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Breastfeeding could save 1.3 million child lives

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:08:10 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Raising to 90 percent the global breastfeeding rate for infants to six months would save an estimated 13 percent of the 10 million under-age-5 deaths a year, Vallenas said.

In a statement released to mark World Breastfeeding Week, August 1-7, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said it was also important that mothers in disaster zones be given the support they need to continue or restart breastfeeding.

"During emergencies, unsolicited or uncontrolled donations of breast milk substitutes may undermine breastfeeding and should be avoided," Chan said, arguing abandoning breastfeeding could put vulnerable child lives at extra risk. "The focus should be on active protection and support of breastfeeding."

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Breastfeeding could save 1.3 million child lives: WHO

Fri Jul 31, 2009

GENEVA (Reuters) - Teaching new mothers how to breastfeed could save 1.3 million children's lives every year, but many women get no help and give up trying, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Less than 40 percent of mothers worldwide breastfeed their infants exclusively in the first six months, as recommended by the WHO. Many abandon it because they don't know how to get their baby to latch on properly or suffer pain and discomfort.

This is a problem in both rich and poor countries

The WHO recommends that babies start breastfeeding within one hour of their birth, and ingest only breast milk for the first six months, avoiding water and other drinks and foods.

This can give children vital nutrients and strengthen their immune system to fight diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia. Formula milk does not provide the same immunity and local water can be contaminated or unsafe in many parts of the world.

Tags: health

Why This White Guy Was Not Arrested While Trying to Break Into a House Not His Own

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:57:53 GMT

clipped by: zizzy
clipper's remarks: All was well ...

My hope is that lots of white folks will finally get what our African-American brothers and sisters have been trying to get through our thick skulls for about half a century now. It's different being black. No matter whether we think we are racists. And anyway, no person of color believes any white person who says, "I'm not a racist."

When we hunt for housing, real estate agents regard us more favorably. We don't get followed by store security. We get better deals from car salesmen, more generous treatment from juries, and -- despite myths of rampant affirmative action -- our kids rarely compete with equally qualified African-American kids because so many urban schools, where most black kids are educated, are flat-out disasters.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Last October I flew to Sarasota, Fla., and arranged to stay at the home of a friend who was traveling at the time. She mailed me keys and an address.

The keys didn't work in the front door. Or the back door. With rising anxiety -- it was 11 p.m., after all -- I called my friend, but she wasn't answering her cell phone. We tried the keys in both doors again; no luck.

I explained my problem, describing the front door -- and she started laughing. "You're in the wrong place. You'd better get out of there before someone calls the cops." We were on the wrong street.

the cop came over

cabbie explained

cop returned to his car

All was wel

I thought of this story when I read about the recent arrest of Henry Louis Gates after entering his own house.

Every day, we white people benefit from being white, from white ancestry, and from acting as if we deserve the benefits of being white.

How an insect with such a tiny brain can thwart your attempts to catch it nearly every time?

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:47:17 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: www.wired.com

Blowflies Get Virtual Reality in Flight Simulator

Ever wonder how an insect with such a tiny brain can thwart your attempts to catch it nearly every time? Apparently scientists do, too.

To find out how the common blowfly manages to process visual images more than four times faster than humans, researchers have built the bug a flight simulator. After immobilizing each insect with a fly-sized harness and attaching electrodes to its brain, biologists from the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology placed blowflies in front of a semicircular LED screen displaying various moving patterns

As the fly responded to virtual objects flying around it, the scientists used a fluorescent microscope to watch how its brain processed the images. Compared to people, who can distinguish a maximum of 25 discrete images per second, blowflies are visual virtuosos: They can sense up to 100 separate images per second and respond fast enough to change their flight direction

When Humor Humiliates

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:56:33 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: sciencenews.org

When Humor Humiliates

laughter is good medicine, the best even. But for some,

a good-natured chuckle isn’t funny at all. Morbidly averse to being the butt of a joke, these folks will go out of their way to avoid certain people or situations for fear of being ridiculed. For them, merely being around others who are talking and laughing can cause tension and apprehension.

