Confronting your lover's lover

Is it a good idea to confront your partner's other lover?

Cheaters. Hot topic. Just ask Gwyneth. But if you caught someone cheating on you, is it wise to confront the third party?
When I was at university, I found myself involved with a guy who later turned out to be married.
He also turned out to be an Evangelical Christian (whole other kettle of Ichthys).

 Long story short, it all came to a head when I, confused and bruised, decided that I couldn’t let the relationship continue, and so ended it, despite his protestations.

Safe landing: a better way to manage your super

Life plan ... Rose Fox has consolidated her super into one fund. Photo: Quentin Jones

Some super funds are now offering the in-built option of reducing risk as you age, writes John Kavanagh.
The markets have been highly volatile over the past few weeks with big swings on local and overseas shares and fixed interest markets. But what about your super fund? Is it exposed to these risks and should you change your portfolio option to have greater security?
Super fund members should have different attitudes to risk, depending on how old they are and how long they expect to have their money invested before they retire.
The younger you are the more risk you can afford to take. That is because the risky assets are the ones that tend to produce higher returns over time.

But as you get closer to retirement your priorities change.
You start thinking more about capital preservation. Your super fund investment option should have more defensive assets to reflect that.

Knocked off its perch

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or might it be something else?
THE life-sized reconstruction of the Archaeopteryx fossil in Melbourne Museum’s walk-through gallery has visitors in thrall. Most museums and school textbooks describe the small, crow-sized creature as the world’s ‘‘earliest known bird’’.
But not for much longer. New and compelling evidence from China suggests that museum exhibits and the textbooks may need to be rewritten. That’s because Archaeopteryx, which has the wings of a bird but the teeth and tail of a dinosaur, may not have been a bird after all: it was, palaeontologists now believe, a type of feathered dinosaur that roamed the Earth, and sometimes flew, 150 million years ago.
The controversial revelation, which has rocked the global science community, means that another creature must now be found to explain how birds evolved.
‘‘It seems that the flight of Archaeopteryx as a bird has come crashing to an end,’’ says Melbourne Museum vertebrate palaeontologist Tim Holland. ‘‘The recent fossil find from China has led us to rethink its role in avian evolution.’’

Upgrade Your Life: Revive a dying laptop battery

Laptop battery wearing down? In this week's episode of Upgrade Your Life, Yahoo! News' Becky Worley shows us how to help batteries last longer ... and what to do when they run out!
First, the basics
Most laptops use batteries that can last for 3-5 years, or about 1000 charges. (A premium laptop's battery might last longer.) Every time you charge your battery, the total capacity of the battery is diminished. Originally it may have had a run time of 3.5 hours, but after a year it'll run out of juice at 3 hours, even on a full charge.
If your battery capacity has diminished, there are a few things you can do about it. First, you have to correctly gauge how much capacity has been lost. There are free downloads to do this job, like Battery Bar (for Windows PCs) or Coconut Battery (for Macs). These will compare your battery's current maximum capacity to how long it lasted when it was new.
(UPDATE- we originally recommended Battery Eater and while the program works great, their download site has been compromised and we are recommending an alternate program, Battery Bar downloadable from CNET.)
Calibrating your Battery

What the Size of Your Smile Says About You

By Jennifer Margulis
So much more than than a pair of upturned lips, the smile is the most scientifically studied human facial expression. In her new book, Lip Service, Yale psychology professor Marianne LaFrance, PhD, draws on the latest research—in fields from biology to anthropology to computer science—in an effort to shed some light on the happy face. Here, six facts that may make you, well, you know.
People with big grins live longer. In a study published last year, researchers pored over an old issue of the Baseball Register, analyzing photos of 230 players. They found that on average, the guys with bright, bigmouthed beams lived 4.9 years longer than the players with partial smiles, and 7 years longer than the players who showed no grin at all. We can't credit wide smiles for long life spans, of course, but smiles reveal positive feelings, and positive feelings are linked to well-being.