Mother turtle gets help laying eggs

Finally, a feel good story!

Amplify’d from www.cnn.com

Injured by a shark, mother turtle gets help laying eggs

Long after the suntanned crowds pack up their umbrellas and chairs and the tide has washed away that day's sand castles, Clover slowly makes her way onto the beach.

The special affection for Clover comes from her disability; she is missing her rear flippers. According to Martin, the scars indicate that the flippers were bitten off by sharks.

"With no rear flippers, leatherbacks and any sea turtle are not able to dig a proper egg cavity," Martin said, "so they end up depositing their eggs on the sand, and they don't survive."

Clover must be very thankful. This season, with a little help from her friends, she has filled seven holes. Read more at www.cnn.com

 

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New Clues to the Genetic Roots of Autism

Interesting, but doesn't really help us families with two or more ASD kids.

Amplify’d from healthland.time.com

Studies: New Clues to the Genetic Roots of Autism

Random changes in genes, rather than changes handed down from parents, may be responsible for some cases of autism, say scientists who report in three new papers a major breakthrough in understanding where those genetic changes may lie.

For the new studies, published in the journal Neuron, researchers focused on about 1,000 families in which only one child was affected with autism. Much of the past research on the genetic roots of autism has looked at families with at least two affected siblings; these families may represent cases in which inherited genetic mutations may play a more prominent role in the disorder, but researchers wanted to understand the genetic factors involved in children whose condition cannot be traced back to their parents. Most cases of autism involve children whose other family members remain unaffected.

Two groups of scientists, working independently, focused their attention on these families, and compared the genetic differences between autistic and non-autistic members within each. What they found was that children with autism were about four times more likely than their unaffected siblings to have copy number variants (CNVs), mutations in which a part of the genome is either duplicated or deleted. The CNVs in children with autism were also larger and contained a higher density of genes than the CNVs in unaffected siblings. These differences may account for anywhere from 5% to 10% of autism in families with only one autistic child, the researchers said. Read more at healthland.time.com

 

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Personal Google Music Recordings. . .

I recorded my own song on Google. How about you?



Nianya's Song: http://www.google.com/webhp?tune=EAxAiCGEGEQYgJATBinIJES4EhxDHBGMQIgggBKECIMIEg4qBxiREsBQcQxwTgiADIQIQwgQhmIGJJMSoFByBmDEOMIsxIRLGCOEHYgA

Amplify’d from www.foxnews.com

In commemoration of legendary musician Les Paul, who would have been 96 today, Google’s homepage has been transformed into an interactive guitar. The doodle features a stylized guitar that lets you mouse over the strings to make music, and even record your song. Recordings can be up to 30 seconds long and the site gives a URL for the recording so rocker-wannabe’s can show off to their friends.  Read more at www.foxnews.com

 

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10,000 Steps a Day for 90 days?

I've probably bitten of more than I can chew but I've signed up for my company's 10K per day challenge. Starting next Weds. and through mid-Sept. Encouragement welcome and maybe a few fun comments from the peanut gallery as well. I'll be tweeting and blogging about this all summer.

Amplify’d from www.canadafreepress.com

Who Says 10,000 Steps a Day?

How many steps do most people take daily, and how many are needed for good health? I had no idea how many I take and thought it would be interesting and prudent to find out. And who is right about exercise, Mark Twain or the Earl of Derby?

I discovered it was the Japanese who came up with the figure of 10,000, and there's nothing magic about it. Rather, the number was used as a smart marketing device in a campaign to sell pedometers. But even though it was a smart sales move, medical authorities have agreed the proposed Japanese figure of 10,000 steps is a healthy number to aim for. But it does mean walking a hefty five miles each day.

My next question was how many calories does 10,000 steps burn up? Let's say you've just enjoyed a lunch of a double burger, fries and a sugar-loaded 10-ounce soft drink. This packs a caloric wallop of about 1,700 calories.

That's when the pedometer sends bad news. You will be surprised at the small number of calories you've burned up after a brisk walk. For instance, a 150-pound person, after five miles of moderate walking, loses only 500 calories. And it takes one hour of moderate walking to consume the energy of one jelly-filled doughnut. Read more at www.canadafreepress.com

 

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First it was Y2K, today it's IPv6 Day. . .

What's next?

