Learn about some Halloween facts!
What we know as Halloween today, began hundreds of years ago as a Celtic celebration.
The Celts lived in the lands we now know as England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. They believed that the Gods told the sun to disappear from the earth in the fall, thus killing their crops and causing cold weather. To calm the Gods, the Celts built bonfires and dressed up in animal costumes.
Trick-or-treating is an Irish tradition, based on a custom where the wealthy land-owners would give food to the poor people of the village on Halloween night. They believed that the ghosts would look favorably on them for doing so and therefore spare them from mischief.
This custom of Trick or Treating was brought to North America in the 1800s.
Halloween has its origins in several autumn festivals and is actually a collection of various customs and celebrations gathered through the ages.
Some ancient autumn festivals include:
The festival of Samhain, which occurred at the end of each growing season. It was the festival of the dead growing months and was celebrated with fruit, vegetables, dancing and games throughout France, Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. It was believed that on the night of the festival, deceased relatives could walk the earth.
The feast of Taman – The Celtic New Year Celebration – followed Samhain. Back then the new year began on November 1st and the Celts believed that if they celebrated, the next growing season would be bountiful.
The feast of Pomona was a Roman harvest celebration for Pomona, the goddess of orchards.
The ancient Druids had a three-day celebration at the beginning of November. They believed that on the last night of October spirits of the dead roamed abroad, and so they would light bonfires to drive them away. The Celts used to carve lanterns from turnips and carried them through the villages.
In the 17th and 18th Centuries, people in weird costumes and masks would go from house to house, sing and dancing to keep evil at bay. These people were known as “guisers”
The pumpkin is a versatile fruit commonly grown in North America, Great Britain, and Continental Europe for both human food and livestock feed.
There is a poisonous mushroom called a Jack-o’-lantern. These mushroom are a bright orange-yellow in color and on rainy nights they appears to glow in the dark
Halloween kisses (chewy toffee candies) are made of the same ingredients found in watercolor paint. The paint is made of gum arabic and pigment (or color) and Halloween kisses are made of gum arabic and sugar.
Some of the facts which appear here can be found in: Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia © 1994, 1995 Compton’s NewMedia, Inc. Strange Stories Amazing Facts ©1976 The Readers’s Digest Association Inc.


Difference between revisions of "Luanda"
Revision as of 14:36, 30 March 2013
Luanda is the capital of Angola. It is on the Angola's Atlantic coast. Its current renaissance is a truly inspiring success story. In recent history, the center of decades of conflict, the start of the 21st century has seen a massive boom in construction in Luanda, where peace and stability have attracted numerous foreign companies to invest in offices in the city. The government of Angola, getting rich off revenue from oil, diamond, and other natural resources, is also investing heavily in and around Luanda, including large social housing highrises to replace slums and existing dilapidated (and often bullet-ridden) highrises; extensive repaving; the construction of several six-lane highways leading out of the city; the reconstruction of railroad lines leading out of the city; and a large new airport on the south side set which opened in 2011 two years ago.
Luanda was founded in 1575 under the name São Paulo de Loanda by a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Two forts were constructed in the early 17th century and the city became Portuguese Angola's administrative center in 1627. From the late 16th century until 1836, Luanda was port where nearly all slaves bound for Brazil left. Aside from a brief period of Dutch rule (1640-48), this time period was relatively uneventful, with Luanda growing much like many other colonial cities, albeit with a strong Brazilian influence as a result of the extensive shipping trade between these Portuguese colonies. With the independence of Brazil in 1822 and the end of slavery in 1836 left Luanda's future looking bleak, but the opening of the city's port to foreign ships in 1844 led the a great economic boom. By 1850, the city was arguably the most developed and one of the greatest cities in the Portuguese empire outside Portugal itself and fueled by trade in palm and peanut oil, wax, copal, timber, ivory, cotton, coffee, and cocoa. Post-emancipation (resisted by the Portuguese but enforced by the British) forced labour began. Numerous imported crops grew well in the surrounding area to support residents, such as maize, tobacco, and cassava. In 1889, an aqueduct opened, supplying fresh water and removing the only inhibitor to growth in the city. The city blossomed even during the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-74), which did not affect the city, and this modern city was even labeled the "Paris of Africa" in 1972.
After so much success, the city took a turn for the worse in the mid-1970s. While largely untouched during the Carnation Revolution (Angolan independence), the start of the Angolan Civil War in 1975 scared almost all Angola's population of Portuguese descent out of the country as refugees (including the majority of Luanda's population). This led to an immediate crisis as Angola's African population knew little about how to run or maintain the city. They were helped a little by skilled Cuban soldiers who were able to help the MPLA government maintain some of the city's basic services, but hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled fighting in the countryside created slums stretching for miles on all sides of the city. The city saw some sporadic fighting during the Civil War which left bullet holes in many highrises and government building. When peace was reached in 2002, the government began planning to rebuild using oil revenues. Today Luanda's skyline is dotted with cranes, erecting numerous social housing highrises to replace slums and existing, but grossly dilapidated, 40-plus year old highrises as well as offices for numerous foreign companies operating in Angola. Just South of Luanda in an area aptly called Luanda Sul, Western-standard housing, many compound style, is being built for the growing expat community. Major improvements are being made to roads, highways, and the rail system in and around the city but there is yet an overwhelming amount of work to be done. And while certainly still home to a large impoverished population (59%), free housing and the creation of thousands of new jobs each year means that Luanda may in years to come have a bright future ahead.
The climate is largely influenced by the offshore Benguela current. The current gives the city a surprisingly low humidity despite its low latitude, which makes the warmer months considerably more bearable than similar cities in Western/Central Africa. The city receives an average of 323mm (12.7in) of rain a year, mostly in March and April and no rain from June through October. However, this is quite variable depending on the strength of the current and the coefficient of variation is 40% (there can be a sixfold difference between rain received in the driest of years and wettest of years). The temperatures are fairly stable year-round, with the coldest months being July (24 max/19 min)and August and the warmest months being January (31 max/25 min) to April.
Luanda is divided into nine (soon ten) municipalities: Ingombota, Maianga, Sambizanga (centre), Samba, Rangel, Cazenga, (middle ring), Cacuaco, Viana and Kilamba Kiaxi, as well as the newly created municipality of Belas (periphery).
In the center (Ingombotas and Maianga) the oldest colonial town is divided in Baixa de Luanda (lower Luanda, from the port to the fortress), Cidade Alta (upper city, where the presidential palace is), and Ilha do Cabo (a peninsula surrounding the bay, with beaches and expensive night-clubs, bars and restaurants). Behind and above the historic center, central bairros include Maianga and Alvalade (residential) and Miramar (embassies), as well as Kinaxixe and Maculusso, which are characterized by Portuguese apartment blocks. Further outside the center, the neighborhoods become more informal (self-construction), dotted with 1970s Cuban apartment blocks and new developments. In the south, luxury gated communities (condominiums) predominate.
Despite the city's very low tourist number, it has a surprisingly large number of international connections, which largely service Angolans living abroad (such as Brazil) and the growing number of firms servicing the oil and diamond industries as well as reconstruction (done largely by Chinese workers and Brazilian firms). A couple of carriers still operate routes based on Cold War alliances (to Havana & Moscow).
The city is the hub of national carrier TAAG Angola Airlines, one of just three profitable airlines in Sub-Saharan Africa, which offers flights to 15 Angolan cities. They offer flights to many cities in West-Central/Southern Africa including daily flights to Johannesburg as well as Douala, Cameroon; Sal, Cape Verde; Bangui, CAR; Kinshasa, DRC; Brazzaville & Pointe Noire in the Congo; Windhoek, Namibia; Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe; Lusaka, Zambia; Harare, Zimbabwe. Their long-haul offerings include: Dubai, Beijing (via Dubai), Lisbon, Paris, and trans-Atlantic flights to Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Salvador de Bahia in Brazil.
Aside from TAAG, two Angolan airlines (Air Gemini & SonAir) serve about a dozen airports each around the country. International service includes flights to/from: Frankfurt (Lufthansa), London-Heathrow (BA), Paris-de Gaulle (Air France), Windhoek (Air Namibia), Brussels (Brussels Airlines), Havana (Cubana, seasonal), Moscow (Aeroflot), Dubai (Emirates, begins 25 Oct. 09), Beijing (Hainan, via Dubai), Addis Ababa (Ethiopian), Lisbon (TAP Portugal).
Delta Air Lines was to commence weekly flights from Atlanta (via Sal) in June 2009, but delayed its large African expansion until 2010 due to the financial crisis. TAAG was removed from the EU blacklist in July 2009 and (as of Aug 09) is expected to introduce more flights to Europe in the near future (specifically London-Gatwick). The airline had sought to begin a service to Houston, USA when it received new Boeing 777-200ERs in 2006, but was rejected for its poor maintenance/safety record.
When leaving the country do not take any Kwanza to the airport as it is illegal to try to take Kwanza out of the country; you may be stopped by the fiscal police and receive a heavy fine (all your Kwanza taken and most of your other money) or imprisoned.
There are a few short passenger lines, but they are not very safe. Angola once had the most extensive rail network in Africa while under colonial rule. All but a couple short link fell into grave disrepair during the war for independence and civil war. It is currently undergoing extensive reconstruction and modernization by Chinese firms and should be restored to its former glory in the early 2010s.
The main road for tourists will be the coastal highway leading north to the DRC and South to Namibia. It is very scenic and in reasonably good repair. Roads are one of the top priorities in reconstruction efforts, including a handful of six-lane highways leading out of the city. Expect a mix of okay pavement on old highways and a smooth ride on new roads.
The National Bus Service has just re-opened but routes are not organized yet. There are some local services in Luanda and in between cities.
As of 2007, there was a ferry operating from Luanda to the Cabinda exclave, useful to avoid a transit of the DRC. It takes 14 hours and costs $180 (including a bike), so you may be better off flying.
The government is currently investing in an expansive a bus system and attract Luandans to use it.
A popular means for locals to get around the city is by mini bus taxis (Candongueiros), easily identifiable by their pale blue and white. Although they are considered dangerous by most expats, locals use them on a daily basis. During the daytime, until around 8PM, they are a safe, convenient, and usually very fast means of transport in the inner-city. Fares are 100 Kwanzas per trip, except in rain or heavy traffic, in which case the fares are doubled.
Consider to use the Macon Taxi a private taxi company (around 20 / 30 USD trip).
Eco Tur also do 4x4 / minibus hire and airport transfers with bilingual drivers (email@example.com) +244 912 501 387
B Home  will provide airport pick ups and are available for hire (drivers) +244 222 264 423 B Home has offices in Luanda, Angola and in Houston, Texas. +1-281-444-5988 (Houston Office).
A new company Afri-taxi started operations at the beginning of January 2010, in time for the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament. The company will have 150 vehicles in Luanda and a rank at the airport.
The roads in Luanda are generally of okay standard, as is the case on the main routes between cities, but elsewhere road quality greatly decreases. Don't be surprised if you encounter unexpected problems during the rainy season. In Luanda main streets are paved, but streets in the slums are in disrepair, and most roads have no lines or signals. As mentioned before, there are improvements being made throughout the city. Congestion is a major problem with lack of public transport and the plethora of minibus taxis.
Drive down the beautiful bay.
Additionally, you MUST try the Benfica market, which sells everything from perfume to ivory to animal skins and tourist guidebooks. Also take the boat out to Mussulo, the best beach in town.
Jobs are mainly available in the oil sector, but also in the increasing number of international Angola based companies which are investing in Angola now that peace and stability are offering great development prospects for the country. It started giving life to every body in the country.
Local crafts, they are at extraordinary low prices, check out the Benfica HandCrafts Market just south of Luanda.
The majority of restaurants are on The Marginal or on Ilha De Luanda. Be careful; when eating out, do not to drink the tap water.
The Belas Shopping mall has a food court with a variety of options from local foods to pizza and burgers.
Luanda city is largely influenced by Portuguese culture, - Portuguese beer is widely consumed, although Heineken and Carlsberg make an appearance. Super Bock, Sagres, and Cristal (most consumed) are the most consumed beers from Portugal. Besides, you may find a broad range of local beers such as Nocal, Cuca (the most consumed - especially the excellent draught version, or "fino" in Portuguese)and Eka. Surrounding countries also try to find lucrative market, so don't be surprise when in other beer brands are served in local restaurants. Try Portugalia (Portuguese Beer House) at the beginning of the Ilha, or either of the two boat clubs just on the Ilha for a nice sundowner (Clube Nautico and Clube Naval).
Don't forget the excellent Portuguese wines also widely available.
As far as safety is concerned, Luanda is average among African cities. Don't venture into the slums...period. Don't go out at night alone. Keep your car doors locked at all times. Violent crime has been on the rise, but it is mostly in the slums. The colonial part of the city is safe from violent crime; but like most African cities, pickpocketing or muggings are a fact of life. You will greatly reduce your chances of such if you stay low key: no fancy clothes or car, use a money belt, etc. The city is an expensive place to live and Angolans have realized that most expats in the city are high-salaried employees from large corporations, so you should especially avoid business attire.
Do not give beggars money; if you do, you will soon have a lot of them surrounding you.
This is Central Africa...many police in Luanda are very corrupt. Check for their identity number (should be located on an arm band near the shoulder) and you may present charges against any abuse. As a visitor, it's important to carry an authorised photocopy of your passport at all times. Otherwise, you WILL get a on the spot fine or worse, courtesy of the police. Do not carry your original; the police may ask for it and keep it until you pay a "fine".
Consulates and Embassies
Go a bit south of Luanda and you will find the outstanding Parque Nacional Da Kissama (also spelled Quiçama in Portuguese), home to elephants, antelope, exotic birdlife, ostriches, zebras, wildebeest, and giraffes, which are still thriving in great numbers but because tourism is just beginning to start in Angola, it still has a bit of a wild side to it. It is also very beautiful with spectacular views.
Eco Tur run trips there in specialised 4x4 game viewing vehicles, be in the wild and beautiful bush and on the magnificent Kwanza River within 3 hours ! www.eco-tur.com +244 912 501387 / +244 923 601601 / +244 923 602420
Kissama Game Park, a beautiful and enormous national game park just 2 hours south of Luanda recently restocked. Contact Eco Tur who run safaris there in specialist game viewing vehicles www.eco-tur.com / +244 912 501387 / +244 923 601601 / +244 923 602420


