1. You’ve already heard that sitting is the new smoking. Now, scientists reveal exactly how it hurts the body—and novel ways to undo the damage (without clocking.
2. Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 British-American war film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay by Kubrick, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford was based.

The horrors hurled at Houston and the Himalayan lowlands in late August were heartbreaking—but also infuriating. How many times must we see this disaster movie.

The Associated Press delivers in-depth coverage on today's Big Story including top stories, international, politics, lifestyle, business, entertainment, and more. Batman: The Killing Joke is a 1988 DC Comics one-shot graphic novel featuring the characters Batman and the Joker written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland.

How Much Do You Need. By Alice Park Sept. Illustration by Robin Davey for TIMEYou’ve already heard that sitting is the new smoking. Now, scientists reveal exactly how it hurts the body—and novel ways to undo the damage (without clocking hours at the gym). You might want to stand up for this.

We like to think we’re a stand- up species. After all, that’s what drove our evolutionary march away from many of our four- legged ancestors.

But everywhere we go are invitations to sit down. Hop into your car and what’s there? If you’re lucky, a plush bucket seat designed with just the right tilt for your back. On the subway to work? Watch The Watcher Online Idigitaltimes more.

A less comfortable seat, to be sure, but you’ll grab one if you can. Once at work, an office chair. At home, your favorite fauteuil. But all that hospitality, all those opportunities to give your feet a break, are doing untold things to the rest of your body.

From standing desks and fitness trackers to groundbreaking pilot experiments in high schools in several cities, the movement to sit less and stand more is gaining momentum. Which is a good thing, because new evidence suggests that the more than eight hours the average American spends sitting every day could be exacting a serious—and previously misunderstood—toll. In the latest look at the benefits of getting on the move — and the dangers of sitting still — researchers found that an hour of moderate activity, such as brisk walking, can offset the harms that sitting for eight hours can have. And there is also data showing that exercise benefits aren’t just for middle- aged and older people but for younger people as well.

Andrea Chomistek from Indiana University and her colleagues found in a study published in Circulation that women aged 2. The results bring the dangers of inactivity to a relatively new group — younger women — who normally aren’t at high risk of things like heart disease or diabetes. It wasn’t how often the women exercised that mattered, but the fact that they did; any activity, including brisk walking, was beneficial. Studies have long connected sedentary behavior to poor health, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity and hypertension. But doctors thought those problems could be traced to the fact that people who sat more were probably just not working out very much.

The public health messages were in step with that thinking. Let’s Move!” became a national mantra. But while exercise is critical, it alone can’t make up for the ills of idleness. New research shows there’s a big difference between exercising too little and sitting too much. That’s because a standing body uses energy altogether differently from a sedentary body—and also from an exercising one. We burn calories at a different rate, store them in different ways, and our brains function differently, too. While data is still emerging, one experiment with high school kids found that standing in class instead of sitting improved their test scores by 2.

All of which has doctors and health experts calling for a paradigm shift. In the same way that standing up is an oddity now, sitting down should be,” says Dr.

James Levine, director of the Mayo Clinic- Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative and probably best known as the inventor of the first treadmill desk. My argument is that whatever building it is—a movie theater, airport, arts complex—a fundamental part of our thinking has become that people who enter that space will need to be seated.” And that’s what got us into all this trouble in the first place. This Is Your Body On Sitting. It’s not entirely our fault. As we moved from an active, agricultural lifestyle to one of offices and automated transport, every aspect of our day, from our meals to our jobs and our entertainment, have been adapted with one priority in mind: our comfort. Where our ancestors spent the large bulk of their waking hours on the go, modern life entails sitting for as much as half the day (and that’s not counting sleeping).

The first studies to connect sedentary behavior to poor health emerged in recent decades when scientists started to confirm, in a reproducible way, the effect that extra pounds can have on the body. In these large analyses of men and women of nearly every age, the message was clear: People who spent more hours of the day sitting were more likely to develop a host of health problems.

A closer look at that data showed that swapping an hour on the couch for an hour playing catch wouldn’t cut it. A recent review of 4. In another study involving a group of men and women who reported exercising the same amount, each additional hour they spent sitting was linked to a drop in their fitness levels. In other words, sitting was chipping away at some of the benefits of exercise. That’s an important realization.

The human body consumes energy in three main ways: every cell needs energy to go about its daily business, whether it’s a muscle cell that contracts and flexes or a liver cell that produces enzymes; we also need to break down the food that we eat; finally, we need energy to move, whether we’re pulling on a shirt or riding a bike. That latter energy—let’s call it activity energy—is further divided into the sweat- inducing kind that you use on the treadmill or in yoga and another kind, which scientists have cleverly called NEAT: non- exercise activity thermogenesis.