Until recently, such people might have been written off as spoilsports. But in the mid-1990s, an astute German psychologist recognized the problem for what it is: a debilitating fear of being laughed at

Over the past decade, psychologists, sociologists, linguists and humor experts have examined this trait, technically known as gelotophobia

scientists worldwide now recognize it as a distinct social phobia. Studies of causes and consequences of gelotophobia were among the topics presented in June in Long Beach, Calif., at a meeting of the International Society for Humor Studies.

Watching Whales Watching Us

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:48:19 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: The question of sonar’s catastrophic effects on whales even reached the Supreme Court last November, in a case pitting the United States Navy against the Natural Resources Defense Council. The council, along with other environmental groups, had secured two landmark victories in the district and appellate courts of California, which ruled to heavily restrict the Navy’s use of sonar devices in its training exercises. The Supreme Court, however, in a 6-to-3 decision widely viewed as a setback for the environmental movement, overturned parts of the lower-court rulings, faulting them for, in the words of Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion, failing “properly to defer to senior Navy officers’ specific, predictive judgments,” thereby jeopardizing the safety of the fleet and sacrificing the public’s interest in military preparedness by “forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained antisubmarine force.” In his decision, Roberts went on to minimize, in a fairly

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

It is nearly impossible to pinpoint the precise cause of a whale’s stranding. Theories invariably include factors like the straying of a sick and dying whale leader, faithfully followed by the members of his pod, or sudden shallows along the shores of a migratory route. The two strandings in September 2002, however, did have something intriguing in common.

It might sound like something out of a bad sci-fi film: whales sent into suicidal dashes toward the ocean’s surface to escape the madness-inducing echo chamber that we humans have made of their sound-sensitive habitat. But since the Canary Islands stranding in 2002, similar necropsy results have turned up with a number of beached whales, and the deleterious effects of sonar and other human-generated sounds on ocean ecosystems have been firmly established.

Tags: ecology, whales

Scrimshaw: Young Mother In Mourning

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:43:34 GMT

clipped by: ofcapri
clipper's remarks: Beautifully done!

Clip Source: www.worthpoint.com

Scrimshaw: Young Mother In Mourning

Infant mortality in antebellum (pre-Civil War) America was quite high, especially in tight-knit New England cities, where contagions could be easily spread from child-to-child. Poor diet, scarce & crude medical care, extreme weather, and other factors contributed to childhood deaths that often approached 1 in 4, before the age of 10.

Several studies document & graph these numbers. See:
http://www.cairn.info/article_p.php?ID_ARTICLE=ADH_101_0033
http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~fe2r/papers/mortality.pdf

Based on the woman’s dress, this antebellum era scrimwork depicts a young mother in shock, handkerchief in hand, dressed in mourning black, alongside the coffin of her infant, also draped in black. By the look of this woman’s young age, the deceased may have been an only child.

A Scrimshaw Mystery Solved!
I like a good mystery! And I especially love to solve mysteries. This scrimshawed 22.2-ounce & 7.25-inch Sperm … View Detail >>

Tags: scrimshaw

Bolivia Bans All Animals From Circus Acts

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:08:55 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Even domesticated animals are not allowed.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Bolivia has enacted what animal rights activists are calling the world's first ban on all animals in circuses.

Use of wild and domestic animals have been banned in Bolivia, the first law of its kind anywhere in the world, say animal welfare activists

A handful of other countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses, but the Bolivian ban includes domestic animals as well.

The law, which states that the use of animals in circuses "constitutes an act of cruelty", took effect on 1 July with operators given a year to comply, according to the bill's sponsor, Ximena Flores.

The law was proposed after an undercover investigation by the nonprofit-making London-based group Animal Defenders International (ADI) found widespread abuse in circuses operating in Bolivia.

