The United Nations General Assembly
adopted a resolution to mark "World Toilet Day." The day will be
celebrated November 19. "The amusement and laughter likely to
follow the designation of 19 November as 'World Toilet Day' would
all be worthwhile if people’s attention was drawn to the fact that
2.5 billion people lacked proper sanitation and 1.1 billion were
forced to defecate in the open, the General Assembly heard today,"
a U.N. press release reads.
“Ending open defecation will lead to a 35 per cent reduction in
diarrhea, which results in over 750,000 deaths of children under
five years of age every year,” Singapore’s representative said.
Apart from establishing World Toilet Day, the text also urged
Member States and the United Nations system to encourage
behavioral change, to introduce policies that would increase
sanitation among the poor.
India's novel approach is to encourage families not to let their
daughters marry if the potential husband does not have a toilet.
The initiative from the government is called "No toilet, no
bride". There are more temples than toilets in India, said Union
Minister Jairam Ramesh.
The Indian state of Madhya Pradesh pays for a wedding and provides
qualifying couples with housewarming gifts totaling 15,000 rupees
(about $270) if they can prove the husband-to-be's house has a
toilet.
Over 75 per cent of the 1.2 billion Indian population currently
have a mobile phone subscription, but only 50 per cent of
households have a toilet and only 11 per cent have one connected
to the sewerage system, according to the 2011 Indian census. I
love the headline from the Washington Post, "In India, New Seat
of Power for Women".
Nov 8, 2013
Four More Inventions by Women
Stephanie Kwolek
invented Kevlar, a tough durable material now used to make
bulletproof vests. For years she'd worked on the process at DuPont
and in 1963, she got the polymers or rod-like molecules in fibers
to line up in one direction. This made the material stronger than
others, where molecules were arranged in bundles. In fact, the new
material was as strong as steel! Kwolek's technology also went on
to be used for making suspension bridge cables, helmets, brake
pads, skis, and camping gear.
Patricia Bath, MD - Patented in 1988, a new method of removing cataracts. The medical laser instrument made the procedure more accurate and is termed the cataract Laserphacoprobe. As a laser scientist and inventor, she has 5 patents on the laser cataract surgery device covering the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe.
What is the Blissymbol Printer? It's a software program invented by a Canadian 12-year-old in the mid-1980s. Rachel Zimmerman's printer enables those with severe physical disabilities like cerebral palsy, to communicate. The user records their thoughts by touching symbols on a page or board through the use of a special touch pad, the printer then translates the symbols into a written language. Zimmerman's system started as a project for a school science fair, but ended up competing and winning a silver medal in a nationwide contest, as well as gaining her the YTV Television Youth Achievement Award.
Before the paper bag, the first version was shaped like an envelope, with no flat bottom. Margaret Knight created a machine to cut, fold, and glue square bottoms to paper bags and gained a patent for it in 1871, but not without a lawsuit against a fellow who stole her idea. His defense was "a woman could never design such an innovative machine," but she had the drawings to prove the invention was hers and she won the case. Knight's career with inventions started at age 12, when she developed a stop-motion device that immediately brought industrial machines to a halt if something was caught in them. Over the course of her lifetime, she was awarded over 26 patents.
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Patricia Bath, MD - Patented in 1988, a new method of removing cataracts. The medical laser instrument made the procedure more accurate and is termed the cataract Laserphacoprobe. As a laser scientist and inventor, she has 5 patents on the laser cataract surgery device covering the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe.
What is the Blissymbol Printer? It's a software program invented by a Canadian 12-year-old in the mid-1980s. Rachel Zimmerman's printer enables those with severe physical disabilities like cerebral palsy, to communicate. The user records their thoughts by touching symbols on a page or board through the use of a special touch pad, the printer then translates the symbols into a written language. Zimmerman's system started as a project for a school science fair, but ended up competing and winning a silver medal in a nationwide contest, as well as gaining her the YTV Television Youth Achievement Award.
Before the paper bag, the first version was shaped like an envelope, with no flat bottom. Margaret Knight created a machine to cut, fold, and glue square bottoms to paper bags and gained a patent for it in 1871, but not without a lawsuit against a fellow who stole her idea. His defense was "a woman could never design such an innovative machine," but she had the drawings to prove the invention was hers and she won the case. Knight's career with inventions started at age 12, when she developed a stop-motion device that immediately brought industrial machines to a halt if something was caught in them. Over the course of her lifetime, she was awarded over 26 patents.
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Top Ten Vitamin C Foods
Top ten foods that have more vitamin C than
oranges. Guava with 376 mg of vitamin C for 1 cup. Next are red
bell peppers followed by lychee, a small Asian fruit, followed by
parsley, kiwi, broccoli, brussels sprouts, papaya, strawberries,
and pineapple. Bringing up the rear are oranges.
What's in a Name, White Elephant
Sacred white elephants
were and are kept by some Southeast Asian monarchs. Possessing a
white elephant was regarded, and still is in Thailand and Burma
(Myanmar) as a sign that the monarch reigned with justice and
power, and that the kingdom was blessed with peace and prosperity.
It derives from stories that the kings of Siam would make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who were obnoxious or unpleasing, in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance. A white elephant was a valuable, but burdensome possession, which its owner could not dispose of and whose cost and upkeep was out of proportion to its usefulness or worth.