Amplify’d from money.cnn.com

Google, Facebook test IPv6 Internet upgrade

Wednesday is World IPv6 Day, a clunky name for an experiment that should be invisible to Web surfers but plays a critical role in keeping the Internet running smoothly.

One of the Net's foundational layers is the Internet Protocol, a global communications standard used for linking connected devices together. Every networked device you own -- your PC, smartphone, laptop, tablet and other gizmos -- has a unique IP address. The problem is that we're running out of them. The current system, called IPv4, has the technical capacity to handle 4.3 billion addresses. They're almost all used up: The last remaining batch was assigned out in February.

The old system could handle several billion addresses. IPv6 has room 340 undecillion of them. That's 34 followed by 37 zeros -- enough for every human on Earth to have trillions of personal gadgets.

For 24 hours, starting at midnight UTC (8 p.m. ET) more than 400 major websites around the world are switching their sites over to IPv6 delivery. Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Facebook and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) are leading the charge.

"The vast majority (99.95%) of people will be able to access services without interruption: either they'll connect over IPv6, or their systems will successfully fall back to IPv4," Google wrote earlier this week in a blog post about the test. "However, as with any next-generation technology, there may be teething pains. We estimate that .05% of systems may fail to fall back to IPv4, so some people may find Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Bing and other participating websites slow or unresponsive on World IPv6 Day."

Google has a tool posted at http://ipv6test.google.com/ that you can use to test your own connection. Read more at money.cnn.com

 

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Strike one for the little people, finally. . .this is funny but it's also very serious and very sad. THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN!

Amplify’d from www.ajc.com

Fla. couple threatens bank with foreclosure

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Months after Bank of America wrongly foreclosed on a house Warren and Maureen Nyerges had already paid for, they were still fighting to get reimbursed for the court battle.

So on Friday, their attorney showed up at a branch office in Naples with a moving truck and sheriff's deputies who had a judge's permission to seize the furniture if necessary. An hour later, the bank had written a check for $5,772.88.

After the moving company and sheriff's deputies get their share, the Nyerges should receive the rest of the money this week, ending a bizarre saga that started when they paid Bank of America $165,000 cash for a 2,700-square-foot foreclosed home in Naples in 2009.

In September 2010, a Collier county judge ordered Bank of America to pay the couple's $2,534 attorney fees. But by last week, the bank hadn't paid up, so Allen got a judge's permission to seize assets. Read more at www.ajc.com

 

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Sounds like Weight Watchers to me, except it's low sodium. This is just healthy eating folks. It's not rocket science and it works.

Amplify’d from dashdiet.org

The DASH Diet Eating Plan

The DASH diet is recommended by physicians for people with hypertension (high blood pressure) or prehypertension. The DASH diet eating plan has been proven to lower blood pressure in studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). In addition to being a low salt (or low sodium) plan, the DASH diet provides additional benefits to reduce blood pressure. It is based on an eating plan rich in fruits and vegetables, and low-fat or non-fat dairy, with whole grains. It is a high fiber, low to moderate fat diet, and is rich in potasium, calcium, and magnesium. The full DASH diet plan is shown below. The DASH diet is a healthy plan, designed for the whole family. New research continues to show additional health benefits of the plan.

Specifically the DASH diet plan includes: Type of food Number of servings for 1600 - 3100 Calorie diets Servings on a 2000 Calorie diet Grains and grain products (include at least 3 whole grain foods each day) 6 - 12 7 - 8 Fruits 4 - 6 4 - 5 Vegetables 4 - 6 4 - 5 Low fat or non fat dairy foods 2 - 4 2 - 3 Lean meats, fish, poultry 1.5 - 2.5 2 or less Nuts, seeds, and legumes 3 - 6 per week 4 - 5 per week Fats and sweets 2 - 4 limited

Although weight loss was not a part of the original DASH diet research, the book provides guidance and plans for adapting the DASH diet for successful weight loss. Many women need to follow a lower calorie diet in order to lose weight, so we include a 1200-calorie version of the DASH diet. Although this book was not intended to be an aggressive weight loss program, many of our readers have reported 10 - 35 pound weight loss in a few months.

The design of the meal plans in the book are based on newer research on how to make satisfying meals, helping to prevent between meal hunger. That is a key feature of high-fiber, low caloric-density, balanced meals with appropriate serving sizes. Read more at dashdiet.org

 

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