I have been meaning to post this video for over two weeks when a good friend of mine put me on it. You may have guessed I am a big fan of TED videos so I make no apologies for posting up yet another amazing story.
Ron Finley had a major problem with the fast food culture in his community and would drive for 45mins out of town to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables to help him maintain a healthy diet and life-style. This video is about how one inspirational man and his vision provided some alternative to fast food in a community where “the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.”
He plants vegetable gardens in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs in South Central LA. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some hope for future generations. Press play and witness how one man’s great vision/seed grew and became a pillar of education, empowerment and hope for his community.
One of my favourite quotes from his talk is “you will be surprised how much of a difference a sunflower makes, they are beautiful just to look at”
So on that note I want to leave you with one of my all time favourite songs. Special shout out to my London people fighting the April snow.
Eyman
p.s We are trying to grow our own avocado plant at home. The roots have started to shoot but we are not sure if it’s time to pot it or not? anyone got any tips they can send my way? or even better some photos.
The weekend is here but before we all get into the swing of things I wanted to share with you a debate I have been having with myself, in my own head, as you do, so please indulge me . You may or may not have come across technology’s newest advancement in printers, the 3D printer. These printers literally mean you can design something and print a 3D model either in miniature or to scale (if the design fits within the parameters of the printers settings of-course, some things do not change!). All sorts of things are being printed, tea-cups, mini-architectural designs, spoons, key rings and well you get the idea right?
Or, if you live in Japan, you can get a 3D printed foetus. Yep, that’s right, a 3D foetus. A Japanese clinic is offering parents-to-be the chance to hold their baby months before the child leaves the womb. The technology offered by Fasotec and Hiroo Ladies Clinic in Tokyo, Japan, creates a 3D model of the mother’s fetus and womb using a “Bio-Texture” process and MRI scans. The service is interestingly named “Shape of an Angel” and can be yours for a mere £764 or about $1,276 not including the cost of the MRI. You get a small, plastic, anatomically accurate (if low on resolution) model of your son or daughter, encased, if you wish, in a see-through reproduction of the mothers midriff.
For the above price, the company will squeeze you or your partner into a MRI machine – a noisy, uncomfortable-for-the-patient piece of medical equipment capable of generating a 3D picture of the body’s interior – for an hour or so. I know you are thinking, that doesn’t sound nice but according to the Fasotec representative Tomohiro Kinoshita, the Japanese women loved it.
“We actually got three expectant mothers to try this out. They said it felt great to see how their babies looked before birth, and to be able to actually hold the inside of their own body,” He goes on to say “They also enjoyed looking at the model after giving birth, thinking, ‘This is how my baby looked inside me’ and recalling how it felt to be pregnant.”
I am making light of it here but the technology is actually quite amazing. The service is in truth something of a PR stunt designed to promote Fasotec’s “bio-texture modelling” business, for which it has high hopes of making big money by connecting medical imaging technology to 3D printing. Fasotec also sees roles for the technology in plastic and reconstructive surgery, and in dentistry. My younger brother is an orthopaedic surgeon (aka the bone gods) and he thinks this will be the way medical students will learn to become surgeons in the future. Click on the video below to see for yourself. Pretty impressive stuff.
Although I have much respect for the technology and its promise of medical advancement, I just do not know how I feel about having a 3D print out of my foetus, when did a picture of your baby become a thing of the past? and why does this not excite me? Do they charge extra for twins, I wonder? the debate goes on….3D printed shoes however, I’ll take that.
I love this song and all the shoes in this video, it has been the background song to my internal dialogues this week. Click play and enjoy while you ponder on the possibility of allowing a 3D print out foetus in your life.
If you are a woman, you are familiar with all the pressures and challenges attached to your reproductive system. Especially in particular, your biological clock and the increasing risks to your health and your childs developmental health the later in life you decide to have kids.
However, I was surprised to learn recently that now they have now discovered a link between older fathers and a risk of Autism and Schizophrenia in children. It has been shown that older men are more likely to have children with autism or schizophrenia than younger ones. This is due to the fact that older fathers pass on significantly more random genetic mutations onto their children increasing the risk of their children having these conditions.
Hope you have all been well. Some of you may know that it is the holy month of Ramadan in the Islamic calender. This special month means that from sunrise to sunset, people of the Muslim faith abstain from eating and drinking (yes, not even water!!!). Ramadan is my favorite month, but I have to admit, this year it has been tough as the days are super long and I am definitely feeling it.
