Top 5 Reasons to Laugh

Having a good laugh makes your brain release endorphins and really does change your mood for the better.

By gently exercising the body, through the laughter and the breathing and the gentle movements one performs while going through the routine.

It helps to prevent you from getting sick as well as helping to improve a number of conditions, like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, depression, arthritis, allergies, asthma, bronchitis, back ache, fibromyalgia, headaches, cancer, and many more.

Laughter creates a positive energy which helps you to connect with people and attract friends.

It creates a positive mental state which is beneficial when times are rough.

Research is ongoing regarding the potential health benefits of laughter. Still to be proven is if the sense of humor and positive attitude behind laughter are also helpful.

When we laugh, we increase our pulse rate and blood pressure, and the effects may be similar to exercise. Researchers have estimated that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes burns 50 calories. Other studies suggest laughter improves blood flow, immune responses, and blood sugar levels.

Research looking at the connection between mind and body suggests that repeated doses of laughter, and even anticipation of laughter, can lead to positive physical changes.

In a paper presented at the American Physiological Society, they found that the hormones beta-endorphins (which elevate mood) and human growth hormone (which builds immunity) increased by 27% and 87 % respectively in patients exposed to "mirthful laughter."

Another study found that laughter reduced three key stress hormones; cortisol, epinephrine, and dopac -- by 38 percent to 70 percent. Significantly high levels of those three hormones have long been linked to compromised immune systems.

Laughter promotes all kinds of good endorphins, which helps reduce pain and promotes deep breathing.

In another study, they found that the same anticipation of mirthful laughter reduced the levels of three detrimental stress hormones. Cortisol, adrenaline, and dopac, were reduced 39, 70, and 38%, respectively.

A group of 20 high-risk diabetic patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia were divided into two groups: Group C (control) and Group L (laughter). Both groups were started on standard medications for diabetes and Group L viewed self-selected humor for 30 minutes in addition to the standard therapies.

The patients in the laughter group had lower epinephrine and norepinephrine levels by the second month, suggesting lower stress levels. They also increased HDL (good) cholesterol and had lower levels of inflammation.

At the end of one year, the laughter group HDL cholesterol had risen by 26 percent, and only 3 percent in the Group Control. Harmful C-reactive proteins decreased 66% in the laughter group vs. 26% for the control group.

The study suggests that the addition of an adjunct therapeutic laughter prescription to standard diabetes care may lower stress and inflammatory response and increase "good" cholesterol levels. The authors conclude that laughter may thus lower the risk of cardiovascular disease associated with diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome. 

Salty Milk

Add a pinch of salt to a gallon of milk  and it will make it last a bit longer. Store bought or fresh, it does not matter. Something about the salt preserves the milk and keeps it from spoiling as quickly.

Cold vs. Warm Milk

 In the United States, milk is sold and stored cold, but America is a bit of an outlier.

It comes down to different pasteurization methods. In the US and Canada, milk manufacturers make use of high-temperature short-time pasteurization, or HTST. Able to kill bacteria in large batches, HTST is efficient, but results in milk that expires relatively quickly - about seven to 10 days after opening. That is because the temperature used (about 161°F for 15 seconds) is enough to kill most bacteria, but some will proliferate if the milk hangs around long enough.

In Europe and other parts of the world, another technique called ultra-heat-treated pasteurization, or UHT, is used. Milk is exposed to higher temperatures of 284°F for three seconds, decimating virtually all the bacteria and making it shelf-stable for about six months if left unopened. Once opened, it has to be refrigerated. Because it is “cooked” at high heat and burns off some of the sugar, UHT milk also has a slightly different flavor.  

Pasteurization is named after Louis Pasteur, a French scientist in the 1860s who realized heating beer could kill bacteria. Decades later, German agricultural chemist Franz von Soxhlet applied the principle of high heat to milk, since dairy products had a nasty habit of harboring contaminants that could cause diphtheria or tuberculosis. HTST and UHT methods followed, and Europe picked up on the promise of UHT producing milk that would not spoil quickly.

The idea of purchasing milk in the middle of a grocery store, unrefrigerated, is something that does not fit with US food storage habits. While UHT milk is still sold in the US, it is primarily for portable cartons thrown in lunchboxes or for people who want to have milk on hand for a backpack.

Trip Insurance

Take photos before leaving for a trips to show proof that the oven dials all show off and the thermostat is turned off (or at least down or up depending on season. Also take a picture of the locked door and any other thing you may worry about as soon as you get in the car to go to the airport. The interesting thing is that you most likely will never look at the pictures, because you have the peace of mind knowing you took the picture. Also don't forget to take a picture of where you parked your car at the airport. Also:
Clean out the fridge,
Refrigerate produce,
Take out the trash,
Wipe down surfaces,
Make the bed and change the sheets,
Water plants and move them to cool areas, or setup a self watering system,
Stock up on ready made meals and coffee,
Hold your mail or ask a neighbor to get it,
Raise, lower, or turn off thermostats,

Toss fresh flowers. 

