As I eventually discovered during a commercial break, the research makes a strong case for the dangers of TV — or at least the dangers of sitting down and staring at something for hours at a time. Pooling together the results of eight previous studies, the researchers concluded that each two-hour block of daily television viewing increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 20% and heart disease by about 15%. Put another way, they estimated that if 100,000 people watched two hours of television every day, 38 would die from heart disease each year as a direct result of their viewing habits.

I have to admit: The television at the Woolston house gets used hard, and not just by the Cartoon Network crowd. I have a rooting interest in “So You Think You Can Dance.” (Jordan!)  I think Cody, the long-haired guy on “Dual Survival,” should stop being such a flake and buy some hiking boots. “The Wire,” “Lost,”  “Deadwood,” “The Simpsons” … If I really had to choose between TV and my heart, I’m afraid I’d go with the clicker over the ticker.

But as far as I know, the glow from a TV screen isn’t exactly toxic. When health experts warn of the dangers of TV time, they’re really talking about the dangers of spending too much time sitting down instead of working out. No matter what your interests, sitting still for prolonged periods of time could be hard on your health, says Ryan Rhodes, director of the Behavioral Medicine lab at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. “It seems like getting up and moving, or even standing, every once in a while may be important,” he says.

Perhaps more to the point, people who log a lot of hours of TV time often don’t get the moderate to vigorous exercise they need — at least 150 minutes worth a week — to stay healthy. That’s a big reason why TV watchers end up doing so poorly in these studies. And that’s exactly why why I’m not afraid of “The Daily Show.” I get more than my share of TV, but I also play mediocre racquetball several times a week, walk the dog every day and ride my bike when weather allows. My weight’s right where it should be, my diet is decent and my last physical was laughably uneventful.

It’s obviously possible for a TV junkie to stay healthy. To take the optimistic view of the latest statistics, 99,962 people out of every 100,000 will survive their television addiction every year. I’ll take those odds, especially if it means that I don’t have to miss a single episode of “Modern Family.” What can I say? The show has a lot of heart. By Chris Woolston, Hartford Courant

In the US meat and milk from animals cloned to give higher yields have been sold since the Food and Drug Administration ruled in 2008 that they were safe for human consumption.

Last month the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said that such products should also be approved for sale in Britain.

The verdict came two years after the FSA was engulfed in controversy when it confirmed that meat from the offspring of a cloned cow had been eaten in the UK without a licence being obtained.

The technology continues to face staunch opposition from groups such as Compassion in World Farming, the Soil Association, the RSPCA, the World Wildlife Fund and the consumer group Which?

Criticisms include claims that research into the safety of consuming cloned animal products has been insufficient to reach definitive conclusions and the argument that cloned animals experience greater suffering.

The Soil Association, which promotes organic food and farming, said in a letter to the FSA that the lack of research into “toxicity and allergenicity” of cloned products was “particularly worrying”.

It added that it was “also opposed to the cloning process because it is so damaging to animal welfare.”

According to the RSPCA, the cloning process “involves scientific procedures that can cause pain, suffering and distress to the animals” which makes it unsuitable for “frivolous purposes.”

It says fewer than five per cent of cloned embryos can be expected to survive to birth and those born alive often have abnormalities and a reduced lifespan.

Geneticists have said that cloning is essentially “an extension of the process by which twins arise in nature” and therefore raises no particular safety concerns in terms of human consumption.

Jim Paice, the food and farming minister, said earlier this year that the Government, along with the European Commission, considers it unnecessary to ban food from the offspring of cloned animals from ending up on supermarket shelves. By Robin Yapp, The Daily Telegraph

Berg Insight, a Swedish research company that tracks the navigation industry, estimates that the number of personal navigation devices shipped globally will peak in 2011 at 42 million, up from 40 million this year, before beginning a gradual, but inexorable decline.

Berg sees annual shipments of the devices, which fix location by communicating with global positioning satellites, falling to 30 million in 2015.

“The reason this is happening is basically the smartphone,” said Tom Slob, an analyst in Amsterdam for Rabobank, a Dutch bank. “Google and Nokia have both decided to give the technology away for free. That has changed the business.”

Whether competition from the mobile phone industry proves to be a fatal blow to the auto navigation market, however, remains to be seen. The industry leaders, Garmin and TomTom, are fighting back, honing real-time traffic technologies and building in-dash navigators for automakers like Renault, Mazda and Fiat.

“The technology is being partially absorbed into smartphones and in-dash devices,” said Kevin Rauckman, the Garmin chief financial officer. “We are also seeing the industry mature very rapidly. But that in no way means the end of the road for our business.”

