Posts
I had a revelation the other day that there are probably some funny signs out there related to animals. Sure enough, the wonderful users of Flick r were already on the case. Here's a collection of my favorites.
Continue reading...
Jul 17, 2008
8 Questions About the Human Body That Kids Always Ask
Kids are curious about all sorts of concepts and never stop bothering us with their thought-provoking, and annoying questions. Here are eight of them about the human body, and how to answer them.
Why Does Hair Go Grey?
The simple answer here is because people get old. Not an answer that satisfies your average child though! It is all to do with pigment and cells. The hair is like a tube that is full of both and in-between are spaces. In young people this space is filled with a fluid and this has the job of keeping the cells and the pigments in their place. That means that young people keep their hair color really well because, let's face it, they are full to brimming with fluids of one kind or another. As we get older we don't produce as many - ahem - fluids and the space between the cells and the pigment is filled with air instead. This means that the pigment is gradually lost and the process of graying reflects that.
Why Do Your Hands Go Wrinkly In The Bath?
It's all about serum! This can produce hilarity among a group of ten year olds because they see bum everywhere and they love double entendres as much if not more than adults. Se bum is produced from the sebaceous gland (each hair has one at its, err, bottom) and it is pumped out to make a layer that stops Mr H20 getting in to our skin. It also keeps it bouncy and stretchy. However, we do not have any hairs on the palms of our hands - or for that matter the soles of our feet! The water can then get in to our skin and makes it wrinkly. The wrinkliness - rather than puffiness or sullenness's - is caused because of the ridgy way the layers of our skin are joined together. A simple answer here might be simply because our palms aren't waterproof!
Why Do We Blush?
It's all to do with sympathy! Or rather it is when our sympathetic nervous system goes in to overdrive. This is a system of nerves that we have no control over whatsoever. The nerves become more active due to what we are experiencing in the real world. So, an ordinary encounter with a friend, someone we find attractive or a customer can turn out to be socially embarrassing due to no fault of our own! Another reason for blushing is a little simpler. When we experience heightened emotions it causes an increase of blood to the face. Blood is red and you know the rest of the story. The reason we don't stay red - now that would be funny - is that our nervous system returns to normal after a short time.
What Is The Funny Bone?
Well, for a start, you can tell the inquiring infant terrible that the funny bone is, in truth, a nerve. It runs through a ridge in the bone really close to the inside of the skin. The proper name is the ulnar nerve and it is called this because its route is directly through the ulna, which is one of the bones on your forearm. It's the bone on the outside - get them to give it a feel! The ulnar nerve is a very important nerve because it gives us the feelings we have in our hands.
When you stick people in the ribs with your elbow, they might tell you that your bones are very sharp! That is because the ulna sticks out. So, the ulnar nerve, being so close to the surface, is easy to bump. When the ulnar nerve is knocked it can be quite painful and pain can often cause people to laugh just as much as cry. This is why it is called the funny bone.
Why Do Men Have Nipples?
Most kids know that women's nipples serve a purpose. They can question though, why on earth dad has them too. Until around the tenth to fifteenth week in the womb there is no evidential difference between male and female embryos. After this, the hormones kick in (strange that it is around the same time, but only in years, in children!) and if dad has passed on a Y chromosome then a boy begins to form. When the second chromosome is an X then the embryo will become a girl. Before the hormonal kick in, however, the nipples have already been produced. Once made, they cannot be dissolved back into the fluids in the womb! So, that's why men have nipples because at some point (for a very short amount of time) everyone is a girl!
Why Is Urine Yellow?
For the answer to this question we have to look inside the body to the kidneys. The kidneys are there to do two things - the first is to make sure that waste is filtered out of our blood. The second is to keep the amount of salt we have in our blood at the same level. So, when we take a leak the main stuff inside the urine is water, salt and the rubbish our body doesn't need. The main substance that we don't want from the cells in our bodies that we get rid of through our urine is ammonia. From blood it is the “hem” bit of the hemoglobin (Who put the “heem” in the hemoglobin?” as the old song goes!). This is called bilirubin and was discovered by a gentleman called William Reuben. That very poor joke aside, the ammonia and the billirubin get to the liver and are converted in to substances that are much less dangerous to us.