These days a white elephant can mean an object, business venture, etc., that is without practical use or value. The term is used in business and even more frequently used during the gift-giving holiday season as friends and relatives strive to find unique gifts to give. Many people consider dried fruit cakes as white elephants.
It derives from stories that the kings of Siam would make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who were obnoxious or unpleasing, in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance. A white elephant was a valuable, but burdensome possession, which its owner could not dispose of and whose cost and upkeep was out of proportion to its usefulness or worth.
These days a white elephant can mean an object, business venture, etc., that is without practical use or value. The term is used in business and even more frequently used during the gift-giving holiday season as friends and relatives strive to find unique gifts to give. Many people consider dried fruit cakes as white elephants.
Blood Pressure
Blood pressure is the intrinsic pressure
within your arteries and veins. Your body needs this pressure to
adequately supply all your tissues and organs with nutrients. Like
the plumbing in your house, adequate pressure is needed, but if
that pressure gets too high it causes problems.
High blood pressure is a combination of environmental risk factors and genes. High blood pressure is defined as any systolic pressure (top number) above 140 or diastolic (bottom number) higher than 90.
High blood pressure is not a disease itself, but indicates a risk factor for several other conditions like heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure. The most beneficial way to control blood pressure is naturally. This is because medications that control blood pressure come with serious side effects. These side effects can sometimes be more harmful than the high blood pressure itself.
Things like lack of exercise and bad eating habits can cause a buildup of plaque inside your arteries. Excessive plaque on the interior walls of your arteries makes them smaller, known as “Atherosclerosis”. When the pipes that transport fluid get smaller, the pressure that same volume of fluid exerts goes up. If the blood pressure gets too high, arteries have a greater chance of bursting. Arteries get larger or smaller depending on the needs of the body. Excessive plaque makes this increasingly more difficult for a body to achieve.
A person’s blood pressure can also be too high due to genetics. A landmark study published in Nature in 2011 found 29 genetic variants that affected blood pressure. The authors found any one variant in a gene did not increase risk of hypertension, but people with multiple variants were much more likely to have high blood pressure.
High blood pressure is a combination of environmental risk factors and genes. High blood pressure is defined as any systolic pressure (top number) above 140 or diastolic (bottom number) higher than 90.
High blood pressure is not a disease itself, but indicates a risk factor for several other conditions like heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure. The most beneficial way to control blood pressure is naturally. This is because medications that control blood pressure come with serious side effects. These side effects can sometimes be more harmful than the high blood pressure itself.
Things like lack of exercise and bad eating habits can cause a buildup of plaque inside your arteries. Excessive plaque on the interior walls of your arteries makes them smaller, known as “Atherosclerosis”. When the pipes that transport fluid get smaller, the pressure that same volume of fluid exerts goes up. If the blood pressure gets too high, arteries have a greater chance of bursting. Arteries get larger or smaller depending on the needs of the body. Excessive plaque makes this increasingly more difficult for a body to achieve.
A person’s blood pressure can also be too high due to genetics. A landmark study published in Nature in 2011 found 29 genetic variants that affected blood pressure. The authors found any one variant in a gene did not increase risk of hypertension, but people with multiple variants were much more likely to have high blood pressure.
Bat Myths Debunked
Bats eyes are very functional. Bats'
retinas have an abundance of rods (a prerequisite for night
vision) and also two types of cones: the ordinary, that serves
them well in daylight conditions, and UV-sensitive that gives them
night vision. Bats use, but do not depend exclusively on their
sonar. Some bats can see better than others, but none are
blind. Some varieties of bats can see color and others can
only see black and white.
Bats groom themselves by meticulously licking and scratching themselves and each other for hours. Bats are the only mammals that can fly. An average bat lives about thirty years. Out of the 900 species of bats, there are only three vampire bats in the entire world and they are generally found in South America. The remaining species of bats over the world feed off of fruit, nectar, pollen, and insects.
Bats groom themselves by meticulously licking and scratching themselves and each other for hours. Bats are the only mammals that can fly. An average bat lives about thirty years. Out of the 900 species of bats, there are only three vampire bats in the entire world and they are generally found in South America. The remaining species of bats over the world feed off of fruit, nectar, pollen, and insects.
Wayback Machine
Did you know there is a site that serves
up web pages that are no longer active? The site is https://archive.org/web/
and is known as the Wayback Machine, because it goes way back to
show pages that have long since been gone. It works kind of like
Google, but for old, rather than current web pages. Interesting
place to go if you are looking for old facts or to check how a
story changes over time. It is especially interesting to see
how politicians change their story depending on which way the
wind blows.
Nov 1, 2013
Daylight Savings
Nov 3, 2013 is time to turn back your
clocks. Benjamin Franklin often gets credited with the idea, but he
only mentioned it in jest in a satirical essay. The idea was never
seriously pushed until 1895 when George Vernon Hudson, presented the
idea as a way for people to have more daylight and consequently more
leisure time after work. While there was interest in Hudson’s idea,
it still didn't catch on until 1916 when Germany adopted DST as a
method to save fuel during World War I. Others, including the US and
Great Britain, used DST during World War I and II, yet reverted to
standard time during peace years.
It wasn't until about 40 years ago, during the energy crisis of the 1970s, that Daylight Savings Time was made permanent in many areas.
It wasn't until about 40 years ago, during the energy crisis of the 1970s, that Daylight Savings Time was made permanent in many areas.
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