Regardless of how companies like Garmin ultimately fare, the uncertainty surrounding the personal navigation industry, whose devices began appearing on dashboards in 2003, is another example of the way smartphones are disrupting many consumer electronics businesses.

Apple has seen sales of its iPhone and iPad, both popular Internet-connected devices, cannibalize those of its iPod music and video players. IPod sales peaked in 2008, one year after Apple introduced the iPhone, at 55.4 million units, according to figures released by Apple, and fell to 52.4 million last year.

Global shipments of digital cameras, another device now commonly integrated into smartphones, fell to 125 million units in 2009 from 140 million in 2008, according to André Malm, a senior analyst at Berg Insight in Goteborg, Sweden.

Mr. Malm said most of the decline probably had been caused by the global economic downturn but smartphones, some of which now come with 12-megapixel cameras, were definitely eroding sales of lower-end digital cameras. Nokia, which sells about 106 million smartphones a year, now claims to be the world’s largest maker of digital cameras.

“There is no doubt that the smartphone is transforming many of these markets, not just navigation devices, but cameras and media players, too,” Mr. Malm said. “These markets aren’t going to disappear, but they are going to change substantially.”

The auto navigation business was humming along until October 2008, when Google introduced Android, an operating system for mobile devices that extended Google Maps and its navigation programs to cellphones. Since then, 45 million people have bought GPS-enabled Android phones, according to Gartner, and many use them in their cars.

Not to be outdone, Nokia, which sells more mobile phones than anyone, began giving away its own navigation software, Ovi Maps, last January to its smartphone users. Nokia sells about 290,000 smartphones each day around the world, 26.5 million in the third quarter alone.

The fallout from Google’s and Nokia’s decisions has roiled the industry, which is dominated by Garmin, based in Switzerland, the market leader; TomTom, based in Amsterdam; and Mitac International of Taiwan, owner of the Mio, Navigon, Magellan and Navman brands. The three make up 68 percent of the market, according to Berg Insight.

Sales at Garmin, which has 35 percent of the global market, fell 11.4 percent in the third quarter to $692.4 million. The company, thanks to $68.6 million in a one-time tax benefit, reported a 30 percent increase in net profit during the quarter, to $279.6 million.

Mr. Rauckman, the Garmin chief financial officer, attributed the downturns in part to competition from smartphones and in-dash devices, but also to the rising availability of GPS navigators in cars. He estimated they were installed in 25 percent of the world’s 700 million cars.

At TomTom, the European market leader, sales rose 3 percent, to €375 million, or $512.4 million, in the third quarter, but the company’s net profit slumped 37 percent, to €19 million from €31 million a year earlier. On Oct. 20, TomTom said it expected 2010 sales and earnings to be unchanged from 2009.

Neither company is ceding the market to Google or Nokia.

TomTom is using anonymous location data from Vodafone cellphone customers in Europe to compile enhanced traffic reports for a dynamic traffic management service it sells in Europe. Garmin has diversified beyond car navigators, generating a third of sales from aviation, maritime and fitness/outdoor devices. Garmin, TomTom and Mitac also sell navigation tools as applications for the iPhone and BlackBerry.

Mr. Rauckman said smartphones could not compete with specialized navigators like Garmin’s Nuvi 3790LMT, which offers speech recognition and 3-D street displays.

“The user interface on our devices is much easier to use than a smartphone,” he said. “That is why people are willing to pay for our products.”

At a presentation to financial analysts Thursday in Amsterdam, the TomTom chief executive, Harold Goddijn, told investors his company was expanding its relationship with Renault, Fiat and Mazda, said Nicolas von Stackelberg, an analyst at Macquarie Securities in Frankfurt.

“Before, the outlook was rather uncertain, but it is brightening now,” Mr. von Stackelberg said. “The fear had been that nobody would need to buy a personal navigation device any more. And yes, there are some who will use their smartphones instead, but there are others who will still want to buy a high-end device from specialists like TomTom or do away with dangling cables and go for a reasonably priced in-dash solution.”

Tim Flight, editor of GPSReview.net, a Web site covering the industry, said it was far too early to write the obituary for auto navigation devices.

“A lot of GPS users are now buying their second device,” said Mr. Flight, who is based in Carrabassett Valley, Maine. “I’m sure the casual user might be satisfied with a smartphone, but people who rely on the devices are still going to opt for a real navigator.” By Kevin J. O’Brien,Pittsburgh Post Gazette