Urea comes from the ammonia and the bilirubin is converted to something called urobilogens. Salt, urea and water have no color. But! Urobilogens are yellow! So if you have had a lot of water to drink your urine will appear lighter. If you haven't had much water to drink then your urine will appear yellow, getting darker and darker the more dehydrated you are. If this is too much information to take in, tell the kid it depends on the amount of bananas we eat.
How Fast Is The Fastest Runner?
Very fast. That's 43 kilometers per hour, which is twenty seven miles an hour. This, of course, is only over short distances. At this point reflect that although the adult male can run at this speed for only a short amount of time a small version of an adult can ask questions ad infinitum. Then go try and figure out why.
Do Your Ears Grow All Your Life?
Sometimes! The only parts of the ear that can continue to grow are the lobes. Most people will not experience this as once the head stops growing (although with some people it never seems to!) then so do the ears. The only organ of the human body that continues to grow throughout life is the nose - and this only a teensy weensy little bit. You could perhaps punish your offspring for their interminable biological questioning by telling them that their ears and nose will grow a millimeter a year for their whole life. That will stop them asking questions for a while as they ponder a Pinocchio like future!
Continue reading...
Why Does Hair Go Grey?
The simple answer here is because people get old. Not an answer that satisfies your average child though! It is all to do with pigment and cells. The hair is like a tube that is full of both and in-between are spaces. In young people this space is filled with a fluid and this has the job of keeping the cells and the pigments in their place. That means that young people keep their hair color really well because, let's face it, they are full to brimming with fluids of one kind or another. As we get older we don't produce as many - ahem - fluids and the space between the cells and the pigment is filled with air instead. This means that the pigment is gradually lost and the process of graying reflects that.
Why Do Your Hands Go Wrinkly In The Bath?
It's all about serum! This can produce hilarity among a group of ten year olds because they see bum everywhere and they love double entendres as much if not more than adults. Se bum is produced from the sebaceous gland (each hair has one at its, err, bottom) and it is pumped out to make a layer that stops Mr H20 getting in to our skin. It also keeps it bouncy and stretchy. However, we do not have any hairs on the palms of our hands - or for that matter the soles of our feet! The water can then get in to our skin and makes it wrinkly. The wrinkliness - rather than puffiness or sullenness's - is caused because of the ridgy way the layers of our skin are joined together. A simple answer here might be simply because our palms aren't waterproof!
Why Do We Blush?
It's all to do with sympathy! Or rather it is when our sympathetic nervous system goes in to overdrive. This is a system of nerves that we have no control over whatsoever. The nerves become more active due to what we are experiencing in the real world. So, an ordinary encounter with a friend, someone we find attractive or a customer can turn out to be socially embarrassing due to no fault of our own! Another reason for blushing is a little simpler. When we experience heightened emotions it causes an increase of blood to the face. Blood is red and you know the rest of the story. The reason we don't stay red - now that would be funny - is that our nervous system returns to normal after a short time.
What Is The Funny Bone?
Well, for a start, you can tell the inquiring infant terrible that the funny bone is, in truth, a nerve. It runs through a ridge in the bone really close to the inside of the skin. The proper name is the ulnar nerve and it is called this because its route is directly through the ulna, which is one of the bones on your forearm. It's the bone on the outside - get them to give it a feel! The ulnar nerve is a very important nerve because it gives us the feelings we have in our hands.
When you stick people in the ribs with your elbow, they might tell you that your bones are very sharp! That is because the ulna sticks out. So, the ulnar nerve, being so close to the surface, is easy to bump. When the ulnar nerve is knocked it can be quite painful and pain can often cause people to laugh just as much as cry. This is why it is called the funny bone.
Why Do Men Have Nipples?
