The Great Wall of China proved to be too much for Plano's David Jacobs, a former Marine. Hiking it in 2002 left him winded, feeling weak and embarrassed. It marked a turning point in his life, and he vowed to change.

He became a workout fiend. Then a training guru. And somewhere along the way, a self-taught chemist who produced high-grade anabolic steroids that would transform some of his customers into walking billboards for performance-enhancing drugs, Mr. Jacobs and people who know him say.

Gastonia Police arrested two men after finding hundreds of tablets and thousands of grams of steroids.

Christopher K. Gore, 39, of Flowe Street, Gastonia, faces charges of possessing steroids, manufacturing steroids, possessing steroids with the intent to sell and deliver them, labeling counterfeit steroids, maintaining a residence for keeping steroids, maintaining a vehicle to keep and sell steroids and conspiring to violate state law by distributing anabolic steroids.

BANGKOK (AFP) - Two Britons were arrested Friday in the Thai seaside resort of Pattaya on charges of using the Internet to illegally export steroids to the United States, police said.

Police gave the names of the two detained men as Ashly Vincent Livingston [Redicat], 45, and Edwin Richard Crawly [Ox, from British Dragon], 44. They were arrested in a sting operation involving US anti-drug agents, police said.

Add this to the list of cool gadgets we'd like to try. The bodybugg armband is a wearable monitor that offers a running total of the number of calories you're burning (your Total Energy Expenditure, or TEE).

What's the big deal? Because the bodybugg not only tracks calories burned through regular exercise, but it also tracks TEE from the more mundane tasks of life, like changing a diaper, pumping gas, or even taking a nap.

It does this by measuring skin temperature, physical motion, galvanic skin response, and rate of heat loss. And the manufacturer, Bodymedia, offers an impressive array of scientific studies proving the efficacy of the product in accurately tracking calorie burn.