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There's a basketball court in the U.S Supreme Court building

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Lady Liberty wears a Size 879 shoe

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North Korea and Cuba are the only places you can't buy Coca-Cola.

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Penguins can waddle faster than humans can walk.

Penguins like to line up and dive into the water again and again.

Penguins sometimes toboggan, or slide, on their bellies.

Penguins surf waves to get back to shore.

https://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmr/wklyrdr/gr2/gr2_bk1.html
-Kevin Magana

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Dilnaz Mohamed- Did you know that people who swear a lot are usually more honest than those who don’t.

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Dilnaz Mohamed- Did you know that people who swear a lot are usually more honest than those who don’t.

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Supreme Court Blocks Trump Cancellation Of DACA

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The program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, protects people brought to the United States as children by shielding them from deportation and letting them work.

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transcript

Supporters of DACA Rally Amid Supreme Court Ruling

People demonstrated outside the Supreme Court, which on Thursday ruled that the Trump administration could not immediately end the program that protects 700,000 young immigrants from deportation.

"Mighty mighty immigrants!" "Fighting for justice!" "Fighting for justice!" "And our families!" "And our families!" "Here to stay! Here to stay! Here to stay! Here to stay!" "Immigrants are welcome here!" "Say it loud, say it clear -" "Immigrants are welcome here!" "Up up -" "- with liberation!" "Down down -" "- with deportation!" "Down down -" "- with deportation!" "Up up -" "- with liberation!" [cheering]

People demonstrated outside the Supreme Court, which on Thursday ruled that the Trump administration could not immediately end the program that protects 700,000 young immigrants from deportation. Credit Credit... Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration may not immediately proceed with its plan to end a program protecting about 700,000 young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation, dealing a surprising setback to one of President Trump's central campaign promises.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion, joined by the court's four more liberal members in upholding the executive action by President Barack Obama that established the program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. But the chief justice made clear that the decision was based on procedural issues and that the Trump administration could try to redress them.

"We do not decide whether DACA or its rescission are sound policies," the chief justice wrote. "We address only whether the agency complied with the procedural requirement that it provide a reasoned explanation for its action."

Still, the decision was the second this week in which the court reached a result in a major case that elated liberals. On Monday, it ruled that L.G.B.T. workers were protected by a landmark civil rights law. Chief Justice Roberts was in the majority in that decision, too.

Mr. Trump responded with an angry attack on the court.

"These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives," he wrote on Twitter. And he made clear that he would make the composition of the court a campaign issue, as he did in 2016.

The court's decision was provisional, and it did not remove the uncertainty that young immigrants have lived with - including the possibility of being forcibly returned to countries many of them cannot even remember - since they arrived in the United States as children. The DACA program itself provided only a renewable two-year deferral of possible deportation, with no pathway to citizenship.

"Today's decision allows Dreamers to breathe a temporary sigh of relief," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a law professor at Cornell.

But young immigrants said they were surprised and delighted that the court had ruled in their favor.

"I'm actually still shaking," said Joana Cabrera, who came to the United States from the Philippines at age 9, and at 24 is on a team researching the use of robots in coronavirus testing in San Francisco. "I'm unbelievably happy because I was expecting the worst."

Mr. Trump announced in September 2017 that he would wind down the program, basing his decision on the argument that creating or maintaining it was beyond the legal power of any president.

But the justification the government gave, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, was insufficient or, in legal terms, "arbitrary and capricious." He said the administration may try again to provide adequate reasons.

But producing such further justifications, and resolving the legal challenges that will inevitably follow, will take many months if not years, pushing a final resolution of the case past this year's elections.

In another of his tweets after the court announced its decision on DACA, Mr. Trump wrote that he had doubts about whether justices were treating him fairly. "Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn't like me?" he asked on Twitter.

There is, at least, good reason to think that a majority of the justices do not trust the rationales offered by his administration for major initiatives. Last year, the same five justices rejected its reason for adding a question on citizenship to the census, with Chief Justice Roberts saying it "appears to have been contrived."

In a dissent in the DACA case, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch, said the majority had been swayed by sympathy and politics.

"Today's decision must be recognized for what it is: an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision," Justice Thomas wrote. "The court could have made clear that the solution respondents seek must come from the legislative branch."

"It has given the green light," he wrote of the court, "for future political battles to be fought in this court rather than where they rightfully belong - the political branches."

Established by Mr. Obama in 2012, DACA allows young people brought to the United States as children to apply for a temporary status that shields them from deportation and allows them to work.

At different times, Mr. Trump has praised the program's goals and suggested he wanted to preserve it. "Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?" he asked in a tweet in 2017.

But Mr. Trump has sometimes struck a different tone. "Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from 'angels,'" he wrote on Twitter last year as the Supreme Court prepared to hear arguments in the case. "Some are very tough, hardened criminals."

In fact, the program has strict requirements. To be eligible, applicants had to show that they had committed no serious crimes, had arrived in the United States before they turned 16 and were no older than 30, had lived in the United States for at least the previous five years, and were in school, had graduated from high school or received a G.E.D. certificate, or were an honorably discharged veteran.

"I do not favor punishing children," Mr. Trump said in his formal announcement of the termination. But, he added, "the program is unlawful and unconstitutional and cannot be successfully defended in court."

Mr. Trump's decision to end the DACA program was the culmination of a concerted effort by some of his most anti-immigrant advisers who believed it was imperative that the president follow through on the promise he made during the campaign.

Stephen K. Bannon, the president's chief strategist during his first six months in office, worked with Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state and an ardent opponent of immigration, to orchestrate a legal challenge to Mr. Obama's DACA program. Along with Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Kobach convinced the president that he should order an end to DACA or the courts would do it for him.

The upshot of the internal debate was a bare-bones memo from Elaine C. Duke, then the acting secretary of homeland security. She offered no policy reasons for the move, saying only that DACA was unlawful.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote that Ms. Duke's rationale was inadequate. She had failed to consider, he wrote, two important points: the degree to which recipients had come to rely on the program and the possibility of deferring deportations even if other benefits, like the right to work, were eliminated.

Young immigrants, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, quoting from a brief, had "enrolled in degree programs, embarked on careers, started businesses, purchased homes and even married and had children" in reliance on the program. Excluding DACA recipients from the work force, he wrote, could result in the loss of $215 billion in economic activity and $60 billion in federal tax revenues over the next decade.

"Acting Secretary Duke should have considered those matters but did not," Chief Justice Roberts wrote. "That failure was arbitrary and capricious."

Had the administration simply grappled with those issues and nonetheless declared that it was changing direction as a matter of policy, Chief Justice Roberts suggested, the termination of DACA would have been a routine exercise of executive discretion.

Mr. Obama's lawyers had argued that the DACA program was legal because the government has prosecutorial discretion in deciding whether to pursue deportation against individual immigrants.

But Mr. Trump said that creating or maintaining the program was beyond the power of any president, no matter how sympathetic the Dreamers might be.

In dissent, Justice Thomas agreed. "The decision to rescind an unlawful agency action is per se lawful," he wrote. He criticized the majority for "all but ignoring DACA's substantive legal defect."

In a separate dissent, Justice Alito said it was shocking that years have passed without a definitive resolution from the Supreme Court of whether rescinding DACA was lawful.

"Instead," he wrote, "it tells the Department of Homeland Security to go back and try again. What this means is that the federal judiciary, without holding that DACA cannot be rescinded, has prevented that from occurring during an entire presidential term."

While the litigation was underway, Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary at the time, issued a second set of reasons in a three-page memo. It mostly relied on the earlier rationales in Ms. Duke's memo, but added one more, about the importance of projecting a message "that leaves no doubt regarding the clear, consistent and transparent enforcement of the immigration laws against all classes and categories of aliens."

Chief Justice Roberts said the court would not consider the later memo. Ms. Nielsen's additional justifications, the chief justice wrote, were "impermissible post hoc rationalizations and thus are not properly before us."

"The basic rule here is clear: An agency must defend its actions based on the reasons it gave when it acted," Chief Justice Roberts wrote. "This is not the case for cutting corners to allow D.H.S. to rely upon reasons absent from its original decision."

In his own dissent, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said requiring the administration to provide another set of reasons was a pointless formality. "The only practical consequence of the court's decision to remand appears to be some delay," he wrote.

Eight justices rejected a separate argument from lawyers for the young immigrants, who had said the rescission of the program violated the Constitution's equal protection clause.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented on that point, saying she would have let that challenge go forward, based in part on "statements that President Trump made both before and after he assumed office" in which he called them criminals, drug dealers and rapists.

In a Twitter post Thursday afternoon, Mr. Trump captured the bottom line of the court's ruling. "Now we have to start this process all over again," he wrote.

Miriam Jordan contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

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Trump Can't Immediately End DACA, Supreme Court Rules

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The program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, protects people brought to the United States as children by shielding them from deportation and letting them work. WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration may not immediately proceed with its plan to end a program protecting about 700,000 young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation, dealing a surprising setback to one of President Trump's central campaign promises.

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the supreme courts blocks Trumps cancellation of DACA

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Did you know that police kill 1000 people a year with guns.

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We are experienced Black organizers in anti-violence and gun violence prevention work, and it has long been clear to us that the broad movement of which we have been a part has a huge hole in it. Police violence - in instances when officers use their guns to intimidate, shoot or kill Black or brown people - is also gun violence. And it rightly has a place in the movement against gun violence that is often celebrated by liberal politicians at the highest levels.

But for far too many years, Black voices have been silenced and pushed out of the conversation on ending gun violence in America because we also wanted to talk about policing. For too long, communities of color have been othered within conversations about ending gun violence by those who wanted to victim-blame and reduce our experiences of gun violence to "Black on Black crime."

As one of a few Black women leading national gun violence prevention organizations and a Black activist who has worked on the front lines of Chicago violence intervention, we never had to question whether police violence was a gun violence issue.

Too many incidents to name more than a few - Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Philando Castile, Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor and now Rayshard Brooks - have proven that any interaction with police can quickly become fatal for Black people. Police armed with guns and any perception of noncompliance (which studies suggest also has a significant racial component) often means Black lives lost.

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Police take the lives of more than 1,000 people every year, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color. In 2017, police shot and killed 986 people, 22 percent of whom were Black, even though African Americans make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population. Study after study has shown that weak gun laws and higher levels of gun ownership are correlated with increased shootings by police.

Still, when Black organizers and movement leaders within the gun violence movement first began participating in Black Lives Matter, we were broadly shunned by political and philanthropic circles, further reducing our ability to have an impact within the movement to end gun violence. As millions now cry out for justice and reform because police violence is trending, that has changed - but it has left us years behind.

Systems of oppression have a direct line: from guns flowing into our communities to shooting violence to over-policing to mass incarceration. But when Black-led organizations connected the dots between civilian and police gun violence, many of our "progressive allies" historically stayed quiet.

We're tired of seeing police murder us with impunity. We're tired of our names becoming hashtags without anything being done. We're tired of Black trans people being abused by police, misgendered and then forgotten.

And we're tired of politicians and advocacy organizations treating the issue of police gun violence as a third rail in the gun violence movement.

Black communities were over-policed for decades in the name of being "tough on crime," even as Black organizers in those communities trying to effect change were under-resourced. Our voices, calling for people to see that police gun violence is part of the larger problem of gun violence, were dismissed because the political cost of not seeming "tough on crime" was seen as too high, even though it meant our lives were being lost.

As our nation grapples with the issue of police violence once again, leaders in the traditionally white-led gun violence prevention space need to clear the stage and their pocketbooks for Black-led organizations working to make systemic change. As we work to dismantle the systems of oppression, we must also dismantle those systems of oppression that exist within movement spaces.

Our demand for the white-led organizations that work on gun violence prevention is that they not only put their money where their mouth is, but also do the work to give up their power and intentionally deconstruct the oppressive systems from which many of them have benefited at the expense of Black lives.

At Community Justice Action Fund, a nonprofit gun violence organization building power for and with communities of color, we're proud to partner with dozens of great organizations working to make Black communities safe, like Advance Peace, Life Camp Inc., Cities United and the Live Free Campaign. In the last two weeks, we were joined by more than 50 other organizations, including March For Our Lives, the National Domestic Violence Hotline and Amnesty International, which have signed on to support reducing all gun violence - including gun violence at the hands of police.

In this critical moment, we're finally saying firmly, together, that Black Lives Matter, that police violence is gun violence, that public health approaches must be prioritized over policing, that gun violence prevention efforts should take an anti-racist approach, that we must divest in policing and that we must invest in community-based solutions.

This is a first step for non-Black people in the movement against gun violence and police brutality - and they must do the work to take additional steps. It is up to white people to move out of the way, listen, learn and do the work to empower Black leaders.

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Opinion | Where were anti-gun violence advocates when cops shot, killed 1,000 people a year?

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We are experienced Black organizers in anti-violence and gun violence prevention work, and it has long been clear to us that the broad movement of which we have been a part has a huge hole in it. Police violence - in instances when officers use their guns to intimidate, shoot or kill Black or brown people - is also gun violence.

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Did you know 20 percent of the Earth's oxygen is made from the Amazon rainforest.

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Did you know 20 percent of the Earth's oxygen is made from the Amazon rainforest.

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source: https://rain-tree.com/facts.htm#:~:text=More%20than%2020%20percent%20of,is%20in%20the%20Amazon%20Basin.

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Did you know that Babies have over 100 more bones than Adults.

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Did you know that Babies have over 100 more bones than Adults.

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source: https://www.healthline.com/health/how-many-bones-does-a-baby-have

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Did you know that one of your eyes is dominant over the other?

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Did you know that one of your eyes is dominant over the other?

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Source
https://www.allaboutvision.com/resources/dominant-eye-test.htm#:~:text=With%20both%20eyes%20open%2C%20center,eye%20is%20your%20dominant%20eye.

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Laughter is actually good for you!- Amani Lynch

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Laughter is actually good for you!- Amani Lynch

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Laughter is something we all do, naturally on a daily basis. And laughing a lot, makes you less likely to get sick often. Laughter causes a hormone called HGH to be released. HGH boosts your immune system and helps you fight germs. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.

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Did you know that McDonald’s once made bubblegum flavored broccoli-Sofia ruiz

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Did you know that McDonald’s once made bubblegum flavored broccoli-Sofia ruiz

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This interesting fact will have your taste buds crawling. Unsurprisingly, the attempt to get kids to eat healthier didn’t go over well with the child testers, who were “confused by the taste.” Find out which countries have banned McDonald's.
https://www.rd.com/culture/interesting-facts/

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Did you know that snails can sleep up to 3 years? - Kayla To

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Did you know that snails can sleep up to 3 years? - Kayla To

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Snails need moisture to survive; so if the weather is not cooperating, they can actually sleep up to three years. It has been reported that depending on geography, snails can shift into hibernation (which occurs in the winter), or estivation (also known as 'summer sleep'), helping to escape warm climates.

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At first glance, you may not assume that land snails live very fascinating lives. However, these gastropods live quite unique lifestyles. These animals are hermaphrodites, which means they have both male and female reproductive organs. They have no sense of hearing, and salt is potentially toxic for them. However, one of the most interesting aspects of their life is how they sleep. Exactly, how long can certain snails sleep for? You may be surprised by the answer.
How Long Can Snails Sleep?
Certain land snails can sleep for up to three years in hibernation or estivation. Yes, it's true! Although this extended nap may sound appealing at first, it is actually caused by less-than-ideal conditions.
Why Do Snails Sleep So Long?
Snails need moisture to survive; so if the weather is not cooperating, they can actually sleep up to three years. It has been reported that depending on geography, snails can shift into hibernation (which occurs in the winter), or estivation (also known as 'summer sleep'), helping to escape warm climates. During this time, the snails will secrete mucus over their bodies to protect themselves from the dry, hot weather. As glamorous as it may sound, snails don't always sleep for three years in their own mucus. When the weather is just right, snails do tend to follow a pretty regular sleeping schedule.
Does A Snails Sleep Schedule Differ From Humans?
Unlike humans, snails don't abide by the rules of night and day. Generally, snails will sleep on and off in between periods of 13 to 15 hours. Afterwards, they experience a sudden jolt of energy for the next 30 hours, where they get all their snail chores done!
How Can You Tell If a Snail Is Asleep?
It can be pretty tough to determine whether or not a snail is sleeping, considering they don't show any obvious signs such as having their eyes closed or snoring. However, there are still a few simple ways that can help you tell whether or not a snail is sleeping:

The shell may hang away from their body slightly

Relaxed foot

Tentacles appear withdrawn a little

It may be easy to assume that the gastropod is dead, but don't jump to conclusions when you see an immobile snail in the garden - it may just be taking a power nap.

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Can Certain Snails Really Sleep for 3 Years? - Arizona Pet Vet

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Let's Learn Exactly How Some Snails Sleep At first glance, you may not assume that land snails live very fascinating lives. However, these gastropods live Despite what some may think, snails live very fascinating lives, especially when it comes to their sleeping habits. Exactly, how long can snails sleep?

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Did you know that in 2020 the National Chemistry Week is October 18-24?

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Did you know that in 2020 the National Chemistry Week is October 18-24?

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National Chemistry Week (NCW) is a public awareness campaign that promotes the value of chemistry in everyday life. ACS members and chemistry enthusiasts celebrate NCW by coordinating events and communicating the importance of chemistry.
- Kayla To

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National Chemistry Week (NCW) - American Chemical Society

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National Chemistry Week is a public awareness campaign that promotes the value of chemistry in everyday life. NCW occurs annually the third week in October.

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Ants live longer than any other insects. This is thanks to the queens of some species, who can live for up to 30 years. A single queen will produce several daughter queens during her life, so a few generations of these insects can easily span a century.

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Ants are a truly fascinating insect. From lifting 100 times their body weight to having the longest life expectancy of any insect, these critters are capable of some incredible things. Get to know a bit more about ants by checking out the interesting facts below.

1 Million Billion Ants Live on Earth

The number "1 million billion" may sound made up or incalculable, but you'll reach it trying to count all the ants on the planet. We share the Earth with an estimated 1 quadrillion ants spread out over more than 12,000 ant species. That's 1,000,000,000,000,000 of these insects. This outnumbers all other living species on Earth, excluding bacteria. The next time you're feeling stressed about the sight of a few dozen ants in your home, take a breath and be thankful that all the ants on the planet aren't working together.

The Total Weight of Ants Was Once Greater Than the Total Weight of Humans

Though the claim that all the ants on the planet together weigh as much as all the humans combined is false, it was true not too long ago. The further back you go in history, the closer the weights of all ants and all humans get. Human population and weight increases in modern times, however, show that people are the clear heavyweights. However, before the 18th century, it's plausible that the weight of all ants exceeded that of all humans.

The Asian Weaver Ant Can Carry 100 Times Its Body Weight

You probably know that ants can carry a far greater amount than their own body weight, which comes in handy when foraging. The Asian weaver ant, however, can carry a ton even compared to other species. This ant can lift 100 times its own body weight, even while hanging upside down. The average human adult weighs about 140 pounds, so the Asian weaver ant's strength is like seeing a person carry (upside down) about eight adult African elephants.

Ants Move Literal Tons of Soil and Sand Every Year

Most species of ants are capable of lifting about 50 times their body weight. Working together, they're capable of moving relatively huge objects and will carry much larger animals back to their nests for food. They also apply this wonderful strength to create intricate tunnels. One study estimates that some ant species can move a metric ton of sand every year.

The Biggest Ant Colony Ever Recorded Is Wider Than Rhode Island and Delaware Combined

Another feat that's hard to imagine, Argentine ants in Europe have taken over a 3,700-mile stretch of coast along the Mediterranean Sea. This single colony is the largest ever discovered. In fact, it's wider than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

Argentine ants have built another massive mound in California (though a mere dirt pile compared to the record holder) that spans 560 miles. This species is also busy with another super-colony in Japan. There are billions of Argentine ants on the planet, and it appears that most of them belong to one of these massive groups.

Ants live longer than any other insects. This is thanks to the queens of some species, who can live for up to 30 years. A single queen will produce several daughter queens during her life, so a few generations of these insects can easily span a century.

The Bulldog Ant Is the Most Venomous Species on the Planet

The bulldog ant is a Guinness record holder known for being the deadliest ant species on Earth. Other species, such as the bullet ant and the Maricopa harvester ant, are known for their painful sting and potent venom, but these ants are nonaggressive. The bulldog ant, however, is named for its ferocity and attacking behavior. These ants live for about three weeks and can grow up to 0.07 inches long. They're native to Australia and have killed at least three people.

Some Ants Are Farmers - and Others Are Ranchers

Other than humans, ants are the only creatures on the planet known to farm. Leafcutter ants, for example, harvest leaves but don't actually eat the plant. Instead, they partially digest it - storing it temporarily in one of their two stomachs - and use the chewed materials to grow a fungus as a food source for their colony.

Other species are known for keeping ranches. Dairying ants raise aphids like cattle and milk them for the sugary substance they produce (called honeydew). These ants even cut the aphids' wings to keep them from flying away and protect them from predators.

Ants Live Everywhere (Except Antarctica)

If you're hoping to move somewhere where you won't have to deal with ants, pack warm. These insects are present on every continent except Antarctica. The more aggressive species, however, are found in the Southern Hemisphere - most notably in South America, Africa, and Australia.

Ants Can Survive for an Entire Day Under Water

Fire ants are one of a few ant species who can swim to survive a flood. This species actually make rafts out of their bodies to stay afloat. Ants who can't swim, however, are still incredibly durable in the water. This is because ants don't have lungs - rather, they breathe through the spiracles on their bodies. A mix of soap and water, however, will coat the ant, block the spiracles, and cause the insect to suffocate.

The Biggest Ant Ever Discovered Lived Millions of Years Ago

Researchers have discovered the fossil of a massive ant, named Titanomyrma lubei, in Wyoming. The ant was over 2 inches long - roughly the length of a modern-day hummingbird. It's estimated that the insect reigned about 50 million years ago.

The biggest ant on the planet today is the queen driver ant. She can get up to 2 inches long, but the driver workers and soldiers are much smaller. Giant Amazonian ants and bullet ants can grow over 1 inch long.

Ants are arguably the most astounding creatures on the planet, and this list of facts shows how strong and durable they are. Take care to make your property uninviting for these guests so you won't have to worry about an infestation.

