Carbohydrates provide your body with its basic fuel.  Your body thinks about carbohydrates like a car engine thinks about gasoline.  The simplest carbohydrate is glucose.  Glucose, also called "blood sugar" and "dextrose," flows in the bloodstream so that it is available to every cell in your body.  Your cells absorb glucose and convert it into energy to drive the cell.  The word "carbohydrate" comes from the fact that glucose is made up of carbon and water.  Glucose is a simple sugar, meaning that to our tongues it tastes sweet.  There are other simple sugars that you have probably heard of.  Fructose is the main sugar in fruits. Fructose has the same chemical formula as glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆), but the atoms are arranged slightly differently.  The liver converts fructose to glucose.  Sucrose, also known as "white sugar" or "table sugar," is made of one glucose and one fructose molecule bonded together . Lactose (the sugar found in milk) is made of one glucose and one galactose molecule bonded together.  Galactose, like fructose, has the same chemical components as glucose but the atoms are arranged differently. The liver also converts galactose to glucose.  Maltose, the sugar found in malt, is made from two glucose atoms bonded together.  Marshall Brain  Read much more at:  http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/food2.htm

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill banning US citizens from adopting Russian children, turning it into law.  The controversial legislation comes into force January 1, 2013 and  is largely seen as a symptom of increasingly tense ties between the United States and Russia.  It is thought to have been drafted as a retaliatory measure against the United States’s “Magnitsky Act”, a new law that denies human-rights violators entry onto American soil, but specifically targets Russian officials thought to be involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky and the subsequent cover-up.  Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer working for a US hedge fund, died in a Moscow jail in 2009 after blowing the whistle on what he claimed was a 178-million-euro police embezzlement scheme.  Russian authorities have denied the allegations, and a court in Moscow has cleared the only prison official accused over Magnitsky’s death, Dmitry Kratov, of any wrongdoing.  Under the new law, which has sparked criticism from children’s rights- advocates and even some members of Putin’s government, not only will all forms of US adoptions in Russia be banned but certain NGOs receiving US funding will be outlawed.  The legislation also mirrors the Magnitsky Act in that it allows the government to impose a visa ban and freeze the assets of Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians abroad.  http://www.france24.com/en/20121228-russia-putin-signs-us-adoption-ban-law

                                                      
Q:  Do we have any territorial disputes with Canada?  A:  The countries share a 5,245-mile border, but both still claim Machias Seal Island and nearby North Rock, stone outcrops in the Gulf of Maine.  Machias Seal Island, only 20 acres, is about 12 miles from Cutler, Maine.  The claims go back to the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War.  It granted the United States all islands within about 70 miles of its shore, but excluded islands that were part of Nova Scotia.  These islands are both.   -- The New York Times.
Q:  Where does "first rate" come from?  A:  British warships were once rated by their number of guns.  A "first-rate" ship had more than 100 guns, "second-rate" ships carried 90 to 98, and so on. -- Various sources. 

http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2012/Dec/JU/ar_JU_123112.asp?d=123112,2012,Dec,31&c=c_13

When is Daylight Savings in 2013?  Sunday March 10 and Sunday, November 3   Daylight Savings Time, or DST, begins on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday of November.  In March, clocks are moved forward one hour from 2am standard time to 3am DST, and in November, clocks are moved back one hour from 2a.m. DST to 1a.m. Standard Time.  The phrase "spring forward, fall back" is a helpful reminder of these time changes.  http://www.day-finder.com/daylight-savings-2013.html

Over 50 percent of the nation's population lives in only less than 20 percent of the U.S. land area (excluding Alaska), which generates a wide range of pressures on sensitive coastal ecosystems. 
See map of U.S. population living in coastal watershed counties, 1970-2030 at:  http://stateofthecoast.noaa.gov/population/welcome. 

See the 11-page document, An Estimate of the U.S. Population Living in 100-Year
Coastal Flood Hazard Areas at:  http://www.floods.org/PDF/JCR_Est_US_Pop_100y_CFHA_2010.pdf 
From the summary and conclusions: 

(1)  About 8,651,000 people, or slightly more than 3.0% of the total U.S. population, live in 1% annual chance coastal flood hazard areas as defined by FEMA.  This includes the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, and Great Lakes coasts and the U.S. territories.  When the Great Lakes are excluded from the data set, then the population decreases to 8,427,000, or slightly less than 3.0% of the total U.S. population. 

(2)  About 24,662,000 people, or 8.6% of the total U.S. population, live in census block groups that border the open ocean coast or that contain 1% annual chance coastal flood hazard areas as defined by FEMA.  When the Great Lakes are excluded from the data, then the population decreases to 22,424,000 or about 7.9% of the total U.S. population.  Thanks, Paul. 

People expect E-books to be cheaper than physical books, and that drives down prices.  But the story's not that simple.  For one thing, digital publishers have the same problem that record labels do:  piracy.  And there's just not the same stigma attached to pirating an e-book as there is to holding up a Barnes & Noble.  It turns out, though, that some publishers are doing pretty well despite the piracy problem.  "We've had an incredible year," says Sourcebooks President Dominique Raccah.  "Last year was the best year in the company's history. This year we beat that, which I didn't think was even possible."  Raccah adds that her company is doing well because of digital publishing, not in spite of it.  "It's been an amazing ride," she says.  "The exciting thing about digital books is that we actually get to test and price differently," Raccah says.  "We can even price on a weekly basis."  Once publishers have this tool, the ability to adjust prices in an instant, they can do whatever they want with that tool — like use it to get publicity.  That's what Little, Brown did with presidential historian Robert Dallek's book on John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life.  In the middle of November, Little, Brown dropped the price from $9.99 to $2.99 for 24 hours — the digital equivalent of a one-day-only sale.  "That sparks sales; it gets people talking about it," says Terry Adams, a publisher with Little, Brown.  "You've just expanded the market."  http://www.npr.org/2012/12/27/168068655/e-books-destroying-traditional-publishing-the-storys-not-that-simple 

The 2012–13 NCAA football bowl games is a series of college football bowl games.  They will conclude the 2012 NCAA Division I FBS football season, and include 35 team-competitive games and two all-star games.  The games began on Saturday December 15, 2012 and, aside from the all-star games, will conclude with the 2013 BCS National Championship Game in Miami Gardens, Florida that will be played on January 7, 2013.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_NCAA_football_bowl_games