Issue number one hundred and thirty (October 2011) in a series of Signposts from the WorldU3A Service, sent once a month to U3A members anywhere in the world.

Please send snippets of possible interest to the editor, Tom Holloway.
Feel free to copy any or all of this information in your newsletters.

The very successful U3A international conference in Singapore was fully supported by the Government-funded Council for the Third Age, who have now included Universities of the Third Age in their promotional material.

That also includes information and a link to U3A Online, which was the first 'virtual U3A' and which now runs many online courses.

BBC Click featured a free open-sourced program called Prey which can be installed on a laptop. Basically you install a tiny agent in your PC which silently waits for a remote signal to wake up the laptop if it is stolen or lost. Click on a link to Prey who will activate the laptop, pinpoint its exact location and monitor any activity if the laptop is used. It's instructive to watch the BBC clip for a full explanation of the process by clicking on the link http://tinyurl.com/42dy2dg. The program can be downloaded from http://preyproject.com/ (Thank you Peter Ridgway, Spelthorne U3A).

Embroidery/Textile Groups: An article by Christine Barber in U3A Sidmouth's excellent newsletter brought my attention to this subject. You can learn more at 'The Blackwork Embroidery Archives' - which is a collection of "Original Blackwork Patterns Inspired by Historical Sources" maintained by the amazing Paula Kate Marmor - a "native Californian, By profession, I work in interactive media development in the entertainment industry". She also contributes to websites devoted to Tolkien's Elvish Language and The Mythopoeic Society - a non-profit organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature.
New research finds that seniors who expended the most energy doing chores, running errands, taking care of loved ones and simply going about their business were less likely to experience mental declines as they aged.

"All those things that you would never think of as exercise, they get our heart rate up and make our blood vessels pump blood," said study co-author Todd Manini, an assistant professor of aging and geriatric research at the University of Florida, Gainesville. "But we kind of ignored them in the past and thought mainly about volitional exercise, such as jogging. What this study is telling us is those other activities might also count for health benefits."

(Reprinted from Medline - a US Government health website).

Health Issues: Science Daily reports that, compared with changes in biomarkers, changes in cognitive abilities appear to be stronger predictors of whether an individual with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) will develop Alzheimer's disease.

Further detail can be found in a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Gardening Groups: For discussions, advice, answers and even a bit of gossip, there is no better place than GardenBanter. This is a gateway to gardening related newsgroups giving access to a huge network of discussions on the internet, with many worldwide contributors who have the widest experience imaginable.

Music Groups: Classical music reviews, articles and commentary by Peter Gutmann, "a deeply devoted fan", which includes

a lengthy survey of musical masterpieces and recommended recordings.
a survey of D. W. Griffith's extraordinary first year of filmmaking.
annotated guides to the recordings of favorite artists and editions.
full career retrospectives of Toscanini, Furtwängler and Bernstein.
from Legal Times and Goldmine with updates, graphics and more.
significant recordings ... together with some other observations.

The website's unfortunate use of tiny tiny text can be solved by holding your Control-key down while pushing your mouse-wheel forward.

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