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How Many Ants Live on Earth and # More Interesting Ant Facts - Ants.com

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Ants are a truly fascinating insect. From lifting 100 times their body weight to having the longest life expectancy of any insect, these critters are capable of some incredible things. Get to know a bit more about ants by checking out the interesting facts below.

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Did you know that there is actually a mix between a polar bear and a grizzly bear?

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Did you know that there is actually a mix between a polar bear and a grizzly bear?

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Up in Northern Canada, a bear that is apart grizzly and a polar bear exists. It's called a pizzly and it has both traits of a polar bear and grizzly, with a sightly brown skin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly%E2%80%93polar_bear_hybrid

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Some people think the palm lines in human hands foretell the future through the practice of palmistry. Scientifically speaking, however, the lines on a palm, or palmar flexion creases, help the hand's skin stretch and squeeze. They can also help identify certain medical conditions.

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Some people think the palm lines in human hands foretell the future through the practice of palmistry.

Scientifically speaking, however, the lines on a palm, or palmar flexion creases, help the hand's skin stretch and squeeze. They can also help identify certain medical conditions.

Human hands develop palmar creases in the womb at around the 12th week of gestation, and are present on a baby's hand when he or she is born.

When you clench your hand, palm lines provide an avenue for the hand's skin to fold without bunching up and making it difficult to grab onto items. That may also be why there are strong creases where the bones in the fingers and thumb meet.

Most people have three prominent creases across the surface of their palms, but sometimes there is only one crease, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Having only a single palmar crease (once known as a "simian crease") might indicate abnormal development. It's sometimes present in babies with conditions such as Down syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome. A doctor, however, takes several other factors into account before making a diagnosis.

The thickness and number of creases on your palms also depend on factors such as family history and race.
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

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Elizabeth Howell - Live Science Contributor

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Some people think the palm lines in human hands foretell the future through the practice of palmistry. Scientifically speaking, however, the lines on a palm, or palmar flexion creases, help the hand's skin stretch and squeeze. They can also help identify certain medical conditions.

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Oaks are one of the oldest and most widely spread trees on this planet. They have existed way before humans were here.

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Oaks are one of the oldest and most widely spread trees on this planet. They have existed way before humans were here.

They feed various living creatures with their leaves and acorns.

Oaks played a crucial role in human history as well.

Early humans built their homes, created tools, and constructed strong ships from the oak wood.

These trees are still one of the crucial sources of raw material in our modern time.

Elegant furniture, flooring materials, cosmetic creams, and wine barrels are some among many products that are being produced using oak trees.

Here are 12 interesting facts about oak trees!

A mature oak tree can reach around 148 feet (45 meters).

Compared to coast redwoods which usually grow to the height of 379 feet (116 meters), oak trees stay in the category of middle height trees.

However, contrary to redwood, their branches can spread wide in length. Therefore, they are also considered shrubs.

Oak trees appeared on our planet about 65 million years ago.

Unlike many other trees, oak trees have not gone extinct during such a long stretch of time.

This is mainly because their seeds are cased in the hard shells.

Plus, acorns and leaves are coated with tannic acid which prevents fungi and insects that could possibly harm them.

Oak trees live up to 1,000 years.

They are considered old when the trees reach at the age of 700 years.

Until that age, oak trees continue to grow and produces acorns to multiply their offspring.

When the trees surpass the 1,000 year mark, their growth slows downs and some parts start to die.

An oak tree produces about 10 million acorns during its lifetime.

Each acorn contains only one seed enclosed in a tough shell.

Apart from being a seed, they are also the main food source for many birds, such as woodpecker, ducks, and pigeons.

Squirrels, mice, rats, and bigger mammals, such as deer, pigs, and bears also consume acorns.

However, if you are a dog or a horse owner, you should note that acorns are toxic for your animals.

The tannic and gallic acids contained in the acorn can poison both dogs and horses, leading to severe gastrointestinal and kidney diseases.

There are over 600 species of oak trees.

The most population of the oak trees can be met in North America, especially in Mexico where about 160 species grow and 109 of those are endemic.

The United States also has over 90 species. If we travel to the overseas to China, we can find there over 100 species as well.

My favorite among them is the northern red oak (Quercus rubra); its leaves have a unique red color. Red oak is also the State tree of New Jersey.

The largest living oak tree is located in Mandeville, Louisiana.

Apart from being the largest, it also one of the oldest known living oak trees with an estimated age of 1,500 years.

The owner of the tree, Carole Hendra Doby, named the live oak "Seven Sisters Oak" because she was one of the seven sisters.

Moreover, the oak has seven sets of branches that grew out of its central trunk.

Wine is aged in oak barrels.

You may have already seen one of those big old wooden wine barrels. Those are made of hand-selected oaks, usually American and French oaks.

The aging of wine in the oak barrels was the historic practice of famous winemakers.

It is still practiced in our days.

Before wine is bottled, it is kept in the barrels for a long time.

The oak adds a unique taste, and the aromas of vanilla, coconut, and smoke to the wine.

If you like truffles, then thank the oaks.

Truffles have a close relationship with roots of oak trees.

Did you know that it is almost impossible to grow truffles in the farms? Truffles grow naturally.

Their development process is tied up with mystery and uncertainty.

Therefore, truffle prices are a lot higher than any other fungi.

Truffle farmers do not plant truffle, instead, they plant oak trees, hoping to create favorable conditions that might invite the growth of truffles.

Oak tree population is decreasing.

That is indeed an unfortunate news.

Farmers in Mexico and Central America are clearing out the oak trees in order to open up a grazing land for their cattle or for their coffee plantations.

And, they use chopped down oaks as construction material, and the rest is processed to manufacture the coal.

Currently, about 78 species of oaks are considered to be in a danger of extinction.

Only 1 in 10,000 acorns grow up to be an oak tree.

Usually, oak trees start to produce acorns when they reach 50 years of age.

In their maturity, they can produce over 10,000 acorns, most of which are digested by animals and fertilized into the ground.

According to estimates only one in thousand survives to be an oak tree.

In other words, a full grown oak tree gives a birth to one oak a year.

Vikings used oaks to construct their ships and boats.

Oakwoods are dense and strong which made them favorable in many construction projects during ancient times.

Vikings handcrafted their ships using local oaks (they used pine trees as well).

British Royal Navy ships were also constructed from oaks until mid-19th Century.

Nowadays, oaks are still choice of carpenters when they create furniture and veneers.

Some cultures worshiped oak trees.

Throughout the centuries, mainly in parts of Europe, people worshiped oak trees, associating them with the mythological gods, namely Zeus and Jupiter.

Druids also worshiped oak trees.

They got married under the spreading branches of oaks and carried acorns, believing those practices would bring them happiness and good health.

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12 Facts About Oak Trees You Wood Not Believe | The Fact Site

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Oaks are one of the oldest and most widely spread trees on this planet. They have existed way before humans were here. They feed various living creatures with their leaves and acorns. Oaks played a crucial role in human history as well. Early humans built their homes, created tools, and constructed strong ships from the oak wood.

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Did you know frogs and salamanders have a secret glow?

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Did you know frogs and salamanders have a secret glow?

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A new study shows amphibians, like the Pac-Man Frog, have the ability to glow in a range of colors from green to yellow when exposed to blue light.

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amphibians: A group of animals that includes frogs, salamanders and caecilians. Amphibians have backbones and can breathe through their skin. Unlike reptiles, birds and mammals, unborn or unhatched amphibians do not develop in a special protective sac called an amniotic sac.

biofluorescence: The light emitted from a living organism. This light is not produced by a chemical reaction within the organism. Instead, some tissue in the organism absorbs light (energy) at one wavelength (color). This chemically excites molecules in that tissue. To relax, they release that energy at a different, lower-energy wavelength.

biologist: A scientist involved in the study of living things.

caecilian: A type of amphibian that has no legs. Caecilians have ring-shaped folds of skin called annuli, small eyes covered by skin and sometimes bone, and a pair of tentacles. Most of them live underground in the soil, but some spend their entire lives in water.

cell: The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall. Depending on their size, animals are made of anywhere from thousands to trillions of cells. Most organisms, such as yeasts, molds, bacteria and some algae, are composed of only one cell.

coral: Marine animals that often produce a hard and stony exoskeleton and tend to live on reefs (the exoskeletons of dead ancestor corals).

fluorescent: Adjective for something that is capable of absorbing and reemitting light. That reemitted light is known as fluorescence.

habitat: The area or natural environment in which an animal or plant normally lives, such as a desert, coral reef or freshwater lake. A habitat can be home to thousands of different species.

marine: Having to do with the ocean world or environment.

pigment: A material, like the natural colorings in skin, that alter the light reflected off of an object or transmitted through it. The overall color of a pigment typically depends on which wavelengths of visible light it absorbs and which ones it reflects. For example, a red pigment tends to reflect red wavelengths of light very well and typically absorbs other colors. Pigment also is the term for chemicals that manufacturers use to tint paint.

protein: A compound made from one or more long chains of amino acids. Proteins are an essential part of all living organisms. They form the basis of living cells, muscle and tissues; they also do the work inside of cells. Among the better-known, stand-alone proteins are the hemoglobin (in blood) and the antibodies (also in blood) that attempt to fight infections. Medicines frequently work by latching onto proteins.

species: A group of similar organisms capable of producing offspring that can survive and reproduce.

survey: To view, examine, measure or evaluate something, often land or broad aspects of a landscape.

trait: A characteristic feature of something. (in genetics) A quality or characteristic that can be inherited.

wavelength: The distance between one peak and the next in a series of waves, or the distance between one trough and the next. It's also one of the "yardsticks" used to measure radiation. Visible light - which, like all electromagnetic radiation, travels in waves - includes wavelengths between about 380 nanometers (violet) and about 740 nanometers (red). Radiation with wavelengths shorter than visible light includes gamma rays, X-rays and ultraviolet light. Longer-wavelength radiation includes infrared light, microwaves and radio waves.

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Lots of frogs and salamanders have a secret glow

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A widespread ability to glow in brilliant colors could make amphibians easier to track down in the wild.

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Did you know A nose-horned dragon lizard lost to science for over 100 years has been found?

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Did you know A nose-horned dragon lizard lost to science for over 100 years has been found?

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This distinct Modigliani lizard was found in 2018 in the forests of North Sumatra in Indonesia. Surprisingly, the species was last spotted in 1891.

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Nearly 130 years ago, Italian explorer Elio Modigliani arrived at a natural history museum in Genoa with a lizard he'd reportedly collected from the forests of Indonesia.

Based on Modigliani's specimen, the striking lizard - notable for a horn that protrudes from its nose - got its official taxonomic description and name, Harpesaurus modiglianii, in 1933. But no accounts of anyone finding another such lizard were ever recorded, until now.

C.A. Putra et al/TAPROBANICA: The Journal of Asian Biodiversity, 2020, Annali del Museo Civico di storia naturale di Genova 56, pl. VI

In June 2018, Chairunas Adha Putra, an independent wildlife biologist conducting a bird survey in a mountainous region surrounding Lake Toba in Indonesia's North Sumatra, called herpetologist Thasun Amarasinghe. Near the lake, which fills the caldera of a supervolcano, Putra had found "a dead lizard with interesting morphological features, but he wasn't sure what it was," says Amarasinghe, who later asked the biologist to send the specimen to Jakarta.

It took only a look at the lizard's nose-horn for Amarasinghe to suspect that he was holding Modigliani's lizard. "It is the only nose-horned lizard species found in North Sumatra," he says.

Wooden arts and folktales of the Bataks - indigenous people native to the region - show that lizards have a special place in the people's mythology. "But simply there was no report at all about this species" following Modigliani's, says Amarasinghe, of the University of Indonesia in Depok.

He asked Putra to get back to the caldera to see if there was a living population. After five days, Putra found what he was looking for one evening, "lying on a low branch, probably sleeping," according to the biologist. He took pictures of the lizard and measured the size and shape of its body parts, such as the length of its nose-horn and head. He also observed its behavior before finally releasing it the same night.

Using this data, Amarasinghe compared the lizard with the one described in 1933, and concluded that the living lizard and the dead one that Putra had stumbled across were in fact Modigliani's nose-horned lizards. The Genoa museum's dead specimen is pale blue due to preservation, but it's now known that the lizard's natural color is mostly luminous green. Its camouflage and tree-dwelling behavior are similar to African mountain chameleons, Amarasinghe, Putra and colleagues report in the May Taprobanica: The Journal of Asian Biodiversity.

C.A. Putra et al/TAPROBANICA: The Journal of Asian Biodiversity, 2020

The reptile belongs to the Agamidae family of lizards, which are commonly called dragon lizards and include species such as bearded dragons ( SN: 6/14/17). Shai Meiri, a herpetologist at Tel Aviv University, has previously shown that many dragon lizards live in small, hard-to-access areas, making the reptiles difficult to study. There are 30 agamid species that have never been seen since they were first described, and 19 species which are known from just a single specimen, Meiri says.

While thrilled with their find, Amarasinghe and Putra are worried about the lizard's future. "The living dragon was found outside a conservation area, and massive deforestation is happening nearby," Amarasinghe says.

But the rediscovery offers a glimmer of hope for the lizard's conservation, Meiri says. Before the reptile resurfaced, no one knew where exactly Modigliani's lizard lived, or whether it had already gone extinct, he says. But now, "we can study it, understand its conservation needs and hopefully implement conservation measures."

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A nose-horned dragon lizard lost to science for over 100 years has been found

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Nearly 130 years ago, Italian explorer Elio Modigliani arrived at a natural history museum in Genoa with a lizard he'd reportedly collected from the forests of Indonesia. Based on Modigliani's specimen, the striking lizard - notable for a horn that protrudes from its nose - got its official taxonomic description and name, Harpesaurus modiglianii, in 1933.

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Jianyang Li: Grapes light on fire in the microwave.

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Jianyang Li: Grapes light on fire in the microwave.

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The physicist at the University of Sydney went a viral after he placed a grape in the microwave. It occur because the loose electrons and ions that cluster to form plasma when grapes is heated.
https://bestlifeonline.com/did-you-know-facts/

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Did you know that you can survive without food for 30 to 40 days?
Source : https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-12-humans-survive-food.html#:~:text=Generally%2C%20it%20appears%20as%20though,around%2045%20to%2061%20days.

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did you know that you can only survive without water for only 3 to 4 days?
source : https://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-days-can-you-survive-without-water-2014-5

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Did you know that Juneteenth is an holiday?- Nneka Okoye

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Did you know that Juneteenth is an holiday?- Nneka Okoye

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Juneteenth is usually celebrated in Texas because it was the last state to abolish slavery.

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Van Dinh: Did you know that 20% of Earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest?

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Van Dinh: Did you know that 20% of Earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest?

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Our atmosphere is made up of roughly 78 per cent nitrogen and 21 per cent oxygen, with various other gases present in small amounts. The vast majority of living organisms on Earth need oxygen to survive, converting it into carbon dioxide as they breathe. Thankfully, plants continually replenish our planet’s oxygen levels through photosynthesis. During this process, carbon dioxide and water are converted into energy, releasing oxygen as a by-product. Covering 5.5 million square kilometers (2.1 million square miles), the Amazon rainforest cycles a significant proportion of the Earth’s oxygen, absorbing large quantities of carbon dioxide at the same time.

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1. Babies have around 100 more bones than adults

Babies have about 300 bones at birth, with cartilage between many of them. This extra flexibility helps them pass through the birth canal and also allows for rapid growth. With age, many of the bones fuse, leaving 206 bones that make up an average adult skeleton.

2. The Eiffel Tower can be 15 cm taller during the summer

When a substance is heated up, its particles move more and it takes up a larger volume - this is known as thermal expansion. Conversely, a drop in temperature causes it to contract again. The mercury level inside a thermometer, for example, rises and falls as the mercury's volume changes with the ambient temperature. This effect is most dramatic in gases but occurs in liquids and solids such as iron too. For this reason, large structures such as bridges are built with expansion joints which allow them some leeway to expand and contract without causing any damage.

3. 20% of Earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest

Our atmosphere is made up of roughly 78 per cent nitrogen and 21 per cent oxygen, with various other gases present in small amounts. The vast majority of living organisms on Earth need oxygen to survive, converting it into carbon dioxide as they breathe. Thankfully, plants continually replenish our planet's oxygen levels through photosynthesis. During this process, carbon dioxide and water are converted into energy, releasing oxygen as a by-product. Covering 5.5 million square kilometres (2.1 million square miles), the Amazon rainforest cycles a significant proportion of the Earth's oxygen, absorbing large quantities of carbon dioxide at the same time.

4. Some metals are so reactive that they explode on contact with water

There are certain metals - including potassium, sodium, lithium, rubidium and caesium - that are so reactive that they oxidise (or tarnish) instantly when exposed to air. They can even produce explosions when dropped in water! All elements strive to be chemically stable - in other words, to have a full outer electron shell. To achieve this, metals tend to shed electrons. The alkali metals have only one electron on their outer shell, making them ultra-keen to pass on this unwanted passenger to another element via bonding. As a result they form compounds with other elements so readily that they don't exist independently in nature.

5. A teaspoonful of neutron star would weigh 6 billion tons

A neutron star is the remnants of a massive star that has run out of fuel. The dying star explodes in a supernova while its core collapses in on itself due to gravity, forming a super-dense neutron star. Astronomers measure the mind-bogglingly large masses of stars or galaxies in solar masses, with one solar mass equal to the Sun's mass (that is, 2 x 1030 kilograms/4.4 x 1030 pounds). Typical neutron stars have a mass of up to three solar masses, which is crammed into a sphere with a radius of approximately ten kilometres (6.2 miles) - resulting in some of the densest matter in the known universe.

6. Hawaii moves 7.5cm closer to Alaska every year

The Earth's crust is split into gigantic pieces called tectonic plates. These plates are in constant motion, propelled by currents in the Earth's upper mantle. Hot, less-dense rock rises before cooling and sinking, giving rise to circular convection currents which act like giant conveyor belts, slowly shifting the tectonic plates above them. Hawaii sits in the middle of the Pacific Plate, which is slowly drifting north-west towards the North American Plate, back to Alaska. The plates' pace is comparable to the speed at which our fingernails grow.

7. Chalk is made from trillions of microscopic plankton fossils

Tiny single-celled algae called coccolithophores have lived in Earth's oceans for 200 million years. Unlike any other marine plant, they surround themselves with minuscule plates of calcite (coccoliths). Just under 100 million years ago, conditions were just right for coccolithophores to accumulate in a thick layer coating ocean floors in a white ooze. As further sediment built up on top, the pressure compressed the coccoliths to form rock, creating chalk deposits such as the white cliffs of Dover. Coccolithophores are just one of many prehistoric species that have been immortalised in fossil form, but how do we know how old they are? Over time, rock forms in horizontal layers, leaving older rocks at the bottom and younger rocks near the top. By studying the type of rock in which a fossil is found palaeontologists can roughly guess its age. Carbon dating estimates a fossil's age more precisely, based on the rate of decay of radioactive elements such as carbon-14.

8. In 2.3 billion years it will be too hot for life to exist on Earth

Over the coming hundreds of millions of years, the Sun will continue to get progressively brighter and hotter. In just over 2 billion years, temperatures will be high enough to evaporate our oceans, making life on Earth impossible. Our planet will become a vast desert similar to Mars today. As it expands into a red giant in the following few billion years, scientists predict that the Sun will finally engulf Earth altogether, spelling the definite end for our planet.

9. Polar bears are nearly undetectable by infrared cameras

Thermal cameras detect the heat lost by a subject as infrared, but polar bears are experts at conserving heat. The bears keep warm due to a thick layer of blubber under the skin. Add to this a dense fur coat and they can endure the chilliest Arctic day.

10. It takes 8 minutes, 19 seconds for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth

In space, light travels at 300,000 kilometres (186,000 miles) per second. Even at this breakneck speed, covering the 150 million odd kilometres (93 million miles) between us and the Sun takes considerable time. And eight minutes is still very little compared to the five and a half hours it takes for the Sun's light to reach Pluto.

11. If you took out all the empty space in our atoms, the human race could fit in the volume of a sugar cube

The atoms that make up the world around us seem solid but are in fact over 99.99999 per cent empty space. An atom consists of a tiny, dense nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons, spread over a proportionately vast area. This is because as well as being particles, electrons act like waves. Electrons can only exist where the crests and troughs of these waves add up correctly. And instead of existing in one point, each electron's location is spread over a range of probabilities - an orbital. They thus occupy a huge amount of space.

12. Stomach acid is strong enough to dissolve stainless steel

Your stomach digests food thanks to highly corrosive hydrochloric acid with a pH of 2 to 3. This acid also attacks your stomach lining, which protects itself by secreting an alkali bicarbonate solution. The lining still needs to be replaced continually, and it entirely renews itself every four days.

13. The Earth is a giant magnet

Earth's inner core is a sphere of solid iron, surrounded by liquid iron. Variations in temperature and density create currents in this iron, which in turn produce electrical currents. Lined up by the Earth's spin, these currents combine to create a magnetic field, used by compass needles worldwide.

14. Venus is the only planet to spin clockwise

Our Solar System started off as a swirling cloud of dust and gas which eventually collapsed into a spinning disc with the Sun at its centre. Because of this common origin, all the planets move around the Sun in the same direction and on roughly the same plane. They also all spin in the same direction (counterclockwise if observed from 'above') - except Uranus and Venus. Uranus spins on its side, while Venus defiantly spins in the complete opposite direction. The most likely cause of these planetary oddballs are gigantic asteroids which knocked them off course in the distant past.

15. A flea can accelerate faster than the Space Shuttle

A jumping flea reaches dizzying heights of about eight centimetres (three inches) in a millisecond. Acceleration is the change in speed of an object over time, often measured in 'g's, with one g equal to the acceleration caused by gravity on Earth (9.8 metres/32.2 feet per square second). Fleas experience 100 g, while the Space Shuttle peaked at around 5 g. The flea's secret is a stretchy rubber-like protein which allows it to store and release energy like a spring.

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15 amazing science facts that will blow your mind - How It Works

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1. Babies have around 100 more bones than adults Babies have about 300 bones at birth, with cartilage between many of them. This extra flexibility helps them pass through the birth canal and also allows for rapid growth. With age, many of the bones fuse, leaving 206 bones that make up an average adult skeleton.