Labyrinth vs. Maze

 A maze is a complex branching puzzle that includes choices of path and direction, may have multiple entrances and exits, and dead ends. Mazes can be constructed with varying levels of difficulty and complexity.

A labyrinth has only a single non-branching path, which leads to the center then back out the same way, with only one entry/exit point.

Happy Friday

To be draped in happiness is to dress for kings.

Dress well, especially on a Royal Happy Friday!

Good Egg vs. Bad Egg

Most foods are easy to determine if they are good or bad by smell, touch, color, etc. Eggs are not so obvious. However there is a quick and easy way to tell if eggs are good or bad. Fill a cup or bowl with cold water and place eggs in. If they sink to the bottom and lay flat on their sides, they are very fresh. If they are a few weeks old, but still good to eat, they will stand on one end at the bottom of the bowl. If they float to the surface, they are no longer fresh enough to eat. Incidentally, those that stand up are best for hard boiling. The extra air in the older eggs will help the peel come off easier after hard boiling.

Wordology, Lake vs. Pond

A pond is shallow enough that light penetrates all the way to the bottom. Although there is no set size for either, most geographers agree that when a body of freshwater is bigger than 12 acres, it is a lake. Smaller than that, it is a pond.

Rats and Monkeys Laugh

It may sound strange, but several scientists have elicited "tickle-induced vocalizations" from primates. Penny Paterson, president of the Gorilla Foundation says that Koko, the gorilla famous for her sign language abilities, even had a special "ho, ho," for visitors she liked. And rats apparently have very ticklish necks. When Bowling Green State University scientist Jaak Panksepp and his graduate students tickled baby rats' napes, the rodents emitted high-frequency chirps that Panksepp interpreted as laughter.

Robert Levinson, psychology professor at the University of California Berkeley, invited couples into his lab and asked each partner to discuss something that irritated him or her about the other partner. The couples who tackled the stressful situation with laughter not only felt better in the moment, but had higher levels of relationship satisfaction and stayed together longer than couples who did not crack a smile.

When you see people laughing, you just can't help but smile. That is because your brain makes it nearly impossible not to. That is the result of research from the lab of Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London. When she monitored subjects' brains while she played laughing sounds, she found that the premotor cortical region of the brain, which prepares the muscles in the face to move, was activated.

Incidentally, 10 to 15 minutes of laughing a day can burn up to 40 calories, according to a Vanderbilt University study. Researchers determined that the increase in heart rate and oxygen consumption during these funny moments boosted the burn.

Pardon my Tartle

We have all been there: You run into someone and you go to introduce them to whoever you are with and you can't remember their name.


There happens to be a Scottish term for this awkward hesitation. So if you (unfortunately) ever find yourself in that situation you can say, "Pardon my tartle!"

Free Photos

Access a million high-quality photos, for free. Graphic designers and artists are constantly on the hunt for high quality images, but few of the biggest stock photo platforms are free to use.

That is what makes Unsplash different. Unlike competitors, Unsplash’s library is made up of 100% community contributions.

Reddit

Reddit has now surpassed Facebook and is now the third-most-popular internet destination for users in the United States, according to rankings published by Amazon subsidiary Alexa, a website that tracks and analyzes web traffic. Despite its recent controversial site redesign, this means that Reddit now trails only Google and YouTube, but ranks ahead of Facebook and Amazon.

While Reddit still does not attract the same amount of traffic as Google or YouTube, the good news for the site is that users spend more time browsing the site, averaging 15 minutes and 10 seconds every day, The Next Web reported. Reddit also outranks the top five sites on the list with more daily page views per visitors. Rounding out the top 10 sites are Wikipedia, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay, and Netflix.

Man Made Fruit

The tangelo is a man-made hybrid of the tangerine and the pomelo. In fact, that is where the tangelo got its name. However, it is common for people to confuse the tangelo with the tangerine, mandarin, and orange.

To add to the confusion, there are different varieties of tangelos and all are not necessarily created from tangerines and pomelos. One common variant, the Minneola tangelo, is a hybrid of the tangerine and Duncan grapefruit. Another variant was created by crossing a mandarin with a pomelo, which technically makes it an orange.

The tangelo is believed to have first appeared in the forests of Southeast Asia 3,500 years ago when insects cross-pollinated the mandarin with a fruit that is closely related to the grapefruit. However, today’s tangelos are the result of a selective breeding program that started in the 1800s.

At the forefront of the tangelo project was the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which created the popular Minneola tangelo sold across the United States. The USDA released the seeds of the Minneola tangelo in 1931. It is named after the city of Minneola, Florida.

Unclaimed Luggage

Over 99.9% of domestic airline’s checked bags are picked up at the carousel. After airlines conduct an extensive three month tracing process there are still a small percentage of bags left unclaimed.
Unclaimed Baggage buys orphaned bags and gives them a second life by selling, donating, and recycling their contents.
Unclaimed Baggage has purchasing agreements for unclaimed items with all domestic airlines and other travel and transportation companies. With five decades of experience processing large volumes of one-of-a-kind items, we maximize each item’s potential for a second life.

Fun and unusual finds, including amazing jewelry at good prices LINK.