Most kids know that women's nipples serve a purpose. They can question though, why on earth dad has them too. Until around the tenth to fifteenth week in the womb there is no evidential difference between male and female embryos. After this, the hormones kick in (strange that it is around the same time, but only in years, in children!) and if dad has passed on a Y chromosome then a boy begins to form. When the second chromosome is an X then the embryo will become a girl. Before the hormonal kick in, however, the nipples have already been produced. Once made, they cannot be dissolved back into the fluids in the womb! So, that's why men have nipples because at some point (for a very short amount of time) everyone is a girl!
Why Is Urine Yellow?
For the answer to this question we have to look inside the body to the kidneys. The kidneys are there to do two things - the first is to make sure that waste is filtered out of our blood. The second is to keep the amount of salt we have in our blood at the same level. So, when we take a leak the main stuff inside the urine is water, salt and the rubbish our body doesn't need. The main substance that we don't want from the cells in our bodies that we get rid of through our urine is ammonia. From blood it is the “hem” bit of the hemoglobin (Who put the “heem” in the hemoglobin?” as the old song goes!). This is called bilirubin and was discovered by a gentleman called William Reuben. That very poor joke aside, the ammonia and the billirubin get to the liver and are converted in to substances that are much less dangerous to us.
Urea comes from the ammonia and the bilirubin is converted to something called urobilogens. Salt, urea and water have no color. But! Urobilogens are yellow! So if you have had a lot of water to drink your urine will appear lighter. If you haven't had much water to drink then your urine will appear yellow, getting darker and darker the more dehydrated you are. If this is too much information to take in, tell the kid it depends on the amount of bananas we eat.
How Fast Is The Fastest Runner?
Very fast. That's 43 kilometers per hour, which is twenty seven miles an hour. This, of course, is only over short distances. At this point reflect that although the adult male can run at this speed for only a short amount of time a small version of an adult can ask questions ad infinitum. Then go try and figure out why.
Do Your Ears Grow All Your Life?
Sometimes! The only parts of the ear that can continue to grow are the lobes. Most people will not experience this as once the head stops growing (although with some people it never seems to!) then so do the ears. The only organ of the human body that continues to grow throughout life is the nose - and this only a teensy weensy little bit. You could perhaps punish your offspring for their interminable biological questioning by telling them that their ears and nose will grow a millimeter a year for their whole life. That will stop them asking questions for a while as they ponder a Pinocchio like future!
Share This
Jul 16, 2008
24 Unbelievably Amazing Random Facts
Here's a list of random facts on which some may sound unbelievable to you.
1. Light from the sun takes a full eight minutes to cross the 150 million km to Earth. It travels 5 hours longer to reach Pluto. After 4 years and 4 months it touches Alpha Centauri, our sun's nearest stellar neighbor, 40 trillion km, or 4.3 light-years away.
2. In an outlying arm our sun circles the galaxy's center about every 200 million years, traveling at 220 km/sec
3. At take off, the space shuttle weighs 2,000 tons. It burns almost all of its fuel in the first few minutes after launch then continues to coast into its orbit 300 km above the surface of the Earth.
4. There are at least 3,000,000,000 stars in the galaxy. And here is an idea of its size. For light from the middle of the galaxy to reach the sun, it takes about 27,000 years.
5. Pioneer 10 was the first manmade object to leave the Solar System. It carried messages about life on earth to be read by any extraterrestrial travelers who might find the probe.
6. The Trans-Siberian Railway offers the world's longest train journey. It takes about 7 days to travel the 5,580 miles or 9,000 km between Moscow and Vladivostok.
7. Matruschka (little mother) are traditional Russian toys. Each painted wooden dolls contains a series of smaller doll inside it.
8. Diamonds are believed to cure leprosy, insanity, and nightmares. Agate is believed to reduce fever. Amethyst is considered especially effective against headache and toothache. Sapphire, it was thought, gave protection from spirits of darkness.
9. In the US, each person unintentionally eats up to 1 pound of insects per year. Common foods such as tomato sauce, hot dogs, and chocolate all may contain insect eggs and parts. But don't worry: health codes allow only very low levels of these ingredients.