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Sara Laafar: Did you know because of success in health with humpback whales hope has been restored to the planet? 

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Sara Laafar: Did you know because of success in health with humpback whales hope has been restored to the planet? 

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"A recent review in the journal Nature suggests that if the oceans are protected, marine life can rebound within our lifetime. Whales are one example, others include turtles, sea otters, seals and, critically for humans, fisheries. Protection means a well-connected, well-managed network of marine protected areas, in the form of a global network of marine reserve areas that cover 30% of the ocean and allow marine life to flourish. The science is clear: this can happen and it will work. "
-   This probably will restore life to marine life.

https://time.com/5837350/humpback-whales-recovery-hope-planet/

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Humpback Whales Have Made a Remarkable Recovery, Giving Us Hope for the Planet

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Thanks to global cooperation the Humpback whale population is recovering. This gives us an important model for how to heal the oceans.

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Lauren Johnson: Did you know that astronauts can 3D print tools in space?

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Lauren Johnson: Did you know that astronauts can 3D print tools in space?

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NASA can send design files to astronauts in space and they can print them to make tools and other necessary items. To make the tool, NASA had to approve something that would be on the station that had not been shipped to space, a review process that usually occurs before anything can be launched to the station. This technology may change how NASA completes exploration missions and even the way science is conducted on the station.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/3Dratchet_wrench

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Elianny Francisco, Did you know the hottest chili pepper in the world is so hot it could kill you.

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Elianny Francisco, Did you know the hottest chili pepper in the world is so hot it could kill you.

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"The "weapons-grade" Dragon's Breath chili pepper is so hot it's downright deadly. If you ate one, it could potentially cause a type of anaphylactic shock, burning the airways and closing them up."
https://bestlifeonline.com/world-facts/
This is why I don't eat hot stuff.

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The water we drink is poisoned. Nothing is safe out here. Don’t trust everything you consume, it’s all a lie. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/those-human-meat-found-in-mcdonalds-factory-stories-and-facebook-posts-are-a-hoax-obviously-9784592.html%3famp

-Monica Dejesus

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Amani Lynch: There is such thing as a Zombie deer!

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Amani Lynch: There is such thing as a Zombie deer!

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That fast food and food restaurants feed you child meat. Think about it, 800k children go missing per year in the US on its own. Where are these kids?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/those-human-meat-found-in-mcdonalds-factory-stories-and-facebook-posts-are-a-hoax-obviously-9784592.html%3famp
-Monica Dejesus

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Meat has more nutrients than a plant could ever have, an animal based diet is far more superior to a plant based diet.

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i never knew.

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Perpetua Saintine: Did you know that one in four cowboys were black despite popular books and stories showing otherwise. 

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Perpetua Saintine: Did you know that one in four cowboys were black despite popular books and stories showing otherwise. 

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http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/10-black-history-little-known-facts/

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Perpetua Saintine: Did you know that Rosa Parks wasn’t the first African-American woman to refuse to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. 

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Perpetua Saintine: Did you know that Rosa Parks wasn’t the first African-American woman to refuse to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. 

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https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-facts

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According to the Federal Reserve, each buck lasts about six years, and there's about $1.79 trillion of U.S. currency in circulation right now.

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Celebrate National Trivia Day With These 35 Fun Facts

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Celebrate National Trivia Day on January 4 with these fun facts about animals, food, music, history, sports, and other random topics.

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Did you know that people who swear a lot are usually more honest than those who don’t.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550616681055

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These words have also surprisingly been linked to a greater vocabulary and even being more persuasive.

People who swear more frequently are also more honest, new psychological research finds.

The reason may be that people swear when they are speaking honestly and not filtering their thoughts and emotions (for a change).

Dr David Stillwell, one of the study's authors, said:

"The relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one.

Swearing is often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is telling you their honest opinion.

Just as they aren't filtering their language to be more palatable, they're also not filtering their views."

For the first part of the research 276 people listed their most commonly used words - including their favourite swear words.

In the second part data was collected from 75,000 people on Facebook to see how much they swore.

In both cases the researchers found evidence that swearing was linked to higher honesty.

For example, people who swore more were less likely to lie online to make themselves look better.

Dr Stillwell continued:

"There are two ways of looking at it.

You might think if someone is swearing a lot, this is a negative social behaviour seen as a bad thing to do, so if someone swears they are probably a bad person as well.

On the other hand, they are not filtering their language so they are probably also not putting their stories about what is going on through similar filters which might turn them into untruths.

That is what we seemed to land on in this study, that people who use the language that comes to mind first are less likely to be playing games with the truth."

The study's authors mention Donald Trump who often uses the word "hell" and promised to "knock the s*** out of Isis":

"Profanity has even been used by presidential candidates in American elections as recently illustrated by Donald Trump, who has been both hailed for authenticity and criticised for moral bankruptcy."

Perceived honest may be one of the reasons that swearing can be persuasive.

About the author

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology.

He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book " Making Habits, Breaking Habits" ( Da Capo, 2003) and several ebooks:

→ Dr Dean's bio, Twitter, Facebook and how to contact him.

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science ( Feldman et al., 2017).

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The Forbidden Words The Most Honest People Use More - PsyBlog

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These words have also surprisingly been linked to a greater vocabulary and even being more persuasive. People who swear more frequently are also more honest, new psychological research finds. The reason may be that people swear when they are speaking honestly and not filtering their thoughts and emotions (for a change).

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Did you know that it is possible to practice Lucid Dreaming? - Anh Khoa Truong

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Did you know that it is possible to practice Lucid Dreaming? - Anh Khoa Truong

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There have been research on how someone could practice to lucid dream

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The finding: When people imagine practicing a skill or sport during "lucid dreaming," the state in which a sleeping person recognizes he's in a dream and takes control of it, their performance in that activity improves in real life.

The research: In field experiments that required people to toss coins into a coffee cup from a distance of two meters, participants who dreamed they practiced the task significantly outperformed those who didn't-though not quite as well as the participants who actually practiced the coin toss while awake.

The challenge: Can people really use dreams as a training regimen? Dr. Erlacher, defend your research.

Erlacher tested 40 subjects twice on their ability to toss coins into a cup from a distance of two meters. Between tests, subjects were asked to practice the toss, dream they practiced it, or do nothing. Here's how they fared:

Erlacher: This is definitely not mainstream research. There are some people who say that dreams are nonsense and aren't worth investigating. Critics say that you can't really be sure people are dreaming, and some of the field studies we've done-including the coin toss study-haven't yet been replicated in a sleep lab. But there is substantive research here. It has been well established that athletes who mentally rehearse an activity can improve their performance, and it makes sense that dreams can achieve the same effect.

In one experiment we asked participants to dream about doing deep knee bends. Even though their bodies weren't moving, their heart and respiration rates increased slightly as if they were exercising. So your brain is responding to the dream movements in similar ways, and that allows you to use dreams as a simulation. You can learn from that.

HBR: Some of this research sounds absurd, like the man who claimed he taught himself in his dreams to ride a unicycle.

That was a German researcher who didn't do experiments in a sleep lab-he wrote about what he believed should be possible and demonstrated some of these activities himself. Much of his work involved balance-related tasks. He started out dreaming about skateboarding, and he became really good at skateboarding during wakefulness. He claimed that by practicing in his dreams, he'd learned to snowboard so well that he could do it without bindings, which is almost impossible. I've spoken with people who went snowboarding with him, and they watched him do it. So there has been some validation.

How do you find people who have lucid dreams for your experiments?

That's the most complicated part. In Germany, where we do our research, about half the population is familiar with lucid dreaming and reports having experienced it. But only 1% of people have lucid dreams every night. You want to find that 1% so you can avoid unproductive nights in a sleep lab. To locate these people, we put ads in newspapers. We use a recruiting website. We rely on word of mouth. But it's still very difficult.

Can people learn to lucid dream?

Yes. There are several techniques. One involves waking a sleeping person up after six hours, keeping her awake for an hour, having her rehearse the dream, and then sending her back to sleep for three hours. In one study 50% of people who tried that had a lucid dream during the second sleep period. I used a different method, called the reflection technique, to learn to do it. It involves stopping what you're doing 10 times a day and asking: "Am I dreaming, or am I awake?" That helps improve your critical facility so you become better at recognizing a dream in progress. After two months I had my first lucid dream: I was in my parents' kitchen, and I decided to fly out the window and around the neighborhood. Today when I lucid dream, sometimes I do fun things like walk through walls. Unfortunately, I don't have lucid dreams very often-only about five or 10 times a year.

Does lucid dreaming have potential applications beyond physical activities?

Yes. Many people have successfully used lucid dreams to help stop nightmares. People whose work requires creativity or problem solving can benefit from practicing those skills in dreams. Companies have hired me to do workshops on how to become more creative through dreams. One lucid dreamer I studied works as a video game programmer. Before he creates a game, he dreams about it. He'll dream about monsters and play with them in the dream to see how they respond. He uses his dreams as a simulator for his day job.

Are there pharmaceuticals that can help people lucid dream?

If we had a pill that allowed people to have lucid dreams, everyone would want to take it, because lucid dreaming is fun. There's no pill at present, but researchers are looking at several substances that might encourage lucid dreams. Stephen LaBerge, who's the most prominent lucid-dream researcher, did a study using a substance called donepezil, and it seemed to increase the frequency of lucid dreams.

If I dream about doing crunches, will I develop killer abs?

Yes and no: You won't really get a six-pack just by dreaming, but research shows that envisioning yourself doing exercises can make specific muscles stronger, so you should get a stronger belly than if you didn't dream about crunches. In general, if you want to improve in waking life, dreams are the perfect place to do it.

Does that apply to tasks like delivering a speech?

You can rehearse any skill in a lucid dream. There's no empirical evidence that dream rehearsals improve speeches, but anecdotally I know of people who prepared for important presentations with them.

Taking control of what's happening in a dream can be challenging, and few people can do it predictably. But there are ways to increase your ability to lucid dream:

1. Keep a dream journal.

When you awaken each morning, write down what you remember of your dreams.

2. Go on a dream diet.

Consuming vitamin B complex, peppermint tea, nutmeg, and mustard may encourage lucid dreaming. Meditation may promote it as well.

3. Target the early morning.

This is the most fertile time for dreams. Go to bed early and set an alarm for six hours later. When you awaken before dawn, try to stay awake for an hour and plan out a dream. As you go back to sleep, imagine yourself spinning, which may help initiate a dream.

4. Use cues to confirm you're dreaming.

Flip a light switch and notice if the light changes. Touch objects and see if they feel solid. Try flying. Once you're sure you're in a dream, take control of the action.Sources:  www.lucidity.com and www.luciddreaminghowto.org

A version of this article appeared in the April 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Practicing in Dreams Can Improve Your Performance

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The finding: When people imagine practicing a skill or sport during "lucid dreaming," the state in which a sleeping person recognizes he's in a dream and takes control of it, their performance in that activity improves in real life. The research: In field experiments that required people to toss coins into a coffee cup from [...]

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Frances Chavez: Did you know the statue of a mounted horseman tells you how that person died?

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Frances Chavez: Did you know the statue of a mounted horseman tells you how that person died?

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If all four of the hooves are on the ground, the person dies of natural causes; if one leg is up, that person died of wounds from battle; and if both legs are up, that person died in action

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HOW DID THEY DIE? THIS WILL TELL YOU HOW A MOUNTED PERSON IN HISTORY DIED

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HOW DID THEY DIE? THIS WILL TELL YOU HOW A MOUNTED PERSON IN HISTORY DIED

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Ryan Tran Did you know you can lose brain cells then regain them?

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Ryan Tran Did you know you can lose brain cells then regain them?

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Someone made me brain hurt and killed all my brain cells so I wanted to research if you could regain the brain cells you had lost and if the brain can regain and produce more brain cells. According to this internet there had been recording that the brain cells you have when you are born are fixed but it's not true based on this link I had found. This link said I can regain and produce more brain cells if I had lost them due to an injury or some sort damage to the head or brain. As long as I don't get to an age where the brain stops learning and growing, my brain can regain and produce more cells. My brain hurt from talking to someone and me and other friend were trying to tell him something he kept refusing when he was wrong and made our brains hurt so I wanted to do background research on this.

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Neural stem cells. (Credit: Dana Bradford)

Brains are incredibly adaptive organs. Our brain cells (neurons) and the connections between them are constantly changing, which enables us to learn and remember, acquire new skills, and recover from brain injury.

It's a property referred to as 'neuroplasticity' - the ability of the brain and nervous system ability to remodel in response to new information, whether that be due to experiences, behaviour, emotions, or injury.

One of the methods the brain does this is through a process known as neurogenesis - the creation of new neurons. Neurogenesis is a particularly important process when an embryo is developing. Until only recently, it was thought that the number of neurons we're born with is fixed - that the central nervous system, including the brain, was incapable of neurogenesis and unable to regenerate.

The brain can produce new cells

But neuroscientists led by QBI's founding director, Professor Perry Bartlett, discovered stem cells in the hippocampus of the adult brain in the 1990s. Because stem cells can divide, and differentiate into many types of cells, the game-changing discovery suggested that neurogenesis could hold the key to treating conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

Neurogenesis is now accepted to be a process that occurs normally in the healthy adult brain, particularly in the hippocampus, which is important for a learning and spatial memory. Damage to the hippocampus can lead to difficulties with navigation, as Dr Lavinia Codd found when, at age 31, she had a stroke that damaged her right hippocampus.

Earlier this year, QBI researchers made the world-first discovery that new adult brain cells are also produced in the amygdala, a region of the brain important for processing fear and emotional memories.

The amygdala, an ancient part of the brain, is important for attaching emotional significance to memories, and also plays a key role in fear learning, which causes us to learn that an experience or an object is frightening.

"Fear learning leads to the classic flight-or-fight response - increased heart rate, dry mouth, sweaty palms - but the amygdala also plays a role in producing feelings of dread and despair, in the case of phobias or PTSD, for example," says lead researcher Dr Dhanisha Jhaveri.

Disrupted connections in the amygdala are linked to depression, and anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the hope is that the discovery could lead to new treatments for these conditions.

"Finding ways of stimulating the production of new brain cells in the amygdala could give us new avenues for treating disorders of fear processing, which include anxiety, PTSD and depression," says Dr Jhaveri. The discovery shed further light on the brain's ability to change and adapt, and further research will look at understanding the function of new cells in the the amygdala.

Stimulating the growth of new brain cells

As the brain ages, our ability to learn and remember gradually declines. It's thought that these changes in memory occur as a result of decreased neurogenesis - that stem cells in regions such as the dentate gyrus, in the hippocampus, lose their ability to produce new neurons. The hippocampus is known to shrink with age.

But it's not all bad news - these changes aren't necessarily permanent. "While you can get shrinkage in hippocampus, there is certainly evidence now that you could change that - reverse that shrinkage and reverse any loss of learning in memory by stimulating both the production of these new nerve cells, but also stimulating greater connectivity within the hippocampus," says Professor Perry Bartlett.

He and Dr Daniel Blackmore have found in mice that exercise is able to increase production of new brain cells and improve learning and memory in the ageing brain. They are now heading up a clinical trial monitoring 300 people aged 65 and older to identify the right amount, intensity and type of exercise that leads to cognitive improvement.

"Ultimately, we would hope to have clear public health guidelines as to how exercise can both prevent and reverse dementia," says Professor Bartlett.

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Brains are incredibly adaptive organs. Our brain cells (neurons) and the connections between them are constantly changing, which enables us to learn and remember, acquire new skills, and recover from brain injury. It's a property referred to as 'neuroplasticity' - the ability of the brain and nervous system ability to remodel in response to new information, whether that be due to experiences, behaviour, emotions, or injury.

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Jianyang L: Did you know that chewing gum is banned in Singapore?

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Jianyang L: Did you know that chewing gum is banned in Singapore?

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Singapore has banned chewing gum to keep the city clean. This was established in 1992

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Unlike most animals the bones in elephants legs are all pointed downwards, which means they don't have the “spring” required to push off the ground. Also, because of their size, they don't need to jump as a way to get a way from predators, they use their height and weight as dominance over other animals . https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/elephants-can-t-jump-and-here-s-why

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Thang Do: Did you know that M&M stands for Mars and Murrie?

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Thang Do: Did you know that M&M stands for Mars and Murrie?

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Forrest Mars (son of the Mars Company founder) teamed up with Bruce Murrie (son of Hershey Chocolate's president), join in together to found a way to create a wrap for chocolate not to melt, later create to M&M.

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Amiin Weyrah: Did you know that it is very common to have one arm or leg bigger than the other?

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Amiin Weyrah: Did you know that it is very common to have one arm or leg bigger than the other?

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The muscle in the arm or leg is bigger and stronger than the one in the other leg. One way to fix it is to focus on training the weaker side.

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Jomari Rodgers: Did you know why your nose runs when you cry? Well when you cry the tears come from the tear glands that are located under your eyelids. Which drain through your tear ducts and they empty to your nose. Since they empty towards your nose it mixes with mucus and causes your nose to run. https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/nose-run.html

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Did You know that elephants are the animals most like humans next to guinea pigs? They remember humans for years and grow emotional connections. They can also become depressed

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At first glance, the African elephant doesn't look like it has much in common with us humans. We support around 70-80 kg of weight on two legs, while it carries around four to six tonnes on four. We grasp objects with opposable thumbs, while it uses its trunk. We need axes and chainsaws to knock down a tree, but it can just use its head. Yet among these differences, there is common ground. We're both long-lived animals with rich social lives. And we have very, very large brains (well, mostly).

But all that intelligence doesn't come cheaply. Large brains are gas-guzzling organs and they need a lot of energy. Faced with similarly pressing fuel demands, humans and elephants have developed similar adaptations in a set of genes used in our mitochondria - small power plants that supply energy to our cells. The genes in question are "aerobic energy metabolism (AEM)" genes - they govern how the mitochondria metabolise nutrients in food, in the presence of oxygen.

We already knew that the evolution of AEM genes has accelerated greatly since our ancestors split away from those of other monkeys and apes. While other mutations were reshaping our brain and nervous system, these altered AEM genes helped to provide our growing cortex with much-needed energy.

Now, Morris Goodman from Wayne State University has found evidence that the same thing happened in the evolution of modern elephants. It's a good thing too - our brain accounts for a fifth of our total demand for oxygen but the elephant's brain is even more demanding. It's the largest of any land mammal, it's four times the size of our own and it requires four times as much oxygen.

Goodman was only recently furnished with the tools that made his discovery possible - the full genome sequences of a number of oddball mammals, including the lesser hedgehog tenrec ( Echinops telfairi). As its name suggests, the tenrec looks like a hedgehog, but it's actually more closely related to elephants. Both species belong to a major group of mammals called the afrotherians, which also include aardvarks and manatees.

Goodman compared the genomes of 15 species including humans, elephants, tenrecs and eight other mammals and looked for genetic signatures of adaptive evolution. The genetic code is such as that a gene can accumulate many changes that don't actually affect the structure of the protein it encodes. These are called "synonymous mutations" and they are effectively silent. Some genetic changes do, however, alter protein structure and these "non-synonymous mutations" are more significant and more dramatic, for even small tweaks to a protein's shape can greatly alter its effectiveness. A high ratio of non-synonymous mutations compared to synonymous ones is a telltale sign that a gene has been the target of natural selection.

And sure enough, elephants have more than twice as many genes with high ratios of non-synonymous mutations to synonymous ones than tenrecs do, particularly among the AEM genes used in the mitochondria. In the same way, humans have more of such genes compared to mice (which are as closely related to us, as tenrecs are to elephants).

These changes have taken place against a background of less mutation, not more. Our lineage, and that of elephants, has seen slower rates of evolution among protein-coding genes, probably due to the fact that the duration of our lives and generations have increased. Goodman speculates that with lower mutation rates, we'd be less prone to developing costly faults in our DNA every time it was copied anew.

Overall, his conclusion was clear - in the animals with larger brains, a suite of AEM genes had gone through an accelerated burst of evolution compared to our mini-brained cousins. Six of our AEM genes that appear to have been strongly shaped by natural selection even have elephant counterparts that have gone through the same process.

Of course, humans and elephants are much larger than mice and tenrecs. But our genetic legacy isn't just a reflection of our bigger size, for Goodman confirmed that AEM genes hadn't gone through a similar evolutionary spurt in animals like cows and dogs.

Goodman's next challenge is to see what difference the substituted amino acids would have made to us and elephants and whether they make our brains more efficient at producing aerobic energy. He also wants to better understand the specific genes that have been shaped the convergent evolution of human and elephant brains over the course of evolution. That task should certainly become easier as more and more mammal genomes are published.

Reference: PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.0911239106

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Elephants and humans evolved similar solutions to problems of gas-guzzling brains

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At first glance, the African elephant doesn't look like it has much in common with us humans. We support around 70-80 kg of weight on two legs, while it carries around four to six tonnes on four. We grasp objects with opposable thumbs, while it uses its trunk.

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Jomari Rodgers: Did you know people with asthma usually have sleep apnea? When people with severe asthma go to sleep they may have periods of time when they have breathlessness and wheezing which then leads them to have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is when you stop breathing periodically during the time of rest. When people have sleep apnea they don’t usually notice but sleep apnea usually causes they symptoms to worsen the following day. https://asthma.net/living/is-there-a-relationship-between-asthma-and-sleep-apnea-or-snoring/

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Allie: Did you know a lobsters blood is colorless but when exposed to oxygen it turns blue

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Allie: Did you know a lobsters blood is colorless but when exposed to oxygen it turns blue

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"due to the presence of hemocyanin, which contains copper".

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Did you know that per stats in the Washington Post, blacks are killed by police less than whites.

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Did you know that per stats in the Washington Post, blacks are killed by police less than whites.

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This stat is not understand to by many, as either they are too stupid to understand or they don't care.

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think about it doe.

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Maria Gongora: Did you know the Corona-virus Pandemic Is Affecting Environment?

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Maria Gongora: Did you know the Corona-virus Pandemic Is Affecting Environment?

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"We're living through the biggest carbon crash ever recorded. No war, no recession, no previous pandemic has had such a dramatic impact on emissions of CO2 over the past century as Covid-19 has in a few short months. "

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No war, no recession, no previous pandemic has had such a dramatic impact on emissions of CO2 over the past century as Covid-19 has in a few short months.

