Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe HEFTY CIGARETTE TAX CUTS SALES New York City's hefty cigarette tax plunged cigarette sales by nearly 50 percent in July, the first month the cost of a pack jumped to $7.50 in the city. Advertisement The city's Department of Finance says 15.6 million packs of cigarettes were sold in the five boroughs during July, down from 29 million packs the same month a year ago. The city passed the tax hike to help close a record budget deficit caused by Sept. 11, and in that respect the tax hike is working -- $12.3 million was collected from the cigarette tax last month compared to $2.3 million during the same period last year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had said the cigarette tax hike would result in 50,000 people not getting ill from cigarette smoke. However, so far there is no data on how many people have quit smoking versus how many have taken to buying cigarettes in neighboring states, nearby Indian reservations or on the Internet. Advertisement HIGH TECH TENNIS ELBOW CURE Tennis players get it. Golfers get it. Carpenters get it. The clinical name is lateral epicondylitis, but it's commonly known as tennis elbow. Tennis elbow is caused by repetitive stress where the muscles of the forearm attach to the elbow joint. It can be difficult to treat, physicians say. Doctors in Vancouver, British Columbia, are using a space age looking device -- the Sonocur Basic -- as an alternative to surgery. The Sonocur Basic, made by Siemens and recently approved by the Federal Drug Administration, sends pulses into the patient's elbow at the site of the pain, helping to deliver immediate and long-term relief by giving a slight anesthetic effect. "This technology, similar to that used to treat kidney stones but at much lower energy, will bring relief to the 4 million cases of tennis elbow, of which only 5 percent get from tennis," says Anne Marie Keevins of Siemens. OIL HURTS BIRDS Although major oil spills have decreased substantially in the United States, the reality is there are thousands of small spills occurring daily around the world that go unreported. Wildlife expert Martin Kratt says the greatest threat to our feathered friends isn't always a major oil spill but small leaks from boat engines, oils flushed down sinks, even containers of oil kept outside that birds might mistake for water. Advertisement "Even a seemingly harmless dime-sized glob of oil can kill a bird, because it sticks the feathers together and separates them, so cold air and water gets in between," Kratt says. Once birds get cold, they have to get out of the water, they stop preening, they stop eating, and they go downhill from there, he adds. Kratt says rescuers have used a solution of Dawn dishwashing liquid to clean the birds from oil for the past 20 years. BAR CODE PROTEST Many in Japan, a country not known for civil disobedience, braved 100 degree temperatures dressed as bar codes and computers to protest a national computerized registry of its citizens, The New York Times reports. The protesters say the 11-digit number, assigned to everyone in the country, could be misused or the system could be leaked of information by hackers. Six cities refused to be included in the computerized system connecting local registries, effectively leaving 4 million people out of the system. The information is to be available only to government employees for official use, the government says, adding it is not on the Internet but will make it easier to register a change of address. Advertisement Makoto Sataka, a social critic leading a campaign against the system, warns, "In the resident registry network system, the state will become a stalker with control over personal information."