10. The worst earthquake in history with a magnitude of 8 in the Richter scale happened in 1976 in China killing 255,000 people
11. India's deadliest rail disaster happened on June 6, 1981 in Bihar, India when a train plunged off a bridge into the river killing more than 800 people
12. The worst industrial accident in history happened on December 3, 1984 in Bhopal, India when a pesticide factory explosion spread toxic gas killing more than 15,000 people
13. The worst airline disaster ever was the collision of two Boeing 747s on March 27, 1977 in Canary island killing 582 people
14. The greatest ship disaster happened on January 30, 1945 in Baltic Sea when Liner Wilhem Gustloff carrying German refugees and soldiers sunk by Soviet sub. It is the highest death toll for a single ship ranging from 6,000 - 7,000.
15. The highest known death toll from a flood was the vast flooding on the Huang He River in China on December 1931 with 3,700,000 casualties
16. There are 152 million Mother's day cards given every year, compared to only 95 million Father's day cards
17. 150 million hot dogs are eaten by Americans every Fourth of July
18. Odd Holidays: July 16 is National Ice Cream Day (a.k.a. Sundae Sunday) and July 22 is Rat-catchers Day.
19. The Manas, the Kyrgyz national epic, is thought to be the world's longest poem. The poem is more than half a million lines long.
20. More than 30 million trees are cut down to produce a year's supply of newspaper
21. It takes between 400 and 500 years for a Styrofoam cup to decompose
22. Using recycled glass uses 50% energy than making products from all new materials
23. The Rose River is the world's shortest river located in Montana, USA measuring 201 feet or 61 meters long only
24. The deadliest volcano in the world is Tambora Volcano in Indonesia - killing 92,000 people during its eruption in 1815
Continue reading...
1. Light from the sun takes a full eight minutes to cross the 150 million km to Earth. It travels 5 hours longer to reach Pluto. After 4 years and 4 months it touches Alpha Centauri, our sun's nearest stellar neighbor, 40 trillion km, or 4.3 light-years away.
2. In an outlying arm our sun circles the galaxy's center about every 200 million years, traveling at 220 km/sec
3. At take off, the space shuttle weighs 2,000 tons. It burns almost all of its fuel in the first few minutes after launch then continues to coast into its orbit 300 km above the surface of the Earth.
4. There are at least 3,000,000,000 stars in the galaxy. And here is an idea of its size. For light from the middle of the galaxy to reach the sun, it takes about 27,000 years.
5. Pioneer 10 was the first manmade object to leave the Solar System. It carried messages about life on earth to be read by any extraterrestrial travelers who might find the probe.
6. The Trans-Siberian Railway offers the world's longest train journey. It takes about 7 days to travel the 5,580 miles or 9,000 km between Moscow and Vladivostok.
7. Matruschka (little mother) are traditional Russian toys. Each painted wooden dolls contains a series of smaller doll inside it.
8. Diamonds are believed to cure leprosy, insanity, and nightmares. Agate is believed to reduce fever. Amethyst is considered especially effective against headache and toothache. Sapphire, it was thought, gave protection from spirits of darkness.
9. In the US, each person unintentionally eats up to 1 pound of insects per year. Common foods such as tomato sauce, hot dogs, and chocolate all may contain insect eggs and parts. But don't worry: health codes allow only very low levels of these ingredients.
10. The worst earthquake in history with a magnitude of 8 in the Richter scale happened in 1976 in China killing 255,000 people
11. India's deadliest rail disaster happened on June 6, 1981 in Bihar, India when a train plunged off a bridge into the river killing more than 800 people
12. The worst industrial accident in history happened on December 3, 1984 in Bhopal, India when a pesticide factory explosion spread toxic gas killing more than 15,000 people
13. The worst airline disaster ever was the collision of two Boeing 747s on March 27, 1977 in Canary island killing 582 people
14. The greatest ship disaster happened on January 30, 1945 in Baltic Sea when Liner Wilhem Gustloff carrying German refugees and soldiers sunk by Soviet sub. It is the highest death toll for a single ship ranging from 6,000 - 7,000.