Multiple sources indicate we are now living through an unrivalled drop in carbon output.

But even though we will see a massive fall this year, the concentrations of CO2 that are in the atmosphere and warming our planet won't stabilise until the world reaches net-zero.

Download the updated BBC Energy Briefing (10.4MB) (PDF, 10.4MB)

Covid recovery plan 'must tackle climate change'

Don't forget 'deeper emergency', says UN chief

Blue skies pushed Greenland 'into the red'

As our chart shows, since the Spanish flu killed millions over 100 years ago, the global expansion of emissions of CO2, from the use of oil, gas and coal has risen massively.

While these energy sources have transformed the world, the carbon seeping into our atmosphere has driven up global temperatures by just over 1C since the mid-1850s.

They could rise by 3-4C by the end of this century if CO2 levels aren't savagely reduced.

Over the past 100 years, as indicated on the graphic, a number of events have shown that dramatic falls in carbon are possible.

Much is made of the financial crash in 2008-2009, but in reality, carbon emissions only fell by around 450 million tonnes between 2008 and 2009.

This is much smaller than the fall in CO2 in the aftermath of World War II, which saw a drop of around 800 million tonnes.

It is also smaller than the global recession in the early 1980s that followed the oil crisis of the late 1970s.

During this period, CO2 went down by around one billion tonnes.

But the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 dwarves all of these previous shocks by some distance.

In a few months, demand for energy globally has fallen off a cliff.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says that the world will use 6% less this year - equivalent to losing the entire energy demand of India.

This will feed through to large falls in CO2.

A number of different analyses, including this one from Carbon Brief, show that emissions this year will fall by 4-8%, somewhere between 2 and 3 billion tonnes of the warming gas.

That's between six and ten times larger than during the last global recession.

We're travelling less

By air and on roads, the world has cut back heavily on travel.

Full lockdowns have also pushed global electricity demand down by 20% or more, says the IEA.

Across the full year, the need for electricity will fall by 5% - the biggest drop since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

"This is an historic shock to the entire energy world," says Dr Fatih Birol, IEA executive director.

The changes in energy demand will have a knock-on effect on global coal demand, which is set to fall 8% this year.

With China the first country to stall its economy in response to the virus, coal use dropped sharply at first, though it is now rebounding and the expectation among energy analysts is that production this year will be down by just over 1%.

Researchers say the biggest thing hitting CO2 emissions right now is the reduction in road transport.

According to the IEA global average road transport activity fell to 50% of the 2019 level by the end of March 2020.

As can be seen in our chart, almost every country has seen a huge drop in road use. This has resulted in a massive fall in the use of oil.

"Back in the 2009 recession, average oil demand dropped by 1.3 million barrels per day versus 2008. And now 2020 is set to average 10 million barrels per day less than 2019." said Erik Holm Reiso, from Rystad Energy, an independent research firm.

"It's a much more severe cycle."

Similarly, air travel has dropped hugely, but by different amounts in different regions.

In Europe, the number of flights is down around 90%, whereas in the US it has been more resilient with around half the number of planes taking off compared to last year.

Globally, though, the demand for jet fuel is down 65% year-on-year to April.

"What we're seeing is that the largest relative reduction is in air traffic," said Robbie Andrew, a senior researcher at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (Cicero).

"But air emissions are only about 3% of global total. So while the relative reductions in land transport are lower than air transport, the absolute reductions there are much more significant."

A really simple guide to climate change

Climate change: Where we are in seven charts

It's not the same everywhere

While the lockdown might feel rather uniform across the world, there have been huge variations in emissions reductions from different cities.

If we take Paris and New York as examples, the contrast, as shown on our chart, is huge.

Paris saw a CO2 drop of 72% (+/-15%) in the month of March compared to normal.

New York in the same period, saw a CO2 fall of around 10%.

So why the big difference?

"In the Paris area, there are no large fossil fuel power plants, or industrial sites," said Philippe Ciais, from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in Paris.

"Another difference is whether buildings are heated with fuels or with electricity. In France, around 70% of electricity comes from nuclear."

Much of New York's CO2 comes from emissions related to the heating of buildings. But significant emissions come from fossil fuel plants based within the city limits. Cars make up a much smaller proportion of overall energy use.

"I guess something to think about is that we shut down the entire city and got a reduction of 10% in the CO2 emissions," said Prof Róisín Commane from Columbia University in New York.

"We are still emitting more than 80% of our previous CO2 emissions. That is a massive number. So personal behaviour really isn't going to fix the carbon emission problem. We need a systematic change in how energy is generated and transmitted."

Have CO2 emissions already peaked?

Back in 2008, the European electricity industry was hit badly by the global financial recession and demand for power fell sharply.

But when that demand picked up again, it was solar and wind that were by then large enough to supply all the growth.

Europe's use of fossil fuels to produce electricity never returned to the level it had been at before the crash.

Experts now believe something similar could happen with the coronavirus pandemic.

"In about half of the world, we've already seen peak demand for fossil fuels," said Kingsmill Bond, from independent financial think tank Carbon Tracker.

"In Europe it was 2005, in the USA 2007."

This means that the trend in demand has been downhill ever since.

He added: "There has been a global coal demand peak in 2013. If you look at car demand, it is increasingly accepted that you saw peak conventional car demand in 2017."

So will the pandemic's big hit on carbon mean that last year, 2019, becomes the year the world reached a turning point?

Not so fast.

The carbon emissions drop that followed the recession in 2009 was followed by a sharp rise of almost 6% in 2010.

Something similar could happen over the next couple of years.

"At this point, we do not see any clear signs that the pandemic and our societal response to it will lead to significant and permanent changes in the path of future global emissions," said Robbie Andrew from Cicero.

"Right at the moment what we're seeing are immediate emissions responses, and following most previous crises, global emissions have returned to their pre-crisis trajectory."

What if CO2 was cut like this each year?

To keep the world on track to stay under 1.5C this century, the world needs similar cuts for the foreseeable future to keep this target in view.

"If Covid-19 leads to a drop in emissions of around 5% in 2020, then that is the sort of reduction we need every year until net-zero emissions are reached around 2050," said Glen Peters, also from Cicero.

"Such emissions reductions will not happen via lockdowns and restrictions, but by climate policies that lead to the deployment of clean technologies and reductions in demand for energy."

Energy experts believe there will be a bounce back next year, but that, long term, the world will move to greener fuels.

But it may not be enough to keep temperatures down to safer levels.

"That downward slope will accelerate over time beyond peak fossil energy," said Erik Holm Reiso, from Rystad Energy.

"That doesn't chime with 1.5C, but maybe 1.8-1.9C degrees could be within reach and this situation right now could help achieve that, I think."

Lessons learnt?

Many climate researchers are optimistic that this deadly pandemic has taught governments some critical lessons that they can apply to the problem of rising temperatures.

The big challenge is to ensure the recovery has a green focus.

According to Prof Gail Whiteman from Lancaster University, UK, it was almost impossible to believe that governments around the world, when faced with a health emergency, would put humanity ahead of the economy. But they did.

A SIMPLE GUIDE: How do I protect myself?

AVOIDING CONTACT: The rules on self-isolation and exercise

HOPE AND LOSS: Your coronavirus stories

LOOK-UP TOOL: Check cases in your area

TESTING: Can I get tested for coronavirus?

"We can recover from an existential, complex threat and emerge much stronger and more resilient," she says.

"Which strengthens the idea that we can do things differently on climate, that we can tackle this one.

"I think it gives us huge energy."

Follow Matt on Twitter.

What is climate change?

Climate-related words and phrases explained

How much warmer is your city?

What is your diet's carbon footprint?

Where we are in seven charts

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Coronavirus: Five charts about the biggest carbon crash

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No war, no recession, no previous pandemic has had such a dramatic impact on emissions of CO2 over the past century as Covid-19 has in a few short months. Multiple sources indicate we are now living through an unrivalled drop in carbon output.

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Lainie Louis-Jame: Did you know that medications may still be good past their expiration date?- 6/18

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Lainie Louis-Jame: Did you know that medications may still be good past their expiration date?- 6/18

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"The expiration date is the date when the manufacturer still guarantees 90% potency, and companies have very little motivation to extend it, Dr. Paauw explained. One group that does have a vested interest in doing so is the U.S. military. An analysis of data from the federal Shelf Life Extension Program, published in May 2006 by the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, found that 88% of 122 drugs from 3,005 lots had 90% or more potency one year past the expiration date, with an average extension of more than five years. Another study, published in November 2012 by Archives of Internal Medicine, assessed medications (mostly compound drugs) that were sealed in boxes and had expired 28 to 40 years prior. Overall, 12 of 14 compounds had retained 90% or more potency, and medications that stood the test of time included codeine, hydrocodone, and acetaminophen. “The only one that broke down was aspirin. The aspirin was only at 1% of what was supposed to be in it,” said Dr. Paauw."
https://acphospitalist.org/archives/2019/06/im-top-10-medical-myths-busted.htm

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Perpetua Saintine: Did you know that Black women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes than any other race. 

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Perpetua Saintine: Did you know that Black women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes than any other race. 

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Did you know the NBA is coming back in July

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Did you know that the U.S spent $28 million on forest camouflage uniforms that are even equipped with zippers rather than buttons which are considered to make them more expensive than the former? The reason why they spent so much tax money on the green uniforms was for soldiers that would be deployed in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is 98% desert.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/world/asia/afghanistan-army-uniform-camouflage.html

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Lauren Johnson: Did you know that the pandemic has effected our perception of time?

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Lauren Johnson: Did you know that the pandemic has effected our perception of time?

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There's truth to the aphorism "time flies when you're having fun." On the other hand, the opposite seems to occur when we're scared, sad or anxious. In April, Life Science asked 1,000 Americans how time seemed to be passing during March. About half said they felt time dragged and a quarter indicated that time passed more quickly than normal. The remaining quarter reported that they didn't experience a change in the passage of time. In April, about 10% of our sample moved from feeling like time dragged to feeling like time flew. More people were feeling relaxed and calm, and interestingly, it was these positive feelings, along with the perception of time flying, that predicted whether people would engage in social distancing. So it's possible that people's improved mood and the shift in their perception of time motivated their willingness to socially distance.

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Think back to life before stay-at-home orders. Does it feel like just yesterday? Or does it seem like ages ago - like some distant era?

Of course, time is precise. It takes for the Earth to make one rotation on its axis. But that's not how we experience time. Instead, internally, it's often something we feel or sense, rather than objectively measure.

It turns out our emotional state tends to play a big role in our perception of time - a dynamic that I've studied for 10 years. Much research has shown that relative to an emotional negative state, a positive one makes time appear to pass more quickly.

Back in the early days of the pandemic, when it became clear that the virus would upend our everyday lives, it wasn't a stretch to assume that the coming weeks and months would be an emotional roller coaster.

Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation, my team and I developed a smartphone application to document the emotions, perceptions and behaviors of Americans during the pandemic on a month-by-month basis. We've been able to track the extent to which Americans' internal clocks went haywire - and explore why this might have happened.

The turbulence of time

There's truth to the aphorism "time flies when you're having fun." On the other hand, the opposite seems to occur when we're scared, sad or anxious. For example, people often remark how car wrecks or accidents seem to happen in slow motion.

Why does this happen?

Emotion and motivation are intertwined. Emotion compels us to act in certain ways, whether it's diving into a project when we're excited or hiding when we're terrified. The former is called "approach motivation," while the latter is called "avoidance motivation."

My team and I have been able to show how approach motivation causes our sense of time to speed up, but avoidance motivation causes it to slow down. The more motivation we feel in either direction, the more pronounced the change in our perception of time.

This happens for a reason. When we're motivated to do something, we have a goal in mind, whether it's finishing a puzzle or evading a car that's blown a red light.

The speeding or slowing of time may help us achieve these goals. When time passes more quickly, it makes it easier to pursue a goal for a longer period of time. Think about a hobby you enjoy and how time passes more quickly when you're engaged with it.

In contrast, when avoidance motivation is triggered, time slows down to prevent us from lingering in potentially harmful situations. If time seems like it's dragging when you're frightened or disgusted, you'll act more quickly to get yourself out of harm's way.

Our pandemic clocks

It's this avoidance situation that many of us found ourselves in at the beginning of the pandemic. There was this threat that we wanted to evade, but since we couldn't see it, we were left trying to avoid a range of potentially harmful situations. Because these included routine activities like shopping and exercising, our avoidance motivation was constantly triggered.

If you felt like time slowed down during the early days of the pandemic, you weren't alone.

In April, we asked 1,000 Americans how time seemed to be passing during March. About half said they felt time dragged and a quarter indicated that time passed more quickly than normal. The remaining quarter reported that they didn't experience a change in the passage of time.

Whether time slowed or sped up was most closely related to people's emotions. Those who reported that they were most nervous or stressed also indicated that time passed more slowly, while those who felt happy or glad tended to experience time passing more quickly.

Our findings also revealed that people who tended to experience the slowing of time practiced social distancing more often. So while time slowing down might be an unpleasant side effect of anxiety and avoidance, the behaviors did end up benefiting society.

In April, about 10% of our sample moved from feeling like time dragged to feeling like time flew. More people were feeling relaxed and calm, and interestingly, it was these positive feelings, along with the perception of time flying, that predicted whether people would engage in social distancing. So it's possible that people's improved mood and the shift in their perception of time motivated their willingness to socially distance.

Still, there was a big chunk who felt - and probably still feel - that time is dragging.

Fortunately, if you feel this way, you can do something about it. , hobbies and a routine help speed up your perception of time. Sure, it might not "fly by," but its pace could quicken just enough to make you feel a little better.

[ You're smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation's authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]

This article was originally published at The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

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Philip Gable - Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Delaware

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How the pandemic upended our perception of time

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Think back to life before stay-at-home orders. Does it feel like just yesterday? Or does it seem like ages ago - like some distant era? Of course, time is precise. It takes for the Earth to make one rotation on its axis. But that's not how we experience time.

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Lainie Louis-Jame: Did you know that Rosalind Franklin discovered that DNA is a double helix?- 6/16

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Lainie Louis-Jame: Did you know that Rosalind Franklin discovered that DNA is a double helix?- 6/16

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Rosalind Franklin was born on July 25, 1920, in the United Kingdom, and was known for her work in x-ray diffraction studies at Kings College and discovered that DNA has a double helix (the description of the structure of a DNA molecule). She presented her data at a lecture at King's College at which James Watson was in attendance. In his book The Double Helix, Watson admitted to not paying attention to Franklin's talk and not being able to fully describe the lecture and the results to Francis Crick. Watson and Crick were at the Cavendish Laboratory and had been working on solving the DNA structure. Franklin did not know Watson and Crick as well as Wilkins did and never truly collaborated with them. .However, it wasn't awarded for her discovery but instead James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. She died in 1958 from cancer.
http://www.dnaftb.org/19/bio-3.html

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Christopher Au: Did you know that right handed people live longer than left handed people?

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Christopher Au: Did you know that right handed people live longer than left handed people?

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On average right handed people live an average of 9 more years than left handed people. This is due to the belief that right handed people are more able to deal with more peril situations than left handed people.

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Credit... The New York Times Archives

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

Left-handed people tend to live significantly shorter lives than right-handers, perhaps because they face more perils in a world dominated by the right-handed, according to new research.

Earlier studies also suggested that left-handed people do not seem to live as long as those right-handed.

In a letter in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers who studied the deaths of 1,000 Southern Californians report that right-handers, on average, live to be 75 years old. Left-handers typically die at age 66.

The trend was seen in both men and women. Right-handed women tended to live five years longer than left-handed women. Right-handed men lived 10 years longer than left-handed men, the report said.

The researchers, Dr. Diane F. Halpern of California State University at San Bernardino and Dr. Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia, said the differences were striking.

They cautioned, "We are not implying that using one's left hand causes a risk of earlier death." But they found that left-handers were more than five times (7.9 percent to 1.5 percent) as likely to die in accidents, often while driving. One reason, they suggested, is that left-handers live in a world designed for right-handers.

Their findings support a 1989 study published in The American Journal of Public Health that found a higher rate of accident-related injuries in left-handed people.

Dr. Halpern and Dr. Coren also speculated that left-handers might fall victim to underlying neurological or immune-system problems that have been shown to be slightly more common in left-handers.

An earlier study of baseball players showed that from the time statistics were kept, the mean life span of left-handers was nine months shorter than that of right-handers. The proportion of left-handers is 13 percent among people in their 20's, but only 1 percent among those in their 80's.

Another researcher at the University of British Columbia who was involved in the earlier study, Dr. Stanley Coren, said, "Nine months in a lifetime does not sound like much, but it is a very large difference in statistics involving a large group of people."

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Being Left-Handed May Be Dangerous To Life, Study Says

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This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.

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Did you know that a women named Jeannette Rankin was was elected in congress before women even had the right to do so. In 1916 she decided to run for a House seat in Montana. Rankin was very out spoken about women's suffrage and with the help of her reputation and her politician brother who helped found her campaign helped her get the second seat in Montana. She won with 6,000 more votes then her runner up.

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Jeannette Rankin's life was filled with extraordinary achievements: she was the first woman elected to Congress, one of the few suffragists elected to Congress, and the only Member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both World War I and World War II. "I may be the first woman member of Congress," she observed upon her election in 1916. "But I won't be the last." ¹

Jeannette Rankin, the eldest daughter of a rancher and a schoolteacher, was born near Missoula, Montana, on June 11, 1880. She graduated from Montana State University (now the University of Montana) in 1902 and attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later the Columbia University School of Social Work). After a brief period as a social worker in Spokane, Washington, Rankin entered the University of Washington in Seattle. It was there that she joined the woman suffrage movement, a campaign that achieved its goal in Washington State in 1910. Rankin became a professional lobbyist for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Her speaking and organizing efforts helped Montana women gain the vote in 1914.

When Rankin decided in 1916 to run for a House seat from Montana, she had two key advantages: her reputation as a suffragist and her politically well-connected brother, Wellington, who financed her campaign. Some national woman suffrage leaders feared she would lose and hurt the cause. The novelty of a woman running for Congress, however, helped Rankin secure a GOP nomination for one of Montana's two At-Large House seats on August 29, 1916. ² Rankin ran as a progressive, pledging to work for a constitutional woman suffrage amendment and emphasizing social welfare issues. Long a committed pacifist, she did not shy away from letting voters know how she felt about possible U.S. participation in the European war that had been raging for two years: "If they are going to have war, they ought to take the old men and leave the young to propagate the race." ³ Rankin came in second, winning one of Montana's seats. She trailed the frontrunner, Democratic Representative John M. Evans, by 7,600 votes, but she topped the next candidate- another Democrat-by 6,000 votes. Rankin ran a nonpartisan campaign in a Democratic state during a period of national hostility toward parties in general. And this was the first opportunity for Montana women to vote in a federal election. "I am deeply conscious of the responsibility resting upon me," read her public victory statement. ⁴

Rankin's service began dramatically when Congress was called into an extraordinary April session after Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare on all Atlantic shipping. On April 2, 1917, she arrived at the Capitol to be sworn in along with the other Members of the 65th Congress (1917-1919). ⁵ Escorted by her Montana colleague, Rankin looked like "a mature bride rather than a strong-minded female," an observer wrote. "When her name was called the House cheered and rose, so that she had to rise and bow twice, which she did with entire self-possession." ⁶

That evening, Congress met in Joint Session to hear President Woodrow Wilson ask to "make the world safe for democracy" by declaring war on Germany. The House debated the war resolution on April 5th. Given Rankin's strong pacifist views, she was inclined against war. Colleagues in the suffrage movement urged caution, fearing that a vote against war would tarnish the entire cause. Rankin sat out the debate over war, a decision she later regretted. ⁷ She inadvertently violated House rules by making a brief speech when casting her vote. "I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war," she told the House. "I vote no." ⁸ The final vote was 373 for the war resolution and 50 against. The Helena Independent likened her to "a dagger in the hands of the German propagandists, a dupe of the Kaiser, a member of the Hun army in the United States, and a crying schoolgirl," even though Montana mail to Rankin's office ran against U.S. intervention. ⁹ NAWSA distanced the suffrage movement from Rankin: "Miss Rankin was not voting for the suffragists of the nation-she represents Montana." ¹⁰ Others, such as Representative Fiorello LaGuardia of New York, were quick to defend her. ¹¹

As the first woman Member, Rankin was on the front lines of the national suffrage fight. During the fall of 1917 she advocated the creation of a Committee on Woman Suffrage and, when it was created, she was appointed to it. ¹² When the special committee reported out a constitutional amendment on woman suffrage in January 1918, Rankin opened the very first House Floor debate on this subject. ¹³ "How shall we answer their challenge, gentlemen," she asked. "How shall we explain to them the meaning of democracy if the same Congress that voted for war to make the world safe for democracy refuses to give this small measure of democracy to the women of our country?" ¹⁴ The resolution narrowly passed the House amid the cheers of women in the galleries, but it died in the Senate. ¹⁵

Rankin did not ignore her Montana constituency in the midst of this activity. She was assigned to the Committee on Public Lands, which was concerned with western issues. When a mine disaster in Butte resulted in a massive protest strike by miners over their working conditions, violence soon broke out. Responding to pleas from more-moderate miner unions, Rankin unsuccessfully sought help from the Wilson administration through legislation and through her personal intervention in the crisis. These efforts failed as the mining companies refused to meet with either her or the miners. ¹⁶ Rankin expected the mining interests to extract a cost for her support of the striking miners. "They own the State," she noted. "They own the Government. They own the press." ¹⁷

Prior to the 1918 election, the Montana state legislature passed legislation replacing the state's two At-Large seats with two separate districts, and Rankin found herself in the overwhelmingly Democratic western district. ¹⁸ Faced with the possibility of running against an incumbent or running in a district controlled by the other party, she decided to run for the U.S. Senate. Rankin ran on the slogan "Win the War First," promising to support the Wilson administration "to more efficiently prosecute the war." ¹⁹ In a three-way contest, Rankin came in second in the Republican senatorial primary, less than 2,000 votes behind the winner. ²⁰

Charges that Republicans were bribing her to withdraw compelled her to undertake what she knew was an impossible task-running in the general election on a third-party ticket. "Bribes are not offered in such a way that you can prove them, and in order to prove that I didn't accept a bribe I had to run," she would later recall. ²¹ The incumbent, Democratic Senator Thomas Walsh, did not underestimate Rankin: "If Miss R. had any party to back her she would be dangerous." ²² In the end, Rankin finished third, winning a fifth of the total votes cast, while Walsh won re-election with a plurality. Ironically, the Republican candidate for Rankin's House district narrowly won. ²³

Afterwards, Rankin divided her time between pacifism and social welfare. She attended the Women's International Conference for Permanent Peace in Switzerland in 1919 and joined the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. In 1928, she founded the Georgia Peace Society after purchasing a farm in that state. Rankin became the leading lobbyist and speaker for the National Council for the Prevention of War from 1929 to 1939. She also remained active in advocating social welfare programs. During the early 1920s she was a field secretary for the National Consumers League. Rankin's activities largely consisted of lobbying Congress to pass social welfare legislation, such as the Sheppard-Towner bill and a constitutional amendment banning child labor.