Role of Climate Change Awareness and Pro-Environmental Behaviour in Subjective Wellbeing
This study examined the contributions of climate change awareness and pro-environmental behaviour in subjective wellbeing (SWB) of university students. Respondents were 435 students (female =198, male =237), selected from University of Nigeria (Nsukka and Enugu campuses). The average respondent’s age was 21.48 years (SD = 3.54) ranging from 16 to 38 years. They completed the Multidimensional Climate Change Awareness Questionnaire, Pro-ecological Behaviour Scale and the Brief Inventory of Thriving. Climate change awareness is composed of domains: mitigation, consequences, general knowledge and causes. Hierarchical multiple regression using the step-wise method was used in analyzing the data. It was found that only the mitigation domain of climate change awareness significantly and positively predicted SWB (â = .15, t = 2.68, p< .01). Other domains showed positive correlations with SWB but did not significantly predict it. Pro-environmental behaviour positively predicted SWB (â = .19, t = 6.18, p < .001). The findings were consistent with recent developments in environmental and positive psychology indicating the reciprocity between the natural environment and human welfare. Implications were drawn across research, education, practice and policy frameworks.


'Rapid response' operation carried out within 24 hours of suffering a mini-stroke cuts risk of another episode by a thirdSurgery offered to patients within 24 hours of a 'mini-stroke'Carotid endarterectomy operation cuts risk of new stroke by a third
21:57 GMT, 2 March 2013
12:43 GMT, 3 March 2013
Rapid response: How the operation is carried out
Patients who have suffered a mini-stroke are now being offered ‘rapid-response’ surgery to prevent the condition worsening and leading to a full stroke.
Until now, those who have had a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) would not be considered for surgery until weeks later.
But new research has found that operating to unclog the affected blood vessels in the neck within 24 hours of having a TIA means a third do not go on to suffer another episode.
Treating TIAs as an emergency is similar to the approach to first heart attacks. In those cases immediate surgery to unblock cardiac arteries has cut deaths by almost a quarter.
TIAs occur when there is a temporary blockage – such as a piece of cholesterol or a clot – in the carotid arteries that supply the head, limiting blood and oxygen to the brain.
Symptoms include dizziness, slurred speech, temporary loss of consciousness and even paralysis. It is often a warning that a major stroke is imminent.
About 150,000 Britons suffer a stroke each year, and of those 45,000 are caused by carotid artery disease.
It is the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer, and the brain damage resulting from stroke is the largest cause for adult disability in the UK.
The operation, known as carotid endarterectomy, is carried out under general anaesthetic and involves a 5in incision into the neck to reach the affected artery. There are two carotid arteries, one on either side of the neck.
In some cases just one artery needs to be operated on but in more serious cases both will be. It can take up to 45 minutes to reach the artery and once identified it is clamped to stop blood flow. The other artery can maintain an adequate blood supply to the brain on its own for a short period.
The surgeon dissects the blood vessel and removes layers of plaque, which can build up over time due to genetic and lifestyle factors, reducing the diameter of the artery.
Scroll down for video
Saving surgery: The operation, known as carotid endarterectomy, is carried out under general anaesthetic and has cut the number of deaths by nearly 25 per cent
Mr Paul Flora, a vascular surgeon who heads a rapid intervention team for stroke patients at Barts and the London Hospital Trust, says: ‘This part of the operation is relatively quick because the fatty deposits that cause the narrowing are soft. It usually takes no more than 15 minutes.’ The artery is then sewn up, the clamps are removed and circulation restored.
Ninety-four per cent of TIA sufferers
at Barts receive carotid endarterectomy within 14 days, compared with
49 per cent nationally.
Its rate for disability following stroke is also low at three per cent compared with 11 per cent nationally.
One patient to have benefited is taxi driver Alan Cakebread, 61, of Woodford Bridge, Essex, who was operated on within 36 hours of suffering a TIA last year.
‘Due to my job, I ate on the go, usually unhealthy fast food,’ he says.
‘I had high cholesterol but didn’t take it seriously and I had no idea it could cause a stroke. It was quite a shock seeing the scan which showed how narrowed my arteries were.’
He recovered well from the operation, and in September he had a second procedure on his right carotid artery.
Today he is working again but the whole experience has been life-changing.
‘My diet is now very different. I’m so lucky I didn’t have a full stroke that could have killed me,’ he says.
Mr Flora adds: ‘Carotid surgery is not risk-free. There is a two to five per cent chance of suffering a major stroke or dying if a fatty deposit or clot breaks away during surgery. But patients are 30 per cent less likely to suffer another attack if the operation is a success.’
What is a stroke
'css' : “videoplayer-large”,
'autoplay' : false,
'muted' : false,
'title' : “What is a stroke”,
'videoId' : 1001042,
'adsEnabled' : true,
'playerId' : “1989148206001”,
'playerKey' : “AQ~~,AAAAAFSL1bg~,CmS1EFtcMWELN_eSE9A7gpcGWF5XAVmI”,
'objId' : “rcpv2200274385001”,
'videoPlayer' : “2200274385001”,
'width' : 636,
'height' : 358,
'linkBaseURL' : “http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2287093/Rapid-response-operation-cuts-risk-new-strokes-third.html”


