Researchers at Texas A&M University have discovered that lower cholesterol levels can actually reduce muscle gain with exercising. Lead investigator Steven Riechman, assistant professor of health and kinesiology, and Simon Sheather, head of the Department of Statistics, along with colleagues from The Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, have recently had their findings published in the Journal of Gerontology.
H/T Vanderleun
People across South Asia are struggling to cope with a severe shortage of affordable wheat and rice.
There have been queues outside Pakistani shops in towns around the country, and flour prices have shot up.
Wheat flour is a staple foodstuff in Pakistan, where rotis or unleavened bread are eaten with almost every meal.
Last week Afghanistan appealed for foreign help to combat a wheat shortage while Bangladesh recently warned it faced a crisis over rice supplies.
Global wheat prices are at record highs. Problems have been compounded by crop failures in the northern hemisphere and an increase in demand from developing countries.
A quote on learning, and teaching:
“The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.”
–Jacques Barzun “Reasons to De-Test the Schools,” New York Times (1988-10-11), later published in Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning (1991)
One can take that observation […]
From The Speed Trap Exchange…..
You see them everyday, Speed Traps. The police may be out in the open, hiding behind bridge abutments, or passing overhead in an airplane. As is obvious from the traffic flow, the speed limit is grossly under-posted and universally ignored.
Traffic is moving safely and expeditiously, but not legally according to the posted speed limit. As fast as the pen can be applied to paper, driver after driver is issued a speeding ticket that results in exorbitant fines, points on their driver’s licenses and insurance surcharges.
Fortunately, you know about the speed traps on your regularly traveled routes, but what about those times you are on unfamiliar streets and highways? If only there was a way you could share your knowledge of speed traps, in exchange for the speed trap knowledge of others.
The site has lots of interesting articles relating to how speed limits are set and the latest scientific research as to what safe speeds are. And of course they have an exchange where people post information relating to speed traps all over the country. I was surprised to see that there where some speed traps that I recognized on the the list.
Whilst discussing the finer points of a recent surgical proceedure, we got to wondering why I.V.s are placed in top of the arm (forearm or back of hand). I hypothised that perhaps arteries ran along the bottom of the arm and veins ran along the top of the arm (as I had barely enough knowledge to grasp that arteries carry blood away from the heart and veins carry blood back to the heart, and it would seem to make sense they would want an in-bound lane, so to speak). So I did a very brief search on “where to insert an I.V.”, and found a step by step tutorial for it. My favorite bit?
Select a good insertion site. A 20g in the back of the hand can be a pain in the anus for the patient, especially if it is in his dominant hand. It’s fiddly and frequently occludes with dorsiflexion. There are usually plenty of veins on the forearm…..well at least have a look. And don’t forget the basilic veins hiding under the forearm.
Make sure you shave the area with a surgical shaver if he/she is a hairy fellow. The tapes will adhere better and remove easier. Don’t use a disposable razor that might damage skin integrity. Confucius say; “pulling out arm hairs of big man sure way to hear sound of one hand slapping.”
Strange as it may seem, the dead have quit rotting in German cemeteries — they are turning into wax-like corpses. Will the use of burial chambers solve the problem? Or is extensive soil reconditioning the only viable alternative?
Cemeteries are supposed to be the quietest places on earth. But that notion may soon have to be laid to rest: Exhumation experts are currently conducting large-scale digging operations in German graveyards, belying the very concept of eternal peace.
Corpses are no longer decaying in many German cemeteries. Instead, the deceased become waxen, an uncanny process that has become so rampant it can no longer be ignored.
When you are working there are all kinds of hazards. Some of them are obvious. You don’t want to fall off a roof. You don’t want to get shocked by electricity. You don’t want to shoot a nail into your foot.
But some of the hazards posed by a hard day’s work are not so obvious. A good example of these not so obvious hazards would be abrasion wounds that your pants can give you. Obviously, such wounds are not a threat to your life. But they can be surprisingly painful and they take forever to heal.