It was the looming war crisis in 1940 that brought Rankin back to Congress. She returned to Montana with her eye on the western House district held by first-term Republican Representative Jacob Thorkelson, an outspoken anti-Semite. ²⁴ Rankin drew on her status as the first woman elected to Congress to speak throughout the district to high school students on the issue of war and peace. When the Republican primary results were in, Rankin defeated three candidates, including the incumbent. ²⁵ In the general election, she faced Jerry J. O'Connell, who had been ousted by Thorkelson from Congress in the previous election. Rankin went into the race confident that the mining industry no longer carried the hefty political influence she faced earlier. ²⁶ Eminent Progressives endorsed her: Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Jr., of Wisconsin and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City. ²⁷ On Election Day Rankin won re-election to the House with 54 percent of the votes cast for a second term, just less than a quarter of a century after she was elected to her first term. ²⁸ "No one will pay any attention to me this time," the victor predicted. "There is nothing unusual about a woman being elected." ²⁹

As it had 24 years earlier, the threat of war dominated the start of Rankin's new term. She gained appointments to the Committee on Public Lands and the Committee on Insular Affairs, two lower-tier committees that, nevertheless, proved useful to her western constituency. By the time of Rankin's election, the war in Europe was in full force and a debate about U.S. involvement had broken out. In this raging debate, Rankin had taken an arm's-length attitude towards the leading isolationist group, the America First Committee. Largely made up of opponents to the New Deal policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Rankin found herself out of sympathy with much of their domestic agenda. ³⁰

Nevertheless, Rankin made her pacifist views known early in the session. During deliberations over the Lend-Lease Bill to supply the Allied war effort, she offered an unsuccessful amendment in February 1941 requiring specific congressional approval for sending U.S. troops abroad. "If Britain needs our material today," she asked, "will she later need our men?" ³¹ In May she introduced a resolution condemning any effort "to send the armed forces of the United States to fight in any place outside the Western Hemisphere or insular possessions of the United States." ³² She repeated her request the following month to no avail. That Rankin's stance was not an unusual one was demonstrated by the close margin granting President Franklin Roosevelt's request to allow American merchant ships to be armed in the fall of 1941. ³³

Rankin was en route to Detroit on a speaking engagement when she heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. She returned to Washington the next morning determined to oppose U.S. participation in the war. Immediately after President Roosevelt addressed a Joint Session of Congress, the House and Senate met to deliberate on a declaration of war. ³⁴ Rankin repeatedly tried to gain recognition once the first reading of the war resolution was completed in the House. In the brief debate on the resolution, Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas refused to recognize her and declared her out of order. Other Members called for her to sit down. Others approached her on the House Floor, trying to convince her to either vote for the war or abstain. ³⁵ When the roll call vote was taken, Rankin voted no amid what the Associated Press described as "a chorus of hisses and boos." ³⁶ Rankin went on to announce, "As a woman I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else." ³⁷ The war resolution passed the House 388 to 1.

Condemnation of her stand was immediate and intense, forcing Rankin briefly to huddle in a phone booth before receiving a police escort to her office. ³⁸ "I voted my convictions and redeemed my campaign pledges," she told her constituents. ³⁹ "Montana is 100 percent against you," wired her brother Wellington. ⁴⁰ In private, she told friends, "I have nothing left but my integrity." ⁴¹ The vote essentially made the rest of Rankin's term irrelevant. Having made her point, she only voted "present" when the House declared war on Germany and Italy. ⁴² She found that her colleagues and the press simply ignored her. She chose not to run for re-election in 1942, and her district replaced the isolationist Republican with an internationalist Democrat who had served in three branches of the military, Mike Mansfield.

Rankin continued to divide her time between Montana and Georgia in the years after she left Congress. India became one of her favorite excursions; she was drawn by the nonviolent protest tactics of Mohandas K. Gandhi. During the Vietnam War, she led the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, numbering 5,000, in a protest march on Washington in January 1968 that culminated in the presentation of a peace petition to House Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts. Her 90th birthday in 1970 was celebrated in the Rayburn House Office Building with a reception and dinner. At the time of her death, on May 18, 1973, in Carmel, California, Rankin was considering another run for a House seat to protest the Vietnam War.

View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress

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RANKIN, Jeannette | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

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Jeannette Rankin's life was filled with extraordinary achievements: she was the first woman elected to Congress, one of the few suffragists elected to Congress, and the only Member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both World War I and World War II.

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Did you know that staring at digital devices won't permanently damage your eyes?

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Did you know that staring at digital devices won't permanently damage your eyes?

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Of course all of you heard the saying that if you stare at a screen for too long or a long time, you would damage your eyes. For me, I didn't believe in this. I don't believe in this "myth" because there's articles out there stating that it doesn't really damage them, it would only strain or cause other impacts on them. Plus, I have the best vision out of my whole family and I play games 24/7 non-stop, yet I don't have glasses yet and I'm on the computer most of days. I have more hours clocked in front of a screen than my whole family combined.

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Blog

EyeQue

December 13, 2017

Perhaps when you were growing up, your parents limited the amount of television you watched because they thought it would hurt your eyes. It's only natural then that you warned your own children to not stare for hours on end at their computer monitors, tablets, and smartphones. So does staring at screens really harm one's eyes or is this an age-old myth. According to experts, staring at the computer, tablet, and smartphone screens will not permanently damage your eyesight. Doing so can cause some bothersome side effects, most notably computer vision syndrome (also called digital eye strain).

What is Computer Vision Syndrome?

About 83% of American adults use digital devices more than two hours a day, and 53.1% say they use two digital devices at the same time. Of course, digital technology exposure isn't limited to adults. Children use computers and other digital devices for playing the latest games, watching videos, learning at school, or doing homework. In fact, 72% of Americans say their children look at computer or tablet screens more than two hours a day.

Many adults and children experience eye discomfort and vision problems from prolonged computer, tablet, e-reader, and cellphone use. The American Optometric Association says vision-related issues are the most prevalent type of health complaint among computer workers. Studies indicate 50-90% of computer users experience symptoms indicative of computer vision syndrome. Moreover, the level of discomfort appears to get worse the longer ones stares at a screen. The most common signs of Computer Vision Syndrome include:

1 Eyestrain
2 Headaches
3 Blurred vision
4 Dry eyes
5 Neck and shoulder pain

In children, additional symptoms include reduced attention span, poor behavior, and irritability, all of which are counterproductive to learning.

Prevention Tips

Often, the problem is not the screen itself but the immediate environment in which ones works.

1. Set up computer screens so they are in the correct position in relation to your eyes. The top of the screen should be in line with eye level and placed about 18-30 inches from where you're sitting.

2. Tilt the screen back slightly - about 10 to 15 degrees depending on individual preference. Maintaining this downward angle reduces the stress on eye muscles and also helps prevent glares from ceiling lights.

3. Balance the brightness of the computer screen to that of the room. Adjust desk lamps and window blinds so light does not shine directly on the screen. Glare screens can also eliminate this problem.

4. Clean your computer screen regularly to avoid static and dust buildup. This can obscure screen clarity and cause eye irritation.

5. To help prevent or alleviate existing dry eye, use a humidifier to add moisture to the air. Try lubricating eye drops before using the computer and throughout the day. Your eye doctor can recommend appropriate eye drops and may give you samples.

6 .Take the time to blink when you are looking at the screen. Doing so cleanses the eyes with naturally therapeutic fluids. In addition, follow the 20-20-20 rule by taking a 20-second break to view objects 20 feet away every 20 minutes.

Test Your Eyes

Uncorrected vision problems (e.g. farsightedness, presbyopia, and astigmatism) can contribute to vision problems related to computers or digital device screens. If you have followed all of the above preventive tips and you or your children are still experiencing symptoms, an undetected eye problem may be partially to blame.

Proper vision correction is crucial on the job, in particular for complex and/or repetitive computer tasks such as data entry. A study showed small uncorrected refractive errors hindered productivity by 20%, even when the computer user didn't notice symptoms. And if a child cannot see a screen properly, this can impede learning and lead to behavioral and developmental issues.

The EyeQue Personal Vision Tracker (PVT) enables you to take a series of pixel-powered tests to determine your refraction error. It is a safe, affordable, and fun way to test your eyes any time anywhere, as long as you have a smartphone connected to the Internet. While the PVT is not for children, the EyeQue Insight is an at home 20/20 vision screener for all ages. The Insight will provide instant results for single and dual eye performance and let's you know right when you or your children are not seeing clearly as they should. Use these handy devices to help determine if prolonged screen time is causing your discomfort or an undetected or under-corrected refractive error is playing a role.

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Does Staring at Screens Hurt Your Eyes? A Look at Expert Opinion | Vision Test From Home | EyeQue

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Blog EyeQue December 13, 2017 Perhaps when you were growing up, your parents limited the amount of television you watched because they thought it would hurt your eyes. It's only natural then that you warned your own children to not stare for hours on end at their computer monitors, tablets, and smartphones.

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grapes light on fire when they are microwaved

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grapes light on fire when they are microwaved

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In 2011, a physicist from the University of Sydney had made a viral/mind-blowing discovery. He placed the grape in the microwave and filmed the aftermath of the experiment. It is said that the grape went on fire was due to loose electrons and ions that cluster to form plasma when grapes get hot.

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One of the best things about learning something new is being able to share that knowledge with others. And while some facts are And for more facts that might shock you, check out these weird and wonderful and others are totally useless, there's a whole category of trivia that is just so incredible you can't resist asking everyone you meet "Did you know this?!" From why grapes catch on fire in the microwave to how long it takes the average mammal to urinate, these are the facts that will fascinate you and your friends. 50 Science-Backed Health Facts That Will Blow Your Mind.

Back in 2011, a physicist at the University of Sydney went viral after he placed a grape in the microwave and filmed the fiery aftermath. And oddly enough, scientists couldn't explain the phenomenon until quite recently. A March 2019 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that the fruity fireball occurs as a result of the loose electrons and ions that cluster to form plasma when grapes get hot. And here are more of the 100 Fascinating Facts You'll Want to Share with Everyone You Know.

Each area code has 792 possible prefixes or NXX codes (for example, NXX-XXXX or 555-1234), explains the Public Utility Commission of Texas. And each "NXX" has 10,000 possible phone numbers attached to it. So, with a little math, we know that theoretically, there are 7,920,000 possible seven-digit phone numbers in each area code. Obviously, not all of these numbers are put into use, so you don't have to try nearly 8 million numbers if you want to randomly dial a friend who lives nearby.

Although it might sound a little strange, the word for an individual piece of spaghetti is spaghetto. The same goes for a single piece of confetti, which is confetto, as well as a single piece of graffiti, which is graffito, according to Merriam-Webster.

McDonald's is always introducing new items for their loyal customers. And obviously, some are more successful than others. But their bubblegum-flavored broccoli, which the fast-food chain developed in 2014 as a tastier version of the leafy green for children, was a complete failure. McDonald's CEO Don Thompson admitted that kids were confused by the taste.

No one will blame you if you've never bothered to time yourself on the toilet. But you may be interested to know that researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology found that most mammals weighing more than six pounds take 21 seconds to pee. According to Live Science, this oddly consistent time is due to the fact that the urethra is "appropriately scaled" to be a "flow-enhancing device." And apparently, the perfectly enhanced flow takes 21 seconds to complete.

Along with having laws against spitting and urinating anywhere but in a toilet (which you're then legally obligated to flush if it's a public washroom), Singapore has also banned chewing gum in an effort to keep the city clean and orderly. The ban was established in 1992. In 2004, exceptions were made for therapeutic, dental, or nicotine gums. And for more trivia tidbits, check out 55 Facts So Interesting You'll Kick Yourself for Not Knowing Them.

Whether you've been inspired by Marie Kondo or not, you probably still have close to a third of a million items in your home. One report found that the average U.S. house has around 300,000 things in it. Yeah, we like stuff. Lots of stuff.

Back in 1939, American author Ernest Vincent Wright published Gadsby, a 50,000-word novel that doesn't use the letter 'e' once. What's more, it's not the only novel that ditched the letter. Author Georges Perec also wrote the French-language book La Disparition without the letter 'e' in 1969. That's even more astounding when you consider that 'e' is the most commonly used letter in the English (and French!) language. And these are the 23 Words You Need to Stop Mispronouncing.

Most of us are well aware that lobster shells change color when exposed to heat (like in a pot of boiling water, for example). But the sea creatures' blood is also intriguing. Lobster blood is initially clear and turns blue when it hits oxygen.

Buyer beware, as they say. Thankfully, buyer Mark Fraser was apparently aware of the fact that he was getting a broken laser pointer when he purchased it for $14.83 from eBay's founder Pierre Omidyar in 1995. And for more cool quiz questions to test your friends, check out 50 Facts About Life You Won't Believe You Didn't Already Know.

If you ever dreamed of being a ninja, now might be the time to make it a reality. The Japanese city of Iga, which has a rich history of martial arts masters and claims to be the birthplace of the ninja, suffered from a ninja shortage in 2018, despite the fact that they're willing to pay salaries as high as $85,000 for the performative ninjas willing to take on the job of staffing their annual ninja festival.

Unfortunately, this is one of the facts you probably can't repeat to your friends-and that's because it's nearly impossible to pronounce. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is in New Zealand and is 85 letters long. And when it comes to other super long place names, it's followed by Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in Wales, Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in the U.S., Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein in South Africa, and Azpilicuetagaraycosaroyarenberecolarre in Spain.

More than 300 million years ago, the Meganeura established itself as the largest known flying insect to ever exist on Earth. The dragonfly-like creature had a wingspan that stretched around 2.5 feet. The bugs were also big enough to hunt prey like frogs and newts, which it could eat with its teeth-like mandibles.

If you can't wait to pop every air-filled pocket the minute you pull a piece of bubble wrap out of a package, can you imagine how irresistible it would be if it were covering your walls? Engineer Al Fielding and Swiss inventor Marc Chavannes probably didn't consider that when, in 1957, they invented bubble wrap while trying to create a textured wallpaper by sealing two shower curtains together to trap air bubbles.

Shakespeare wrote some of the most beloved and revered pieces of literature the world has ever known, but in order to craft his plays and poems, he sometimes resorted to making up his own words. In fact, The Bard is said to have come up with more than 1,700 words including moonbeam, laughable, eyeball, bump, puking, champion, bedroom, excitement, and zany.

When Santa Claus makes his trip around the world on Christmas Eve, you can rest assured that he's legally allowed to drive his sleigh-at least in the United States. In 1927, the jolly man in the red suit was given a pilot's license from the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics William P. MacCracken.

According to the Library of Congress, "The old saint called at the Commerce Department in Washington" and when he arrived, his picture was taken as he was given his license, airway maps, "and the assurance that the lights would be burning on the airways on Christmas Eve."

When Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein passed away on April 18, 1955, he left behind specific instructions when it came to the disposal of his body, according to one National Geographic investigation. Einstein didn't want his corpse to be worshiped or his brain to be studied, so he instructed those who were responsible for his remains to "cremate them, and scatter the ashes secretly in order to discourage idolaters."

However, Thomas Harvey, the pathologist on call when Einstein died at New Jersey's Princeton Hospital, didn't quite follow those instructions. Instead, he stole Einstein's brain. From there, things got even weirder. When Einstein's family found out, his son apparently didn't object to the theft and Harvey was able to keep the brain in two jars in his basement before moving it to "a cider box stashed under a beer cooler."

In 2008, a man in Japan bought a nearly black Densuke watermelon for ¥650,000 or $6,125. The specialty fruit is only grown on the island of Hokkaido and, according to a Japanese agricultural expert in the Los Angeles Times, is crisp and hard with " a different level of sweetness" than the watermelon we're used to eating.

In 2013, Joao Maria de Souza was lying in bed when a cow that had been grazing on a hill behind his house walked onto the asbestos roof and fell through, landing on de Souza, according to the BBC. The injured man was taken to a hospital where he later passed away. As strange as this incident might seem, locals claim that it was the third time a similar thing had happened in the area in the past three years, although no one was killed the first two times.

Cornell University researchers carved the tiny musical instrument out of crystalline silicon and claim that it's the world's smallest "nanoguitar" at 10 micrometers long. The guitar's six strings are each about 50 nanometers (100 atoms) wide. And while it was "made for fun to illustrate the technology," it also demonstrates how this tech could be used in fiber optics, displays, sensors, and electronics.

Frank Duryea reached a top speed of 7 mph when he raced the second car he had ever built with his brother, Charles, on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1895. The Chicago-Times Herald sponsored race featured a 54-mile course that ran from downtown Chicago to Evanston and back.

For reference, that's about 19 football fields. The U.S. Antarctic Program also notes that if the ice sheet ever suddenly melted, it would raise the sea level worldwide an estimated 200 feet and submerge much of the Gulf and Atlantic coastal areas of the U.S.

It's pretty common to be afraid of heights and scared of spiders, but if you have arachibutyrophobia, you're among the smaller group of people that suffer from a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of their mouths. This phobia is often connected to a fear of choking or a fear of sticky textures, but it can also be its own isolated fear.

The game, which took place between LSU and Auburn University, took place in front of a crowd of 79,431 fans at LSU's Tiger Stadium. The crowd's reaction to the game's final pass registered as an earthquake by a seismograph located around 1,000 feet from the stadium. A seismologist noticed the reading the next day and the game went down in LSU history as the "Earthquake Game."

Garry Turner from the U.K. holds the Guinness World Record for the stretchiest skin thanks to the fact that he can extend the skin on his stomach 15.8 centimeters. Turner is capable of such an elastic-like feat thanks to a collagen-defective condition called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. The Good Place actress Jameela Jamil recently confirmed that she also has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, even demonstrating the stretchiness of her skin on social media.

If you're not able to travel all the way to Egypt to see the great pyramids in Giza, then you might want to plan a trip to Memphis, Tennessee, to see the local Bass Pro Shops Megastore. At 321 feet tall, with a 535,000-square-foot interior, it's one of the largest pyramids in the world and features a hotel, an indoor swamp, an aquarium, a bowling alley, and the world's tallest freestanding elevator, which can take you to an observation deck.

Fictional Marvel characters aren't the only beings with superhero-like powers. A few lucky mice were given the ability to see perfectly in the dark when scientists utilized nanoparticles that convert infrared light to visible light. The same method could be used to give humans the same night-vision superpower sometime in the future. We'll just have to wait and see.

There are plenty of extreme sports out there if you happen to be an adrenaline junkie. From the classics like skydiving and surfing to newcomers like parkour and blobbing (A.K.A. human catapulting), there's truly something for everyone. But if you want to combine your love of cleaning with your love of getting wild, then perhaps you'd like to try extreme ironing, which was founded in 1997 and has been challenging competitors to press shirts in unexpected locations-like high up in trees, hanging over cliffs, or paddling white-water rapids-for more than two decades.

Other than the fact that it hit an iceberg and sank, a lot went wrong during the Titanic tragedy. But one of the most jaw-dropping facts about the incident is that, according to passenger And for more on this disaster, check out the Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, who later recalled what had happened during his testimony at congressional hearings in Washington, a routine lifeboat drill was supposed to take place the morning of the disaster, but the crew never assembled and the drill was canceled. 13 Surprising Artifacts Found in the Titanic Wreckage.

It's not quite true that there's a Starbucks on every single corner in every major city. But there does happen to be a Starbucks cup in every scene in the 1999 movie Fight Club starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. The cup's appearance was reportedly inspired by a line in the film, when Norton's character explains, "When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks." You can view all of the cups on this comprehensive Tumblr page.

In October 2018, the Gilbert Minnesota Police Department issued a public notice about birds that appeared to be " under the influence." It turns out that the airborne animals were apparently eating berries that had fermented due to early frost, which was making them "tipsy." Unfortunately, this meant that the buzzed birds were acting confused and flying into windows. Hopefully, they were able to sleep it off.

It's no secret that the Statue of Liberty is a mighty monument. The copper section alone is 151 feet and one inch tall. But if Lady Liberty needed a new pair of sandals, it would take size 879 shoes to cover her massive feet.

Guinea pigs are social animals that prefer the companionship of another guinea pig. That's why it's illegal to own just one of the little critters in Switzerland. Thankfully, if one of your fuzzy pets passes away and you're not ready to commit to another, Switzerland also allows you to rent a guinea pig for your remaining pet.

In 2010, the FIFA World Cup South Africa was shown in every country and territory on Earth, including Antarctica and the Arctic Circle, which meant that a record-breaking 3.2 billion people around the world watched the game in their homes, or 46.4 percent of the global population. Four years later, FIFA World Cup Brazil drew the same staggering number of viewers.

" The Highest Court in the Land" is the name given to the basketball court that's located in the U.S. Supreme Court building. Located on the top floor (and therefore higher than any other court in the building, which is how it got its name), the former storage room was turned into an exercise area for courthouse workers in the 1940s before nets were eventually installed.

Not every celestial object has a shape that's as perfectly majestic as planet Earth. In fact, some of them are downright hilarious to look at. Take Haumea, for example. This dwarf planet is cool for a number of reasons. About the same size as Pluto, Haumea orbits the sun beyond Neptune and has rings similar to Jupiter. But what makes this object even more interesting is that it's shaped like a potato.