Wuhan Pneumonia Epidemic Update: Brace Yourself!
“The reality is, Mother Nature has the upper hand, and she is using the trappings of modern life – air travel, burgeoning population and low-income country megacities, encroachment on natural habitats, and an interconnected global just-in-time delivery system – to extend her reach. We’ve had fair warning, but as soon as each crisis is over, we just want to forget rather than use our collective experience.”
Michael T. Osterholm
“Fear, left unchecked, can spread like a virus.”
What a difference a month makes. One month ago, the first Germ Gem was posted on an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, China. At that time (January 15, 2020), 41 cases had been confirmed since the outbreak began in early December, 2019. Only one death was reported, and the disease had been detected in only one other country—a woman who had visited Wuhan died in Thailand.
The source of the pneumonia was linked to a seafood market in Wuhan that also sold other animals—most suspiciously, bats. The cause of the disease had been identified by Chinese researchers amazingly quickly— a novel coronavirus named 2019-nCoV. It appeared that the virus was not easily spread from person-to-person, and the Chinese government was praised for its transparency in dealing with the outbreak.
Then all hell broke loose!
By February 11, the disease had been confirmed in at least 42,000 people, and more than 1,000 deaths were recorded in China. Another 400 cases and one death were reported in 24 other countries, and a frenzied effort to contain the epidemic was by being coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO). (The WHO had declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” on January 30.)
Also, on February 11, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, announced a new name for the disease—COVID-19 (CO and VI from coronavirus, D meaning disease, and 2019 standing for 2019, the year the first case was seen). On that same day the Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses designated a new name of the virus—severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The name reflects its genetic similarity to a sister coronavirus that caused the 2002-2003 pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV).
Again on February 11, a publication in JAMA(“Preparation for Possible Sustained Transmission of 2019 Novel Coronavirus: Lessons from Previous Pandemics”) underscored the two most critical factors that determine the fate of an epidemic—transmissibility of the pathogen and severity of the disease. For example, two recent epidemics caused by other coronaviruses, SARS-Co-V and MERS-CoV, are low transmissibility and high severity infections. Almost miraculously, the SARS-CoV pandemic that began in November 2002 was declared over by July 2003 (with cases totaling 8,098 and a case-fatality rate of 9.6%). While cases of MERS-CoV continue to be reported since it started in 2012, the total number of cases currently stands at 2,492 with a case-fatality rate of 34%.
What do you need to know now? Importantly, you need to know that the number of cases of COVID-2019 and the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 are being closely tracked by the WHO, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and many other public health institutions around the world. (The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine have dedicated websites that provide regular updates. You can find on-line minute-to-minute accountings on dashboards provided by public health agencies, as well as by Johns Hopkins University and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.)
While much is still unknown about the epidemic, so far it appears that the transmissibility and severity of SARS-CoV-2 mirror those of SARS-CoV. Airborne person-to-person spread is the primary mode of transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Hospital workers are at risk of infection, and at least six have died. Also, like with SARS-CoV, “super-spreaders” of SARS-CoV-2 (people who for unknown reasons readily transmit the virus to many others) have been identified.
Based on the reports from China, pneumonia is the major clinical feature of COVID-2019, with need for intensive care in a substantial number of patients. Not surprisingly, a majority of hospitalized patients are over 50 years-of-age, but children appear to be less affected. However, a recent report from China on COVD-19 in nine infants, all of whom had contact with infected family members, demonstrates that the virus can infect youngsters. But no evidence has emerged so far to suggest the virus can be transmitted to unborn children from infected pregnant mothers.
As I’m sure you are aware from daily news reports, the COVID-2019 epidemic has already made a major economic hit. Also, you’ve seen that quarantining of patients—in hospitals, at home, and most controversially, on cruise ships—is a major preventative measure to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Air travel has been curtailed by the United States to and from China, and along with Australia and Singapore, entry is being denied of non-citizens who recently traveled to China. Adding to all the public health challenges, a host of legal and civil rights issues have emerged.
What you should do now? Currently, the risk of COVID-2019 in the United States is considered low. (To date, a total of 15 cases have been reported, almost all of whom were travelers returning from China.) As you’ve likely seen in the news, everyone in China is wearing a face mask. Most of the masks they’re wearing, however, are thought to be of little or no value. But hospital workers caring for infected patients should wear special masks that do prevent acquiring the virus.
Precautions, such as staying away from people who are coughing or sneezing, washing your hands frequently, and keeping your hands away from your nose, are a good idea regardless of SARS-CoV2 because we are still in the flu season. (For comparison, here’s something to be more worried about—the CDC estimates that there have been more than 13 million illnesses and 6,600 deaths from influenza so far this year in the United States. So if you haven’t already been immunized, do so as soon as possible.)
Don’t panic. It’s also important to know that a great deal has been learned from other frightening epidemics earlier this century—in addition to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, H1N1 avian influenza, and Ebola. It is terribly disturbing to see what appears to be major chaos and panic throughout much of China, especially in Hubei Province where Wuhan is located. The city remains in lockdown. The good news, however, is that following initial coverups and the stifling of the whistleblower, Dr. Li Wenling, who subsequently died of COVID-2019, the Chinese government now appears to be openly sharing information on the epidemic and allowing researchers from other countries into China.
Also, there is some good news to report: drugs to treat patients with COVID-2109 are already being tested. The results of two clinical trials will be known soon, and other drugs are under development. Incredibly, four vaccine candidates are in development to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Of course, everyone wants to know the answer to the biggest question of all: When will the COVID-2019 epidemic end? The answer is: nobody knows and stay tuned. But it won’t be anytime soon. After what appeared to be a brief lull, on February 12 a surge of more than 15,000 new cases and 254 additional deaths, nearly all in and around Wuhan, were reported. It appears that this alarming increase may be due, in part, to a revised case definition that captures more patients.
What’s the animal connection?
“We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.” David Quammen
As is the case for a majority of the 140 plus infectious diseases that have emerged in humans in the past 50 years, COVID-19 spilled over from animals into humans. It appears that as for SARS-CoV, the Chinese horseshoe bat is the primary reservoir of SARS-CoV-2. While the intermediate host for SARS-CoV was civets found in wild animal markets in Guangdong, China, preliminary evidence suggests that pangolins may spread SARS-CoV2 to humans. It seems like it is about time to close these wild animal markets. And it would be wise to stay clear of the Chinese horseshoe bat, an animal that warehouses coronaviruses.


Lake Abijatta (right) and Lake Shala (left)
|Max. length||17 km|
|Max. width||15 km|
|Surface area||205 km²|
|Max. depth||14 m|
|Surface elevation||1,573 m|
According to the Statistical Abstract of Ethiopia for 1967/68, the lake is 17 kilometers long and 15 km wide, with a surface area of 205 square kilometers. It has a maximum depth of 14 meters and is at an elevation of 1,573 meters.
Along the northeastern corner of this lake are a number of hot springs, which are important both as a tourist attraction and to the local inhabitants.
There is also a soda ash operation on the shores of this lake, which produces 20,000 tons of sodium carbonate. Proven reserves at Lake Abijata, as well as the neighboring Shala and Chitu lakes, exceed 460 million tons. Flamingoes are also found at the lake.
- Current Exploration and Mining, Geological Survey of Ethiopia Web Page (accessed 26 January 2009)
|This article about a location in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|


Visit our Online Activities & Events webpage
Activities and ideas for keeping you and your family connected to the Salish Sea
In light of ongoing public health issues, we are sharing online learning resources with activities that can be done at home, or in nearby neighborhood natural areas. If you do choose to go outside, please be sure to keep yourself safe and follow current public health guidelines including practicing social distancing; stay home if you are sick.
The Port Townsend Marine Science Center makes hands-on exploration of the Salish Sea accessible to everyone.
Exhibits: Our Museum on the Shore and Aquarium on the Pier feature countless animals, plants, and objects to discover including Salish Sea habitats, microscopes, a hydrophone to listen to whales off shore, and a beautifully articulated orca named Hope.
Wildlife Cruises: Seasonal Wildlife Cruises to Protection Island allow participants to observe seals, sea lions, and seabirds in their natural habitat with expert commentary from an on board naturalist and PTMSC volunteer hosts.
Low Tide Walks: Low-tide beach walks help introduce people of all ages to the vibrant coastal ecosystem we call home.