A friend of mine sent me this link to the third horizon episode called Eat, Fast and Live Longer presented by Michael Mosley. I wanted to write a post on the scientific health benefits of fasting towards the beginning of the month but it is so much and can get very complicated. This episode is the perfect introduction into the world of health metabolics and you can see Mr Mosley take him-self through all the different types of fasts and the huge mental and physical health benefits he personally gained from actually doing the fasts. Clink on this link and watch it on bbc iplayer before it’s gone.
In-case you do not have the time to watch the whole episode. I am going to do my best to summarise the power of fasting here.
Mosley goes through different phases of food restrictions before delving into fasting. Calorie restriction, eating well but not much, is one of the few things that has been shown to extend life expectancy, at least in animals. We’ve known since the 1930s that mice put on a low-calorie, nutrient-rich diet live far longer. This is also true in monkeys, the mammal of choice for testing a theory before human trials.
The world record for extending life expectancy in a mammal is held by a new type of mouse which can expect to live an extra 40%, equivalent to a human living to 120 or even longer. 120 years of life, i’m not sure I want to live to 120 but some of you may
Why I hear you ask does this mouse have such a healthy and long life? the answer is it has been genetically engineered so its body produces very low levels of a growth hormone called IGF-1, high levels of which seem to lead to accelerated ageing and age-related diseases, while low levels are protective. Tah Dah!
A similar, but natural, genetic mutation has been found in humans with Laron syndrome, a rare condition that affects fewer than 350 people worldwide. The very low levels of IGF-1 their bodies produce means they are short, but this also seems to protect them against heart disease, strokes, cancer and diabetes, all age-related diseases.
The IGF-1 hormone (insulin-like growth factor) is one of the drivers which keep our bodies in go-go mode, with cells driven to reproduce. This is fine when you are growing, but not so good later in life, it makes us get old :-/.
How does all this relate to fasting? I’m getting there, evidence suggests that IGF-1 levels can be lowered by what you eat. The reason seems to be that when our bodies no longer have access to food they switch from “growth mode” to “repair mode”. As levels of the IGF-1 hormone drop, a number of repair genes appear to get switched on according to ongoing research by Professor Valter Longo of the University of Southern California.
Mosley had a go fasting for 3 days and saw his levels of IGF-1 drop by over half, dramatically reducing his chances of age associated diseases and diabetes, to 1 in a billion! His face on hearing this information is priceless. Finding three continuous days of fasting difficult he researches fasting diets further and goes for the Alternate Day fasting (ADF). This diet involving eating what you want one day, then a very restricted diet (fewer than 600 calories) the next, and most surprisingly, it does not seem to matter that much what you eat on non-fast days says Dr Krista Varady of the University of Illinois at Chicago who carried a range of clinical trials.
Mosley decided, he couldn’t manage ADF, it was just too impractical. Fair enough, he was being honest with himself. Instead he did an easier version, the so-called 5:2 diet. As the name implies you eat normally 5 days a week, then two days a week you eat 500 calories if you are a woman, or 600 calories, if you are a man. It worked for him but it is important to note that there are no firm rules because so far there have been few proper human trials.
The final conclusion, fasting can be good for you both physically, mentally and spiritually. Why not try it? If you want to read some of the hard-core science click on this link.
Hope you enjoyed the read, now I’m going to enjoy my fasting experience just that little bit more knowing that it’s giving my aging processes a run for it’s money. I’m working on being forever young again like Ghost. Click on the video below for Napolean Dynamites reinterpretation of Forever Young.
What is happiness? What makes people happy? The answers to these questions are still heavily debated because it is still uncertain what conditions and interventions improve happiness or quality of life. On the 29th May 2012, I attended a talk at UCL on behalf of Dr Eyman, entitled ‘The Science of Happiness’.
Hey world, So this is my first post. Here goes. Hope you enjoy.
These days, body odour is something most people shy away from. Just taking a walk around the cosmetics section of any supermarket and you’ll be overwhelmed by the abundance of deodorants that all claim to combat sweat and keep you smelling fresh for even up to 72 hours. If this actually truly works we’ll never know but when you look at the perfume industry, and the various products all offering to give you the smell of sophistication, fun, mystery or any other random buzz word they can come up with and you can understand why the way we smell is so important in society. To put it simply, there is a lot of money in scent.
However, it is thought that these perfume companies might be getting it wrong. Instead of masking our odour, enhancing our natural odour or elements of it in order to attract member of the opposite sex is something that is being researched. As well as the obvious body odour that we all associate with heavy exercise or stress, like mammals in the wild we all have a unique scent that we may not be aware of but those outside of house are. This distinctive scent has subconscious effects on not only the opposite sex but everyone we come into contact with in our day to day lives. Our sense of smell is extremely sensitive, more so the female sense of smell than males and it is thought that our noses can even decode messages in other people’s odours. Recent research suggests that the scents we make could relay information about our personalities. But why would perfume companies be interested in our body scents?