There are also 119 ridges (which are called reeded edges) on the side of a quarter, 150 on the side of a half dollar, 198 on a dollar coin, and 133 on a Susan B. Anthony dollar coin.

Wombats produce around 80 to 100 pieces of excrement each night and until recently no one knew why it was cube-shaped. But in 2018, researchers concluded that it's the wombat's intestines, which are made up of some "stretchy" and some "stiff" sections, that create "the edges and the cubing" during the digestive process.

Beat Wampfler, a Swiss cheesemaker, plays songs from bands like Led Zeppelin and A Tribe Called Quest during his cheese-producing process and, with the help of students from the University of the Arts in Bern, he's studying to see if and how music can change the flavor of his Emmental cheese. Wampfler told AFP, "I am convinced that humidity, temperature, or nutrients are not the only things that influence taste... Sounds, ultrasounds, or music can also have physical effects."

Just one drink can quickly go to your head, whether you feel it or not. Researchers at Heidelberg University Hospital found that just six minutes after consuming alcohol, changes are already taking place in the brain. So even if you don't feel tipsy right away, you're definitely not totally sober either.

According to And for more on the wizard phenomenon, check out the The Hollywood Reporter, the production team also made 40 versions of Salazar Slytherin's locket, 250 paintings for the Marble Staircase, 900 Memory Vials for the cabinet in Dumbledore's Office, and 210,000 coins for the Gringotts bank scene in the last two films alone. 35 Ways Harry Potter Is Still Crazy Relevant.

Every vehicle needs maintenance to stay in tip-top shape, especially if it's expected to transport a country's leader around the world. So when Air Force One's SAM 28000 Boeing 747-200B plane is getting a tune-up, there's an identical SAM 29000 standing by. One plane is always ready for the president's use whenever needed.

With nine letters and eight of them being consonants, "strengths" is the longest word in the English language with only one vowel, according to the Guinness World Records. Which, on reflection, makes it a really weird looking word.

There's no doubt that Darth Vader's getup is pretty snazzy in Star Wars, but according to Time, it's probably out of your budget. That's because it would cost $18.3 million to make a real-life replica of the suit that features a voice modifier, breathing apparatus, prosthetic limbs, and an augmented-reality filter.

If shark attacks give you the chills, you're not alone. And the people over at Google can sympathize thanks to the fact that they deal with shark attacks that threaten the internet. And this isn't a new problem. Back in 1987, The New York Times reported that is was an issue with phone lines at the time due to the fact that "sharks have shown an inexplicable taste for the new fiber-optic cables that are being strung along the ocean floor linking the United States, Europe, and Japan."

What state do you live in? Does it have a "q" in the name? We can guarantee that it doesn't because that's the only letter that doesn't appear in any U.S. state name, from Alabama to Wyoming and everything in between.

If you've ever considered getting your entire body tattooed, be sure not to forget about your eyeballs. Hardcore body-art fans have started inking their eyes all kinds of colors, from purple to green. But beware of the risks that come along with such an extreme modification.

Jimmy Carter won three Grammy Awards in the Best Spoken Word Album category for Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis in 2007, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety in 2016, and finally Faith: A Journey For All in 2019.

In 2004, Bill Clinton won Best Spoken Word Album for My Life, just a year after he earned the Best Spoken Word Album for Children thanks to Prokofiev: Peter And The Wolf/Beintus: Wolf Tracks.

Barack Obama has won two Grammys, including Best Spoken Word Album in 2006 for the Dreams from My Father audiobook and another in 2008 when he took home the Best Spoken Word Album Grammy for the audiobook version of The Audacity of Hope.

The Sulabh International Museum Of Toilets in New Delhi, India, features a rare collection of objects "detailing the historic evolution of toilets" from 2500 BCE to right up until today. Learn about the toilet systems of ancient societies, the elaborately decorated toilets of 18th- and 19th-century Europe, and even a toilet from Austria that's shaped like a lion so that you can feel like you're riding the wild beast while doing your business.

You might think that throwing a little bread to the birds is a nice thing to do, but in San Francisco, it could get you into trouble. That's because it's illegal to feed pigeons in the streets or on the sidewalks of the California city. San Francisco's Public Works Department explains that there "are dozens of reasons why" you shouldn't feed our flying friends, "but mainly: feeding pigeons harms our neighborhoods and also harms the birds." And for more crazy facts check out these 35 Fascinating Fast Facts for When You're Bored.

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50 Incredible "Did You Know" Facts That Will Astonish You | Best Life

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One of the best things about learning something new is being able to share that knowledge with others. And while some facts are And for more facts that might shock you, check out these weird and wonderful and others are totally useless, there's a whole category of trivia that is just so incredible you can't resist asking everyone you meet "Did you know this?!"

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David Puello: Did You know that birds can't smile 

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David Puello: Did You know that birds can't smile 

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]The birds don't have facial muscles to move their mouths like mammals. So if your caring for a bird you should listen to sounds the birds make or see if it's cleaning it's self to see a healthy bird

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Birds are highly intelligent creatures, with complex and specialized forms of communication. Each species has a unique way of using body language and vocalizations to communicate. However, there are some things that birds do in general that you can decode, no matter what type of bird you have. If you pay attention to your bird's regular mannerisms, you will be able to identify when they have changed. Also, you need to look at your bird's movements or behaviors in context to understand them. If you can do this, you will be closer to understanding what your feathered friend is trying to communicate to you.

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How to Understand Your Bird's Body Language

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Birds are highly intelligent creatures, with complex and specialized forms of communication. Each species has a unique way of using body language and vocalizations to communicate. However, there are some things that birds do in general that you can decode, no matter what type of bird you have.

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Erika Rivas.                                    Did you know that Donald Trump is the modern day Adolf 🤬?

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Erika Rivas.                                    Did you know that Donald Trump is the modern day Adolf 🤬?

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did you know that Donald J. Trump/ICE is keeping my people in cages and sexually assaulting them because he can? Yes. he is. Did you know that he called the cornavirus the chinese virus, did you know that Trump is limiting rights from people who identify as transgender. Did you know that he called innocent protesters thugs? Yeah, the list could go on and you know it

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When President Donald Trump vowed to deport "millions" of immigrants from the United States, he was telegraphing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that targeted migrants with final deportation orders. The real list had about 2,100 families on it, with the goal of deterring Central American migrants from trying to cross the southern border.

The final tally from the operation, according to federal officials: 18 family members were arrested, not enough to fill a school bus. Immigration officials arrested another 17 undocumented immigrants they encountered in their searches, what are known as collateral arrests.

ICE announced the data Tuesday morning, tucking it into a news conference that included information about worksite enforcement and routine criminal arrests. Aside from the 35 immigrants apprehended in the much-anticipated family operation, immigration agents picked up nearly 900 adults - most of them convicted criminals - and delivered more than 3,000 notices to companies nationwide that authorities will audit their records to ensure that workers are in the United States legally.

Acting ICE Director Matthew T. Albence called the criminal operation successful and said the family operation, Operation Border Resolve, will continue, although the number of arrests were lower than in the past. The first such operation, over New Year's weekend in 2016 under the Obama administration, led to the arrests of 121 adults and children in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.

Officials would not say where the arrests were made during the recent operation or when the operation took place, and immigration arrests are not public record. Families were not separated during the arrests, Albence said.

Albence said public blowback and publicity surrounding the raids probably dampened their numbers, but he said that the operation was "just the beginning" and that immigration agents would continue to pursue family members with deportation orders.

"Look, there are advocates, there are people in Congress who are sitting here giving instructions to people who are illegally in the country and telling them how to avoid detection and avoid the consequences of their illegal activity," Albence said during a call with reporters Tuesday. "There's no way for us to quantify what impact that had. But I mean, you couldn't turn on any TV station anywhere in this country for several weeks without this being one of the lead topics."

"We're patient, and we'll continue to pursue these cases," Albence said. "They may have escaped detection for a short period of time, but we're going to continue to be out there working these cases."

ICE's arrest numbers illustrate the vast distance between the president's ambitions for mass removals of immigrants from the country and the on-the-ground challenges facing an agency that has been struggling with limited resources and a record influx of Central American families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Immigration arrests from the interior have been flat for months as Democratic mayors, members of Congress, church pastors and local residents rally to shield immigrants from deportation, such as one episode Monday in a Nashville neighborhood that thwarted at least one arrest. Federal immigration agents have long said they focus on arresting people who commit crimes and on recent border crossers, but they have struggled to detain and deport them.

Trump has threatened the mass arrests since June 17, but he called them off five days later. The president tweeted that he delayed the raids for two weeks at Democrats' request, "to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border."

"If not," he wrote, "Deportations start!"

A new mass roundup of migrant families was set for June 23, but it was again delayed as Mark Morgan left the top job at ICE to start as acting chief of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Trump and his officials continued to publicize the raids, and the president said this month that the sweeps would start July 14. Albence did not fault the president for telegraphing the raids, but federal law enforcement operations generally are not publicized ahead of time to protect officers' safety and avoid tipping off their targets before they are caught.

Albence said that the migrant families had been given a chance to file asylum claims and that most did not show up for their court hearings, a sign he said points to the cases being fraudulent and an indication that the migrants were coming to the United States for work, not to escape persecution. He said just 65 of the 2,100 families who were notified of their removal orders accepted the agency's invitation to leave the United States voluntarily.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department drafted plans for the "family operation" in late 2018 to expel some of the hundreds of thousands of Central American parents and children who have been arriving during the past year. Officials claimed 90% of those who were ordered to be deported did not show up for their immigration court hearings.

ICE's initial target list focused on as many as 10 U.S. cities that are major destinations for immigrants, including Houston, Los Angeles and New York.

Top White House officials urged going forward with the operation, largely as a show of force, hoping that it would deter potential migrants from coming north toward the United States. Ken Cuccinelli II, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told Fox Business Network this month that ICE was "ready and raring to go."

But internally, ICE officials expected to detain just 10% to 20% of their targets in each city, far fewer than the millions the president had pledged. Officials also have worried about intensifying public criticism of ICE.

A day before the most recent arrests were set to begin, a man arrived at an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, with a rifle and incendiary devices. Officers fatally shot him.

Several nonprofit organizations filed a federal lawsuit to block the raids. Critics have said the Trump administration is targeting families, including small children, who fled poverty, hunger and violence in their homelands. Advocates for immigrants say most families are eager to attend their court hearings but that dates often are incorrectly scheduled or that migrants don't receive the information about their hearings.

The White House says the influx of families is a smuggler-driven enterprise to sneak migrants into the United States to work, taking advantage of loopholes in federal law that require children to be released from custody soon after their apprehension at the border. Federal officials say adults are bringing children because they are likely to be released.

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Trump vowed millions of immigration arrests in dramatic raids. ICE caught 18 family members.

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When President Donald Trump vowed to deport "millions" of immigrants from the United States, he was telegraphing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that targeted migrants with final deportation orders. The real list had about 2,100 families on it, with the goal of deterring Central American migrants from trying to cross the southern border.

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Did you know that apple Is Making It Way Easier to Unlock Your iPhone While Wearing a Mask?

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Did you know that apple Is Making It Way Easier to Unlock Your iPhone While Wearing a Mask?

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"As many of us are wearing facial coverings while out of the house to curb the spread of COVID-19, it’s proving difficult to use the Face ID unlocking feature in newer iPhones, like the iPhone 11. Luckily, an upcoming software update from Apple is making it easier to deal with the frustration, though not in the way you might think."  -   I feel like this is a good idea since wearing a facemask makes it hard for your iphone to recognize you face.
- Sara Laafar
https://time.com/5830162/iphone-mask-face-id/

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Apple Is Making it Way Easier to Unlock Your iPhone While Wearing a Mask

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Apple's upcoming iOS update will make it easier to unlock an iPhone while wearing a mask. Here's how it works.

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Did you know the Supreme Court added equality for LGBTQ members?

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Did you know the Supreme Court added equality for LGBTQ members?

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On June 15th, 2020 the Supreme Court rules a surprising victory of 6-3 on legal protection for people to be protected against being disciplined, fired, or not allowed the job due to their sexual orientation. While some of these "Roberts Court" members are personally very conservative, some still voted for legalizing this anti-discrimination ruling. This ruling gives more protection for people to be themselves and love those they want without the fear of jeopardizing their jobs.

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The decision was a rout for social conservatives and a defeat for President Donald Trump's administration, which had urged the justices to take a narrow view of the half-century-old law.

Some Trump allies immediately denounced Gorsuch's opinion as a betrayal from the Trump appointee. A top Trump aide quickly criticized the ruling, but when the president himself was asked about it he offered a mild response and passed up a chance to try to make political hay out of the court's decree.

"I've read the decision," the president said of the various opinions, which ran to 119 pages in all. "Some people were surprised, but they've ruled and we live with their decision. That's what it's all about. We live with the decision of the Supreme Court. Very powerful, very powerful decision, actually."

While the cases ruled on Monday garnered less attention than the showdown five years ago that led to the court's landmark decision finding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the latest ruling could be even more impactful, providing millions of LGBT Americans with new workplace rights and ushering in similar legal guarantees of equal treatment in private businesses, schools and elsewhere.

Yet, the high court's edict also seemed far less earth shaking than the 2015 ruling, perhaps due to ongoing racial unrest and perhaps because polls show an increasingly broad consensus in support of LGBT rights.

Explaining the ruling, Gorsuch said Congress may not have intended to ban discrimination against gays, lesbians and transgender individuals, but that the logic of their protection by the statute was inescapable.

"Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren't thinking about many of the Act's consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees," Gorsuch wrote.

"But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands," he continued. "When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it's no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit."

LGBT activists were thought to face an uphill battle at the high court because Congress has spent more than four decades considering, but failing to pass, measures intended to expand the coverage of the 1964 law by explicitly adding sexual orientation to the list of protected traits.

Such legislation passed the Democrat-controlled House in 2007 and again last year and was approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate in 2013, with the latter two efforts also explicitly aimed outlawing workplace discrimination against transgender people. The bills never cleared both chambers in the same Congress.

That Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion was viewed as a major coup by gay rights advocates. They hoped his professed devotion to "textualism" - an often literal approach to reading Congressional enactments - would persuade him to embrace a view that LGBT discrimination is sex discrimination because it involves treating someone differently at least in part due to gender.

Gorsuch did just that, sounding unequivocal in his conclusions about the half-century-old workplace discrimination ban, known as Title VII.

"An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids," wrote Gorsuch, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

Gorsuch also took a jaundiced eye to suggestions that the court should try to divine why Congress never passed language explicitly adding LGBT protections to the workplace discrimination law.

When images of packed Florida beaches flashed across TV screens, critics grimly predicted overrun hospitals. But that didn't happen. Now as Florida prepares to host the GOP convention, cases are spiking.

"Speculation about why a later Congress declined to adopt new legislation offers a 'particularly dangerous' basis on which to rest an interpretation of an existing law a different and earlier Congress did adopt," he wrote, quoting a prior case.

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway initially lamented the ruling, arguing that the court departed from Congress' clear intent.

"We've had the Civil Rights Act for 56 years. Everybody has understood what it meant," she said on Fox News Monday. "It's very important though to stick to a statute or a law as it is written....If people want to change the law they should go to the Congress. Our Congress doesn't seem to like to work as hard as the other two branches."

Some activists who supported Gorsuch as Trump's first Supreme Court nominee were even more vocal, fuming about his betrayal and arguing he'd cast aside the legacy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose vacancy Republicans held open through 2016 so it could be filled by a Trump nominee.

"Justice Scalia would be disappointed that his successor has bungled textualism so badly today, for the sake of appealing to college campuses and editorial boards," Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network said on Twitter. "This was not judging, this was legislating-a brute force attack on our constitutional system."

Roberts' vote to back LGBT rights in the new ruling was also notable, since he joined the rest of the court's conservatives in 2015 in vocal dissent from the same-sex marriage decision.

Because the decision Monday is a matter of statutory interpretation, it is not an all-out guarantee of workplace protections for LGBT people in the future, since Congress is free to tinker with the law. But as a practical political matter, it seems highly unlikely Congress would reach a consensus to repeal those rights anytime soon.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the new ruling, arguing that Gorsuch's claimed humility about simply interpreting the law's language was belied by the huge gulf between what lawmakers intended and what the court held.

Alito leveled one of the gravest insults one conservative can train on another as he accused his colleague of legislating from the bench.

"There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation," Alito, wrote in a fiery dissent joined only by Thomas. "The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive...A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall. The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous."

Alito also insisted that textualism doesn't mean reading a statute so literally that the purpose of the authors is ignored.

"It calls for an examination of the social context in which a statute was enacted because this may have an important bearing on what its words were understood to mean at the time of enactment," he wrote. "Textualists do not read statutes as if they were messages picked up by a powerful radio telescope from a distant and utterly unknown civilization."

Kavanaugh's solo dissent was more restrained in its tone. He said courts must give force to the "ordinary" meaning of the laws Congress passes, not a "literal" one.

"Both the rule of law and democratic accountability badly suffer when a court adopts a hidden or obscure interpretation of the law, and not its ordinary meaning," the court's newest justice wrote.

Kavanaugh said the majority was making "a mistake of history and sociology" because even a rudimentary look at the motivating forces behind the 1964 law shows that it wasn't seeking to advance gay rights.

"Seneca Falls was not Stonewall. The women's rights movement was not (and is not) the gay rights movement, although many people obviously support or participate in both," he wrote.

The Trump stance was a reversal of positions taken during the Obama administration, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held that both anti-gay and anti-transgender discrimination violated existing law, although courts divided on those issues.

Social conservatives who argued against finding protections for LGBT Americans in the existing statute sounded dejected Monday about the court's ruling and warned that it will have unexpected effects.

"Redefining 'sex' to mean 'gender identity' will create chaos and enormous unfairness for women and girls in athletics, women's shelters, and many other contexts. Civil rights laws that use the word 'sex' were put in place to protect equal opportunities for women," said John Bursch of the Alliance Defending Freedom.

By contrast, LGBT activists were ecstatic about the high court's decision.

"This is a landmark victory for LGBTQ equality," said Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David.

Backers of the new decision said it could spell doom for some Trump administration policies, particularly an effort to roll back protections for transgender individuals seeking health care.

Prior to Monday's ruling, court decisions or enforcement authorities in nearly half of U.S. states interpreted state law to prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. In the remaining states, LGBT workers had no legal protection against being fired, demoted or paid less on account of those traits.

LGBT individuals in many states still have no legal protection against other forms of discrimination, such as in housing or public accommodations, although the new decision could bolster efforts to win such protection in the courts or in Congress.

"In many aspects of the public square, LGBTQ people still lack non-discrimination protections, which is why it is crucial that Congress pass the Equality Act to address the significant gaps in federal civil rights laws and improve protections for everyone," David said.

The gay and transgender rights cases decided Monday have been lingering on the court's docket for more than seven months. They were argued last October, on the second day of the court's current term.

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With LGBT ruling, Supreme Court hands liberals a surprise victory

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The decision was a rout for social conservatives and a defeat for President Donald Trump's administration, which had urged the justices to take a narrow view of the half-century-old law. Some Trump allies immediately denounced Gorsuch's opinion as a betrayal from the Trump appointee.

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Did you know that Martin Luther king jr’s speech “I have a dream” was improvised?- Nneka Okoye 

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Did you know that Martin Luther king jr’s speech “I have a dream” was improvised?- Nneka Okoye 

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The speech that he came up at first was going to be more political and it did not include anything about his dream. But once he got on stage he decided to speak about his dream. Now imagine if he didn’t improvise and come up with the “I have a dream” speech. Not many people would have been inspired later on.

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Did you know that Jesus died for your sins?

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Did you know that Jesus died for your sins?

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Love itIt is said that Jesus was a political person in a sense that really ticked off the Romans. Jesus said and did some things that tested peoples faiths and the was quite forbidden around his time. The Romans didn't like Jesus and so they did what they always did and set up a Crucifixion for Jesus. Through Jesus's death a lot of the people who began to lose faith started to regain it and this is what the Christians call "atonement".  His death and quite possibly his Resurrection is said to be at the heart of the Christian faith and that when he died, he died for us.

Amen

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Atonement and reconciliation

The events leading up to the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus are well-told by the Gospel writers, as are stories of the Resurrection. But why did Jesus die?

In the end the Roman authorities and the Jewish council wanted Jesus dead. He was a political and social trouble-maker. But what made the death of Jesus more significant than the countless other crucifixions carried out by the Romans and witnessed outside the city walls by the people of Jerusalem?

Christians believe that Jesus was far more than a political radical. For them the death of Jesus was part of a divine plan to save humanity.

The death and resurrection of this one man is at the very heart of the Christian faith. For Christians it is through Jesus's death that people's broken relationship with God is restored. This is known as the Atonement.

What is the atonement?

The word atonement is used in Christian theology to describe what is achieved by the death of Jesus. William Tyndale introduced the word in 1526, when he was working on his popular translation of the Bible, to translate the Latin word reconciliatio.

In the Revised Standard Version the word reconciliation replaces the word atonement. Atonement (at-one-ment) is the reconciliation of men and women to God through the death of Jesus.

But why was reconciliation needed? Christian theology suggests that although God's creation was perfect, the Devil tempted the first man Adam and sin was brought into the world. Everybody carries this original sin with them which separates them from God, just as Adam and Eve were separated from God when they were cast out of the Garden of Eden.

So it is a basic idea in Christian theology that God and mankind need to be reconciled. However, what is more hotly debated is how the death of Jesus achieved this reconciliation.

There is no single doctrine of the atonement in the New Testament. In fact, perhaps more surprisingly, there is no official Church definition either. But first, what does the New Testament have to say?

New Testament images

The New Testament uses a range of images to describe how God achieved reconciliation to the world through the death of Jesus. The most common is the image of sacrifice.

For example, John the Baptist describes Jesus as "the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world". (John 1:29)

Here are some other images used to describe the atonement:

a judge and prisoner in a law court

a payment of ransom for a slave's freedom

a king establishing his power

a military victory

And here are some examples of how the New Testament explains the death of Jesus:

How have later writers and theologians interpreted the Biblical accounts and theologies? In varied, and sometimes conflicting, ways.

Theories of the Atonement

Theories of the Atonement

Theologians have grouped together theories of the atonement into different types. For example, in Christus Victor (1931) Gustaf Aulén suggested three types: classical, Latin and subjective.

