2015: Still leaning…

Looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa will keep on leaning, stably, awhile longer. More than a dozen years after major foundation work, the imperfect edifice hasn't increased its lean. In fact, civil engineer John Burland of Imperial College London says his international team has succeeded in straightening the marble bell tower by 19 inches, reducing its angle of incline by about 10 percent, and slowing its once steady creep to nearly nothing. It wasn't easy. Built from 1173 to 1370 on silt and clay, the eight-story, 182- foot-tall tower resisted many efforts to stabilize it. What finally worked was a soil removal process called under-excavation and the addition of wells to regulate groundwater. The chief fear now? A big earthquake. "Absent that," says Burland," I'd be very surprised indeed if we see it lean significantly again." 

- Jeremy Berlin  (National Geographic magazine)

Modern Medicine

In the 19th century, sound scientific thinking and new medical technologies led to advances in every area of medicine, particularly the eradication of many of the world's worst diseases. Of fundamental importance was the discovery of a connection between filth and disease, and public acceptance of the theory led to improved sanitation and other public health measures. Independently established by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch in the 1870s, the germ theory of disease, which holds that bacteria and other microbes cause and spread infectious diseases, enabled scientists to isolate the causative agents of diphtheria, tuberculosis, and other scourges, leading to the development of vaccines. In 1879, Pasteur accidentally discovered that bacteria could be weakened, which prevents them from causing disease but still enables them to trigger immunity in infected individuals. Using weakened anthrax bacteria taken from the blood of diseased animals, Pasteur developed the first artificially produced vaccine in 1881. Vaccines for rabies (1885), cholera (1893), plague (1897), and typhoid (1897) soon followed.

Many new drugs were developed at this time, including acetylsalicylate, a derivative of the active ingredient in willow bark, a remedy used for combating fever for more than 2,000 years. Now known as "aspirin," it went on the market in 1899 after development by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer. Other drugs to appear in the physician's medicine cabinet included digitalis for heart ailments, amyl nitrate for angina, quinine for malaria, and sedatives such as chloral hydrate and paraldehyde.

Top 10 Most Populated Countries -- as of April 2015

Oldest man - 2015

Japanese Yasutaro Koide , 112, receives the Guinness World Records certificate as he is formally recognized as the world's oldest man, at a nursing home in Nagoya, central Japan. (Reuters)

(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science)

The largest oil field in the world

The Ghawar field, discovered in 1948 in Saudi Arabia, is the largest oil field in the world; it measures 174 by 19 miles and is located in the eastern area of Saudi Arabia near the Persian Gulf. It accounts for more than half of the cumulative oil production of Saudi Arabia. Ghawar is entirely owned and operated by Saudi Aramco, the state run Saudi oil company. Saudi Aramco's value has been estimated at anywhere between US$1.25 trillion and US$7 trillion, making it the world's most valuable company. Saudi Aramco has the world's largest proven crude oil reserves, at more than 260 billion barrels. Its 2013 crude oil production totaled 3.4 billion barrels from 100 oil fields. 

(Adapted from ‘The Handy Science Answer Book, compiled by the Science and Technology department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; and from Wikipedia encyclopedia)

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which most of the industries and businesses in a country are owned privately, rather than by the government. Capitalists are people who use their own wealth (or other people's money) to make more wealth. The extra money they make is their profit. Some capitalists manufacture things to sell at a profit. Some are store owners who sell goods at a profit. Others are financiers or investors who lend their money in the hope of getting more back.

No matter what their business, the aim of capitalists is to make a profit. But this does not mean that they can charge very high prices or sell bad goods. If they do, they will probably lose business to others who sell better goods or have lower prices. Competition forces capitalists to sell the best possible goods at the lowest possible price. Competition is an important feature of capitalism. The profits made by individual capitalists in free competition benefit the economy of a whole country. As capitalists make profits they can expand their businesses and put more people to work.