15. The highest known death toll from a flood was the vast flooding on the Huang He River in China on December 1931 with 3,700,000 casualties
16. There are 152 million Mother's day cards given every year, compared to only 95 million Father's day cards
17. 150 million hot dogs are eaten by Americans every Fourth of July
18. Odd Holidays: July 16 is National Ice Cream Day (a.k.a. Sundae Sunday) and July 22 is Rat-catchers Day.
19. The Manas, the Kyrgyz national epic, is thought to be the world's longest poem. The poem is more than half a million lines long.
20. More than 30 million trees are cut down to produce a year's supply of newspaper
21. It takes between 400 and 500 years for a Styrofoam cup to decompose
22. Using recycled glass uses 50% energy than making products from all new materials
23. The Rose River is the world's shortest river located in Montana, USA measuring 201 feet or 61 meters long only
24. The deadliest volcano in the world is Tambora Volcano in Indonesia - killing 92,000 people during its eruption in 1815
Share This
Life cycle watch closely
This is awesome and I don't know how anyone did this....
Share This
Jul 15, 2008
The Meaning of Life
The search for meaning is a constant theme in our lives and we try to find it in many different ways. I believe that meaning can be found in the way we add to the world. Let me explain.
Step One: Take control
Austrian psychiatrist and survivor of the holocaust Victor Frankl tells us in Man’s Search for Meaning that between stimulus and response there is a gap, and in that gap lies the whole of our experience. Unlike Pavlov’s dogs, we are free to choose our responses to the things that come our way. Many – perhaps most – people go through life on autopilot, reacting in the same habituated ways they have learned over the course of their life, often rehearsing the scripts they developed as children.
In adult life, many of these scripts are maladaptive and only serve to impoverish our experience and damage us and those we love. When we react defensively to a criticism, when we start to get angry because we are stuck in a traffic jam, when we keep on smoking despite knowing how bad it is, we are ignoring the gap and abdicating our freedom.
But the truth is that we are free – we are not robots, we are not like dogs salivating when a bell rings. We are pulling our own strings and when the stimulus comes we can take control, change our response and hence change our life.
Of course, the power of our habits is strong and keeps pulling us back, but the gap is always there, even after a long lifetime of unconscious behavior, and over time we can expand the gap and become more free. In The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey calls this being proactive, the first step towards a life of meaning. In truth, we have always been in control, but we need to realize this before can move on.
Step Two: Adding Value
Once we have seen that we can change our own life and construct our own experience, we are able to orchestrate things so that we experience greater meaning.
But what gives meaning to our lives? Is it money, property, a successful career, a big car, an attractive spouse or partner? I’m sure most people would agree that these things in themselves do not add lasting and profound meaning to us.
Albert Einstein said that ‘only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile,’ and I believe that a life of service to others is what truly brings meaning. I prefer to use the term adding value, since this describes what I mean more accurately.
The term ‘service’ suggests that we have to give up our jobs and money to go help the poor and destitute. I know several people who have done just this, and they have certainly found happiness and peace in their choice of lifestyle. But a life of adding value does not mean abandoning your own needs and desires. It is not the same as sacrifice. Far from it – when we truly add value to the lives of others, we cannot help but receive value ourselves.
Examples of this kind of synergy abound in nature. For example, tree roots are often surrounded by fungal growths that take nutrients from the trees. Having no chloroplasts of their own, the fungi cannot synthesize the precursors of respiration, and so they piggyback on the trees’ ability to do this. In return, the tree gets to use the fungi’s vast subterranean network, extending its own reach and sucking in more nutrients from the soil. The soil, of course, gets this all back – and more – when the tree dies.
Our own body is, perhaps, the ultimate example of synergy in nature, all organs and system working together to create a wonderful entity where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Adding value is the only real way to live a meaningful life. Victor Frankl said that we must detect the meaning in our own lives, and I think what he meant by this was that we need to figure out the best way of adding value.
Step Three: Do What You Love
So the question remains, how can we add value? I believe the answer to this is surprisingly simple.
To quote Steve Jobs in a speech he gave in 2005, ‘Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.’
Through Apple, Steve Jobs has undoubtedly added immense value to the world. He did it by following his heart and has been richly rewarded for it. The same can be said for many famous, successful and wealthy people.
