The researchers, who reported their findings in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, say previous studies have found that many sports competitors show signs of injury to the heart muscle and cardiac abnormalities after they exercise for long periods of time.

The new study was created to assess the degree to which running a marathon stresses the heart, and whether it might cause permanent damage.

As such, the researchers studied 20 amateur long-distance runners between the ages of 18 and 60, who were going to run in the Quebec City Marathon. The runners had no known cardiovascular disease and were not on any kind of drug treatment.

The researchers excluded any runners who had run a marathon in the 2 months before recruitment or during the study period.
Cardiac risk associated with running

Tested 6-8 weeks before the marathon and on the day of the race, the runners were also tested again within 48 hours of completing the marathon. This test included a second MRI and blood sampling.

The researchers say this timeframe ensured sufficient rehydration and a return to normal heart and blood pressure rates after the race. But importantly, it was short enough for them to observe any myocardial changes.

In half of the runners, researchers observed that the marathon prompted a decrease in left and right ventricular function. And when a lot of the heart was affected, there was swelling and reduced blood flow in the heart.

Dr. Eric Larose, of the Institut universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie de Québec (IUCPQ) in Canada, says that the heart muscle changes they observed were more common in runners who had lower fitness levels and who trained less.

But they also observed that these changes were temporary.

Dr. Larose says:

Segmental function decrease is associated with poor prognosis in the presence of CAD (coronary artery disease) or cardiomyopathy. Segmental dysfunction also indicates a poor prognosis in adults without cardiovascular disease.

Although we don’t know whether such changes mean that recreational runners are at risk, the attendant edema, and reduced perfusion suggest transient injury

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“This is a major source of concern,” said Stefano Scarpetta, the director for employment, labor and social affairs at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, whose members are 34 mostly developed countries. “For people who have been out for a long time, it becomes very difficult to get back into jobs. People lose motivation. They lose employment skills.”

In the United States, as can be seen in the accompanying charts, the percentage of the labor force that has been out of work for more than a year — and is still seeking employment — is down to 1.9 percent from a peak of 3 percent reached in 2010. But that proportion is still higher than at any time before 2009. (The data goes back to 1948.)

More than a quarter of the unemployed workers in the United States say they have been out of work for at least a year, and that does not count those who have given up looking, since they are no longer counted as unemployed. That is down from nearly a third at the peak of the recession, but far higher than it had ever been before the recession that began in 2007.

The United States figures on long-term unemployment, while bad by precrisis levels, are actually better than in many other countries. For the euro zone countries, nearly half of those who were unemployed in the second quarter of this year had been out of work for at least a year. In Greece, the figure was 65 percent. Even in prosperous Germany, the figure was 45 percent. In Britain, it was 37 percent.

For 32 O.E.C.D. countries — data for Chile and South Korea was not available — the overall figure was 36 percent.

Of the countries shown in the charts, only Canada, Australia, Turkey and Norway have a lower proportion of unemployed people who have been out of work for a year or more.

Mr. Scarpetta, whose organization prepared the figures, said governments needed to concentrate their efforts. “Acting quickly is important,” he said. “If you have a large pool of long-term unemployed, you should focus on them.”

He pointed to the rising number of people under the age of 25 who are not in employment, education or training — called Neets by the O.E.C.D. In the United States, in the final quarter of last year, 15 percent of youths were in that group, up from 12 percent in the same period of 2007. In Italy, the figure was 21.4 percent, but it was just 7.6 percent in Germany.

By contrast, the short-term unemployment rate — the proportion of the work force that has been out of work for four weeks or less — is now 1.7 percent in the United States. That is only a little above the record low of 1.5 percent set in 2007, and lower than any such monthly rate reached between 1953 and 2004.

There are now more people who have been out of work for a year than there are who have been out of work for four weeks or less. Until 2009, that had not happened since World War II. At the worst point after the 2001 recession, more than 30 percent of the unemployed had been out of work for less than a month, at least twice the number who had been out of work for a year.

In the United States, and many other countries, there is now what amounts to a two-tier employment system. For most people, unemployment is likely to be brief, if it happens at all. But for a significant number of people, unemployment is anything but a temporary problem.

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Shot by photographer Steven Meisel under the hair-raising light of a cold and ominous casting studio, Prada’s Fall 2013 campaign serves as the perfect setting to showcase the film noir glamour of the fall collection. The campaign’s short film stars 9 models, who play the roles of hopeful actresses, preparing for auditions and reciting lines. The dark and desolate theme mirrored that of Prada’s Fall 2013 fashion week show in which models walked down a shadow-clad runway. Miuccia Prada, the designer behind the label, was quoted post-show by style.com saying “through cloth, you can really make movies,” reinforcing the theme of the campaign.

