Is Tiger Woods proof that golf is a sport.....?

It's an age-old question debated in pro shops and pubs across America: is golf a sport? Neil Wolkodoff, director of the Rose Center for Health and Sports Sciences in Denver, thinks it is, and he has some data to back up his claim. Wokodoff took eight better-than-average golfers and tracked their heart rate, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, and how far they were walking through a few rounds.

"The study shows there's significant energy expenditure in golf, more than bowling and some other sports it's been compared to," Wolkodoff said to the AP. "There are a lot of sports that don't have this level of energy expenditure."

Subjects walking and carrying their clubs burned 721 calories per round, while the lazy folks in the carts burned just 411. Surprisingly, there was no difference in carrying clubs versus using a push cart, so save your back and rent the cart. The data also suggested that players went past their anaerobic thresholds after walking through two uphill holes (feeling the burn).

So golf burns more calories than an hour of billiards (216), fishing (302), or even a relaxed canoe trip (345), but we're not sold that energy expenditure alone defines what a sport is. Everyone agrees that cheerleaders have bodies to prove they're burning calories, but good luck getting consensus on whether it's a sport. Curling only burns 345 calories during an hour of competition, but in Canada, it's not just a sport, it's the national pastime. Is Tiger Woods proof that golf is a sport, or is John Daly confirmation to the contrary? That probably depends on whether you've got a set of clubs in the garage.

Looking Golf Store

Continue Reading

Games without spending a cent ...?

Tick, tick, tick... No matter how often you glance up from that quarterly sales forecast, it still seems like an eternity until 5 o'clock. But with today's increasingly sophisticated free online games, it's easy to kill time and torpedo productivity faster than you can say "TPS report." Recent highlights include the addition of 3D graphics, head-to-head cooperative or competitive multiplayer options and even digitized speech--boosting titles' addictiveness and geek cred alike. Just fire up your favorite Web browser and surf to the following five sites for instant mouse-waggling thrills.

Instant Action

The name says it all. Featured selections include head-to-head editions of popular puzzlers like Marble Blast Online and arcade outings such as Think Tanks. But what impressed us most is the ability to quickly find friends, connect over the Internet and blow jetpack-wearing pals to smithereens in real-time 3D, courtesy of sci-fi blaster Fallen Empire: Legions. Despite a small selection, InstantAction's technically advanced multiplayer-ready offerings give the publisher an edge up on rivals.

Armor Games

Home to high-quality animated titles in every genre from role-playing (Hands of War) to sports (Motocross FMX) to real-time strategy (Warfare 1917). We especially like apocalyptic zombie shooter The Last Stand 2, which lets you wield pistol or chainsaw to mow down brain-hungry hordes. Community fostering features – including ranks and points awarded for playing games or participating in forums – also let co-workers' compete to see who's outfoxing HR the most.

Newgrounds

One of the oldest and most established Internet playpens, Newgrounds hosts a huge selection of user-created content, with more options added constantly. Highlights include point and click adventure Journeys of Reemus, brick breaking fantasy hybrid Noidzor 2 and spastic shooter Alien Hominid (which later migrated to the GameCube, PS2 and Xbox 360). Sword and sorcery hack and slash romp Paladin: The Game even comes complete with a lengthy voice-recorded soundtrack, though it's almost as fun to mute it and insert your own Shakespearean quips. Huzzah!

Kongregate

With over 10,000 titles available, the selection here's almost too good to choose from. Fair share of stinkers aside, you'll also discover a number of gems including stick figure Guitar Hero clone Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 3, '80s arcade-style shooter Frantic and little league slugger Pinch Hitter 2. User ratings, collectible cards and badges, chat rooms and multiplayer challenges also provided added incentive for taking those 8-hour lunches.

Shockwave

Tops for family entertainment, this popular portal draws enthusiasts of all ages to access board games, card games, mindbenders, shooters, jigsaws and more. Sitting through the occasional video or banner advertisement is worth it to experience the PSOne-quality 3D racer Shaun the Sheep: Lamb Rover 4x4, pattern-making puzzler Bubble Town or kitchen simulator Let's Get Cookin'. Hardcore gamers won't be floored, but parents, teens and tweens will find it a welcome distraction.

Continue Reading

Get to know "Artificial and Natural Flavors "

Picking barbecue-flavor potato chips over salt-and-vinegar can be tough enough without having to choose between brands made with "natural flavors" and ones that are "artificially flavored." Natural flavors, you might think, are derived from the pure essence of a food's flavor, and as such are more authentic. But the term "natural" is misleading.

The Food and Drug Administration requires that natural flavors come from a natural material, but that's a broad category. It usually means developing flavors from plant or bacteria by-products, or chemically treating naturally occurring molecules. Chemists then tinker with these to enhance their taste. The sweet strawberry taste of your naturally flavored ice cream? That probably started out as a bacterial protein.

Artificial flavors, on the other hand, are just what you'd expect: taste-bud-stimulating chemicals concocted from scratch in labs. Although natural flavors have the potential to be more accurate and have layers of flavor, mucking with bacteria is expensive and the results are inconsistent. Controlling every step of a flavor's development, as chemists do with artificial flavors, costs less and often hits closer to the mark.

Flavor chemists can further enhance artificial flavors by stimulating your nose. "Aroma is often the dominant factor in flavor perception," says Anuradha Prakash, a professor of food science at Chapman University and a spokesperson for the Institute of Food Technologists. "Flavorists can mix compounds with similar tastes but different aromas to maximize artificial flavor." And despite the healthy sound of the phrase, natural flavors aren't any better for you than man-made ones. In fact, in most cases your body can't even differentiate between the two.

Those barbecue chips? You'll save a few cents with the artificially flavored variety, and they might even taste more like the real thing.

Continue Reading