|Matthew 12: 46-48|
In her recent book, How the West Really Lost God, Mary Eberstadt argues that the decline of the traditional family has led to the secularization of the West, rather than vice versa as many sociological theories propose. Robert Hunt disagrees.
He notes that Eberstadt's book almost totally ignores what theologians have to say on the topic of family and what constitutes family, and that she uses as "her implicit touchstone for authentic Christianity" Pope Benedict XVI's notion of traditional family and how the decline of the traditional model of family has, the emeritus pope maintains, led to the decline of religion in the West.
Hunt's brilliant counter, as a theologian, to Eberstadt's thesis:
It is hardly surprising that the biological family is a key assumption of both Jewish and Christian scripture. Yet scripture also understands that the family can also be a broken and even oppressive institution. The most memorable families in the Bible are the most dysfunctional. Indeed, with the exception of Ruth and Boaz all the families in the Bible are dysfunctional. Even Jesus was raised by his stepfather.
It is precisely in God’s care of the widow, the orphan, the childless, the outcast, the adulterer, the prostitute, and even the murderer that God’s full nature as lover and redeemer of the world are revealed. Thus it is these for whom care is demanded by scriptural ethics, and these are among the first gathered into the family of those who call God father and Christ brother. Only God’s love for all these broken and incomplete families rescues the common trinitarian symbolism from itself being exclusive and oppressive. It isn’t the family that brings (or pace Eberstadt fails to bring) these refugees from the family to God, it is God that makes family a possibility even for them.
The apotheosizing of "traditional" biological family, particularly in its middle-class Western form, and the equation of the gospel message with such deification of the middle-class Western idea of family, run directly counter to significant strands of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, in other words. These strands emphasize that family must potentially include everyone, if the concept is to mean something unambiguously redemptive.
And it must, in particular, include the cast-off, the dispossessed, the widow and orphan and eunuch. The love modeled by the trinitarian God does not huddle within the circle of its own tightly guarded familial relationships, jealously defending its prerogatives and claiming to be under assault, as the "traditional" "Christian" family does all too frequently today.
It divests itself, pours itself out, and draws into the circle of its love those who have been excluded from love.
Here's Frank Strong insightfully applying similar analysis to the arguments of the anti-marriage equality movement:
I wonder if some day in the future, when we're looking back at the wreckage of the anti-equality movement, we'll reckon their decision to emphasize "family" as a fatal misstep. Lord knows that all of their talk about the good of the children has backfired: judges from Justice Kennedy in Windsor to Judge Carlos Lucero on the 10th Circuit have pointed out that truly caring about children means making sure that everyone raising them has access to marriage. After all, if you insist that having married parents offers essential protection to children, then it's morally suspect to deny that protection to children being raised by gay couples.
But, in a larger sense, by talking about "family," NOM & friends have pointed right at the inhumanity, the anti-Christianity, of their own arguments. It’s one thing to say "marriage is between a man and a woman" to people who have never thought otherwise. It’s something else entirely to tell people that a couple that has been together for thirty or forty years is not family, that they’re just friends, that they’re “playing house.” That kind of argument is destined to be rejected.
(I'm indebted to Andrew Sullivan for the link to Frank Hunt's response to Mary Eberstadt.)


- About Us
- Career Center
- Nano-Social Network
- Nano Consulting
- My Account
Max Planck Innovation grants rights for developing new nanoscopic method to Leica Microsystems
Max Planck Innovation, the technology transfer organization of the Max Planck Society, grants Leica Microsystems, Wetzlar, an exclusive license for implementing the latest generation of optical microscopes with a resolution far below the diffraction limit (nanoscopes). This innovative optical nanoscopy, named GSDIM (ground state depletion microscopy followed by individual molecule return), achieves image resolutions in the nanometer range - even in conventional wide field microscopes. GSDIM was developed by Professor Stefan Hell, director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, and his team.
True-to-detail imaging of the spatial arrangement of proteins and other biomolecules in cells and observing molecular processes - GSDIM makes this possible for researchers due to resolutions beyond the diffraction limit. The more insight science gains into these basic processes of life, the better it can find the causes of previously incurable diseases and develop suitable therapies.
One of the strengths of GSDIM is that it uses conventional fluorescence markers to image proteins or other biomolecules within the cells with sharpness down to a few nanometers. This includes fluorophores, which are routinely used in biomedical work, such as fluorescent proteins and rhodamines.
With GSDIM, the fluorescent molecules in the specimen are almost completely switched off using laser light. However, individual molecules spontaneously return to the fluorescent state, while their neighbours remain non-illuminating. In this way, the signals of individual molecules can be acquired sequentially using a highly sensitive camera system and their spatial position in the specimen can be measured and stored. An extremely high-resolution image can then be created from the position of many thousands of molecules. This enables cell components that are situated very close to one another and cannot be resolved using conventional wide field fluorescence microscopy to be spatially separated and sharply reproduced in an image.
"We are glad to continue the already very fruitful cooperation with Prof. Hell and the Max Planck Institute with this groundbreaking and promising technology," explains Dr. Stefan Traeger, head of the Life Science Division at Leica Microsystems. "With GSDIM technology, we have the potential of further expanding our innovation leadership in the market for super-resolution light microscopy and nanoscopy. We want to be able to offer maximum-resolution microscopy in the future to an even wider group of users in the life sciences." Prof. Stefan Hell explains: "Leica Microsystems was by far the first company to take light microscopy's historical breakthrough of the diffraction limit and implement this in products. We are glad that with GSDIM, Leica is making available another nanoscopic method - which complements STED microscopy - worldwide."
Hell has already invented the 4Pi and STED technologies, which achieve ultra-high resolutions in the nanoscale. For the Leica TCS 4PI Microscope, Leica Microsystems received the German Business Innovation Award in 2005; for STED technology, Prof. Hell was awarded the German Future Prize by Federal President Dr. Horst Köhler in 2006.
About Max Planck Innovation
Max Planck Innovation advises and supports scientists of the Max Planck Society in evaluating inventions and filing patent applications. Max Planck Innovation markets patents and technologies to industry and coaches founders of new companies based on research results from Max Planck Institutes. Every year, Max Planck Innovation evaluates about 150 inventions, of which about half lead to the filing of a patent application. Since 2000, Max Planck Innovation advised about 50 spin-offs, closed more than 700 license deals and generated proceeds of more than 140 million Euros for inventors, institutes and the Max Planck Society. As a result, Max Planck Innovation is among the world's most successful technology transfer organizations.
For more information, please click here
Max Planck Society
for the Advancement of Science
Press and Public Relations Department
PO Box 10 10 62
Head of scientific communications:
Dr. Christina Beck (-1275)
Press Officer / Head of corporate communications:
Dr. Felicitas von Aretin (-1227)
Barbara Abrell (-1416)
Copyright © Max Planck InnovationIf you have a comment, please Contact us.
Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.
|Related News Press|
News and information
Nanoscale photodetector shows promise to improve the capacity of photonic circuits: Researchers at the University of Rochester have fabricated a device in which light can induce a current using a silver nanowire -- an important step toward harnessing light to speed up the next ge October 6th, 2015


Date of this Version
The western edge of True Prairie gives way very gradually on the Loess Plains south of the Platte River to Mixed Prairie of the Great Plains. North of the Platte a similar transition occurs in the valleys and on the slopes of the Loess Hills. But in northern Kansas the True Prairie of the Kansas-Nebraska Drift-Loess Hills is definitely separated by the Flint Hills Region from its western edge on the Kansas-Nebraska Loess Plains. In this study the vegetation, soils, and other environmental factors of the two areas are described and compared.


Even operating at a quarter of its eventual capacity, South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope showed off its phenomenal power today, revealing 1,300 galaxies in a tiny corner of the universe where only 70 were known before.
The image released today was the first from MeerKAT, where 16 dishes were formally commissioned the same day.
MeerKAT’s full contingent of 64 receptors will be integrated next year into a multi-nation Square Kilometre Array (SKA) which is is set to become the world’s most powerful radio telescope.
The images produced by MeerKAT “are far better that we could have expected,” the chief scientist of the SKA in South Africa, Fernando Camilo said at the site of the dishes near the small town of Carnarvon, 600 kilometres north of Cape Town.
This “means that this telescope as is today, only one quarter of the way down (to its full contingent) is already the best radio telescope in the southern hemisphere,” Camilo told AFP.
When fully up and running in the 2020s, the SKA will comprise 3,000 dishes scattered around several countries allow astronomers to peer deeper into space in unparallelled detail.
It will have a discovery potential 10,000 times greater than the most advanced modern instruments and will explore exploding stars, black holes, dark energy and traces of the universe’s origins some 14 billion years ago.
MeerKAT is being built in the remote and arid southwest of the Karoo region of South Africa that offers prime conditions for astronomers.
It will serve as one of the two main clusters of SKA. The other will be in Australia.
Some 200 scientists, engineers and technicians working in collaboration with industry, local and foreign universities have developed the technologies, hardware and software systems for MeerKAT.
South African Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor told AFP that “this the first time that an African group of countries will host global science infrastructure of this character.”
“It’s a first for us as Africa and also it’s a first for the world because the world hasn’t done this in Africa,” said the Minister. “We are building a global infrastructure for the world.”
More than 20 countries are members of the SKA, including Britain which hosts the headquarters of the project.