Early Capitalism

In the Middle Ages, Europe had a feudal agricultural system. Land belonged to the church and to the nobles and was worked mainly by serfs. Few people were free to own and control their own businesses except in the cities.

Why We Ask "Why?"

Sometimes as the fog of sleep lifts, the mind becomes aware of its traffic. Like commuters on an expressway, messages speed across the corpus callosum, a thick bridge of 200-250 million nerve fibers spanning the brain's two hemispheres. More will follow in a continuous stream of hubbub going in both directions. The brain is a duet of specialists which produces a single experience that's part enterprise, part communion, but all process, all motion.

The right brain is the strong silent one. It can see and act, but not report. Only the left brain talks, and it jabbers all day long, in a self-styled monologue and running commentary on the world, punctuated by conversations with other folk blessed (or cursed) with equally gabby left brains. What's more, the two sides specialize in different facets of mind, with the left excelling at speech and language and the right better at visual-motor skills. Heavy lifting is fine, but don't ask the right brain to solve knotty verbal problems. Which is not to say that the right side doesn't process language - it does, but weakly compared with the eloquent feats of the left. Damage the left hemisphere and language becomes a night- mare, especially for men (women generally recover better from left hemisphere injuries). But people vary greatly and the brain is resilient, so, fortunately, some victims with injured left brains do manage to regain speech. Mind you, that doesn't necessarily mean they can write. As it happens, writing isn't much related to speaking. A relatively recent invention, it's not part of our evolutionary heritage, but more like a sophisticated team sport with changing equipment and rules.

The Corinth Canal in Greece

The Corinth Canal in Greece is a deep-ditch ship canal, connecting the Ionian and Aegean seas. Built between 1882 and 1893, the canal is only 4 miles (6.3 kilometers) long. But for most ships, it saves a 202-mile (325-kilometer) voyage around southern Greece. The canal has no locks because its entire length is at sea level. 

(The Book of Knowledge encyclopedia)

1867: The formation of the Dominion of Canada

In 1864, the "Fathers of the Confederation" met in Quebec to discuss the union of Britain's North American colonies. Three years later the Dominion of Canada was founded. The Provinces that were part of Canada in 1867 were: Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. 

(Adapted from ‘The Book of Knowledge Encyclopedia and http://www.worldatlas.com)

The Peopling of the World

Scientists today estimate that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old, but that number has shifted more than a few times over the last century. The earliest signs of human activity did not appear until 2.7 million years ago, in the early Stone Age (or Lower Paleolithic era), which lasted until 200,000 years ago, although the species called Australopithecus dates back more than 4 million years ago. Africa is often referred to as "the cradle of humanity," and all the fossil discoveries were made there.

The earliest human ancestors--called hominids--walked upright on two legs and were scavengers. Homo erectus, another early hominid dating from 1.5 million years ago, evolved in Africa but migrated to Eurasia, the first human species to do so. These very early humans used fire (but probably could not make it), created stone weapons and tools, and were successful in occupying a wide range of habitats. Nevertheless, all non-African populations of Homo erectus eventually died out without leaving descendants.

Our own species, Homo sapiens, evolved from Homo erectus through various transitional stages in the savannah lands of eastern Africa about 150,000 years ago. Homo sapiens is a highly social and adaptable species, fully capable of using complex language. Modern humans moved out from the original species' homeland on the eastern plains of Africa to occupy much of eastern, northern, and southern parts of the continent. The special challenges of the rain forest environment slowed the movement of humans into the western regions of Africa.

Around 105,000 years ago, modern humans migrated northward through Egypt and out of Africa via the Sinai Peninsula to the Middle East. There they apparently met and coexisted with humans of a different and older species - Neanderthals (Homo neandertalensis)-- that had a simpler, less flexible culture and technology.