15 Facts You Didn't Know About Your Body

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:52:52 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly
clipper's remarks: info at source

Clip Source: www.oddee.com

Our body is capable of producing aspirin

Taking a nap at work is good for your boss

Ejaculation may cause men to sneeze

Every person has a unique tongue print

White skin has evolved over time

The foot is home to the body's thickest area of skin

The appendix isn't as useless as you think

The body is taller in the morning than in the evening

Humans glow in the dark

The stomach produces a new lining every 3 days to avoid digesting itself with its own acids

Body position affects your memory

Big brains cause cramped mouths

Blondes have more hair

The average person expels flatulence 14 times each day

Having orgasms prevent men from prostate cancer

Two large studies, reported in 2003 and 2004, found that middle-aged men who had (or at least remember having) at least four orgasms a week throughout their 20s, 30s and 40s had a reduced risk of prostate cancer by as much as one-third. Some researchers speculate that ejaculations may clear the prostate of carcinogens. (Source)

1,000,000,000+ Firefox Downloads - ONE BILLION!

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:16:40 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: What if Clipmarks had just 500,000 users in that group? Chaos?

Clip Source: digitaldaily.allthingsd.com

Once the plucky underdog in the browser battle, Mozilla’s Firefox is today the second most popular browser worldwide, after Internet Explorer.

Since it was first released in November 2004, the browser has succeeded not just in dislodging Microsoft’s (MSFT) IE from its dominant market position, but in proving that an open-source project can become a widely used consumer application. Now, it is fast approaching its billionth download and is likely to hit that milestone this afternoon.

Mozilla tells me Firefox hit the one billion downloads mark at 7:47 am PDT/10:47 am EDT.

Clip Source: www.spreadfirefox.com

Firefox Downloads:: 1,000,171,095

Incredible shadow art created from junk

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:12:55 GMT

clipped by: mmlee
clipper's remarks: British artists Tim Noble & Sue Webster utilizes everyday trash/junk in their notable art work, playing with & challenging our perceptions, sensibilities.

Clip Source: www.environmentalgraffiti.com

Incredible Shadow Art Created From Junk

Real Life is Rubbish, 2002

British-born and -based artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster skilfully skirt the boundaries between beauty and the shadowier aspects of humanity, playing with our perceptions as well as our notions of taste. Many of their most notable pieces are made from piles of rubbish, with light projected against them to create a shadow image entirely different to that seen when looking directly at the deliberately disguised pile.

Dirty White Trash (With Gulls), 1998

Real Life is Rubbish, 2002

HE/SHE, 2003

Tags: art, artists, junk, trash, garbage, recycled, shadows, beauty, photos, images

Scientists Drill a Mile Into Active Deep Sea Fault Zone [photos & video]

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:14:03 GMT

clipped by: chestnut501

Clip Source: www.wired.com

In the first deep sea drilling expedition designed to gather seismic data, scientists have successfully drilled nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor into one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Clip Source: www.wired.com

By collecting rock samples and installing long-term monitoring devices, the geologists hope to understand how stress builds up in subduction zones like Nankai, where the Philippine Sea plate plate is sliding beneath the island of Japan.

The Nankai Trough last ruptured twice in 1944 and 1946, generating earthquakes greater than magnitude 8 that shook the region and caused deadly tsunamis. Since then, the two plates have continued to move, but the boundary between them has been locked, causing pressure to build.

What is learned in Japan will help scientists understand other earthquake-prone plate boundaries, such as the Cascadia subduction zone, which extends along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to Northern California

Divers Attacked by Jumbo Flying Squid

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:18:33 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

THOUSANDS of aggressive sea monsters with razor-sharp beaks and toothy tentacles have invaded San Diego beaches, spooking divers and tourists.

The 1.5 meter-long carnivorous calamari – which can grow up to 45kg – have attacked divers.

Some divers have reported tentacles enveloping their masks and yanking at their cameras and gear.