Analyses Of The Effects Of Global Change On Human Health And Welfare And Human Systems (Sap 4.6)
Climate change, interacting with changes in land use and demographics, will affect important human dimensions in the United States, especially those related to human health, settlements and welfare. The challenges presented by population growth, an aging population, migration patterns, and urban and coastal development will be compounded by changes in temperature, precipitation, and extreme climate-related events. Climate change will affect where people choose to live, work, and play. Among likely climate changes are changes in the intensity and frequency of precipitation, more frequent heat waves, less frequent cold waves, more persistent and extreme drought conditions and associated water shortages, changes in minimum and maximum temperatures, potential increases in the intensity and frequency of extreme tropical storms, measurable sea-level rise and increases in the occurrence of coastal and riverine flooding. In response to these anticipated changes, the United States may develop and deploy strategies for mitigating greenhouse gases and for adapting to unavoidable individual and collective impacts of climate change.
The SAP 4.6 focuses on impacts of global climate change, especially impacts on three broad dimensions of the human condition: human health, human settlements, and human welfare. The assessment examines potential impacts of climate change on human society, opportunities for adaptation, and associated recommendations for addressing data gaps and near- and long-term research goals.
SAP 4.6 complies with the requirements of the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The implementation of this Act is under the the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), the forerunner to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, to which EPA is a partner agency. There are 21 mandated SAPs, with NCEA's Global Change Assessment Staff taking the lead on this report.
|Jun 2006||Draft prospectus released along with an invitation for public review and comment.|
|Jul 2006||Final prospectus is issued along with comments on the draft prospectus.|
|Jul 2007||Public Comment Draft released along with an invitation for public review and comment.|
|Apr 2008||EPA releases Final (Third) Draft along with an invitation for public review and comment|
|Jul 2008||EPA releases final report. Simultaneously, USGCRP released the SAP 4.6 Final Report as well.|
This document has been reviewed in accordance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency policy and approved for publication. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.
- (283 pp, 4 MB, about PDF)


The New York City water supply provides more than one billion gallons of water each day to over nine million New Yorkers – nearly half the state’s population – and has been doing so for over 150 years. The water supply consists of 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes with a total storage capacity of approximately 580 billion gallons. The water system is an engineering marvel, designed and built with various interconnections to increase operational flexibility by permitting the transfer of water from one system to another for improved water quality. Approximately 7,000 miles of water mains, tunnels, and aqueducts bring water to homes and businesses throughout the city and some upstate communities. In comparison to other public water systems, approximately 95% of the total water supply is delivered to the consumer by gravity. As a result, operating costs are relatively insensitive to fluctuations in the cost of power.
In the early 1990s the City embarked on an aggressive program to protect and enhance the quality of New York City’s drinking water. Based on an extensive water quality monitoring and research program, the City determined the key sources of pollutants were inadequately treated wastewater; wildlife, especially waterfowl; agriculture; and stormwater runoff from development. The City designed a comprehensive watershed protection strategy to target these primary sources of pollution, incorporating both protective and remedial initiatives. The watershed program provides an alternative to expensive end-of-pipe filtration treatment.
Find out complete details of the ongoing program here.
Carter H. Strickland, Commissioner
NYC Department of Environmental Protection
59-17 Junction Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11373
(718) 595 – 6600


During World War II the Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant (now known as Bob Hope Airport ) to protect it from a Japanese air attack. They covered it with camouflage netting and to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air.
Three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lockheed’s company officials gathered at Burbank plant to decide how best to ramp up production. The Army began setting up barricades around the factory and placed an urgent call to a Col. John F. Ohmer a pioneer in camouflage, deception and misdirection techniques.
Col. Ohmer’s mission was to find the solution how to disguise one of the most important military facilities in the United States to look like an ordinary California suburb.
Col. Ohmer marked key factories and assembly plants that may be possible targets, including Douglas Aircraft. He was given authority to use whatever means necessary to protect the Lockheed plant. With a camouflage engineering battalion under his command, he began recruiting artists, set designers, and painters from nearby movie studios, including Disney, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox. In a short period of time the entire area of the factory was camouflaged.
Airfields and parking lots were painted green and lined with plants to make them look like fields of alfalfa.
The Lockheed-Vega aircraft plant in Burbank was fully covered with a canopy of chicken wire, netting and painted canvas representing peaceful rural neighborhood scene to blend in with the surrounding grass. There were rubber cars and fake trees with spray-painted chicken feathers for leaves, some painted green to represent new growth and some brown to represent decaying patches.
Even a small farm was made with animals and all necessary facilities like a barn, a silo and other buildings.
Employees continued to do their work, encouraged by the placement of new bomb shelters and big anti-aircraft guns. They were expected to play along with the illusion during their breaks, often walking back to their burlap bungalows to take down the laundry they had placed on clotheslines earlier in the day. Maintaining the illusion of a neighbourhood required signs of life and activity. Workers emerged to relocate automobiles, and took walks on hidden catwalks.
The disguise of California ceased to be critical when the US Navy defeated a Japanese carrier task force at Midway Island. The threat of a serious attack against the West Coast diminished, then vanished.
Similar project was undertaken in Seattle where Boeing covered nearly 26 acres. It became covered by a complete town with municipal buildings, a park, schools and homes.
Source – Lockheed Martin


For centuries Christians have relied on some version of a sacred and important text called “The Bible”. From ancient Christians reading sections of epistles to canonizing the first “Bible”, Christians have understood that God has gifted us with an important, authoritative library that helps us understand God, Grace, and our own Salvation.
As United Methodists we affirm that the Bible is a Holy and Inspired library of books containing within it’s pages all of the knowledge necessary for our own salvation, and that what it says is true.
As United Methodists we believe that;
- The Writers of the Bible were inspired and filled with God’s grace and spirit when writing the various letters, epistles, books and scriptures that make up the Bible today.
- That God was at work during “Canonization”, a process by which the early Christian church took only the most useful, and most faithful books were included in the Bible.
- That the Holy Spirit works with us today, especially when we study the Bible together, to help us understand the Bible and how it relates to our lives today.
Perhaps the Bible is best put to use when we seriously answer these four questions about a given text: (1) What did this passage mean to its original hearers? (2) What part does it play in the Bible’s total witness? (3) What does God seem to be saying to my life, my community, my world, through this passage? and (4) What changes should I consider making as a result of my study?
United Methodists are “thinking Christians”. We believe that it is important to engage our head and our heart when looking at Scripture. We do not simply read, quote, and memorize scripture. But instead, we strive to learn what the Bible has to say. We do not believe the Bible is intended to be read and lived literally but instead studied and understood completely. When you visit the United Methodist Church of St. Clair; you’ll hear sermons that encourage you to understand the scriptures; and perhaps you’ll attend small groups that will empower you to read and understand God’s will for your life and for the world as told through the scriptures.


Alan Rosenberg, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Saskatchewan, is studying the link between vitamin D and juvenile arthritis. Here’s why the work could lead to more effective treatment.
The idea: It’s only relatively recently that vitamin D has been recognized as important for preventing bone disease and in the function of immune and inflammatory systems, Rosenberg said. He thinks children with juvenile arthritis might also have low vitamin D levels, and that could be a factor in the occurrence and outcome of the disease.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
The method: With support from the Children’s Hospital Foundation, Rosenberg and Dr. Hassan Vatanparast conducted a national study of 11 Canadian centres to collect a wide array of data about children with juvenile arthritis: genetic information, lifestyle, nutrition, physical activity, vitamin D levels, and environmental factors such as exposure to sunlight.


The term “blog site” is not typically identified as a term made use of today by normal people in any type of society. Also amongst Web individuals, it is not a term they will commonly make use of. One reason for this is because lots of people take into consideration a blog site to be a device of communication. A blog site, as a result, is a details or conversation site released on the Web, normally consisting of informal, generally personal diary-style text posts. Messages are usually displayed backwards sequential order, which suggests the current article shows up initially, on top of all various other messages.
Blog sites were when called journals, and blog owners made use of these to share personal ideas and experiences. Since then, nonetheless, blog writing has actually developed right into a regular form of interaction, where a blog owner can share info or release comments on a certain topic. A blog site can have any sort of material – some are simply personal, some are interesting, as well as some are advertised. While the blog format is most extensively made use of amongst younger Americans, various other cultures have established their very own unique kinds of blogging.
In Japan, blogging started as early as the second decade of the previous century. At the time, lots of Japanese business owners made money by creating blogging sites for their services. Business blog sites featured ads for goods and services supplied by the service, as well as viewers would be asked to register for such solutions so they could obtain them. In action, the federal government cracked down on this type of company procedure, producing a lot of guidelines meant to prevent the misuse of blogging. Bloggers were required to register their personal blogs with the Japan Bloggers Organization, and also were also restricted from uploading business advertising on their personal blogs.
In China, blogging was originally used as a platform for a range of political debate between numerous events and also groups. Because the Chinese communist party had actually been in power for virtually 20 years, this had an influence on just how blog writers reviewed problems and picked to reveal themselves politically. When blog owner started referring to themselves as” Maoists,” this brought to life the term “Maochee” that described Maoists. This political trend expanded so rapidly that within a couple of years, it encompassed basically every part of life. Blogs became a tool for arranging street demonstrations, which typically connected to hundreds or hundreds of people at once.
When Singapore ended up being a country in 1998, it quickly produced a mix amongst blog writers around the world because many Singaporeans were exceptionally against globalization. As their nation rejected economic ties with Western countries, it was a simple target for bloggers who wanted to share their discontent with the step. Their primary system was to trash the “Globalization” phenomenon – a term that they had actually rarely comprehended prior to. These blog writers soon happened called the “Singaporeans Versus Globalization.”
This trend grew so quick that even when Singaporean companies wanted to do business in the U.S. or Canada, they first of all created a blog for their possible customers to obtain a concept about their company. Several American and Canadian business were quick to detect this concept. So, from simple blog owner’s to corporate blogging, the concept took off. Boulder, Colorado Eric Tardif
In recent times, Singapore has actually gotten an instead strong tradition of blog writing. A comparable trend to that in the UNITED STATE and also Canada has created, in which blog owners from either country would certainly upload blog posts so as to get more exposure and hence to develop even more audience. The only distinction in between this and blogging in its reverse sequential order is that Singaporean blog sites often tend to post their article backwards sequential order. For example, a firm that released its initial item in 2021 would post post starting keeping that year in the blog.
Lately, Google has actually developed its very own blogging platform called Blog writer. This solution is cost-free to make use of as well as comes pre-installed on all Google web pages. It is additionally offered for other popular blogging sites, such as WordPress. There are various other blogging platforms available too. If your company has an interest in making use of blogging to advance its organization rate of interests, you might think about trying out one of these systems to see what jobs best for you.
Web online marketers are constantly searching for new methods to connect with their target market as well as to make their blogs accessible to a wider variety of people. Blogging applications like WordPress supply the excellent system to engage with the on the internet area while offering a simple and convenient means for individuals to upgrade their blogs at any moment. Blogs are a powerful interaction device that enables on the internet entrepreneurs to brand themselves and also offer their target markets prompt details about their items, solutions, sales, and so on. Blogging is additionally a great vehicle for on the internet business owners to promote their e-commerce websites or on-line neighborhood discussion forums. Blog writing is the backbone of a successful and growing web marketing service, because without a strong and also well-designed blog site, a business owner risks alienating their target audience, or worse, stopping working to fulfill their goals.
There are actually hundreds of various blog writing software application on the marketplace, and also every one has its own staminas as well as weaknesses. Blogger, WordPress, and LiveJournal all permit blog writers to create tailored blogs that they can update via the web interface or by uploading to their individual blog sites. The majority of blog writing software application offers some level of plug-in functionality for bloggers to use when they select to upgrade their blogs by hand. Many preferred blogging software include free plug-ins and themes that enable blog owners to personalize the look of their blogs.
Several of the most effective blog writing platforms available today are WordPress, Blog Owner, TypePad, and MyBlogSite. These are the 3 main blogging systems that are most popular among the masses. Blog owner was developed in 2021, while the various other two business emerged around the very same amount of time. These companies enable individuals to create blog sites on-line and also share message as well as graphics that they have actually produced within a few minutes. When a blog owner selects to monetize their blog site, they are able to display advertisements on their blog that aid to make money for the company. Eric Tardif Boulder
Search Engine Optimization is just the procedure of making content and other info available to online search engine so that they can locate it and place it within their results pages. A lot of companies that offer SEO services will certainly inform you that your web pages require to be enhanced so that they can appear within the first couple of internet search engine results web pages for certain essential phrases or keyword phrases. This is just one of the easiest ways that any type of new blogger can begin to make money from the blog writing platform.