The art and beauty of the brain

Imagine the brain, that shiny mound of being, that mouse-gray parliament of cells, that dream factory, that petit tyrant inside a ball of bone, that huddle of neurons calling all the plays, that little everywhere, that fickle pleasuredrome, that wrinkled wardrobe of selves stuffed into the skull like too many clothes into a gym bag. The neocortex has ridges, valleys, and folds because the brain kept remodeling itself though space was tight. We take for granted the ridiculous-sounding yet undeniable fact that each person carries around atop the body a complete universe in which trillions of sensations, thoughts, and desires stream. They mix privately, silently, while agitating on many levels, some of which we're not aware of, thank heavens. If we needed to remember how to work the bellows of the lungs or the writhing python of digestion, we'd be swamped by formed and forming memories, and there'd be no time left for buying cute socks. My brain likes cute socks. But it also likes kisses. And asparagus. And watching boat-tailed grackles. And biking. And drinking Japanese green tea in a rose garden. There's the nub of it-the brain is personality's whereabouts. It's also a stern warden, and, at times, a self-tormentor. It's where catchy tunes snag, and cravings keep tugging. Shaped a little like a loaf of French country bread, our brain is a crowded chemistry lab, bustling with nonstop neural conversations. It's also an impersonal landscape where minute bolts of lightning prowl and strike. A hall of mirrors, it can contemplate existentialism, the delicate hooves of a goat, and its own birth and death in a matter of seconds. It's blunt as a skunk, and a real gossip hound, but also voluptuous, clever, playful, and forgiving. 

The Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI) - a measure of how many nutrients common foods deliver to your body for each calorie consumed

ANDI is an easy visualization of which foods are the most beneficial to eat and how foods compare to one another in nutrient density. The higher the scores (1,000 is the highest) and the greater percentage of those foods in your diet, the better your health will be.

ANDI 500 to 1000: Kale: 1,000; Collard greens: 1,000; Mustard greens: 1,000; Watercress: 1,000; Swiss chard: 895; Bok choy: 865; Spinach: 707; Arugula: 604; Romaine: 510

ANDI 100 to 500: Brussels sprouts: 490; Carrots: 458; Cabbage: 434; Broccoli: 340; Cauliflower: 315; Bell peppers: 265; Mushrooms: 238; Asparagus: 205; Tomato: 186; Strawberries: 182; Sweet potato: 181; Zucchini: 164; Artichoke: 145; Blueberries: 132; Iceberg lettuce: 127; Grapes: 119; Pomegranates: 119; Cantaloupe: 118; Onions: 109; Flax seeds: 103

ANDI 50 to 100: Orange: 98; Edamame: 98; Cucumber: 87; Tofu: 82; Sesame seeds: 74; Lentils: 72; Peaches: 65; Sunflower seeds: 64; Kidney beans: 64; Green peas: 64; Cherries: 55; Pineapple: 54; Apple: 53; Mango: 53; Peanut butter: 51

ANDI 25 to 50: Corn: 45; Pistachio nuts: 37; Shrimp: 36; Salmon: 34; Eggs: 34; Milk, 1%: 31; Walnuts: 30; Bananas: 30; Whole-wheat bread: 30; Almonds: 28; Avocado: 28; Brown rice: 28; White potato: 28; Low-fat plain yogurt: 28; Cashews: 27; Oatmeal: 26

ANDI 1 to 25: Chicken breast: 24; Ground beef, 85% lean: 21; Feta cheese: 20; White bread: 17; White bread (estimated without fortification): 9; White pasta: 16; White pasta (estimated without fortification): 11; French fries: 12; Cheddar cheese: 11; Apple juice: 11; Olive oil: 10; Vanilla ice cream: 9; Corn chips: 7; Cola: 1 

(Adapted from ‘Eat to Live Cookbook’, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, M.D.)