The short film stands out our radar for both it’s seriously dramatic tone and because of an appearance by 19-year-old model Malaika Firth, the first black model cast by the brand in almost two decades. Firth holds her own alongside top models Christy Turlington and Freja Beha which is a feat to say the least. The 9 model-strong cast is reminiscent of the label’s much lighter Spring 2013 advertising campaign, also shot by Meisel, in which 10 models embodied the delicate, frilly characteristics of flowers featured on garments in the Spring 2013 collection.

An equally dazzling cast of models is found in Miu Miu’s Fall 2013 campaign, which shows off the collection’s vivid colours and bold patterns against the moody backdrop of a seaside pier at twilight. Directed by Inez & Vinoodh, the campaign features a roster of It girls including Georgia May Jagger, Adriana Lima and Lindsey Wixson. Set to the The Meters’ “Hand Clapping Song,” the gaggle of free-spirited models dance against a vanishing horizon in the campaign’s short film. A dreary sea-side promenade has never looked so chic.

The curious settings for both campaigns are intriguing, to say the least. From Miu Miu’s polka-dot hankerchiefs and striped stockings, to Prada’s vibrant checkered coats and handbags, both ads encourage pops of colour for fall.

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In one sense, it works—Mylo Xyloto finds the band at their most strident and celebratory—but every detail of the album is so sanded down it feels as though the melodies were put through rigorous focus-group testing in advance of the final mix. All the artistic progress made on their last album, the quirky and even adventurous Viva la Vida, has been undone, thanks to an overdose of weeping electronic strings, a pointless Rihanna cameo (on the forgettable “Princess of China”) and a festival-pleasing “ohh-ohh” hook that’s shoehorned onto the end of every boisterous chorus. Unfortunately, these lovingly crafted earworms won’t stand the test of time. There’s a reason Coldplay’s back-end ballads are the ones that still sound fresh after so many years—they’re the ones that emerged most organically from Martin’s eternally bleeding heart.

And sadly, heart is precisely what Mylo Xyloto lacks.

Playlist Picks: “Up With the Birds,” “Charlie Brown,” “Hurts Like Heaven”

The moody, piano-led ballad, which reaches Coldplay’s signature orchestral-rock aplomb by its midway point, was not only the first song the group had ever written specifically for a movie but its first new song since the release of 2011′s Mylo Xyloto. “Atlas” made it to the No. 1 position on 43 countries’ respective iTunes chart. In the U.S., it made it to No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked in the Top 20 of Billboard‘s Rock Songs and Alternative Songs charts.

Martin is reportedly a fan of the Hunger Games series of books and based the song on the drama within the movie. “We are thrilled with how well they have connected to the themes and ideas within the film,” the movie’s director, Francis Lawrence, commented in September. “Their unwavering passion and excitement for the project elevated the collaboration even further.”

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack, which features new tracks from Christina Aguilera, Sia and Lorde, among others, comes out November 19th. The movie hits theaters November 22nd.

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The basic premise of the film is that Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), a medical engineer on her first mission in space, and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), must fight to survive after the debris from a destroyed satellite decimates their shuttle and sets them adrift. What viewers may not understand from the marketing materials that have been releases is that this is not a “floating around in space” movie. Once it gets going, Gravity is a non-stop, heart-pounding thriller.

However, the real crux of the film is Kowalski and Stone’s vastly divergent responses to, not so much the crisis, but life. Stone is mourning, withdrawn, and disconnected, all business and oblivious to the purity of the wonder that is surrounding her. She is weightless with the expanse of space as her playground and the Earth a glowing globe beneath her, and yet, at the film’s open, the entirety of her being is focused on fighting intermittent nausea and the tool right in front of her. She is oblivious the the singular miracle of her circumstances. Whereas Kowalski is engaged with – and savoring – every moment of freedom that the jet pack the engineers are having him test affords him.

The pair function as archetypes as much as characters. They symbolize oppositional forces: yin and yang, the natural expansion and contraction of the universe, and spiritually, she stands in for a life-providing mother Earth and he a watchful, guiding, loving, though slightly irreverent, Father Deity. Kowalski is vital and life-affirming, Stone depleted and stricken by a devastating loss that she has been unable to move on from. The casting plays directly into audience expectations. We buy Clooney as the charming, devil-may-care astronaut and Bullock as the introverted, earthy and relatable scientist.

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