Solaria Sun

An investment analyst is advising his clients that Apple shares could continue to soar and will top $1,000 within the next 12 months.

Previously, such irrational exuberance about Apple shares would be dismissed outright but Apple stock prices have doubled in the past 12 months, rising from $310 to $628. Much of that surge has happened in the first three months of 2012 as Apple soared from $405 to $600 on a huge surge in revenue and profits.

Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White wrote in an April 2 note to investors: “Driven by an ever expanding portfolio of innovative products, a growing integrated digital grid, unmatched aesthetics and a brand that is able to touch the soul of consumers of all backgrounds, Apple fever is spreading like a wildfire around the world and we see no end in sight to this trend.”

With its 50% share price increase in Q1, Apple is already the world’s most valuable company, but Apple fever could replace gold fever as the new mania for 2012.

The U.S. CDC says that 1 in 3 Americans are obese, but new research indicates that nearly 60% of Americans are obese.

A new study, published in the journal PLoS One, said that using the Body Mass Index or BMI to determine obesity was underestimating the issue and that up to 39% of people who were not currently classified as obese actually were obese.

Research teams at the New York University School of Medicine and at Weill Cornell Medical College looked at records from 1,393 people who had both their BMI and body fat scores measured.

Researcher Dr. Eric Braverman said: “The Body Mass Index is an insensitive measure of obesity, prone to under-diagnosis, while direct fat measurements are superior because they show distribution of body fat.”

Diagnosing obesity by looking at how much of the body is made up of fat defines obesity as a total body fat percentage of 25% or more for men or 30% or more for women is the threshold for obesity.

Their data showed that 61% of the time the BMI and body fat two measures came to the same conclusion. However, they said 539 people in the study – or 39% – were not labelled obese according to BMI, but their body fat percentage suggested that they were actually obese.

The obesity classification disparity between the two measurements was greatest in women and became much worse when looking at older groups of women.

“Greater loss of muscle mass in women with age exacerbates the misclassification of BMI,” the researchers reported.

The researchers propose changing the thresholds for obesity: “A more appropriate cut-point for obesity with BMI is 24 for females and 28 for males.”

“By our cut-offs, 64.1% or about 99.8 million American women are obese,” they said.

While a BMI of 24 is currently classed as a “normal” weight, a better measurement to use is a simple height to waist ratio. Your waist size should not exceed more than half of your height. Therefore, if you are six feet tall or 72 inches in height, your waist size should not be more than 36 inches.

A disgruntled former nursing student was arrested after spraying 30 shots around the campus of Oikos University in Oakland, California, resulting in six students killed and three wounded.

Oakland police arrested the shooter at a shopping mall five miles from campus.

“As you may have heard, the suspected shooter in today’s deadly shooting at Oikos University on Edgewater Drive is in custody, and it appears he acted alone,” the city said in a brief statement.

“The surrounding area is still cordoned off, but police have advised that no imminent public safety threat appears to exist in the immediate area,” the statement said.

Oikos, which offers programs in theology, nursing, music and Asian medicine, describes itself on its website as having been started to provide the “highest standard education with Christian value and inspiration.”

The school’s founder, Pastor Jong Kim, told reporters that the arrested man had previously been a nursing student there, but was no longer enrolled.