Research has found that women prefer the smell of dominant men, especially during the most fertile stage of their menstrual cycle. Dominance is seen as an attractive characteristic as it could be linked to higher levels of testosterone and the ability of the man to provide and protect offspring. Men however find women more attractive during ovulation and least attractive during menstruation. These are very subtle scents, yet they can be picked up by men. If perfume manufacturers are able to determine and isolate the natural compounds that make men more attractive to women and vice versa, these could be added to women’s perfumes or men’s aftershaves. To find more click on this link.
Nowadays, our natural inclination is to hide our natural scent. These artificial scents have a profound influence on our behaviour and how other people perceive us. It is thought that we feel more confident and more attractive with artificial fragrances as opposed to our own natural scent. Socially it is not acceptable to smell of body odour, but to those who are concerned with attracting the opposite sex with their grooming habits perhaps going au natural might be the way forward. But clean au natural, there is a difference. In the words of Jill Scott, your scent is exclusive
Last-night I had one of those life changing realisations and I couldn’t wait to share it with you all. For the past 6 months, I have been logging my often random monthly cycles with this handy I-phone app called M-Calender (one of the many reasons I am #teamiphone).
During what I thought was yet another bout of random insomnia, I tapped into the app at 4am and looked at my “symptoms” section. What I noticed actually made me get up and write this post in the middle of the night. I noticed that just before my period is about to start I have about two nights of insomnia. I noticed a pattern!! aaaaaaaargh I silently screamed, it all makes sense now.
The reason I am sharing this little piece of information with you is simple. I realised that instead of spending two nights tossing and turning in my bed trying to force my natural insomniac self to sleep during this pattern, I can simply use the 4 or 5 hours doing something productive. For example, catching up on my writing, admin and making those skype calls to all my friends across the pond. Light-bulb moment. Replace frustration with understanding and productivity
I learned so much about myself, some of the things I thought occurred, I was able to confirm by seeing the pattern (for example, my body temperature goes up around two days before and the newly-acquired moderate moodiness that accompanies it needs getting used to). The power of self-knowledge is amazing, I feel so much more in control of all those “in-controllable” symptoms just by knowing why and when they occur.
Ladies I wholeheartedly suggest you start logging your “symptoms” and help yourselves, your associates, husbands, partners, friends, family, flatmates…basically, all those who come into contact with you during that time of the month. I know a few of my girlfriends who I might just start logging alongside myself just to help me mediate their monthly life-crises.
This is how I feel inside when I am going through this experience, however you would never know as I and many other ladies make a point of carrying it gracefully (if you are unfortunate enough to get excruciatingly bad cramps like I do, I know you feel me, they are almost as bad as the man Kelis is screaming at!)
Hope my geekformation proves to be useful and please let me know if it works for you.
Hope you are all having a great week so far. I was having a discussion with my sister the other day whom I believe is actually addicted to the Coca-Cola soft-drink. I thought everyone knew the story behind Coca-Cola and it’s “success” or “rise” but apparently not, so I decided to write this post and wet your appetite for random bits of geeky information (geekformation) that I tend to collect in my already cluttered brain
Coca-Cola is one of the most well known and wealthiest companies in the world. However, the company has a very interesting narrative. Coca-Cola was started by John Pemberton during a short lived prohibition on the sale of alcohol in Atlanta. Pemberton sought an alternative to alcohol, so he made a tonic that contained carbonated water, kola nut extracts, fruit flavors, and coca leaves. Brilliant idea. Here comes the crazy part; cocaine from the coca leaves was included in the drink, which is why it caught on so fast! Once this was realised by the Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA) it was made illegal and the government limited the usage of the leaves. Not the greatest of starts right?
Then the story goes that no more cocaine was in the drink, yet the flavor was still necessary and had to be obtained from the coca.Therefore, Coca-Cola continued to use coca leaves. It was not until later when the US government completely banned any importation of coca leaves into the country that Coca-Cola was really in trouble. Because the procurement of coca leaves was illegal, Coca-Cola no longer had their key flavor. Now what are they going to do?
Of-course, money talks and Coca-Cola struck a deal with the DEA allowing them to continue to import the leaves, but ensuring the cocaine was removed. This is still the practice.The leaves are imported from Peru and Bolivia and DEA officers “watch closely” to make sure all the cocaine is removed from the leaves sent to Coca-Cola factories to be made into cola! Not think off how big Coca-cola is around the world and think of how much cocaine uhm I mean coca leaves are needed for total production. Crazy right? Peru and Bolivia…are they rich countries? hmmmm I wonder….