by Tyler Pittman
This post is part of the student blogger project from the summer session of Space Security Law.
Tyler Pittman is a 2L at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He is fascinated by American criminal law, by space law, and by international law. He is pursuing certificates in Space Law and Criminal law at Ole Miss.
In Part V of his concurrence in U.S. v. Jones, Justice Alito discusses the implications technology has on modern searches. In essence, he talks about what is commonly called the Mosaic Theory.1 The Mosaic Theory suggests “prolonged surveillance reveals types of information not revealed by short-term surveillance.”2 The idea is that anyone can see the activities of an individual over a short period of time, i.e. a tile of the mosaic, but no one can see an individual’s entire course of activity over an extended period of time, i.e. the entire mosaic. Justice Alito and the three justices joining in the concurrence suggest that a reasonable expectation of privacy exists from being observed over an extended period.
With the progression of technology, the Mosaic Theory has become a sound basis for argument against warrantless searches using tracking technology, and it is highly relevant to remote sensing space technology. Satellite observation, in whatever manner, is almost limitless. Satellite constellations can be set up to view the entire earth at almost any time, and this means that for a person under government surveillance escape is impossible.3 If the government is allowed to observe citizens using satellite technology without a warrant requirement, it necessarily leads to an outcome where a person has no subjective expectation of privacy outside the home. This eliminates the first prong of the Katz analysis, supra, and as a result eliminates the analysis altogether. Having that happen would be catastrophic in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, “for the Fourth Amendment protects people”, and thus their privacy.4 Society certainly would not approve of anyone following an individual for extended periods while observing that individual’s every move. Katz rightly recognizes society’s interest in individual privacy, and allowing warrantless observation from space would undermine the very basis of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
While the Mosaic Theory offers argument against warrantless searches from space, it also inherently supports a modified Kyllo analysis for these searches.5 The basis of the theory is that one cannot see another’s every move without some extra effort. Kyllo focuses on a person’s inability to obtain information without sense-enhancing devices. In effect, extending Kyllo beyond the home would offer constitutional protection that is already in consideration among the courts.6 Sense-enhancing devices allow the government to see the entire picture. Whether there is a wall, roof, or 200 miles of atmosphere between the place being searched and the official, sense-enhancing technologies, like remote sensing, endanger subjective expectations of privacy that the Fourth Amendment has long protected. It seems from support of the Mosaic Theory that courts would be apt to apply Kyllo-like reasoning to situations involving searches from space and thus would not allow privacy protection to collapse.
1 U.S. v. Jones, 132 S.Ct. 945, 963-964 (2012)
2 U.S. v. Maynard, 315 F.3d 544, 562 (D.C. Cir. 2010)
3 Cf. Wright, Grego & Gronlund, THE PHYSICS OF SPACE SECURITY 33-34 (Cambridge, American Acadamy of Arts and Sciences 2005)
4 Katz v. U.S., 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 511 (1967)
5 Kyllo v. U.S., 533 U.S. 27, 40, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 2046 (2001); See Part II of this post – Constitutional Searches From Space – Part II: Kyllo v. United States, California v. Ciraolo, and Satellites as Sense-Enhancing Devices
6 See Maynard, supra; See also Jones at 963-964