Year: 1848 – Some happenings in Europe and America

The year 1848 was a year of revolution in Europe. Uprisings occurred in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Great Britain. Ordinary people everywhere were demanding change. Farmers, merchants, and craftsmen were no longer content to see their rulers live in splendid comfort while their own families lived difficult, impoverished lives. They wanted affordable food, the ability under the law to own land, and they wanted a society that treated them justly. In certain places people who spoke the same language wanted their own independent nation. Many people demanded a voice in electing the leaders who governed them. Some read a new pamphlet by Karl Marx titled The Communist Manifesto. Marx did not put his trust in religion to change society, but in revolution. If people wanted justice, he wrote, the proletariat -- the working class -- must revolt against the rulers and the wealthy.

Those in power, long accustomed to doing what they pleased, were slow to respond. When the French National Assembly wrangled in disagreement over reforms, angry citizens broke into its chambers and overran the Assembly. King Louis-Philippe was forced to flee the country. In the ongoing struggle for reform, the French fought bloody street battles. They were not alone.

Library of Congress

It is the largest and most comprehensive library in the world, located in Washington, D.C. The Library of Congress functions as the national library of the United States, although it has never been officially recognized as such through legislation. The library’s primary purpose is to serve the Congress of the United States, but its collections, services, and reading rooms are freely available for use by all persons over high school age. The Library of Congress also serves as the official copyright agency of the United States.

Established by an act of Congress in 1800, the library was first located in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Today the Library of Congress occupies three large buildings in the Capitol Hill area of the city, near the Capitol building and the United States Supreme Court building. Approximately 1 million people visit the library each year.

The Library of Congress also works closely with specialized libraries in the executive branch of government that have been designated by Congress as national libraries. These include the National Library of Medicine, the National Agricultural Library, and the National Library of Education.

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

In recent years a number of theorists have proposed the existence of emotional intelligence that is complementary to the type of intelligence measured by IQ tests.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.

American psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer, introduced the concept in 1990. Emotionally intelligent people can use their emotions to guide thoughts and behavior and can accurately read others’ emotions. Daniel Goleman, an American author and journalist, popularized the concept in his book Emotional Intelligence (1995). He expanded the concept to include general social competence.

There are three models of EI. The ability model focuses on the individual's ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment. The trait model encompasses behavioral dispositions and self perceived abilities and is measured through self report. The final model, the mixed model is a combination of both ability and trait EI. It defines EI as an array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance.

Studies have shown that people with high EI have greater mental health, exemplary job performance, and more potent leadership skills. Markers of EI and methods of developing it have become more widely coveted in the past few decades. In addition, studies have begun to provide evidence to help characterize the neural mechanisms of emotional intelligence.

Criticisms have centered on whether EI is a real intelligence and whether it has incremental validity over IQ and the Big Five personality traits. 

(Adapted from Encarta and Wikipedia Encyclopedias)

Both are related to wolves

Chihuahua and Great Dane: both are wolves under the skin, but who would guess it from their appearance, after a few centuries of artificial selection? 

(‘The Greatest Show on Earth’, by Richard Dawkins)

The Soy Debate

Asian populations have a lower incidence of hormone-related diseases, such as breast cancer, uterine cancer, and prostate cancer, than Westerners do. It has been suggested that soy consumption is one reason for this difference in disease incidence. Women who were born in Asia but migrated to the United States likewise have a lower risk of breast cancer, possibly due to their early exposure to soy. But obviously soy is only one of many factors that influence cancer risk, and now we know that it is many contributing factors that make a diet cancer-protective.

It is now clear that soy intake during adolescence, a time when breast tissue is most sensitive to environmental stimuli and carcinogenesis, may reduce the risk of breast cancer later in life. Recent articles in Cancer Epidemiology and The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that soy consumption during childhood and teenage years reduced the risk of breast cancer in adulthood by 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

Soybeans are rich in isoflavones, a type of phytoestrogen. Phytoestrogens are plant substances that are chemically similar to estrogen and since higher estrogen levels promote breast cancer, some people predicted that soy would too. Now we know that the phytoestrogens in soy actually block the effects of the body's estrogen. Despite myths propagated on the Internet, the most recent and reliable clinical studies support a strong protective effect of minimally processed soy foods against breast cancer.