This includes nearly everything you do requiring movement: folding the laundry, walking up a flight of stairs, running to catch a train, even fidgeting. The human body is designed to move, and a moving body is a needy body, siphoning off calories to make sure every cell is doing what it’s supposed to do. But even when we’re not exercising, we’re moving and using energy. That’s why NEAT matters.

A body that’s sitting isn’t expending energy, so the signals that normally result in you moving—and which, in turn, burn calories—start to check out, molecularly bored with not being called into duty. Meanwhile, the processes that build up fat get busier. When that happens, it gets harder and harder to get off the chair. The other signals that keep us rooted on our rears may originate in the brain. In animal studies, obese rats seemed to have a switch that prevented them from burning NEAT calories efficiently. The reason why isn’t clear yet, but researchers are studying the brain signals that govern what makes us more likely to move—or not move—to answer it. That could help explain, at least in part, why too much sitting seems to be so bad for the human body.

People who sit at their desks most of the time, for example, only polish off 3. NEAT calories a day compared to, say, a coffee shop barista who spends most of his or her shift standing—and burning up to 1,3.

There’s also intriguing evidence that sitting less may short- circuit some bodily processes that lead to diabetes. When we eat meals, our bodies experience a surge in blood sugar that peaks about an hour after we eat. If we’re sedentary and relatively immobile, our muscles and cells aren’t soaking up that glucose to fuel its daily activities. So all that extra sugar gets turned into fat. If we take a walk after lunch, however, some of that sugar is burned off in order to keep us on our feet and propel us forward. The less sugar that’s left after that activity, the less that gets turned into fat and contributes to obesity and eventually diabetes. Becoming a body in motion.

Even if you’re wired in some ways to sit, can you become a stand- up person? Absolutely, says Levine. Just as sedentary behavior can change the brain and body to prefer sitting, getting up and becoming more active will prompt you to want to stay in motion.

And that can have benefits on productivity and possibly creativity as well, although while the data on the harms of sitting are pretty well documented, the productivity benefits are still anecdotal. But researchers, including Levine, are working on that.

Batman: The Killing Joke - Wikipedia. Batman: The Killing Joke is a 1. DC Comicsone- shotgraphic novel featuring the characters Batman and the Joker written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland. The Killing Joke provides an origin story for the supervillain the Joker, loosely adapted from the 1.

The Man Behind the Red Hood!". Taking place over two timelines, The Killing Joke depicts the Joker attempting to drive Jim Gordon insane and Batman's desperate attempt to stop him. Created by Moore and Bolland as their own take on the Joker's source and psychology,[1] the story became famous for its origin of the Joker as a tragic character; a family man and failed comedian who suffered "one bad day" that finally drove him insane. Moore stated that he attempted to show the similarities and contrasts between the two characters.

The story's effects on the mainstream Batman continuity also included the shooting and paralysis of Barbara Gordon (a. Batgirl), an event that laid the groundwork for her to develop the identity of Oracle. Many critics consider the graphic novel to be the definitive Joker story and one of the best Batman stories ever published. The comic won the Eisner Award for 'Best Graphic Album' in 1. The New York Times Best Seller List in May 2. In 2. 00. 6, The Killing Joke was reprinted as part of the trade paperback DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore.

In 2. 00. 8, DC Comics reprinted the story in a deluxe hardcover edition, which features new coloring by Bolland, with a more somber, realistic, and subdued palette than the original. Elements of The Killing Joke have inspired or been incorporated into other aspects of Batman media, such as three films; two short and one of them with Mark Hamill as Joker. Background and creation[edit]Artist Brian Bolland's version of the Joker stemmed in part from his having recently seen the film The Man Who Laughs.[2] Giordano's invitation led directly to Bolland working with writer Alan Moore to create a plausible background story for the Joker. He recounted, "I thought about it in terms of who's my favorite writer at the moment, what hero I would really love to do, and which villain? I basically came up with Alan, Batman and the Joker."[3]Although the story takes pains to stress that it is merely one possible 'origin story,' it has been widely accepted and adopted into DC continuity, and a central mutilation of a long- running character had to be specially approved by editor Wein.[2] Bolland said that he saw "Judge Death [as] almost a dry run for drawing the Joker." He also recounted that "by the time Alan had finished Watchmen he had fallen out with DC to a certain extent .. Killing Joke as a favour to me."[3]The 4.