Florida Frontiers: The Weekly Newspaper Articles of the Florida Historical Society is a weekly newspaper article covering history-based events, exhibitions, activities, places and people in Florida. The newspaper articles premiered in January 2014. We explore the relevance of Florida history to contemporary society and promote awareness of heritage and culture tourism options in the state.
In 1738, the first legally sanctioned free black settlement was established in what would become the United States.
El Pueblo de Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, popularly known as Fort Mose, was a community of former slaves who pledged allegiance to the King of Spain, became Catholic, and agreed to defend Spanish controlled Florida from invaders.
Located just north of St. Augustine, Fort Mose was the first line of defense against attack from British colonies.
As part of the War of Jenkins Ear between Spain and Great Britain, General James Oglethorpe led an invading force into Spanish Florida. In the early morning of June 26, 1740, that invasion was repelled at Fort Mose.
Since 2010, an annual reenactment of the Bloody Battle of Fort Mose has been s... click title or here for the full article
The traditional culture of the Seminole Tribe of Florida is preserved at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum on the Big Cypress Reservation in south Florida, near Clewiston.
The state of the art museum and archival facility features permanent exhibitions and rotating gallery space, a research library, and an extensive collection of newspapers, oral histories, manuscripts, and artifacts including patchwork clothing, baskets, and dolls.
In the Seminole language Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki means “a place to learn” or “a place to remember.”
“That’s really what we hope to do here at the museum, is to educate the public but also to keep the traditions and culture alive within our own tribe,” says traditional arts coordinator Pedro Zepeda.
“We want this to be the source for tribal history a... click title or here for the full article
Artist Jackson Walker has dedicated his life to preserving Florida history through large oil paintings.
“I got to thinking about Florida, and my own family’s history, and it just kind of dawned on me, well that’s what you know, that’s where you live, that’s who you are,” says Walker.
His 48 x 72 inch painting “They called it La Florida: The First Landing of Ponce de León in Florida, April 2, 1513” will be on display July 17 through December 11 at the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science in Cocoa as part of the “ArtCalusa: Reflections on Representation” exhibition.
The opening reception is this Friday evening from 6pm to 8pm. Tickets are available at www.myfloridahistory.org. Walker... click title or here for the full article
Hank Mattson is known as the “Cracker Cowboy Poet” who “tells it like it was.”
A native of Lake Placid in Highlands County, Mattson recites his poetry and discusses Florida’s pioneer culture at libraries, schools, and festivals throughout the state.
“When This Old Hat Was New” is a poem Mattson wrote about Jacob Summerlin’s life as a Florida cowman in the 1800s. Appalachian folk musicians Dana and Susan Robinson set the poem to music, and it earned the 2015 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest, selected first out of 42 entries.
Mattson’s poetry tells the stories of colorful characters from Florida’s pioneer past such as Jacob Summerlin, Bone Mizell, and Hamilton Disston, but much of it is also based on his own experience as a “Cracker cowman.”
“I don’t r... click title or here for the full article
The Plant system of railroads helped to create modern Florida.
When Henry B. Plant was born in 1819, Florida was still under Spanish control. By 1821, Florida was named a United States Territory, and in 1845 it became a state. Before his death in 1899, Plant helped to develop Florida with railways, steamships, and luxury hotels.
In discussions of railroads and their impact on Florida’s growth, Henry Flagler usually is the first person mentioned. Henry Plant and Henry Flagler were friendly competitors who sometimes worked together.
“They were equally as important,” says Sally Shifke, Museum Relations Coordinator for the Henry B. Plant Museum in Tampa. “I think the reason that Henry Plant doesn’t get quite as much recognition as Henry Flagler is that Henry Flagler’s p... click title or here for the full article
When the Seminole Indians first appeared in Florida in the 1700s, they occupied lands where other Native Americans had lived for thousands of years. Tribes such as the Calusa, Timucua, and Apalachee lived in Florida long before European contact in the 1500s.
While the archaeological record contains tools, pottery, and other artifacts, the visual record of pre-European contact people in Florida is very limited.
Since 1992, artist Theodore Morris has dedicated his career to creating realistic oil paintings depicting Florida’s prehistoric and indigenous populations.
Morris is one of a group of nine artists whose work will be shown in the exhibition “ArtCalusa: Reflections on Representation” at the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science in Cocoa, July 17 through... click title or here for the full article
Naturalist, ornithologist, and artist John James Audubon first came to Florida in 1831 to capture images of Florida birds for his illustrated book “Birds of America.”
Audubon did not have a pleasurable stay in St. Augustine, complaining in his letters about hard rowing through the salt marshes, difficult wading through mud and water, and fighting sand flies and mosquitoes.
When Audubon returned to Florida in April 1832, he had a much more enjoyable stay in Key West, where he wrote that his “heart swelled with uncontrollable delight” upon his arrival. Audubon was the guest of John H. Geiger, whose home is now called the Audubon House.
“It was built in 1847 to 1849,” said Bob Merritt, director of operations for the Audubon House and Tropical Gardens. “Geiger was broug... click title or here for the full article
From 1925 through 1953, the luxury passenger train Orange Blossom Special traveled from New York City to Miami and back.
Other Florida stops included Jacksonville, Ft. Lauderdale, and Hollywood before the train returned north via Winter Haven, Bradenton, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Gainesville, and Tallahassee.
The Orange Blossom Special came to Florida between mid-December and mid-April. Even more famous than this luxurious train and its wealthy passengers is the song “Orange Blossom Special.”
Tradition holds that the music to the song “Orange Blossom Special” was written by renowned fiddlers Chubby Wise and Irvin T. Rouse, and that the words were written later by Rouse’s brother Gordon.
“As the story goes, both Chubby Wise and Irvin Rouse visited the Or... click title or here for the full article
Senator Bob Graham has been called “the hardest working man in politics.”
Graham’s 38 years of public service included two terms as Governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987, and he represented Florida in the United States Senate from 1987 to 2005.
He famously spent more than 400 days working other people’s jobs, including days as a journalist, a fisherman, a construction worker, a truck driver, a barber, and in many other occupations.
Graham started his tradition of “work days” in 1974, while he was serving in the Florida Senate.
“I was chairman of the State Senate Education Committee, and I had been in some classrooms where I didn’t think civics was being taught very well,” says Graham.
“I mentioned that to some civics teachers and they said ‘the only wa... click title or here for the full article
With the publication of her novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe became the most famous writer in America. That book helped to fuel the raging debate over slavery in the United States.
When Stowe met President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, he reportedly said, “So you are the little lady who started this Great War.”
Often overlooked is the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe is also one of the first and greatest proponents of Florida as a popular tourist destination.
Stowe began spending her winters in Mandarin, Florida, shortly after the Civil War ended. Her home was on the St. Johns River where she could sit on her porch and enjoy the natural environment. Stowe also traveled to places such as Silver Springs, St. Augustine, and Tallahassee, and wrote abou... click title or here for the full article
Every year in May, nearly 1,000 students from around the state meet in Tallahassee to compete in the annual Florida History Fair. Next month, the winners of this year’s competition will travel to College Park, Maryland to compete with state history fair winners from across the country.
“Florida History Fair is an opportunity for students from sixth grade to twelfth grade to participate in historical research and produce a product, either a documentary, an exhibit, a website, a historical paper, or a performance using primary sources,” says Trampas Alderman, curator of education at the Museum of Florida History, and coordinator of the state competition.
The student competitors at Florida History Fair must follow strict guidelines when preparing their papers, projects, and p... click title or here for the full article
The Florida Historical Society was established in 1856, making it the oldest existing cultural organization in the state. The independent, not-for-profit organization was founded in St. Augustine and moved to several other locations during the twentieth century before making Brevard County the permanent home of their statewide headquarters in 1992.
Based at the Library of Florida History in the old 1939 Post Office and Federal Building in downtown Cocoa, the FHS also operates the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science adjacent to the Cocoa campus of Eastern Florida State College, and manages the Historic Rossetter House Museum and Gardens in Eau Gallie.
The organization’s statewide activities originating from Brevard County include the production and distribution of... click title or here for the full article
Cape Canaveral is the oldest name of a specific location to appear on a European map of what is now the continental United States.
Every manned mission into space originating from the United States has been launched from Cape Canaveral.
From the Spanish “discovery” of the New World to America’s manned exploration of space, Cape Canaveral helps define the boundaries of the Modern Era.
In the late 1400s, Spain was unified under Ferdinand and Isabella, who sponsored the first European exploration and settlement of what they thought of as the New World.
In 1513, Ponce de León literally put Florida on the map, and gave our state its name.
“There’s still a great deal of controversy and a great deal of debate as to where Ponce de León first makes landfall and... click title or here for the full article
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed as his motorcade drove through Dallas, Texas.
President Kennedy spent the week before his death in Florida.
After a short stay at his family’s winter residence in Palm Beach, Kennedy toured the NASA facilities at Cape Canaveral before visiting Tampa and Miami.
On his last day in Florida, President Kennedy met with Florida historian and Catholic priest Michael Gannon. As the first and only Catholic American president, Kennedy was particularly interested in Gannon’s area of expertise, Catholicism in Spanish Colonial Florida.
When Gannon spoke with President Kennedy on November 18, 1963, he was a priest in St. Augustine, preparing to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the city.... click title or here for the full article
At 4:00 a.m. on April 1, 1864, an explosion disrupted the still waters of the St. Johns River as a Confederate mine ripped through the hull of the steamship Maple Leaf. The ship was transporting Union supplies during the Civil War.
“It was participating in the Southeast Atlantic Blockade as a troop transport,” says Keith Holland, founder of St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions, Inc.
“After the Battle of Olustee, which was a major Union defeat, all troops were called from surrounding areas, especially Charleston, to come to Jacksonville immediately. They had camped on Folly Island, an entire brigade, for about 20 months. It took the Quartermasters approximately a month to break down the entire camp, and load up all of the thousands of soldiers personal effects into boxes. T... click title or here for the full article
In the classic 1951 film “The African Queen,” a small steam boat with the same name is damaged on river rapids, shot at, and ultimately destroyed while being used as a makeshift torpedo against a German vessel at the beginning of World War I.
Models and prop boats were used during filming to portray the damage, and the real African Queen survived.
Today, the actual boat used in the film leaves a dock in Key Largo every two hours, taking history enthusiasts, movie lovers, and other sightseers on a trip down a canal, into the ocean and back.
“People just love this boat, especially if they’ve seen the movie,” says Michael Hewitt, who pilots the African Queen for no more than six passengers per cruise. “If they haven’t seen the movie, one thing’s for sure: when they tak... click title or here for the full article
William Bartram fought alligators, befriended Seminoles, and meticulously documented the flora and fauna of eighteenth century Florida.
His book “Travels through North and South Carolina, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws, Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions, Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians,” known today as “Bartram’s Travels,” is a classic work of Florida literature.
William Bartram was a naturalist, botanist, artist, and explorer who followed in the footsteps of his father, John Bartram.
“Without his father’s influence, William would have never gotten interested in botany,” says J.D. Sutton,... click title or here for the full article
Pirates have been romanticized in popular culture for more than a century.
We get our ideas about what pirates were like from sources such as the Robert Louis Stevenson novel “Treasure Island,” the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “Pirates of Penzance,” and the fairytale “Peter Pan.” Dozens of films portray swashbuckling men of the sea, most recently the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series.
Most of what we think we know about pirates, based on these and other popular sources, is false. Take the concept of walking the plank.
“A lot of it has been fabricated by Hollywood and books and plays, and walking the plank is something that has never been documented in historical record,” says Zach Zacharias, senior curator of education and curator of history at the Museum of Arts a... click title or here for the full article
Ernest Hemingway, born in 1899, published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, in 1926. He was living in Paris with the first of his four wives, Hadley Richardson. Hemingway divorced Richardson the following year.
Writer John Dos Passos suggested to Hemingway that he might enjoy Key West, Florida, and in March 1928, Hemingway visited the island for the first time.
“He fell in love with Key West, the lifestyle, the fishing, of course,” says Dave Gonzales, director at the Ernest Hemingway House and Museum. “He kept coming back to Key West over the next two years. He’d invite his friends from the ‘Lost Generation.’ John Dos Passos came down, (artist) Waldo Peirce, (writer) F. Scott Fitzgerald, and they’d come down for fishing trips in the spring mostly, but Hemingway would sp... click title or here for the full article
Many Florida towns were built around Seminole War forts and some, such as Fort Pierce, Fort Lauderdale, and Fort Myers, retain their fort names.
Fort Shackleford was constructed in 1855 during the Third Seminole War. Archaeologists continue to search for its exact location.
Archaeologist Annette Snapp is Operations Manager for the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum in Clewiston, and is leading the effort to find Fort Shackleford.
Dr. Snapp will give a free presentation this Friday night at 7:00 for the Florida Historical Society Archaeological Institute at the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science, 2201 Michigan Avenue in Cocoa.
Seminole Indians moved to Florida in the 1700s, to avoid the expanding American colonies. Runaway slaves found sanctuary h... click title or here for the full article
This week the nation is remembering a series of three marches in support of voting rights that took place fifty years ago. Peaceful protesters in Florida’s neighboring state of Alabama were attacked by police.
The demonstrations encouraged President Lyndon Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act.
Less than a year earlier, demonstrations in Florida helped lead Johnson to signing the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964.
In St. Augustine, attempts by protesters to peacefully demonstrate for civil rights were also met with threats and violence.
“I’m history. I was there,” says Barbara Vickers, who was 41 in the summer of 1964.
The night of greatest violence came on June 25, 1964, when peaceful demonstrators, both black and white, were attacked with bricks and s... click title or here for the full article
People have lived in Florida for more than 10,000 years.
March is Florida Archaeology Month, and the 2015 theme is “Innovators of the Archaic.” The Archaic Period began about 9,500 years ago and continued until about 3,000 years ago.
Florida is rich with Archaic Period archaeological sites. Stone tools, pottery with distinctive regional styles, and prehistoric architectural foundations called shell middens have been discovered throughout the state. More than 100 dugout canoes, some dating to 5,000 years ago, have been excavated at Newnans Lake in Alachua County.
One of the most important Archaic Period archaeological excavations in the world happened in Brevard County. In 1982, as construction began on the Windover Farms neighborhood in Titusville, ancient human rem... click title or here for the full article
The loud booming of cannon fire ripped through the north Florida pine forest fifteen miles east of Lake City as startled cavalry horses whinnied. Repeated rifle fire rang through the trees as more than 10,000 soldiers confronted each other on February 20, 1864, near Ocean Pond.
The Battle of Olustee was the largest conflict of the American Civil War fought on Florida soil.
Each side began with about 5,000 troops. When the three hour battle was over, 1,861 Union soldiers and 946 Confederate soldiers were dead.
“It is significant because it comes at a time when the United States is attempting to swing Southern states back into the Union,” says Sean Adams, associate professor of history at the University of Florida.
“There was an attempt, for example, to reconst... click title or here for the full article
Before the Hippie Movement of the 1960s promoted expanded consciousness, sexual freedom, and a widespread questioning of authority in American popular culture, the Beat Generation of the 1950s led a counterculture movement of their own.
The term “Beat Generation” brings to mind the City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio Café in San Francisco, or poetry readings at smoky jazz clubs in New York, but it was in Florida that the leading writer of the movement, the man who coined that phrase, did some of his most important work.
Jack Kerouac is considered to be one of the most significant and influential writers of his generation. He was a primary figure of the Beat movement along with poet Allen Ginsberg and novelist William S. Burroughs.
Kerouac was living in Orlando when he... click title or here for the full article