Global Undernourishment

Global undernourishment shouldn't exist. Each day the world's farmers produce the equivalent of 2,868 calories per person on the planet -- enough to surpass the World Food Programme's recommended intake of 2,100 daily calories and enough to support a population inching toward nine billion. The world as a whole does not have a food deficit, but individual countries do.

Why do 805 million people still have too little to eat? Access is the main problem. Incomes and commodity prices establish where food goes. The quality of roads and airports determines how easily it gets there. Even measuring undernourishment is a challenge. In countries with the highest historical proportions of undernourishment, it can be hard to get food in and data out.

Things are slowly getting better. Since the early 1990s world hunger has dropped by 40 percent -- that means 209 million fewer undernourished people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Future progress may prove difficult. "It is critical to first improve overall food production and availability in places like sub-Saharan Africa," says FAO economist Josef Schmidhuber. "Then one can focus on access." 

(Daniel Stone, National Geographic Magazine, December 2014)

Sources of Calcium in our diet...

Calcium in 100 calories of:
                                              mg

• bok choy                         775
• turnip greens                   685
• collard greens                  539
• tofu                                 287
• kale                                 257
• romaine lettuce               194
• milk                                189
• sesame seeds, unhulled   170
• broccoli                           114
• cucumber                        107
• carrots                             81
• cauliflower                       70
• soybeans                         59
• flaxseeds                         48
• fish                                  33
• eggs                                32
• pork chop                         4
• T-bone steak                    3

(‘Eat to Live’, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, M.D.)

1920s & 1930s: New Guinea Highlanders meet Europeans for the first time

The Europeans began expanding over the globe from AD 1492 onwards and "discovered people long before there were any airplane overflights to alert them to an outside world. The last large-scale first contacts in world history will prove to be those that took place in the New Guinea Highlands, where from the 1930s to the 1950s patrols by Australian and Dutch government and army reconnaissance expeditions, miners on prospecting trips, and biological expeditions “discovered" a million Highlanders of whose existence the outside world hadn't known and vice versa - even though Europeans had by then been visiting and settling the coasts of New Guinea for 400 years. 

The Gravitational Radius, also known as Schwarzschild Radius

Defined by German astronomer, Karl Schwarzschild the gravitational radius is the distance that defines the size at which a spherical astronomical object such as a star becomes a black hole. A black hole is an object so dense that not even light can escape the pull of its gravitational force. If an object collapses to within its Schwarzschild radius, it becomes a black hole. Karl Schwarzschild derived the first model of a black hole in 1916.

Nothing, not even a particle moving at the speed of light, can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole. Therefore, the Schwarzschild radius is the largest radius that a body with a specific mass can have and still keep light from escaping. The formula for the Schwarzschild radius of a body is R_s = GM/c², where R_s is the Schwarzschild radius of the body, G is a constant known as the universal constant of gravitation, M is the mass of the object, and c is the speed of light.

Paper – its historical development

Paper has been traced to China in about AD 105. It reached Central Asia by 751 and Baghdad by 793, and by the 14th century there were paper mills in several parts of Europe. The invention of the printing press in about 1450 greatly increased the demand for paper, and at the beginning of the 19th century wood and other vegetable pulps began to replace rags as the principal source of fiber for papermaking.

The word paper is derived from the name of the reedy plant papyrus, which grows abundantly along the Nile River in Egypt. In ancient times, the fibrous layers within the stem of this plant were removed, placed side by side, and crossed at right angles with another set of layers similarly arranged. The sheet so formed was dampened and pressed. Upon drying, the gluelike sap of the plant, acting as an adhesive, cemented the layers together. Complete defibring, an indispensable element in modern papermaking, did not occur in the preparation of papyrus sheets. Papyrus was the most widely used writing material in ancient times, and many papyrus records still survive.