More recently in his book Christian Theology: An Introduction Alister E. McGrath groups his discussion into four central themes but stresses that these themes are not mutually exclusive. His four themes are:

The cross as sacrifice

The cross as a victory

The cross and forgiveness

The cross as a moral example

The cross as sacrifice

The image of Jesus' death as a sacrifice is the most popular in the New Testament. The New Testament uses the Old Testament image of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:5) and applies it to Christ.

The theme of Jesus's death as a sacrifice is most drawn out in the Letter to the Hebrews. The sacrifice of Christ is seen as the perfect sacrifice.

In the biblical tradition sacrifice was a common practice or ritual. In making an offering to God or a spirit, the person making the sacrifice hopes to make or mend a relationship with God.

St Augustine too wrote on the theme of sacrifice:

The cross as a victory

The New Testament frequently describes Jesus's death and resurrection as a victory over evil and sin as reprsented by the Devil. How was the victory achieved?

For many writers the victory was achieved because Jesus was used as a ransom or a "bait". In Mark 10:45 Jesus describes himself as "a ransom for many". This word "ransom" was debated by later writers. The Greek writer Origen suggested Jesus's death was a ransom paid to the Devil.

Gregory the Great used the idea of a baited hook to explain how the Devil was tricked into giving up his hold over sinful humanity:

Although the victory approach became less popular in the eighteenth century amongst Enlightenment thinkers - when the idea of a personal Devil and forces of evil was thrown into question - the idea was popularised again by Gustaf Aulén with the publication in 1931 of Christus Victor.

Aulén wrote of the idea Christus Victor:

The cross and forgiveness

Anselm of Canterbury writing in the eleventh century rejected the idea that God deceived the Devil through the cross of Christ. Instead he presented an alternative view which is often called the satisfaction theory of the atonement.

In this theory Jesus pays the penalty for each individual's sin in order to right the relationship between God and humanity, a relationship damaged by sin.

Jesus's death is the penalty or "satisfaction" for sin.

Satisfaction was an idea used in the early church to describe the public actions - pilgrimage, charity - that a christian would undertake to show that he was grateful for forgiveness.

Only Jesus can make satisfaction because he is without sin. He is sinless because in the Incarnation God became man. The theory is thought out by Anselm in his work Cur Deus Homo or Why God became Man.

The cross as a moral example

Moral influence theories or exemplary theories comprise a fourth category used to explain the atonement. They emphasise God's love expressed through the life and death of Jesus.

Christ accepted a difficult and undeserved death. This demonstration of love in turn moves us to repent and re-unites us with God. Peter Abelard (1079-1142) is associated with this theory. He wrote:

Abelard's theory and the call to the individual to respond to Christ's death with love continues to have popular appeal today.

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The events leading up to the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus are well-told by the Gospel writers, as are stories of the Resurrection. But why did Jesus die? In the end the Roman authorities and the Jewish council wanted Jesus dead. He was a political and social trouble-maker.

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Did you know that there’s science behind zodiac signs -Skye Griffith

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Did you know that there’s science behind zodiac signs -Skye Griffith

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According to astrology, a person's sign is determined by the position of the Sun on the date they were born. Namely, a person is born under the sign of Virgo if the constellation Virgo was behind the Sun at the time of birth. ... It turns out that the Earth's precession makes this astrological prediction wrong.

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by Beth Napier

Concept:

Motions of Celestial Objects:

At the earliest time of human existence, no one was aware that Earth was rotating around its axis. Early astronomers watched the sky and saw various cyclical motions of celestial objects such as the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets that had periods or cycle times ranging from 24 hours to a year. A natural assumption that resulted from observations was that the reason why the Sun, Moon, planets and stars rose and set every day was due to their own motion around the Earth. Now we know that these so-called diurnal or daily motions are the result of the Earth's own rotation or spin about its North-South axis with a period of 24 hours.

In early times, objects in the sky were believed to be affixed to transparent celestial spheres and their motions were thought to be a result of the motion of these spheres as they revolved around the Earth. Groups of bright stars were observed to form prominent patterns in the night sky called Constellations, which have been historically ascribed to mythological figures, such as Orion the Hunter, and Gemini the Twins. The early astronomers recognized that constellations "appeared" and "disappeared" with the change of the seasons throughout the course of a year. The Sun, Moon and planets were observed to move in relation to the fixed background of stars, or constellations. Because of their perspective from Earth, early astronomers observed that all the planets visible with the naked eye as well as the Sun seemed to pass in the course of a year through a region in the sky occupied by twelve specific constellations.

More than 3000 years ago, astronomers wondered how the sky would appear if the stars could be seen during the daytime. Based on their observations of the night sky, some astronomers determined that during the daytime, the Sun would appear to "enter" or pass through a different constellation each month. These twelve constellations are called the Zodiac. Many ancient people believed that a person's behavior, emotions, and fate were heavily influenced by the month of that person's birth--ie. that person's astrological sign. Even today, thousands of years later, some people still believe in the powers of the zodiac and read their horoscopes for daily guidance. However, many people read their horoscopes for fun, not because they believe in predictions.

Ecliptic, Celestial Equator, Equinoxes, and Precession:

While making its daily rotations around its axis, the Earth is also making yearly revolutions as it orbits around the Sun. The Earth travels in space as it revolves about the Sun in a planar orbit that is approximately circular. This motion of the Earth makes the Sun appear as if it is moving eastward in the course of a year against the background of the zodiac constellations. This apparent motion of the Sun is caused by our changing point of view or viewing direction as we observe from the surface of the Earth as it moves in its orbit. The path in the sky defined by this apparent motion of the Sun (which is actually the plane of the Earth's revolution about the Sun) is called The Plane of the Ecliptic .

It turns out that most of the other planets in the solar system also revolve around the Sun in orbits that lie approximately along the same Ecliptic plane. Try to imagine that the Sun sits in a hole in the middle of a large, round cake pan. If the planets were marbles, they would roll around the Sun only on the surface of the cake pan and would not move to another pathway or to a higher or lower level. It turns out that one of the nine planets does not orbit the Sun in plan that lies close to the Ecliptic, and this is Pluto, the farthest planet from the Sun. Pluto's orbit lies about 17.5 degrees out of the Plane of the Ecliptic. This orbit causes Pluto to lie either above or below the Plane of the Ecliptic most of the time. Figure 1 below shows a diagram of the Earth orbiting the Sun along the Ecliptic, as well as the other solar system planets orbiting the Sun approximately along the plane of the Ecliptic. Pluto's orbit is not included in Figure 1, so you may well want to challenge your students to draw Pluto's orbit on the diagram.

The Zodiac constellations, as envisioned by ancient astronomers, were ascribed specific patterns that resemble the shapes animals, half-animals, and human beings. The Constellations of the Zodiac actually form an imaginary belt in the sky that extends about eight degrees above and below the Plane of the Ecliptic. In Figure 2 below, The Constellations of the Zodiac, we are looking at the Earth from far out in space. We must keep in mind as we look at the names of the zodiac constellations that at any given time of the year, the Sun is between Earth and one of these constellations.

We are familiar with the Earth's Equator because of our knowledge of geography. If we could extend the earth's equator into space so that it could be viewed against the background of stars, we'd be able to see what modern astronomers call the Celestial Equator. Because the Earth's axis of rotation is tilted with respect to the Ecliptic (or orbital plane of the Earth about the Sun) by 23.5 degrees, the Celestial Equator and the Ecliptic do not lie on the same plane, but cross each other at an angle of 23.5 degrees. The two points in the sky where these two planes (Celestial Equator and Ecliptic) cross are called the Equinoxes. We call the Vernal Equinox the intersection point where the Sun, in its apparent motion against the background stars along the Ecliptic, crosses the Celestial Equator from south to north, usually occurring around March 21. Similarly, we call the Autumnal Equinox the intersection point where the Sun, in its apparent motion against the background stars along the Ecliptic, crosses the Celestial Equator from north to south, usually occurring around September 21. The first day of Spring then corresponds to the Vernal Equinox and the first day fo Fall corresponds to the Autumnal Equinox. During the time of the Equinoxes, we on the Earth experience twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night.

The Earth's rotation on its axis has caused the Earth's shape to diverge from a sphere, and has caused the Earth's equatorial regions to bulge out, in the same way that a skater's skirt spreads outward as she spins rapidly on the ice. Because the Earth's equator is tilted with respect to the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun, the so-called Ecliptic plane, the Earth's equatorial bulge is also tilted with respect of the plane along which the Sun and Moon travel. The Moon and the Sun exert a gravitational "tug" on the Earth's equatorial bulge, trying to pull the Earth's equatorial region to be aligned with the Ecliptic plane. This tug, along with the rotational motion of the Earth on its axis, the revolution of the Earth around the Sun, and the revolution of the Moon about the Earth, cause the Earth to wobble about its axis of rotation, similar to the motion of a spinning top. This motion is called Precession. An extension of the Earth's axis out into space traces out a conical figure with a time cycle or period of 26,000 years. Figure 3 below shows a schematic of the Earth's precession. The Earth's precession implies that although Polaris is currently the star above our North pole, in about 13,000 years Vega will become our North star; only, after yet another 13,000 years, will our North pole will once again point towards Polaris.

Equinoxes, Precession, and Astrology:

According to astrology, a person's sign is determined by the position of the Sun on the date they were born. Namely, a person is born under the sign of Virgo if the constellation Virgo was behind the Sun at the time of birth. Thus, a person can see their sign constellation approximately 6 months after they are born, since we must wait for the Earth to travel to the other side of the Sun to see the constellation at night.

According to astrological traditions, the Vernal Equinox is the day that the Sun "enters" the constellation Aries. However, this is not always the case, as astronomical observations have found. It turns out that the Earth's precession makes this astrological prediction wrong. The Earth's precession causes the Equinoxes to move with respect to the background constellations of the Zodiac. Because of the Earth's precession, the dates of the Equinoxes gradually change over a 26,000 year cycle. This means that currently the constellation which is behind the Sun, is actually different from the one predicted by astrologers. For example, according to traditional astrology, the Sun is "in Gemini, the Twins" between May 22 and June 21; but when a person looks at the nighttime sky, the constellation of Gemini is easily visible above the western horizon after sunset all through the month of May until around June 20.

Theme:
Tied to the California Science Framework:

PATTERNS of CHANGE and STABILITY

SYSTEMS and INTERACTIONS

Objectives:

The students will be able to describe what is meant by the Plane of the Ecliptic.

The students will be able to recognize and identify the constellations of the Zodiac.

The students will be able to explain why the zodiacal constellation "occupied" by the Sun is not visible in the sky.

The students will be able to explain why the location of the Sun in the traditional astrological signs does not match the observable position of the Sun in the sky.

Grade Level and Prerequisites:

Grade Level: 7 - 12

Pre-requisites:

Students must have an understanding of Earth's rotation as the cause of day and night.

Students must understand Earth's revolution as our measure of a year.

For further information and activities on this subject:

Lesson Plan

References

Mail comments to outreach@cea.berkeley.edu

All text, images, and other resources in this page are Copyright 1995, The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. For permission, email outreach@cea.berkeley.edu.

Return to the CEA Science Education Home Page

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WHAT'S YOUR SIGN? THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE ZODIAC

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by Beth Napier At the earliest time of human existence, no one was aware that Earth was rotating around its axis. Early astronomers watched the sky and saw various cyclical motions of celestial objects such as the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets that had periods or cycle times ranging from 24 hours to a year.

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Did you know that face masks can’t prevent COVID-19 for healthy people - Skye Griffith 

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Did you know that face masks can’t prevent COVID-19 for healthy people - Skye Griffith 

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masks could create a false sense of security that could end up putting people at greater risk. Even with the mouth and nose fully covered, the virus can still enter through the eyes. “People think they are protected when they are not,” he said. “Healthcare workers, in addition to the masks, wear visors too, to protect the eyes.” Another  concern is that people may contaminate themselves when they adjust, remove and dispose of their masks.

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The World Health Organization has held off from recommending people wear face masks in public after assessing fresh evidence that suggested the items may help to contain the pandemic.

The WHO reviewed its position on masks in light of data from Hong Kong indicating that their widespread use in the community may have reduced the spread of coronavirus in some regions.

But in updated guidance published on Monday, the organisation maintained that while masks could help limit the spread of the disease, they were insufficient on their own. There was no evidence that wearing a mask in the community prevented healthy people from picking up respiratory infections including Covid-19, it said.

Prof David Heymann, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who chaired the WHO's scientific and technical advisory group for infectious hazards, said that unless people were working in healthcare settings, masks are "only for the protection of others, not for the protection of oneself".

The committee acknowledged the virus can be transmitted by people who do not have symptoms, but said the virus must still spread via droplets or contaminated surfaces, which physical distancing and handwashing are intended to minimise.

According to the updated advice, people with coronavirus symptoms should wear a face mask, self-isolate and seek medical advice as soon as they start to feel unwell, while those caring for them should wear a face mask when they are in the same room.

The WHO guidance on healthy people wearing masks in public appears to conflict with recent advice from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which urged the US public to wear cloth face coverings in pharmacies, groceries and other public places where physical distancing can be hard to maintain.

Heymann said masks could create a false sense of security that could end up putting people at greater risk. Even with the mouth and nose fully covered, the virus can still enter through the eyes.

"People think they are protected when they are not," he said. "Healthcare workers, in addition to the masks, wear visors too, to protect the eyes."

Another concern is that people may contaminate themselves when they adjust, remove and dispose of their masks.

The WHO said people who chose to wear masks in public should follow its advice to ensure they were using them safely. It said countries that recommended masks for the general population should set up studies to monitor their effectiveness.

William Keevil, a professor of environmental healthcare at the University of Southampton, said governments felt under pressure to be seen to be doing something, even if it was a waste of time and valuable resources.

"Cloth masks and poor quality surgical face masks will not filter fine respiratory droplets, and certainly not aerosols, which some are now claiming to be an infection risk," he said. "The major question that needs to be addressed is: what about protecting the eyes, a known route of entry?."

Dr Elaine Shuo Feng, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, supports the US stance on face masks and said it would be sensible for people who may have been exposed to the virus to wear face masks outdoors because of the risk of passing on the virus.

"It would be helpful if high-risk people - elderly, people with chronic conditions - wear a face mask if they can't avoid crowed areas, because these people have the highest risk of severe outcomes such as ICU/death if infected," she said.

* The headline on this article was corrected on 7 April 2020 to more accurately reflect the WHO's findings.
Topics

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Face masks cannot stop healthy people getting Covid-19, says WHO

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The World Health Organization has held off from recommending people wear face masks in public after assessing fresh evidence that suggested the items may help to contain the pandemic. The WHO reviewed its position on masks in light of data from Hong Kong indicating that their widespread use in the community may have reduced the spread of coronavirus in some regions.

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Did you know that the Stonewall Inn is now a National Monument?

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Did you know that the Stonewall Inn is now a National Monument?

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As a result of the Stonewall Inn riots that occurred in 1969, the establishment is considered an important and historic venue for the modern era of gay rights. In 2016, President Barack Obama, made the inn and the area around it a National Historic Landmark. The movement was lead by many important organizations, but an important participant, Marsha P. Johnson helped start the movement. She also started STAR in 1970 that was created in order to help homeless LGBTQ+ youth.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/583074/stonewall-riots-facts

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Did you know that your lie will be more convincing if you have to pee when you tell it. Because of a phenomenon called the ‘inhibitory spillover effect,’ the need to control your bladder also forces your brain to activate more self-control, which helps hide the tells you have when fibbing.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11887260/If-you-want-to-lie-do-it-when-you-need-the-toilet-say-experts.html

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Highlights

*

We investigated the inhibitory spillover effect on a deception task performance.

*

Liars and truth tellers experienced high versus low physical inhibitory control.

*

Physical inhibitory control benefited cognitive inhibitory control during deception.

*

Liars in high-inhibitory control showed few signs of deception and seemed truthful.

*

Liars can successfully use covert self-control strategies to facilitate deception.

Abstract

The Inhibitory-Spillover-Effect ( ISE) on a deception task was investigated. The ISE occurs when performance in one self-control task facilitates performance in another (simultaneously conducted) self-control task. Deceiving requires increased access to inhibitory control. We hypothesized that inducing liars to control urination urgency (physical inhibition) would facilitate control during deceptive interviews (cognitive inhibition). Participants drank small (low-control) or large (high-control) amounts of water. Next, they lied or told the truth to an interviewer. Third-party observers assessed the presence of behavioral cues and made true/lie judgments. In the high-control, but not the low-control condition, liars displayed significantly fewer behavioral cues to deception, more behavioral cues signaling truth, and provided longer and more complex accounts than truth-tellers. Accuracy detecting liars in the high-control condition was significantly impaired; observers revealed bias toward perceiving liars as truth-tellers. The ISE can operate in complex behaviors. Acts of deception can be facilitated by covert manipulations of self-control.

View full text

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The inhibitory spillover effect: Controlling the bladder makes better liars

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We investigated the inhibitory spillover effect on a deception task performance. * Liars and truth tellers experienced high versus low physical inhibitory control. * Physical inhibitory control benefited cognitive inhibitory control during deception. * Liars in high-inhibitory control showed few signs of deception and seemed truthful.

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The short answer to whether people can really multitask is no. Multitasking is a myth. The human brain cannot perform two tasks that require high-level brain function at once. Low-level functions like breathing and pumping blood aren't considered in multitasking. Only the tasks you have to "think" about are considered. What actually happens when you think you are multitasking is that you are rapidly switching between tasks.

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The short answer to whether people can really multitask is no. Multitasking is a myth. The human brain cannot perform two tasks that require high-level brain function at once. Low-level functions like breathing and pumping blood aren't considered in multitasking. Only the tasks you have to "think" about are considered. What actually happens when you think you are multitasking is that you are rapidly switching between tasks.

The cerebral cortex handles the brain's "executive controls." Those controls, divided into two stages, organize the brain's tasks processing.

The first is goal shifting. This happens when you switch your focus from one task to another.

The second stage is rule activation. This turns off the rules (how the brain completes a given task) for the previous task and turns on the rules for the new task.

So, when you think you are multitasking you are actually switching your goals and turning the respective rules on and off in rapid succession. The switches are fast (tenths of a second) so you may not notice them, but those delays and the loss of focus can add up.

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The short answer to whether people can really multitask is no. Multitasking is a myth. The human brain cannot perform two tasks that require high-level brain function at once. Low-level functions like breathing and pumping blood aren't considered in multitasking. Only the tasks you have to "think" about are considered.

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did you know that the Supreme Court just passed a law that bans the employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity?

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did you know that the Supreme Court just passed a law that bans the employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity?

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For so long people were being fired and having problems at work because they were facing inequality and harassment due to their gender and what their sexuality was. people did not feel safe and were hurt by the fact that they can lose everything just because they were "different". However, recently the court has passed a law that forbids any workplace to treat employees unfairly because of who they identify as and it is now prohibited under federal civil rights law. There were many cases that employees were fired and they sued the company for the unfairness of how they were treated and respected. they were looked down on and treated disrespectfully and now with this law, it can't happen anymore.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-makes-historic-ruling-lgbt-employment-discrimination/story?id=71254749

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Did you know that Pokemon is the best selling franchise behind Mario with selling about or over 340 million units as of March 2019 and had made over $90 billion in lifetime revenue. Also the games and anime has been continuing since 1999 all until now and has been about 20 years in making new and different designs of pokemon and ideas for games and the anime.

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Pokémon is a media franchise owned by Nintendo, created in 1995 and debuted in 1996. It is the highest-grossing entertainment media franchise of all time, having grossed $90 billion in lifetime revenue.

In terms of software sales, Pokemon is the second best-selling game franchise, having sold over 340 million units as of March 2019, behind only . In addition, is the most-downloaded mobile game, with over 1 billion downloads. The Pokémon video game series has shifted a total of over 1.31billion units in retail sales and official downloads.

Beyond video games, the Pokémon Trading Card Game has also sold over 25.7 billion cards, making it the second best-selling trading card game, after The Pokémon anime series is also very successful, with the films watched by over 70million viewers at the Japan box office, and the television series watched by more than 1billion viewers across 124countries.

Video games

Main series

Releases with more than one million units. Sales figures based on Nintendo's official sales data. Gross revenue estimates based on official prices.

Franchise revenue

By June 1998, the Pokémon franchise was worth $4 billion in Japan. By March 1999, Pokémon was generating revenues of nearly ¥400 billion ($3.28 billion) annually. In Japan, the franchise earned ¥1 trillion by 2002, including ¥98 billion from Japanese software sales.

Worldwide, the franchise earned ¥2 trillion by 2001. By 2002, the franchise had earned ¥3 trillion, including $15 billion from merchandise sales worldwide, while the rest were earned from video games, anime, and trading cards. In 2005, a theme park was opened in Nagoya, Japan. By 2013, the Pokemon franchise had earned ¥4 trillion in revenue.

As of March 2017, the Pokémon franchise has grossed ¥6 trillion ($75 billion) in revenue. ¥78.87 billion ($988 million) was grossed from Pokémon films, which were seen by 74.33 million moviegoers, while the rest of the earnings were from the video games, trading card game, anime TV show, and licensed products. This makes Pokémon the highest-grossing entertainment media franchise of all time, ahead of Star Wars ($42 billion), Harry Potter ($25 billion), James Bond ($6 billion), and The Lord of the Rings ($6 billion).

Other media

Merchandise

Food - 90million sales (2countries)

Toys - 27.5million sales (2countries)

Demographics

The regional breakdown of Pokemon franchise revenues:

The demographic breakdown of Pokemon Go users:

Awareness of Pokemon Go among the American population (325.7million) according to a survey in September 2017:

Play it regularly - 13% - estimated 42,341,000 people

Play it from time to time - 17% - estimated 55,369,000 people

Know it, but never play it (not anymore) - 55% - estimated 179,135,000 people

Don't know Pokemon - 15% - estimated 48,855,000 people

Generations

First generation

The first generation of Pokemon consists of the worldwide Editions Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow and Pokemon Green which was only sold in Japan. They sold 47.52 million units on the Game Boy and Virtual Console.

Second generation

The second generation consists of Pokemon Gold, Silver and Crystal. They sold 29.49 million units on the Game Boy Color.