Both Moore and Bolland are well known for their meticulous and time- consuming work; both creators' then- recently finished 1. Moore's Watchmen and Bolland's Camelot 3. He was aided by the laid back attitude taken by DC, who he says "seemed prepared to let me do it at my own pace." The original editor, Len Wein, left the company, and was replaced by Dennis O'Neil, a "very hands- off sort of guy," with whom Bolland only recalls having one conversation about the book.[3]Bolland envisaged the flashback sequences in black and white, and instructed Watchmen- colorist John Higgins to use "muted November colors". He was upset when he saw the finished comic had "garish ..

Eraserhead- esque flashback sequences swamped in orange."[2] The 2. Bolland, restoring his artistic intentions to the palette.

The story is referred to in a flashback scene in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies, Batman: Under the Red Hood. In the movie, Red Hood lured Batman to the chemical factory where the Joker's accident took place.

Batman remembered the events like in the comic, where a fleeing Joker attempted to escape while trying to claim that he was set up but accidentally fell into the toxic waste and disfigured him. Red Hood called it Batman's greatest failure. Jason Todd also refers to Joker crippling Barbara.[4]Plot summary[edit]. Joker, before his accident, with his pregnant wife; art by Brian Bolland and John Higgins. The man who will become the Joker is an unnamed engineer who quits his job at a chemical company to become a stand- up comedian, only to fail miserably.

Desperate to support his pregnant wife Jeannie, he agrees to guide two criminals through the chemical plant where he previously worked so that they can rob the playing card company next to it. During the planning, the police inform him that his wife has died in a household accident. Grief- stricken, the engineer tries to withdraw from the plan, but the criminals strong- arm him into keeping his commitment to them. At the plant, the criminals make him don a special mask to become the infamous Red Hood. As previously told to the engineer by the criminals, they use this disguise to implicate any accomplice as the mastermind and to divert attention away from themselves. Once inside, they encounter security personnel, a shootout ensues, and the two criminals are killed.

The engineer is confronted by Batman who is investigating the disturbance. Terrified, the engineer jumps into the chemical plant's waste pound lock to escape Batman and is swept through a pipe leading to the outside. Once outside, he discovers to his horror that the chemicals have permanently bleached his skin chalk- white, stained his lips ruby- red and dyed his hair bright green.

The engineer's disfigurement, compounded with the loss of his family, drives him completely insane and marks the birth of the Joker. The Joker, after emerging from the canal of chemical waste. In the present day, Batman goes to Arkham Asylum to talk with the Joker about ending their years- long feud, only to realize that the Joker has escaped and put a decoy in his place. Soon after, the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon in the stomach, paralyzing her, and kidnaps her father, Commissioner James Gordon. The Joker imprisons Gordon in a run- down amusement park. His henchmen then beat Gordon and cage him in the park's freak show. It is implied but not explicitly said that the Joker gives Gordon LSD to continue his mental torture.

The Joker chains Gordon to one of the park's rides and forces him to view giant photos of Barbara, lying down naked, bloodied, and in pain. Once Gordon has run the horrifying gauntlet, the Joker puts him on display in the freak show, ridiculing him as "the average man," a naïve weakling doomed to insanity. Batman's attempts to locate Commissioner Gordon are unsuccessful until the Joker sends him an "invitation" that leads him to the amusement park. Batman arrives to save Gordon, and the Joker retreats into the funhouse. Though traumatized by the ordeal, Gordon retains his sanity and moral code, and he insists that Batman capture the Joker "by the book" in order to "show him that our way works". Batman enters the funhouse and dodges the Joker's booby traps, while the Joker tries to persuade his nemesis that the world is "a black, awful joke" that is not worth fighting for, and that it only takes "one bad day" to drive an ordinary man insane. Batman subdues the Joker and tells him that Gordon survived the Joker's torments, and suggests that the Joker is alone in his madness.

He attempts to reach out to the Joker and offers to help him recover in order to end their everlasting war, which Batman fears may one day result in a fight to the death. The Joker declines, saying it is too late.."far too late". He then says that this situation reminds him of a joke about two inmates in a lunatic asylum who try to escape. One inmate jumps across a narrow gap between the asylum and the adjoining building, but the other is afraid he will fall. The first inmate offers to shine his flashlight across the gap so the other can walk across it, but the second inmate replies, "What do you think I am, crazy?

You'd turn it off when I was halfway across!" Batman chuckles at the punch line, and the two old foes laugh as the police arrive.