Bruno Giardano (1548-1600) – proposed an infinite universe

Italian philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, and occultist whose theories anticipated modern science. The most notable of these were his theories of the infinite universe and the multiplicity of worlds, in which he rejected the traditional geocentric (or Earth-centred) astronomy and intuitively went beyond the Copernican heliocentric (Sun-centred) theory, which still maintained a finite universe with a sphere of fixed stars. Bruno is, perhaps, chiefly remembered for the tragic death [his tongue in a gag, and burned alive] he suffered at the stake because of the tenacity with which he maintained his unorthodox ideas at a time when both the Roman Catholic and the Reformed churches were reaffirming rigid Aristotelian and Scholastic principles in their struggle for the evangelization of Europe….

Bruno's theories influenced 17th-century scientific and philosophical thought and, since the 18th century, have been absorbed by many modern philosophers. As a symbol of the freedom of thought, Bruno inspired the European liberal movements of the 19th century, particularly the Italian Risorgimento (the movement for national political unity). Because of the variety of his interests, modern scholars are divided as to the chief significance of his work. Bruno's cosmological vision certainly anticipates some fundamental aspects of the modern conception of the universe; his ethical ideas, in contrast with religious ascetical ethics, appeal to modern humanistic activism; and his ideal of religious and philosophical tolerance has influenced liberal thinkers. On the other hand, his emphasis on the magical and the occult has been the source of criticism as has his impetuous personality. Bruno stands, however, as one of the important figures in the history of Western thought, a precursor of modern civilization. 

(Britannica Encyclopedia)

Salt and blood pressure

Let's now pause for a quick crash course on blood pressure and hypertension, to help you understand what those numbers mean when your doctor inflates a rubber cuff about your arm, listens, deflates the cuff, and finally pronounces, "Your blood pressure is 120 over 80." Blood pressure is expressed in units of millimeters of mercury: the height to which your blood pressure would force up a column of mercury in case, God forbid, your artery were suddenly connected to a vertical mercury column.

Naturally, your blood pressure changes throughout each heart stroke cycle: it rises as the heart squeezes, and it falls as the heart relaxes. Hence your physician measures a first number and then a second number (e.g., 120 and 80 millimeters of mercury), referring respectively to the peak pressure at each heartbeat (called systolic pressure) and to the minimum pressure between beats (termed diastolic pressure). Blood pressure varies somewhat with your position, activity, and anxiety level, so the measurement is usually made while you are resting flat on your back and supposedly calm. Under those conditions, 120 over 80 is an average reading for Americans. There is no magic cut-off between normal blood pressure and high blood pressure. Instead, the higher your blood pressure, the more likely you are to die of a heart attack, a stroke, kidney failure, or a ruptured aorta. Usually, a pressure reading higher than 140 over 90 is arbitrarily defined as constituting hypertension, but some people with lower readings will die of a stroke at age 50, while others with higher readings will die of a car accident in otherwise good health at age 90.

Environmentalism in the United States

The first federal environmental act was the establishment of Yellowstone National Park in March 1872 in the territories of Montana and Wyoming. Instead of promoting the land for development, Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant declared that it should be "as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." As the first such preserve in the world, Yellowstone inaugurated an international national park movement that currently includes some 1,200 parks or preserves in 100 countries, including 391 in the United States.

The Scottish naturalist John Muir became an early advocate for preservation after his travels and scientific work convinced him that some natural areas need protection from human exploitation. Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892 to that end and urged President Theodore Roosevelt to join the cause. Roosevelt, himself known as an ardent outdoorsman, eventually dedicated more than 150 million acres to national parks and forests, and founded the US. Forest Service, which manages forests for water and timber resources while protecting them for wildlife and recreation. The first chief of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, promoted a "wise use" strategy of wilderness management that proposed, in contrast to Muir, that nature could be safely commercialized.