This subject is on my mind because I gave myself one of these wounds a few weeks back and it still is not done healing. Like most injuries, I got it because I was stupid and was not thinking about what I was doing.
It was a long day’s work. I did not even stop for lunch (I subsisted on candy bars and orange juice). I was working in either freezing rain or snow depending on the time of day. But the only concession I made to the weather was a hat and a jacket. This meant that my jeans got soaked.
I did not mind because I was working so hard that I stayed plenty warm. I even managed to work up a sweat in spite of being soaking wet. But as the day went on it became increasing painful to walk, get in a vehicle, or any other action that caused my pants to rub against my inner thigh. Naturally, I ignored this.
As the day turned to night the wind began to pick up. Seeing as I was soaking wet from sweat and the freezing rain this was not a good thing. Eventually my teeth began to chatter and I was faced with the prospect of stopping what I was doing to change into my spare set of clothes or just going home.
I had originally planned on working longer but I knew that once I changed into a spare set of clothes I would no longer feel like working. Sometimes stopping can be deadly to one’s morale. Since I had already worked 16 hours I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and I went home.
Once I got out of the “I am working, don’t bother me” mode, the pain in my leg became more noticeable. When I finally got out of my wet pants and I inspected the damage I was kind of shocked. I figured that rubbed the top layer of skin off or something. I never expected to see the raw flesh with clear liquid oozing from it and the deep black (because it was dried blood) scab that had formed over the widest part of the wound.
The clear oozing liquid was trying to form a scab. Over the coming days and weeks that scab would fall off multiple times and be replaced by a new one. This was painful because every time the scab fell off it would be raw exposed flesh that was sensitive to the slightest bump. Even when the scab was on it was not all peaches and cream because the scab was not as stretchable as healthy skin.
Anything beyond tightly controlled range of movement would stress the scab causing it break up. This is one of the reasons that it kept falling off.
Part of the reason that this wound was as painful as it was is related to fact that the damage is more than skin deep. The first time the deep black scab fell off I was impressed by how deep of a groove my pants had cut into my flesh. Given that it went as deep as it did, I am surprised that bleeding was not more profuse than it was.
I have heard of other people who have had problems similar to this. But most of the time they were wearing coveralls or jeans that were not really suited to work. I thought that because I was wearing a good quality pair of jeans from Duluth Trading Co. that I would be safe. Apparently not.
I think the main problem was that water made my pants heavier. That, combined with the weight of the gear on my belt dragged my pants lower and caused all the damage. Supporting this theory is the fact that it was my left leg that got hit really hard and most of my gear was on my right side. This suggests to me that my pants cocked slightly and caused the abrasion effect.
On the other hand, this happened to my brother once as well. Only he was not carrying the gear that I had on my belt. So maybe I am unfairly blaming my tools. On the other hand, both of us got our injuries while working with wet pants so maybe the weight idea is not completely off.
The obvious moral of this story is to pay attention to your body and don’t always ignore the pain. Plus, always have a dry set of clothes handy. (I did, but I chose not to take advantage of them.)
The week before Christmas I was told by our multi-site IT manager that we had to upgrade our shipping software. This piece of software has no data validation and an inadequate interface that requires us to adapt fields for different uses on different shipments. Because the software does nothing to alert users to errors and Click Here to continue reading.
Bruce Sarafian posted a video that includes old footage of him juggling a 7 and an 8 ball shower. This is the only video I’ve ever seen of 8 ball shower. Everyone else seems to cap out at 7. There are good reasons why Bruce’s world records have stood for years. Very few people take Click Here to continue reading.
Grigoriy Lovigin and Alexandr Koblikov are going to compete in WJF 5. They have some pretty amazing tricks that I’ve never seen before, like juggling 10 balls using a duplex cascade pattern. Includes the solidest 5 ball reverse shoulder throws I’ve ever seen.