because of its flexibility and the fact that it offers an economical way to put a lot of different devices and their users onto the Internet or a Local Area Network. Wireless hot spots are great for flexible use and varying numbers of users. After all, how could there be a better way to supply Internet access to all of the computers in an office, as well as the laptops and Blackberry type devices that employees bring in and use on a variable basis? The same flexibility makes wireless hot spots an attractive thing to install in coffee shops, airports, libraries, and even homes.

There are currently several widely available varieties of wireless Internet access. The most common by far is Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is a short range type of wireless networking that's commonly associated with the wireless hot spots you'd find in a coffee shop or bookstore. It's extremely cost effective and easy to set up just by hooking a wireless router into a broadband Internet connection.

G3 is another popular way to get onto the Internet wirelessly. A G3 network uses technology that's similar to the cellular technology that allows for the used of mobile phones. G3 technology allows smart phones and laptops to connect to the Internet over cell phone towers and while moving at extremely fast speeds like on a train or in a car(the Doppler effect can ruin some types of wireless connections even at relatively slow speeds) and over a very wide area. It's been the technology of choice for professionals who need to stay connected while on the go.

Now there's a type of wireless technology that could serve as severe competition to G3. This type of technology is called WiMax and it combines many of the best points of both Wi-Fi and G3 technologies. Like G3, WiMax can operate over extremely large distances- up to 30 miles. Like Wi-Fi, WiMax is extremely effective indoors- which is something that G3 technology doesn't do so well. WiMax is also much faster than Wi-Fi. The combination of speed and large coverage area makes WiMax extremely effective for providing large numbers of people with high speed Internet access.

One thing that WiMax doesn't do as well as G3 is provide mobile Internet access. That's because at the frequencies that WiMax carriers are currently licensed to operate at the Doppler effect is an issue, while the frequencies that G3 is licensed to use aren't as effected by the movement of the user.

However, this shortcoming of WiMax compared to G3 is simply a regulatory issue. WiMax would be just as good for mobile devices as G3 is if it was licensed to use the same frequencies. And there lies the major explanation for why it hasn't been widely adopted yet- lobbying on the part of companies that have a lot invested in G3 networks and don't want the competition of a technology that could serve more people in a wider variety of ways.

Of course there is the hope that the two technologies will be able to coexist- even possibly in the same devices- so that they can be used in the situations that suit them best.

Source: http://puregrace.blogspot.com/2012/09/new-wireless-technology-shows-promise.html

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Taiwan co. fined $500 million for LCD price fixing

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? A Taiwanese company was fined $500 million Thursday and its former president and executive vice president were each sentenced to three years in prison for their leading roles in a global LCD screen price-fixing conspiracy.

The sentences handed down Thursday are among the harshest penalties ever given in an antitrust criminal case.

Still, the U.S. Department of Justice complained the punishments were not enough. Federal prosecutors demanded a $1 billion fine and a 10-year prison sentence for the executives.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said she rejected the demand because A.U. Optronics has already paid out millions to settle a class-action lawsuit and still faced other lawsuits in the United States and around the world.

She also said the two executives ? Hsuan Bin Chen and Hui Hsiung ? didn't deserve the lengthy prison sentences demanded by prosecutors because they acted not for personal gain like someone operating a Ponzi scheme but out of their sincere belief that they were aiding a troubled industry plagued by over-production and plummeting prices. Both men declined to address the court.

"There were a lot of business pressures they responded to," the judge said. "There was relatively little personal motivation."

Nonetheless, the judge said the evidence of their guilt was "overwhelming" and that "they did know it was illegal."

The company and seven other competitors who have previously pleaded guilty were convicted of sending executives to quarterly meetings between 2001 and 2006 to hash out production levels and prices they would charge the world's largest technology companies for their liquid display screens. The tech giants include companies such as Apple Inc., Dell Computers and a long-list of television and computer makers. Many of the meetings' agendas and conclusions were documented and presented to the jury as evidence. The jury convicted the company and men in March.

Prosecutors said the conspiracy artificially inflated the cost of those products for consumers around the world. One-third of the $74 billion in LCD screen sales implicated in the scheme were made by U.S. companies.

"These defendants played a pivotal role in a global conspiracy that had an unprecedented impact on the pocket books of American consumers," federal prosecutor Heather Tewksbury unsuccessfully argued for harsher sentences. "They have done nothing to accept any responsibility for what they did."

The judge is allowing the company to pays its fine in four installments over the next year after its attorney Dennis Riordan pleaded for a payment plan. He said the company had only $80 million in cash on hand and order to pay the fine immediately would cause lenders to demand repayment of $6.5 billion worth of loans. Such a scenario would have "killed" the company, Riordan said.

The judge also ordered the company to publish in three "trade journals" that it has been convicted of price fixing and what measures its taking to avoid breaking the law in the future.

DOJ is wrapping up a yearslong investigation of the global price-fixing scheme that artificially increased the price of LCD screens used in televisions, computers and other electronic products made by Apple Inc., Dell Computers and many of the largest high-tech companies in the United States.

"The conspiracy affected every family, school, business, charity, and government agency that paid more to purchase notebook computers, computer monitors, and LCD televisions during the conspiracy," prosecutors concluded in arguing for the criminal penalties.

AU Optronics and the other co-conspirators are also the targets of class action lawsuits filed by customers, retailers and consumers.