Cheaply improving diagnosis in the developing world has an impact which is simply staggering. There’s a vast backlog of breakthrough science and technology waiting to be applied
Just in the field of biosensors alone, although there are already many potentially game-changing projects under way, there’s still an almost endless list of major new discoveries whose potential to be turned into low-cost life-saving diagnostic tools has hardly been touched.
The disturbing thing about watching a new presentation on leading-edge diagnostic applications like the ones in the video below, is that it soon becomes shockingly apparent just how many diseases (and their respective diagnostic solutions) that the teams in question have no alternative but to leave ‘to be pursued in a later project’ in order to focus on the solutions that they’re currently working on.
The talk was called:
Developing Diagnostics for the Developing World
The talk was presented at an event hosted by The Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).
Here’s the official abstract of the talk:
Infectious diseases cause 10 million deaths each year worldwide, accounting for ~60% of all deaths of children aged 5-14.
Although these deaths arise primarily through pneumonia, TB, malaria and HIV, there are also the so called “neglected diseases” such as sleeping sickness and bilharzia, which have a devastating impact on rural communities, in sub-Sahara Africa.
Here, the demands for a successful Developing World diagnostic are particularly rigorous, requiring low cost instrumentation with low power consumption (there is often no fixed power infrastructure).
In many cases, the levels of infection within individuals are also sufficiently low that instruments must show extraordinary sensitivity, with measurements being made in blood or saliva.
In this talk, a description of these demands will be given, together with a review of some of the solutions that have been developed, which include using acoustics, optics and electrotechnologies, and their combinations to manipulate the fluid samples.
In one example, we show how to find a single trypanosome, as the causative agent of sleeping sickness.
Here’s a biography of the speaker:
Jonathan Cooper has pioneered technologies in biosensors (1980s), protein and DNA microarrays (1990s) and Lab-on-a-Chip and Bionanotechnology (2000s).
He has published about 200 research papers, and is the founder of Mode Diagnostics (www.modedx.com), producing home diagnostics for bowel cancer and other bathroom diagnostic tests.
In his recent research, he has focused upon using plasmonics and phononics in the field of medical diagnostics.
In one example, using phononics, he has created frequency dependent acoustic lenses and mirrors with phononic crystals to enable generic platforms for low cost Developing World diagnostics.
Jon was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
He was appointed to the Wolfson Chair in Biomedical Engineering in 2009 and was awarded a Royal Society Merit Award in 2010.
And if you want to see a completely different kind of biosensor technology presentation (although it’s equally fascinating and was given at another event in San Francisco just a few days earlier than the one above) on a solution which is already being deployed (in the UK):
That talk was called:
Designing in Health: Making Technology Invisible with Arna Ionescu
The talk was presented at an event hosted by Rock Health “The first seed accelerator for digital health startups”
The event was called the Health Innovation Summit
The summit took place at the Fort Mason Center, San Francisco between the 18th and 20th of January 2012.
Here’s an extract from a press release about the technology described in that last presentation:
Lloydspharmacy [lloydspharmacy.com] partners with Proteus Biomedical to launch innovative digital health product
UK community pharmacy chain Lloydspharmacy and US company Proteus Biomedical, Inc., a pioneer in digital health, have today announced an exclusive strategic collaboration to commercialize and launch Helius™, a digital health product focused on consumers and family caregivers.
Helius has been designed to provide assurance and peace of mind to individuals struggling with complex medication regimens and health issues, and to connect these individuals to the family, friends and professionals caring for them.
As part of the agreement with Proteus, Lloydspharmacy will launch Helius in the UK and sell the system through selected pharmacies. Helius will be paid for by consumers and their families.
Combining sensor-enabled tablets, a sensor patch worn on the body, an advanced mobile health (mHealth) application and information service, and Lloydspharmacy’s current medication adherence packaging, Helius allows consumers to remain independent in their own homes and their loved ones to help take care of them.
Helius helps to monitor when medications have been taken along with a range of additional patient information including sleep patterns and physical activity.
These metrics are then combined to provide useful information to allow the patient, carer or family member to follow progress and collaborate on maintaining patient wellness.
This can result in patients not gaining the full benefit of their treatment, or worse, being at risk of harmful reactions. Unused prescription medicine is also estimated to cost the NHS in the UK around £396 million² a year.
Here’s a bio of Arna:
Arna Ionescu is the Director of Product Development, User Experience at Proteus Biomedical, where she works to ensure that Proteus’ automated, in-body therapy management system seamlessly integrates into consumers’ lives.
Prior, Ms. Ionescu spent seven years at global design and innovation firm IDEO.
With her background in interaction design and strategic human factors she built IDEO’s Connected Health domain, working with clients to create products and services that leverage technology to facilitate healthcare delivery.
She holds a master’s in computer science/human computer interaction from Stanford and a bachelor’s in computer science, with a minor in modern dance, from Princeton University.


Nowadays, when we turn to Cosmopolitan magazine, it’s for advice on such topics of earth-shaking importance as love tricks, lean thighs, and flat abs. But it was not always thus. If you’re not up on the history of that publication, then you might not be aware that is was started in 1886 and included in its pages works by such literary luminaries as Theodore Dreiser, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Willa Cather, and Edith Wharton.
In the 1899 issues of the magazine you could find articles about fashion and food but also about topics like marine disasters, air-ships, and the Philippines. Or one called “Tea-Drinking in Many Lands,” by Laura B. Starr. It’s an extensive piece, illustrated with numerous photos and drawings. And, as the name suggests, it examines tea culture in various countries.
Although from the beginning of the article the author takes a broad view of what constitutes tea, a term that’s technically given to an infusion made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. We are informed that the “Coreans” might resort to infusing ginger when they can’t afford tea while the Siberians sometimes drink cabbage tea – or should that be cabbage soup?
In Japan, the “tea” is sometimes made of salted cherry blossoms, parched barley, or beans. In China and France ginseng is likely to be the infusion of choice, while South American yerba mate also comes in for a mention, well over a century before it became trendy to own a bombilla.
But it’s not long before the author moves on to “real” tea, giving a legend for its origin and a brief history of how it originated in China and later wound up in Japan and then Europe. After a few humorous stories about tea, she moves on to give a short overview of what tea is and where it comes from.
The author notes that the United States is one of biggest customers for Japanese green tea and that tea is “indispensable” and the national drink in Russia. The author then reveals that some North American Indians were quite keen fans of tea (who knew?) and goes on to discuss tea culture in Morocco, Japan, and China.
It’s an interesting look at how tea was once done in various parts of the world. You can access the full article here.
See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles here.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


(AAA news release) High school-aged teens report using their phones or texting while driving substantially less often than adults do, according to new research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
According to an AAA news release issued this week:
While the public often cites teens as being the most common offenders, a recent survey found that adult drivers ages 25-39 were the most likely to admit engaging in these risky behaviors behind the wheel.
“It’s noteworthy that the young novice drivers are using their phones while driving less than older drivers since, given their inexperience, they are especially susceptible to distracted driving crashes,” said Peter Kissinger, President and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. “At the same time, it is discouraging that cell phone usage picks up when drivers gain more experience, as using a phone can lead to dangerous distractions behind the wheel.”
Two out of three drivers reported using a cell while driving within the past month. Forty-three percent of adults ages 25-39 reported doing so fairly often or regularly while driving, compared to only 20 percent of teens. Motorists age 60 and up were the least likely to report using a phone.
“Using your phone while driving may seem safe, but it roughly quadruples your risk of being in a crash according to previous research,” said Jake Nelson, AAA director of traffic safety advocacy and research. “None of us is immune from the dangers of distracted driving. The best advice is to hang up and drive.”
More than one-in-four motorists reported sending a text or email while driving within the past month. Adults ages 25-39 reported texting and driving most frequently, while those age 60 and up reported doing it the least.
Nearly nine-in-ten (88 percent) motorists believe distracted driving is a bigger problem now than it was three years ago. About 89 percent believe that other drivers talking on a cell phone while driving is a serious threat to their personal safety, while nearly all (96 percent) believe that others texting or emailing while behind the wheel is a serious threat.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, one out of every ten fatal crashes involves distraction, resulting in more than 3,000 deaths per year, although experts agree the numbers are likely underestimated. Previous research shows that hands-free cell phones offer no significant safety benefits over handheld phones – hands-free is not risk-free.