The formula is simple. Find what you love. Do it. Add value. Be a success. Perhaps the first step is the hardest. Do you know what you love? There is little more important in life than finding out.
Finally, some food for thought. In Making a Life, Making a Living, Mark Albion cites a study carried out by Srully Blotnick. The careers of 1,500 business school graduates were tracked from 1969 to 1980 and were split into two groups: group A said they wanted to make money first so they could do what they really wanted later, and group B said they would follow their interests first, regardless of financial considerations. At the end of the study, there were 101 millionaires. All but one came from group B.
Continue reading...
Step One: Take control
Austrian psychiatrist and survivor of the holocaust Victor Frankl tells us in Man’s Search for Meaning that between stimulus and response there is a gap, and in that gap lies the whole of our experience. Unlike Pavlov’s dogs, we are free to choose our responses to the things that come our way. Many – perhaps most – people go through life on autopilot, reacting in the same habituated ways they have learned over the course of their life, often rehearsing the scripts they developed as children.
In adult life, many of these scripts are maladaptive and only serve to impoverish our experience and damage us and those we love. When we react defensively to a criticism, when we start to get angry because we are stuck in a traffic jam, when we keep on smoking despite knowing how bad it is, we are ignoring the gap and abdicating our freedom.
But the truth is that we are free – we are not robots, we are not like dogs salivating when a bell rings. We are pulling our own strings and when the stimulus comes we can take control, change our response and hence change our life.
Of course, the power of our habits is strong and keeps pulling us back, but the gap is always there, even after a long lifetime of unconscious behavior, and over time we can expand the gap and become more free. In The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey calls this being proactive, the first step towards a life of meaning. In truth, we have always been in control, but we need to realize this before can move on.
Step Two: Adding Value
Once we have seen that we can change our own life and construct our own experience, we are able to orchestrate things so that we experience greater meaning.
But what gives meaning to our lives? Is it money, property, a successful career, a big car, an attractive spouse or partner? I’m sure most people would agree that these things in themselves do not add lasting and profound meaning to us.
Albert Einstein said that ‘only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile,’ and I believe that a life of service to others is what truly brings meaning. I prefer to use the term adding value, since this describes what I mean more accurately.
The term ‘service’ suggests that we have to give up our jobs and money to go help the poor and destitute. I know several people who have done just this, and they have certainly found happiness and peace in their choice of lifestyle. But a life of adding value does not mean abandoning your own needs and desires. It is not the same as sacrifice. Far from it – when we truly add value to the lives of others, we cannot help but receive value ourselves.
Examples of this kind of synergy abound in nature. For example, tree roots are often surrounded by fungal growths that take nutrients from the trees. Having no chloroplasts of their own, the fungi cannot synthesize the precursors of respiration, and so they piggyback on the trees’ ability to do this. In return, the tree gets to use the fungi’s vast subterranean network, extending its own reach and sucking in more nutrients from the soil. The soil, of course, gets this all back – and more – when the tree dies.
Our own body is, perhaps, the ultimate example of synergy in nature, all organs and system working together to create a wonderful entity where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Adding value is the only real way to live a meaningful life. Victor Frankl said that we must detect the meaning in our own lives, and I think what he meant by this was that we need to figure out the best way of adding value.
Step Three: Do What You Love
So the question remains, how can we add value? I believe the answer to this is surprisingly simple.
To quote Steve Jobs in a speech he gave in 2005, ‘Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.’
Through Apple, Steve Jobs has undoubtedly added immense value to the world. He did it by following his heart and has been richly rewarded for it. The same can be said for many famous, successful and wealthy people.
The formula is simple. Find what you love. Do it. Add value. Be a success. Perhaps the first step is the hardest. Do you know what you love? There is little more important in life than finding out.
Finally, some food for thought. In Making a Life, Making a Living, Mark Albion cites a study carried out by Srully Blotnick. The careers of 1,500 business school graduates were tracked from 1969 to 1980 and were split into two groups: group A said they wanted to make money first so they could do what they really wanted later, and group B said they would follow their interests first, regardless of financial considerations. At the end of the study, there were 101 millionaires. All but one came from group B.
Share This
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