In July, the company, along with Toshiba and LG, agreed to pay a combined $571 million to settle one of the lawsuits. Other manufactures, including Hitachi, Sharp and Samsung, agreed in December to pay $538 million to settle.

Seven other Asian manufacturers and 22 of their executives have previously pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a combined $890 million in fines. The 10 executives who have been sentenced so far received prison terms ranging from six months to a little more than year in prison.

The $1.39 billion in criminal fines won in court make the LCD screen price fixing case the largest criminal antitrust case ever prosecuted by the DOJ, surpassing the breakup of a vitamin cartel in the late 1990's that netted $875 million in criminal fines.

To date, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.'s $500 million fine for participating in the vitamin price-fixing scheme remains the largest antitrust fine. The DOJ's annual collection of antitrust criminal fines only topped $1 billion once in the past 10 years, according to a report compiled by the law firm Gibson Dunn.

A jury found AU Optronics, Chen, its former president, and former executive vice president Hsiung guilty and acquitted two others. The jury couldn't agree on a verdict for a fifth executive, and prosecutors dropped charges. Chen remains a vice chairman of the company's Board of Directors. Both men were allowed to go free and ordered to report to prison on Dec. 20

AU Optronics refused to plea bargain with the DOJ, becoming the only company to go to trial.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-09-20-Price%20Fixing-Sentencing/id-c60bd58d26eb4cbdb10ded77b8f49695

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Oil prices drop back to reality

Oil prices fall 7 percent since Friday. The drop in oil prices was overdue, analysts say.

By Jonathan Fahey,?AP Energy Writer / September 20, 2012

Sign worker Ray Messore, of Glocester, R.I., works on a sign next to one where gasoline prices are posted at a gas station in Pawtucket, R.I., on Monday. After moving above $100 a barrel last week, oil prices have fallen 7 percent.

Steven Senne/AP/File

Enlarge

Reality returned to the oil market this week.

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Oil has fallen 7 percent since last Friday, when the price briefly topped $100 for the first time in 4 months. The sharp drop was expected and overdue, many analysts say.

Traders had driven oil prices up by 30 percent since late June in anticipation of new measures from the world's central banks to boost economic growth. This week they woke up to some cold hard facts: there's no easy fix for the global economy, demand for oil is slowing and there's plenty of supply.

"It was hope versus reality," said Judith Dwarkin, chief?energy?economist at ITG Investment Research. "It was inevitable."

On Thursday benchmark U.S. crude steadied, slipping just 11 cents to finish at $91.87 per barrel. But it's more than $7 below where it closed last week. For drivers, that should mean lower gasoline prices, although the decline will be tempered by recent shortages in some regions.

Oil is sliding because demand is growing slower than expected. That's because economies around the world are struggling, including the three biggest oil consuming regions: the U.S., China and Europe. When economic growth falters, demand for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel falls as people travel less and ship fewer goods.

In recent years world oil demand has grown about 1.3 percent per year on average. This year and next, though, demand will likely grow closer to 0.8 percent, Dwarkin says.

At the same time, world oil supplies are plentiful. Production in the U.S., Canada, Iraq and Saudi Arabia has increased enough to make up for losses from Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere. The U.S. government reported this week that stocks of oil grew by 8.5 million barrels to 367.6 million barrels, which is 8.4 percent higher than last year.

Investors saw much of this ? and still oil soared in August and early September. That's because central banks around the world took measures to reduce borrowing costs in hopes of stimulating their weak economies. When borrowing costs fall, more money is available to invest in assets such as oil and traders expect demand for oil to rise.

Also, continuing tensions in the Middle East raised fears of future supply shortages. Traders bought oil as a safeguard.

"There was a tug of war," Dwarkin said. One side was the expectation that geopolitics and stimulus programs would push prices higher. On the other side was the fact there is plenty of oil to meet demand.

Oil markets suddenly leaned to the downside this week. There were questions about how effective the Federal Reserve's latest stimulus program would be. Economic indicators from Japan, China and Europe were disappointing. And the U.S. government reported an unusually large increase in the nation's crude supplies.

Without a major disruption or surprising economic turnaround, the price of oil may drift somewhat lower in the coming months. Analysts don't expect it to fall sharply though. Dwarkin expects it to average $95 per barrel both this year and next.

The recent drop in oil won't ease concerns about jobs and wages. But lower retail gasoline prices in the U.S. are likely to follow.

"This is good for the consumer," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

The drop in pump prices may be a little delayed in coming, though, Kloza said. A series of refinery problems has kept gasoline supplies in the Northeast and along the West Coast low, which is helping to keep national average prices high. The shortages are expected to ease in the coming weeks. Refiners are expected to be able to produce enough gasoline to meet demand that is in a seasonal trough, and weaker even than usual.

The national average retail gasoline price fell less than a penny to $3.85 per gallon, according to AAA, OPIS and Wright Express.

In other?energy?trading, Brent crude, which is used by refiners to make much of the gasoline that is sold in the U.S., rose $1.84 to end at $110.03 per barrel.

Natural gas rose 4 cents to finish at $2.80 per thousand cubic feet.

Heating oil rose 5 cents to end at $3.10 per gallon.

Wholesale gasoline rose 8 cents to finish at $2.90 per gallon.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/gdUiLu6sVi4/Oil-prices-drop-back-to-reality

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Romney reports his first debt of the campaign

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