Third generation

The third generation consists of Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. They sold 22.54 million units on the Game Boy Advance.

FireRed and LeafGreen are first generation remakes. They sold 12 million units on the Game Boy Advance.

Fourth generation

The fourth generation consists of Pokemon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, with 25.24 million sold units.

HeartGold and SoulSilver are second generation remakes. They sold 12.72 million units on the Nintendo DS.

Fifth generation

The fifth generation consists of two versions of each Pokemon Black and White, with 24.14 million sold units.

Sixth generation

The sixth generation consists of Pokemon X and Y, with 16.06 million sold units. In Japan, it has sold about 4.5 million.

Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, a remake of the third generation for the Nintendo 3DS, was successful. Pre-orders were ahead of X & Y and launch sales have been good. In America, the game has sold 2.6 million with versions combined as of the end of December and 2.9 million by the end of February. It sold 476,000 in France by the end of December 2014.. In Japan, it sold 2.5 million by the end of 2014. They exceeded 10 million by September 2015. In May 2016, the game exceeded 3 million in Europe. They sold 13.68 million units in total.

Pokemon Go is based off this generation and has broken most records in relation to mobile charts, including being #1 in top grossing in the most countries as well as the fastest to hit $600 million in revenue.

Seventh generation

The seventh generation consists of Pokemon Sun and Moon. Due to the preceding hype built by a Superbowl Commercial, re-releases of the original games on digital storefronts, and Pokemon Go, it surpassed Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire as Nintendo's most preordered game. In November 2016, the games have sold 3.7 million in the Americas and 1.5 million in Europe, becoming Nintendo's fastest seller titles ever. With Japanese numbers, the games sold about 7.5 million copies in 2 weeks. In the United States, by December 2016, the game had sold 4.5 million copies, making it the fastest Nintendo game to reach 4 million. As of December 31, 2016, the game has shipped 14.69 million copies, already outselling Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

1. Average ↑ Pokémon Red/Green/Blue price: $40.50

2. Average ↑ Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen price: $53.33

3. Average ↑ Pokémon Gold & Silver price: $33.05

4. Average ↑ Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver price: $60

5. Average ↑ Pokémon Sun & Moon price: $53.50

6. ↑ Pokémon Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon

Japan - 2,440,000 units at ¥5378 = ¥13,122,320,000 ($123,708,666)

Overseas - 5,070,000 units at $48.16 average = $244,171,200

7. Worldwide gross up until March 2013: ¥4 trillion ($50 billion, or $61 billion with inflation) ↑

Gross up until 2002: ¥3 trillion ($26.1 billion, or $36 billion with inflation)

Additional gross up until March 2013: ¥1 trillion ($23.9 billion, or $25 billion with inflation)

8. Worldwide gross up until March 2015: ¥4.4 trillion ($54 billion, or $65.1 billion with inflation) ↑

Gross up until March 2013: ¥4 trillion ($50 billion, or $61 billion with inflation)

Gross from April 2013 to March 2015: ¥400 billion ($4 billion, or $4.1 billion with inflation)

9. Worldwide gross up until September 2015: ¥4.6 trillion ($56 billion, or $67.2 billion with inflation) ↑

Gross up until March 2015: ¥4.4 trillion ($54 billion, or $65.1 billion with inflation)

Gross during April-September 2015: ¥200 billion ($2 billion, or $2.1 billion with inflation)

10. Worldwide gross up until May 2016: ¥4.8 trillion ($63.4 billion, or $74.6 billion with inflation) ↑

Gross up until September 2015: ¥4.6 trillion ($56 billion, or $67.2 billion with inflation)

Gross from April 2015 to May 2016: ¥800 billion ($7.4 billion)

11. Worldwide gross up until March 2017: ¥6 trillion ($74.43 billion, or $85.63 billion with inflation) ↑

Gross up until May 2016: ¥4.8 trillion ($63.4 billion, or $74.6 billion with inflation)

Gross from June 2016 to March 2017: ¥1.2 trillion ($11.03 billion)

12. ↑ Pokémon television series in United States (2000) - 8.1/29 rating/share, out of 282.2million population = 22.8582million viewers

13. ↑ Pokémon television series in the Philippines (2015) - 9.3% share, out of 101.7million population = 9.4581million viewers

References

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list of highest-grossing video game franchises

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Pokémon is a media franchise owned by Nintendo, created in 1995 and debuted in 1996. It is the highest-grossing entertainment media franchise of all time, having grossed$90 billion in lifetime revenue. In terms of software sales, Pokemon is the second best-selling game franchise, having sold over 340 million units as of March 2019, behind only Mario.

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Tai Le  Did you know you might not be social distancing correctly?

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Tai Le  Did you know you might not be social distancing correctly?

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Wear a face mask when coming within 6 feet of a sick person.

Position the strings to keep the mask firmly in place over the nose, mouth, and chin. Try not to touch the mask again until you remove it.

Wear a face mask before going near other people if you have the flu.

If you have the flu and need to see a doctor, wear a face mask to protect others in the waiting area.

Consider wearing a mask in crowded settings if the flu is widespread in your community, or if you’re at high risk for flu complications.

When you’re done wearing a surgical face mask or respirator, throw it away and wash your hands. Never reuse it.

Wash your cloth face mask after each use.

- Tai Le

https://www.healthline.com/health/cold-flu/mask#bottom-line

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Elianny Francisco, Did you know that ants can fall from any height without dying?

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Elianny Francisco, Did you know that ants can fall from any height without dying?

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"However, an ant is so light that should you choose to throw one off the top of a skyscraper and it reached its terminal velocity, it would only be travelling at 3.9mph, due to its size and weight the air resistance acting against the ant is so strong that gravity cannot physically pull it down to earth any faster. Due to the slow speed and the ant’s strong exoskeleton which braces it for impact, they do not suffer any damage from falling at any height and the impact would have been the same as if it had fallen a few centimetres."

This blew my mind and now I know that I will only be stepping on and crushing ants *crunch* :)
https://perryponders.com/2015/07/16/ants-fall-from-any-height-without-dying/#:~:text=Due%20to%20the%20slow%20speed,had%20fallen%20a%20few%20centimetres.

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The word muscle is derived from the Latin term musculus, meaning "little mouse". 

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Muscle Facts for Kids

Learn some fun muscle facts for kids. The muscles in our body are responsible for keeping our heart beating and for all our physical movements.

How many muscles do we have? What are the different types of muscles? What are the strongest muscles in our body? Read on and enjoy these interesting facts about our muscles.

Muscle is a soft tissue in the body of humans and animals. Its main purpose is to produce force and motion.

Muscles are responsible for maintaining posture, physical movement (sitting, walking, eating, etc), and movement of internal organs (such as keeping the heart pumping to circulate blood and moving food through the digestive system).

The word muscle is derived from the Latin term musculus, meaning "little mouse". This Latin term could be due to the shape of some muscles or because muscles contracting under the skin can look like a mouse moving under a rug.

Tendons connect our soft contracting muscle to our hard bones.

There are around 650 skeletal muscles in the human body.

There are three types of muscle, skeletal, cardiac, and smooth.

Skeletal muscles (or striated) are voluntary muscles that control nearly every action a person intentionally performs. Tendons attach the muscle to two bones across a joint, as one muscle contracts the other relaxes which moves the bones.

Skeletal muscle can be further divided into two types, slow twitch and fast twitch.

Slow twitch (Type I) muscle contain proteins that give it a rich red color. This muscle carries more oxygen efficiently and using fats, proteins or carbs as energy slow twitch muscle fibers contract over a long period of time.

Therefore type I muscle fiber works well for aerobic sports such as long distance running and cycling.

Fast twitch (Type II) muscle is whiter in color as it has less myoglobin (a oxygen carrying protein). Fast twitch fibers contract quickly and powerfully, however they fatigue rapidly.

Therefore type II muscle fiber is useful for anaerobic exercise such as sprinting or for strength sports like weightlifting.

Smooth muscle (or visceral) is involuntary, its not controlled by our conscious mind. It is found on the walls of many organs and structures such as the esophagus, stomach, intestines, bladder, and blood vessels. Smooth muscles contract to move substances such as food through the organ.

Cardiac muscle is also an involuntary muscle. It is only found in the heart and is responsible for keeping the heart pumping.

Muscle makes up around half of the total human body weight. Muscle tissue is also around 15% denser than fat tissue.

It takes 17 muscles in the face for us to smile and 43 muscles to frown.

If muscle strength is regarded as the ability to use force on something then the jaw muscle (masseter) is the strongest in the body.

The strongest muscles in relation to the job they have to do is the external muscles of the eye which are large and about 100 times stronger than they need to be in relation to the small size and weight of the eyeball.

The tongue has 8 muscles, so is technically not the strongest muscle in the body.

The heart cardiac muscle does the most work of any muscle over a lifetime.

Cerebral palsy is a disorder that affects balance and motor functions, while muscular dystrophy is a genetic disease that damages muscle fibers.

Muscle memory is created by practising an action over and over again. Our muscles fine tune themselves, becoming more precise and exact in what they do. So practice is very important when learning a sport!!

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Fun Muscle Facts for Kids - Interesting Information about Human Muscles

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Muscle Facts for Kids Learn some fun muscle facts for kids. The muscles in our body are responsible for keeping our heart beating and for all our physical movements. How many muscles do we have? What are the different types of muscles? What are the strongest muscles in our body?

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New animal species were discovered in a sealed off cave for 5.5 million years.

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New animal species were discovered in a sealed off cave for 5.5 million years.

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In a deep cave below Romania's Constanta Country, there lies Movile Cave. It remained cut off from society for 5.5 million years, and probably for good reason. There's a whole new ecosystem pf organisms living inside of that cave, eating on carbon dioxide and methane. Because of the gasses and poisonous gasses that lie in the cave, Romanian is only allowing  100 people in the area at a time for discovery. With that only 48 species of the seen species only 33 are new.
In my opinion, 2020 is now over, because we now got creatures that were sealed off from us, and probably sealed off for a reason ,now out.
Look at your own risk.
https://www.insidehook.com/article/science/new-animals-discovered-in-cave-sealed-off-for-5-5-million-years

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Clinical trial shows promising new treatment for rare blood cancer

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Clinical trial shows promising new treatment for rare blood cancer

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Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system, which is the body's microbe-fighting network. Though there are various forms of this illness with grating consequences, researchers have stumbled upon a new treatment protocol that may produce promising effects.

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Lymphoma is a type of blood cancer that develops from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). It has many subtypes. A rare subtype, called intravascular large B-cell lymphoma (or IVLBCL) is notably hard to diagnose accurately because the cancerous lymphocytes grow inside small blood vessels, instead of at lymph nodes, and there is no perceptible swelling/enlargement of lymph nodes. There is also no effective treatment: the disease tends to affect the elderly, for whom standard high-dose chemotherapy may have serious side-effects, and patients are at a high risk of developing subsequent central nervous system (CNS) disorders even with treatment. A novel treatment protocol with fewer side-effects and which also tackles secondary CNS involvement is needed, and this is exactly what a group of scientists, led by researchers from Nagoya University and Mie University, Japan, attempted to test in a new clinical trial.

All of this being said, however, the rarity of this disease has made testing new combinations of drugs difficult. A previous "retrospective" study involving the analysis of medical records of patients who had undergone standard chemotherapy combined with a drug called "rituximab" showed that this line of treatment is more promising than standard treatment alone, but it does not solve the problem of secondary CNS involvement. "We considered that rituximab-containing chemotherapies combined with treatment for the secondary CNS problems could lead to further improvement in the clinical outcome," remarks Dr Kazuyuki Shimada of Nagoya University. With this consideration, Dr Shimada and team conducted a Phase 2 multicenter clinical trial, where they administered their proposed treatment to 38 enrolled patients (aged 20 to 79 years and without CNS disorders at the time of cancer diagnosis) and monitored their conditions over the long term. The results are published in their paper in The Lancet Oncology.

Overall, their treatment protocol appears to be promising: 76% of the enrolled patients reached the primary goal of two-year survival without disease progression and 92% reached two-year overall survival. The disease affected the CNS in only 3% of patients. What's more, the toxicity of the treatment was found to be low, and all adverse effects were manageable, with very few serious complications.

Aptly summarizing their achievement, Dr Shimada says: "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first 'prospective' trial of any treatment in patients with IVLBCL. It appears that the proposed treatment protocol might be effective in patients without apparent central nervous system involvement at the time of diagnosis."

An important advantage of the proposed treatment protocol is that it employs a combination of conventional drugs and uses no novel agents. This means that although further study is necessary, this protocol can be adopted in clinical practice in the very near future. As Dr Shimada explains: "Given the rarity of this disease, a large-scale Phase 3 prospective trial is not feasible. In such a scenario, the results of our trial provide a safe and effective treatment option that can function as a historic control for future prospective trials."

The findings of this clinical trial are certainly quite promising. With only minor refinements to the proposed treatment protocol, patients with IVLBCL could have an edge in their fight against cancer.

Journal Reference:

Kazuyuki Shimada, Motoko Yamaguchi, Yoshiko Atsuta, Kosei Matsue, Keijiro Sato, Shigeru Kusumoto, Hirokazu Nagai, Jun Takizawa, Noriko Fukuhara, Koji Nagafuji, Kana Miyazaki, Eiichi Ohtsuka, Masataka Okamoto, Yasumasa Sugita, Toshiki Uchida, Satoshi Kayukawa, Atsushi Wake, Daisuke Ennishi, Yukio Kondo, Tohru Izumi, Yoshihiro Kin, Kunihiro Tsukasaki, Daigo Hashimoto, Masaaki Yuge, Atsumi Yanagisawa, Yachiyo Kuwatsuka, Satoko Shimada, Yasufumi Masaki, Nozomi Niitsu, Hitoshi Kiyoi, Ritsuro Suzuki, Takashi Tokunaga, Shigeo Nakamura, Tomohiro Kinoshita. Rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone combined with high-dose methotrexate plus intrathecal chemotherapy for newly diagnosed intravascular large B-cell lymphoma (PRIMEUR-IVL): a multicentre, single-arm, phase 2 trial. The Lancet Oncology, 2020; 21 (4): 593 DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30059-0

Cite This Page:

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lymphoma; diseases and conditions; personalized medicine; lung cancer; pharmacology; colon cancer; alzheimer's research; joint pain

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The fight goes on: Clinical trial shows promising new treatment for rare blood cancer

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Although lymphoma is one of the most common types of blood cancer, it has a rare subtype for which no effective treatment regimens are known. For the first time, researchers have conducted clinical trials for a new treatment protocol and report it to be quite promising.

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With everything going on, many have forgotten about the pandemic or just believe that it is over. I'm just reminding you all that it is not, and you should still social distance and WEAR A MASK!

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You wouldn't think that video games would be a source of meditation, but people have been proven wrong when we realized that we can incorporate methods of mediating into it. By allowing people an outlet of relaxing and having another way to go into another world, they are able to feel calm and worry less about problems. Before, people would look to breathing exercises and other therapeutic things, but nowadays, they can also rely on video games to take out some, if not all, the stress they have.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200409-how-gaming-became-a-form-of-meditation

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Keeffe Monks.                                                Did you know that good news is more likely to be shared through social media than bad reports? 

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Keeffe Monks.                                                Did you know that good news is more likely to be shared through social media than bad reports? 

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Is this opinion or a credible source with statistics to back it. Name? Unfortunate news tends to be more likely to sell faster as uprisings, riots, “earthquakes, floods, fires, — the more suffering and mayhem, the more coverage.” Psychology has found that good news can outspread more quickly than negatively-impacting accounts. On news programs the more unacceptable it is the more likely people will pay attention to it as those on the news don’t care how you are feeling as long as you watch/listen. On social media, people tended to post articles, videos, or pictures that are exciting, funny, or mildly interesting. This is due to you following friends and family that care how you are feeling with them wanting to brighten your day. Humankind learns through what they hear, read, taste, touch, or smell, some of that knowledge is provided by other persons, the majority preferring good news to bad.

Article: “Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks” by John Tierney.

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Findings

BAD NEWS SELLS. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news.

Those are the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers, based partly on data (ratings and circulation) and partly on the gut instincts of producers and editors. Wars, earthquakes, plagues, floods, fires, sick children, murdered spouses - the more suffering and mayhem, the more coverage.

But now that information is being spread and monitored in different ways, researchers are discovering new rules. By scanning people's brains and tracking their e-mails and online posts, neuroscientists and psychologists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.

"The 'if it bleeds' rule works for mass media that just want you to tune in," says Jonah Berger, a social psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "They want your eyeballs and don't care how you're feeling. But when you share a story with your friends and peers, you care a lot more how they react. You don't want them to think of you as a Debbie Downer."

Researchers analyzing word-of-mouth communication - e-mails, Web posts and reviews, face-to-face conversations - found that it tended to be more positive than negative, but that didn't necessarily mean people preferred positive news. Was positive news shared more often simply because people experienced more good things than bad things?

To test for that possibility, Dr. Berger looked at how people spread a particular set of news stories: thousands of articles on The New York Times's Web site. He and Katherine Milkman, a Penn colleague, analyzed the "most e-mailed" list for six months, controlling for factors like how much display an article received in different parts of the home page.

One of his first findings to be reported - which I still consider the most important social-science discovery of the past century - was that articles and columns in the Science section were much more likely to make the list than nonscience articles. He found that science aroused feelings of awe and made Times readers want to share this positive emotion with others.

Readers also tended to share articles that were exciting or funny, or that inspired negative emotions like anger or anxiety, but not articles that left them merely sad. They needed to be aroused one way or the other, and they preferred good news to bad. The more positive an article, the more likely it was to be shared, as Dr. Berger explains in his new book, " Contagious: Why Things Catch On."

"Stories about newcomers falling in love with New York City," he writes, were more likely to be e-mailed than "pieces that detailed things like the death of a popular zookeeper." Debbie Downer is apparently no match for Polly Positive, at least among Times readers.

In another attempt to understand what's buzzworthy, neuroscientists have scanned the brains of people while they hear about new ideas. Then, as these people told others about what they had heard, the scientists observed which ideas spread and which didn't.

You might predict that people would pass along the most memorable ideas - the ones that lighted up the brain regions associated with encoding and retrieving memories. But that's not what happened in the experiments, which were conducted by Emily Falk along with colleagues at the University of Michigan and researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Image

Credit... Viktor Koen

The best predictors of buzz were elsewhere, in the brain regions associated with social cognition - thoughts about other people. If those regions lighted up when something was heard, people were more likely to talk about the idea enthusiastically, and the idea would keep spreading.

"You'd expect people to be most enthusiastic and opinionated and successful in spreading ideas that they themselves are excited about," says Dr. Falk. "But our research suggests that's not the whole story. Thinking about what appeals to others may be even more important."

This social consciousness comes into play when people are sharing information about their favorite subject of all: themselves. This is intrinsically pleasurable and activates the brain regions associated with rewards like food, as demonstrated in a study by Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell of Harvard. In fact, the study showed, it's so pleasurable that people will pass up monetary rewards for the chance to talk about themselves.

Past research into everyday conversation showed that a third of it is devoted to oneself, but today that topic has become an obsession thanks to social media. Rutgers researchers classify 80 percent of Twitter users as "meformers" who tweet mainly about themselves.

The result is even more Polly Positivity, and not just because people are so adept at what psychologists call self-presentation: pointing out one's own wonderfulness. While people have always said nice things about themselves in traditional conversations and saved the nastier comments for others, today they're more diligent in spreading the word through written media like e-mail, Facebook and Twitter.

"In most oral conversations, we don't have time to think about exactly the right thing to say," Dr. Berger explains. "We fill conversational spaces by saying what's top of mind. But when you write something, you have the time to construct and refine what you say, so it involves more self-presentation."

Dr. Berger's experiments have shown that people say more positive things when they're talking to a bigger audience, rather than just one person - a result that helps explain the relentlessly perfect vacations that keep showing up on Facebook.

But does all this positivity actually make the audience feel any better? Not necessarily. A study in Utah showed that the longer people spend on Facebook, the more they think that life is unfair and that they're less happy than their "friends."

Similar results were observed in Germany by a team led by Hanna Krasnova, which recently reported a "rampant nature of envy" and other "invidious emotions" among heavy users of Facebook.

"The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on social networking sites is shown to undermine users' life satisfaction," the German researchers conclude, describing this phenomenon as "the self-promotion-envy spiral."

That spiral hardly sounds like a positive trend, but there's probably a quick way to reverse it: turn on the television. Mass-media producers and editors have always known a reliable way to assuage envy. Once they've scoured the globe to bring calamity and chaos into the living room, even the most miserably unhappy couch potato knows that there is someone, somewhere, doing worse.

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Findings BAD NEWS SELLS. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news. Those are the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers, based partly on data (ratings and circulation) and partly on the gut instincts of producers and editors.

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In New York City, 88% of police stops in 2018 involved Black and Latino people, while 10% involved white people. (Of those stops, 70% were completely innocent.) Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested. Once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted, and once convicted, they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. On average, Black men in the US receive sentences that are 19.1% longer than those of white men convicted for the same crimes.

https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-racial-discrimination

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To be quite frankly, right now there are a lot of things that aren't going great. Especially with this pandemic going on. But instead of looking at it in such a negative way. We should think about how we are experiencing something that not everyone said that they have experienced before. Another positive thing is that this is the last week of school and summer is next, and I'm pretty sure all of you guys love summer to come :)
-Anh Khoa OwO

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BLACK STUDENTS WHO HAVE just one black teacher in elementary school are more likely to graduate and more likely to enroll in college – and significantly more likely if they have two black teachers.That's the top-line finding of a working paper published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, in which researchers from Johns Hopkins and American University outline findings that show that black students who are exposed to one black teacher by third grade were 13 percent more likely to enroll in college. Those who had two black teachers were 32 percent more likely to enroll in college.

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BLACK STUDENTS WHO HAVE just one black teacher in elementary school are more likely to graduate and more likely to enroll in college – and significantly more likely if they have two black teachers.That's the top-line finding of a working paper published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, in which researchers from Johns Hopkins and American University outline findings that show that black students who are exposed to one black teacher by third grade were 13 percent more likely to enroll in college. Those who had two black teachers were 32 percent more likely to enroll in college.

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https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2018-11-23/black-teachers-improve-outcomes-for-black-students