RIP Amy
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Hope you enjoyed the random but true fact. Until next-time. Share the knowledge please.
It is Monday and sometimes it is helpful to get it all of your chest at the beginning of the week. Like I said before, I asked some of my Dr friends to let off some steam and tell me 5 things they would like to say to us but cant. Well this Dr went in and I got back 12 steam reducing rants! So I’m posting the first 6 and will post the other 6 next-time.
1-Medications – if your on regular medications and you have to see a doctor that’s not your GP, please carry a list with you if you can’t remember them (with doses). It really is not as easy ‘looking in the notes’ or figuring it out from you telling me it’s the ‘blue, green or purple’ tablet.
2. Getting Personal – If we ask you personal questions please either tell the truth or just state that you don’t want to answer but for the love of all things healthy, please DO NOT LIE. And, please don’t be offended, certain questions we have to ask regardless of who you are, believe me it is not my favorite past-time (tho sometimes fun lol)
3. Medical history - Please be responsible for your health. Know your medical history a little beyond a ‘heart/lung/kidney problem’. It really helps us figure out what you have come in with so we can help you and if you write it down you wont have to try and sound out the medical terms!
4. Painkillers- If ever in pain (toothache, period pains, headache etc..) and what your taking isn’t working, don’t take more than the stated dose. It makes NO difference to your pain, it just increases your chances of getting side effects. Try two different groups e.g ibuprofen and paracetamol together. You probably noticed the price difference on the market. If it’s the same drug, it does the same thing.
5. Nose bleeds – sometimes they just happen, for no reason. Yes, no reason at all, that doesn’t make me bad at my job and won’t make me make one up to make you feel better! Because I’m nice, here are some tips to help you out; Tilt your head FORWARD (never back) and pinch ur nose (fleshy part) for at least 15-20mins (this will feel like a lifetime but seriously keep time). Of course if it continues get some medical help.
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- 6. Ear Wax Attacks – DO NOT clean the inside of your ears (ear canals) with cotton buds, yes don’t. Instead of cleaning all you do is push more wax back in there and in the long run cause more problems. Go an see a professional for a proper ear wax clean. But please, you can use the Q-tip cotton buds to keep the outside canal and ear area clean, it’s just nasty when you don’t!
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WOW AMAZING, Q-tip cotton buds are BAD for your ears and don’t even help, I had no idea, all this time and I hate that feeling of the bud inside my ear (it makes me automatically cough like a crazy person, don’t ask me why? I have no idea but my sister knows when I’m cleaning my ears in the bathroom, it’s that bad!)
Hope you gained some knowledge and that you will share it post reading. Until next time, get on-top of your medical records!
How are you all? Sorry I have not posted anything for a while. The story of why that is, is a little bit surreal/crazy/T.I.A/notsurehowtotellawholebunchofnewpeopleit. So I am not going to tell you the whole story but I will tell you that I learned a range of new skills and lessons about myself. One of the things I learned was how easy it is to ignore your own health in a middle of a surreal/busy/crisis/stressful period!
For example, I logged onto my blog and checked the stats and noticed that lots of people are still reading the post on breast cancer and then I remembered that my reminder to check my own boobs went off last-week in the middle of this surreal episode of my life and I ignored it because I was too busy. Not good. I also got a private message from a follower of the blog who thanked me for reminding her, she found a lump and also came across this BRILLIANT advertisement campaign. She wanted me to share it with you all.
I LOVE IT. GENIUS APP. ALMOST AS GOOD AS MAN ON A HORSE. FUNNY. SEXY. ENJOY LADIES
PSSSSTT LOOK OUT FOR THE BODY-ROLL AT THE END, ITS UHM… VERY INSPIRING LOL
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This is a reminder, have you checked your boobs yet? If not, go to my Boobs and That Friday Feeling post and follow the steps and then add the step below:
Added Step: Download rethink breast cancer man reminder app.
Trust me, it makes it so much more fun lol I have checked mine now with the help of my app man and all is well and I sleep better knowing my man reminder on my phone will ask me to check them again once a month
Share this post, you will be helping someone, I promise you.
. You may or may not have come across technology’s newest advancement in printers, the 3D printer. These printers literally mean you can design something and print a 3D model either in miniature or to scale (if the design fits within the parameters of the printers settings of-course, some things do not change!). All sorts of things are being printed, tea-cups, mini-architectural designs, spoons, key rings and well you get the idea right?
