02.24.11
Posted in health at 9:27 am by site admin
Check out this article discussing how cell phone usage elevates glucose levels in the brain (near the cell phone).
According to the study, the area of the brain closest to the cell phone’s antenna elevated its glucose metabolism – which is a form of measuring brain cell activity – due to the electromagnetic field emitted by the phone in those regions.
“Although we cannot determine the clinical significance, our results give evidence that the human brain is sensitive to the effects of radiofrequency-electromagnetic fields from acute cell phone exposures,” said Nora Volkow, MD, MD, of the National Institutes of Health and the study’s lead author.
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Posted in Education, society at 7:47 am by site admin
Check out this article discussing how focusing on your child’s reading ability at a young age can impair the development in other life skills.
Patricia Appel, a learning specialist at Glenelg’s primary school, said that many times, if pre-kindergarten children learn a word, it’s simply a picture they’re internalizing.
“Then, as they enter school, it’s almost re-learning,” she said. “We still have to back them up and teach them phonics and syntax.”
She added that with early readers, teachers try to even out the other skills the children need to be successful in the classroom.
“This year we have two pre-kindergarten boys who can’t hold a pencil and write but read at a first-grade level,” she said. “We try to boost up the areas that are weaker to make a child more balanced.”
The author points out that reading is a great pastime as well.. And is not simply a learn to read or hold a pencil. Just a reminder that time is limited and there is always an opportunity cost associated with everything we do.. Even as a toddler.
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02.21.11
Posted in health at 10:16 am by site admin
Check out this article about how Yoga is in vogue and how its affecting the spirituality of the practice.
Do yoga, transcend your ego, and discover your inner humility—at least that’s the idea behind this ancient spiritual practice. The enlightened person is “friendly and compassionate, free from self-regard and vanity,” promises the Bhagavad-Gita. But in the recent past, around the time that $100 yoga pants became as common as designer jeans, the once inconspicuous yoga instructor has morphed into something more grandiose. Now certain teachers display all the monkishness of Keith Richards cooling his heels in the greenroom as adoring fans reach a peak of anticipation.
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02.16.11
Posted in health at 9:26 pm by site admin
Check out this article about how a rare condition known as Laron syndrome or Laron-type dwarfism may hold the secrets to Longevity.
As Dr. Guevara-Aguirre accumulated health data on his patients, he noticed a remarkable pattern: though cancer was frequent among people who did not have the Laron mutation, those who did have it almost never got cancer. And they never developed diabetes, even though many were obese, which often brings on the condition.
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02.11.11
Posted in society, technology at 11:24 pm by site admin
Check out this article about exabytes.
So much digital data now moves around the globe that those who endeavor to measure it employ a new – or new to non-nerds – term.
Meet the exabyte.
How much data is an exabyte? It’s a billion gigabytes – and it signifies just how digital and data-intensive the world has become.
In 2007, the global capacity to store digital information – on computer hard disks, smartphones, CDs and other digital media – totaled 276 exabytes, a new report finds.
How much is that? Imagine a stack of CDs – each holding an album’s worth of digital music – shooting from the top of your desk to 50,000 miles beyond the moon.
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Posted in Environment, technology at 11:14 pm by site admin
Check out this article on how carbon captured underground is escaping..
One proposed strategy for reducing the effects of carbon emissions is to try to capture the carbon as it is emitted and to bury it underground. But the technology is controversial. And a story from Saskatchewan is adding support to opponents of the technology. A farm couple whose land sits atop a carbon capture site commissioned an independent report into their land quality, and say that it appears to indicate that the so-called “captured” carbon has actually leaked into their land.
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