The Humboldt squid, also known as a jumbo flying squid, are native to the deep waters off Mexico and have been known to attack humans.

"I wouldn't go into the water with them for the same reason I wouldn't walk into a pride of lions on the Serengeti," local diver Mike Bear told the Associated Press.

The squid are too deep to bother swimmers and surfers, but many divers say they are staying out of the surf until the sea creatures clear out.

Shandra Magill, was surprised when a large squid hit her from behind, grabbing at her with its arms and pulling her sideways in the water

The first thing you think of is, 'Oh my gosh, I don't know if I'm going to survive this,'"

Kharkiv under the Nazi Occupation

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:11:00 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly

Clip Source: englishrussia.com

Kharkiv as many other cities in the western part in the USSR was occupied by the Nazi army in the WWII. It was a big industrial and populated city in the Soviet Ukraine, and so it was very important for German army to have it as soon as possible.

The German troops entered the city on 25 October, 1941, and the Red army tried to regain it several times. Kharkiv remained under the occupation for a year and a four months, and at last it was liberated in February 1943, though, not for long. It was taken by the enemy soon and the Soviet army set it free only in August 23, 1943. This photos show how was the live under Nazi in a city, which for some time used to be the capital of Ukraine.

Man Saves Moose From Dogs; What About Wildlife Officials?

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:20:39 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: Pete's supporters held a rally in his support in Waterbury Thursday night.

Clip Source: www.wptz.com

Every day David Lawrence makes the trip from Albany, Vt., to his an Irasburg farm to visit "Pete," a male moose who's affection he earned by nursing the bull back to health with a daily supply of food. "He expects me to come through the gate every day. This area has become his home because he knows I'm going to come see him," Lawrence said.

The 600-acre fenced-in farm Pete lives on is owned by Doug Nelson, who has created an animal preserve -- and hunting facility -- for imported elk and red deer. Last year, he allowed Lawrence to bring Peter to the farm. Peter was newborn and had been injured by dogs.

More than a year later, the two are still attached.

"I guess he bonded with me. I only fed him ... I didn't want to get this attached, but it's impossible,"

The problem is, that feeding and keeping wild animals is against the law

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department take issue with Pete living on the farm, along with the other wild animals that are fenced in the farm.

The giant anvil-shaped cloud hovering 75,000ft above Earth

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:12:48 GMT

clipped by: clip-on-tie
clipper's remarks: "A giant, anvil-shaped cloud bubbles up towards the Earth's stratosphere, looming over West Africa.

The amazing formation would be invisible to anyone on the ground and would even be obscure from a regular passenger jet since they can reach up to 75,000ft.

But astronauts captured the astonishing picture from hundreds of miles up as they orbited the globe on the International Space Station.

Anvil clouds are formed mostly from ice and normally form in the upper parts of thunderstorms. They get their shape from the fact that rising warm air in thunderstorms expands and spreads out as the air bumps up against the bottom of the stratosphere.

Streaks of snow are often seen falling out of the edges of anvils. This light snow usually evaporates as it falls through the relatively dry air surrounding the upper part of the thunderstorm."

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Astronauts captured this astonishing picture as they orbited the globe in the International Space Station

Images released today showed Tom Marshburn and Christopher Cassidy doing final maintenance work on the exterior of the complex ahead of their departure today.

The four-hour and 54-minute procedure involved rewiring, camera setup, tidying cables and installing handrails and a portable foot restraint to aid future spacewalkers.

Spacewalk: Astronauts Tom Marshburn (left) and Christopher Cassidy, do mantenance work and construction on the International Space Station ahead of their departure today

The five spacewalks together spanned a total of 30 hours.

The team from the visiting Endeavour shuttle fitted Japan's new outdoor experiments platform with television cameras, completing the final task for the £1.45 billion Kibo complex.

'Congratulations, you guys just completed the ... assembly,' Mission Control radioed once the second camera was secured.

Tags: nasa, clouds, photograph, space